November 12, 2025 • 42 mins
In this Veteran's Day episode, Journalist and professor Tom Nichols joins hosts Heidi and Joel Heitkamp to discuss current leadership at the Pentagon and Justice Department, the state of American democracy, and Republican foreign policy shifts.
Listen to gain insight into the impacts of political loyalty, leadership challenges, and shifts in military and governmental norms. You'll learn how these changes affect America’s standing in the world and the daily lives of rural communities.
Join us on The Hot Dish every week, where we serve up hearty conversations that resonate with every corner of the country.
The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project, making sure the voices of the rest of us are heard in Washington. To learn more, visit https://onecountryproject.org or find us at https://onecountryproject.substack.com/.
- (00:00) - Tom Nichols describes how he sees himself as an Old-School Conservatism
- (12:11) - Tom Nichols discusses Trump's fascination with the military
- (18:10) - Heidi and Joel discuss with Tom Nichols how Trump's reelection diminished worldwide trust
- (28:17) - Joel, Tom Nichols and Heidi discuss how Democrats are acting as gutless leaders
- (39:29) - Joel points out that if he's in a dogfight, he wants to be able to bark back
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Welcome to the Hot Dish, comfort food for rural America. I'm Heidi
Heitkamp. And I'm Joel Heitkamp. You know, we're real happy today to have
Tom Nichols with us. He is going to join us here on the
podcast. A staff writer for the Atlantic and a contributor to the
Atlantic Daily Newsletter. He writes about international
security, nuclear weapons, Russia, and the
(00:27):
challenges to democracy in the United States and around the world.
He's a professor emeritus of national
security affairs in the US Navy War College,
where he taught for 25 years. He served as a legislative aide
in the Massachusetts House and in the U.S.
Senate. Now, I want to make sure you know this. His books include
(00:50):
the "Death of Expertise" and "Our Own Worst Enemy:
the Assault from within on Modern Democracy." Tom,
good to have you with us here on the Hot Dish.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Good to be with you. And I read your
stuff all the time and find it incredibly enlightening. And I
think back to, you know, 10 years ago,
(01:13):
13 years ago, I would read your stuff and you would make me so
mad. You know, you would be saying stuff, I mean, always
with an articulation that was readable,
that had a point of view, but it's not something I would have agreed
on. I don't get how you're now one of the public
enemies number one against this administration when you have
(01:35):
such a long history of defending
Republican foreign policy. How did that happen, Tom?
It's, you know, Heidi, it's a strange thing. I mean, I think back to those
days, you know, when we were just before we started recording, I was talking about
working for a Republican senator. And, you know, back in the day, I'll
steal a line from Chris Matthews. I would have been one
(01:57):
of the staff people plotting against you, you know,
in the, in the Senate, but within the confines of the
Constitution. Not because I thought, you know, the
Democrats or, or liberals were my enemy. We just
disagreed about policies that, you know, we all loved our country.
We all believe in the Constitution and the rule of law. We just disagreed about
(02:19):
how much money should we give to a certain country, how, you know, how many
nuclear weapons should we have, you know, things like that. And
I think what's interesting is that all of the
things, I mean, I've changed my mind on some things. We all do. We get
older. I mean, I worked in the Senate when I was 31, and now I'm
65. So I, I have some different views on things, but
(02:41):
I, I think I haven't changed. I think that the,
the litmus Test for the Republican Party is just loyalty
to Donald Trump, whose, whose policies, I would add
both foreign policy and his domestic policies
are nowhere in the neighborhood of conservative,
(03:02):
at least conservative as we would have understood it 20 or
even 10 or 15 years ago. You know, statist,
big government, deficit spending,
anti-NATO, anti-atlanticist, pro-Russia.
I mean, that's, that's not, I'm, you know, if that,
if, if that's a conservative now, then I'm not a conservative, but I think
(03:24):
of myself as an old school conservative and I haven't really changed
that much. And one of my, one of my lines that I use now is
the era of Big Governments back. It's just not the Big Government you recognize
from the Republican Party. Well, and you know,
the Republicans, socialism has become one of these,
you know, scary words that people are throwing at each other. But
(03:47):
when I see the US government buying 10 and 20%
stakes in private companies, you know, I was
a scholar of the Soviet Union. When the State starts owning major
enterprises, that feels like socialism to me.
You know, or at least a move towards oligarchy. Well,
it's, it's crony capitalism, of course, is what it really is.
(04:10):
But, you know, the idea that, well, we'll have trade wars and then
we'll just bail out farmers, I mean, that's huge
kind of left leaning populist statism.
That is not identifiable to me
anyway as anything like conservative. And I think
90% of things Donald Trump is doing, if, if Joe Biden or
(04:33):
Barack Obama or you had ever voted for something like that, people
would have lost their minds. But this is all about loyalty to Donald
Trump now. It's not about principle. It's not really about ideas for the
Republican Party. Tom, in the world that you lived in as
not only an aide, but an expert when it comes to all of this, could
you ever imagine that we'd be saying Secretary
(04:55):
Hegseth. I mean, how did, how did we get to
there? Because it's clear to me that he
doesn't have what it takes to do the job. I mean, how did we get
to there? That's a very kind evaluation to say he
doesn't have what it takes. I would argue he is the most
manifestly unqualified Secretary of Defense
(05:16):
perhaps in modern history. And I think we
got there. There's a, there's a kind of a big
explanation and a smaller one. The bigger explanation is that the Cold
War ended. And despite America
being involved in kind of imperial policing in places like
Afghanistan, the costs of foreign policy
(05:38):
were borne by a very small number of volunteers. And
so Americans just didn't have to think about foreign affairs. They
didn't have to think about foreign threats. It's been 25 years
since 9/11. And I think when you have a country that
loses that sense of seriousness, you can shrug and
say, yeah, why? Why not Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense? What could go,
(06:00):
what's the worst that could happen? You know, because nothing
really matters. And I think that's endemic to this whole
movement. So the smaller explanation is that
people now have people on the right, I would argue, become so
tribalized about supporting Donald Trump that I
think, I would imagine that a lot of Heidi's former colleagues
(06:24):
probably had a minor aneurysm when they. They heard that Pete Hegseth
was being nominated. But there. But again, it's like, well, I can
either vote, I can vote against him and be a principal person and get
primaried out of my seat by MAGA world, or I can sort of shrug
and hope that, that nothing really bad happens.
And I think that we're in that kind of unserious, you
(06:47):
know, what does it really matter? The bureaucracy kind of
works and keeps things moving. And
I think that was that in part comes from the first term where there were
adults around Trump who, the way I, I describe
it is they put pool noodles around him and baby bumpers and,
you know, put all the, you know, like when you have a toddler and you
(07:09):
put all the breakable stuff away. Nobody's doing that now.
So I could not have imagined, you know, Secretary of
Defense Pete Hegseth or Director of National Intelligence
Tulsi Gabbard. I certainly could have imagined, couldn't have imagined the President
of the United States siding with Russia against
NATO and against our own government. But,
(07:32):
you know, this is a time where we're all getting used to a lot of
really horrible things. Tom, as a lawyer, I
think about what's happening at the Justice Department, and I think about, can
we go back to the way it was once this is over, or
will this just be a race to the bottom? I also think and talk to
a lot of my friends who are military, a lot of them who
(07:54):
have served at the highest levels of the Defense Department,
who wonder the same thing. And so when you think about it, what are
the worst things that are happening right now with leadership
at DOD and the Pentagon, and can it
get fixed? I think DOD and DOJ, the problem is
the same, which is that we're burning through years
(08:17):
of accumulated experience by getting rid of
people simply because they are not making some political
cut, you know, making. But I would also
argue we're changing the mission of those two groups. Oh
well, the DOJ especially, I mean, that's just Donald Trump's personal law firm
and that's how he wants it to be. And I think he's trying to turn
(08:39):
the, the Pentagon into his personal militia, into his
personal army that is loyal to him, does what he
says and, and obeys the President
before the Constitution. And he's trying really hard to do that.
The problem is, you know, how do you get that back afterwards?
I think when Donald Trump is gone and you know, knock on wood, that
(09:03):
he will be not run for a third term and we won't have to go
through the, that nonsense, but that his movement, as we
saw, you know, this week, last week in the elections, his
movement can be defeated. People just have to come out and vote. And I think
you're going to have to get kind of reverse the
purge of the purge, so to speak. You're going to have to get rid of
(09:24):
all these cronies and lackeys and unqualified
people that were brought into these two institutions. And the military,
that's going to be hard because you're losing three and four star
generals. My, my friend Elliot Cohen pointed out in an article in the
Atlantic that when Hegseth did that
little stunt of calling everybody into the auditorium and you know,
(09:48):
talking about fat soldiers and all that nonsense,
that this former, this 44 year old former
Major was talking to an accumulate a room
with an accumulated 25,000 years of
military experience in it. Yeah.
And I mean, it's just, it's laughable. I mean,
(10:11):
if it weren't so dangerous and so
inimical and to the American constitutional
experience, it would be almost. You know, I keep saying these
guys are just a constant Saturday Night Live sketch, but
it's not funny because Hegseth is firing
people because they, he doesn't want to hear that we can't just
(10:33):
murder people on the high seats. And you know,
I don't know what are we going to do next? Invade Nigeria or something that
whatever the president saw on TV 10 minutes ago. So,
so that, that's, I have to ask this though, Tom. You know, I got the
impression in the first Trump administration that, and maybe
it was because it was coming off of military activity,
(10:55):
you know, call it war, call it whatever you want. But I got the
sense that one of the things that Trump pushed the most
that he saw as a strength was not using the military, was
not Being aggressive. When it came to looking for
a fight, it seems to be just the opposite now that it's
like, I've got Pete Hegseth, we've got all of this. Why not take it
(11:18):
out, why not use it, and why not get into a fight?
I think he, you know, in his first term,
he, he end his second term, he ran as a peace
candidate, but that was always just, I think, populist
popcorn that he was handing out because I don't think he really believed it. Remember,
(11:38):
this is the same guy in his first term who calls Jim
Mattis and says, we're going to kill Assad. I
want a plan to kill Bashar Assad. And Mattis apparently
said, okay, well, get right to work, Mr. President. He hung up the phone and
then said, we're not going to do that. Now that worries me. That was a
bad thing in the first term because you had the Secretary of defense basically saying,
(12:01):
I will selectively ignore the President at will, which is not a good
tradition to begin in civil military relations, especially when the
secretary is a former general. But my point is, Trump had a lot of
crazy ideas about using the military. And he,
he doesn't. He, he, if you want to try and square the circle and be
(12:21):
fair to the president somehow, he's saying, I don't want to get involved
in bogged down these long, complicated wars
where I have to read briefings and understand stuff. But I
do like the idea of using the military for these
showy big, kind of showstopper set
pieces, like, you know, we're going to send B2s into
(12:43):
Iran, we're going to blow up terrorists Nigeria, we're
going to fly out and just explode boats out in the middle of the Caribbean.
I think he thinks that's different from
the things he ran against, which were being involved in Afghanistan, being involved in
Iraq, having these long presences there. So, I
(13:03):
mean, I think it's always helpful to think of Donald Trump as very
childlike. He's fascinated by the military. He
loves the idea of powerful military strikes executed at
his command. And he
gravitates toward the military because it is the one institution in American
life that he, I think, correctly realizes has to
(13:25):
obey his orders and can't push back as hard as even the
DOJ or FBI or anywhere else. So I,
I mean, he's being inconsistent, but I think in his mind he's saying, no, no,
I don't want to get involved and bogged down in any long wars. I just
want to use the military a lot for of showy
explosions everywhere that I can make happen by picking up the
(13:46):
phone. Made for TV Military.
Absolutely. Everything, Donald Trump's entire
consciousness, to me, seems to be mediated through
television. Yeah, it's all about ratings. Well,
and also that apparently. That's like I was trying to figure out the other day,
what on or where did he get this kind of, you know,
(14:08):
burn his saddle about Nigeria. And apparently he was watching TV
and he saw something on TV and said, okay, tap, tap, tap, tap,
tap, post on truth social Nigeria, better cut it out.
You know, that's not a policy. That's. That's an old man watching TV and
shaking his fist and saying, those darn Nigerians are going to pay.
(14:29):
That's, you know, that's how he thinks. Everything happens
through television. But you do have to remember he stopped. What is it, six or
seven or. Eight or nine, whatever, eight wars. Aren't
you supposed to say teen in front of that or after? I mean,
it's - 18 you think? 18. Well, it'll be 18
by tomorrow. You know, it's all about declaring victory. So
(14:52):
what price do we pay when you're blowing boats, when
you're murdering people on the high seas? I mean, what, what price,
as a country do we pay? Because it appears to me that
other world leaders have learned how to deal with them, and that's to basically
suck up to them. So what price do we play, pay
Tom? Well, when it comes to the world leaders, they manage
(15:15):
up, right? There's that business, right? You manage up when you have a
bad boss. And all these people have said, you know,
tell him that he's a. It's, it's. I keep coming back to that
Twilight Zone episode, you know, with Bill Mumy is the super
powerful kid that everybody's afraid of. So they constantly say, it's good what you did.
You're doing good, Anthony. That's terrific. You know, it's the same
(15:37):
thing. No matter what Trump does, somebody picks up and says, it's good what you
did, Don. And they give him presents
and little awards and plaques and things. I mean they're managing
- And nominations. They're managing him like he's a fourth grader
and not a very mature fourth grader. What we lose with these
operations, first of all, we're risking the lives of American
(15:59):
service people. Even though we're just out there blowing up boats. Every time you
launch something, every time you move military assets around,
people can get hurt. Even if it's just by accidents, even if it's
unintentional but we're also losing
our position as leader of the free world. And I know a lot of Trump's
people will say, well, who cares about that? You know, that's,
(16:23):
that's deep state stuff. Because
I think too many Americans don't realize that their quality of
life, their material security,
their day to day quality of life really depends
on the functioning of an international system of
peace and security and trade that they don't really
(16:45):
see every day. It just happens. They don't know how things end
up in the grocery store. They just get there. And so
if, that, if we. I've talked many times to audiences where
I say, look, if you want to live in a world where
Beijing and Moscow make the rules, you're going to end up with that
and you're not going to like it. And by the time you realize
(17:08):
that, it will be too late. Because when you, especially when the President
orders these kind of kooky, you know, I can kill anybody
I want sort of orders, you lose the
presumption of the benefit of the doubt if you ever actually need to use
military force. I mean, the
lesson of 60 years, 80 years since the end of World War II is
(17:31):
allies are the best thing to have. One of the reasons the United States can
do many of the things it does and Russia can't.
For years, I sort of, even when I would go to Russia and sort
of tweak my Russian friends and I'd say, it's nice to have
allies. You don't even have friends. I mean, Russia doesn't even have friends. They have
clients. China has, you know,
(17:53):
sort of friends, mostly clients. The United States has been blessed to
have 32 countries in the most powerful alliance in history
that have our backs. And Trump is going to squander that.
When you talk about seizing Greenland, you're literally talking about
attacking one of our NATO allies. It's insane. I mean, there is something,
I think there's something genuinely wrong with the man. But
(18:15):
electing him twice, I think has sent a chilling
message to our allies that the first time wasn't a
one off, that, you know, we could always say that first term was like
America. You know, we went on a, like Brexit, right?
We all went on a bender and we woke up the next morning and we
went, oh, crap, you know, what did we do? The
(18:37):
problem. And you see it in Britain now, right? They had one referendum and they
all regret it now. We didn't regret it four years later. We
said, yeah, let's try that again. And our allies have said, oh,
okay, so this wasn't just a mistake, that there are
75 million of you or 80 million of you who actually think this is
a good idea, and that makes us less trustworthy, and being less
(18:58):
trustworthy makes us less secure. Yeah. Both Joel and I
spend a lot of time with veterans, and I think people misunderstand. They think they're
politically engaged to guarantee veterans benefits, and certainly
that is a high priority for them. But a high priority
is maintaining a strong military, maintaining an
independent military. And, you know, you see a record number of
(19:21):
veterans right now running for public office on both
sides, but a lot of Democratic veterans saying, this is a
bridge too far. This is not why I wore the uniform. This is not
why I fought for my country. How. What, what would
you say to a veteran out there who is dismayed by what's happening?
Oh, boy. You know, I would. I would remind
(19:44):
every veteran that to be like George
Washington, the first commander, our first commander, who
said, remember that when we took up the
soldier, we did not lay aside the citizen.
And that if you're upset about what's happening, you are a
citizen of the United States first and foremost.
(20:06):
That's more important even than being a veteran or a, you know,
a New Englander or a Californian or a Southerner or whatever it is.
I mean, I. I wrote a. Just before the election, I wrote a cover story
for the Atlantic about Washington, and I. I was so moved,
studying him, because in his will, he refers to
himself as George Washington, a citizen. The first thing he
(20:29):
writes, I, George Washington, a citizen of the United States.
You know, and to say, be involved. Speak up.
You know, bring your military background to this debate
and to. And to say those things, Heidi, that you just said, I didn't sign
up for this. It's not why I wore this uniform. You
(20:49):
know, I didn't. I didn't join the military to salute any
one president. And I think that
Trump has been very successful at fudging
for a lot of people, and I think that's our fault as Americans that we
didn't do enough civic education anywhere. But especially in the
military, he's fudged the difference between loyalty to the Constitution and loyalty to the
(21:11):
commander in chief. I want to ask about Russia, Tom, while we have
you on, you know, you line this deal up
in Alaska, you buy all the red carpet or else you ship it up there,
you roll it up, you talk about the relationship you have with Putin.
There hasn't been any results with that. Had
any other president done that? First off, there would have been a big question
(21:35):
in regards to what happened, why there?
And yet there's no accountability when it comes
to a result of it. Oh, Donald
Trump's never. First of all, Donald Trump's voters will never hold
him accountable for anything. They live in a completely
sealed off reality. After that summit
(21:57):
on social media, I'd said, you know, hey, this is, I have some,
some experience, you know, writing about this stuff that's a failed summit. I
mean, Trump got his, got his head handed to him by, by Putin who flew
in and said, I'm not doing any of these things that you're talking about. No,
I don't want to have lunch with you. I'm getting back on my plane. I
go tell Zarinowski, excuse me, go tell Zelenskyy.
(22:20):
I want, what I want, and I'm getting on my plane and going back to
Russia. And by the way, thank you for making me look good and making yourself
look like an ass. And, and, and his
supporters are like, see, he's fighting for peace. He's doing, I'm
like, did we, you know, there. It's almost like talking to people that
are like, have, having a break with reality.
(22:41):
I think the other problem though goes back to what I was talking about earlier,
which is people say, all right, so summit
fell through. What's a big deal? There's a war raging in the middle
of Europe right now. Hundreds of
thousands of troops and civilians and tanks.
Literally there is a gigantic war happening in
(23:04):
Europe. And I think because Americans, it doesn't affect them
and because it's not because there are so many sources of information that
just bombard the average citizen with everything from war in Ukraine to
the price of eggs to, you know, tornadoes and hurricanes, they
just go, you know what, okay, whatever.
40 years ago, I'm, I'm an old enough to, you
(23:26):
know, we're all old enough to be Cold War kids. A failed
Summit during a war in Europe would have been considered a national
crisis. But we don't
think that way. And Donald Trump in particular, our
expectations, and this is something unfortunately, that both the right and the
left share. The expectations of Donald Trump are
(23:48):
so low that no one really even
blinks when he fails. Because it's every day that every day
there's some disastrous misstep.
Tariffs, inflation, going up, personnel problems,
you know, we, the, the, the big flap about SignalGate
that ended up where, you know,
(24:10):
Secretary of Defense or the, the National Security Advisor is
texting my boss at the Atlantic, you know, classified stuff
is just astonishing. I mean, in any other Administration, people would be up
in arms. But Donald Trump has worn us down.
He's worn us down so that when it happens, we go, what are you going
(24:31):
to do? Well, if you look at this and you
think about past elections, a 5 deferment
for bone spurs guy telling
real soldiers how to conduct themselves would
not have been anywhere near what I would expect
that the military would tolerate or people who support the
(24:53):
military. But yet we're dealing with someone who has
absolutely zero experience with the military.
Zero experience. Yeah. And zero experience in, in
politics until he became, until he became president.
You know, it's, it's interesting because other.
It used to be that you had to have some military service in your background
(25:15):
to be a credible candidate. Bill Clinton's the first president that just gets by
that, right? Or just says, you know, but, but Clinton went out
of his way to not look like. To look. To try not to look
like he was antagonizing the military.
You know, Dick Cheney didn't serve, George Bush in the National Guard
and so on. Trump not only
(25:38):
didn't serve, but goes out. And this is a very Trumpian things.
You're in the military. Let me tell you how to do war.
He is, like, when he, he did the same thing with doctors. They're trying
to give him a tour, and he's like, you know, I know so much about
medicine. Let me tell you about medicine. There is kind of an
aggressive ignorance about the man where he's, it's not just that he doesn't
(26:00):
know things, but he wants to tell you about the
things he doesn't know about. And I think that, yeah, it is
surprising that he,
that his supporters, who claim to be very pro military,
really put up with a huge amount of hostility he has
for the military. You know, the Atlantic broke that
(26:23):
story years ago about suckers and losers and his kind
of dismissive view of people who've died in
conflict. You know, standing there in Arlington Cemetery and looking around all these graves and
going, I don't get it, you know, what was in it for them? But
again, I think it's, it's this notion that so many of Trump's
supporters have that, yeah, you know, he's crude and he, he's
(26:45):
ignorant, but he hates the people we hate. He makes people mad
in a way that we find enjoyable, so they just cut him slack on all
this other stuff, or they convince themselves. And I've had this conversation
so many times with Trump supporters where they say, well, that's not what
he meant. I know what he meant. And it's
like in we both speak the English
(27:08):
language. I'm pretty sure we both can, you know, figure out what he said and
what he meant, or they just deny it. They say he never,
he never suckers, losers, he never said it.
You know, all those things that are reported just fake news or lies, you
really are not going to get past people who have erected,
you know, a kind of dome of lucite around themselves
(27:31):
that just is impenetrable to facts or reason.
And that's just how it is now, unfortunately. Heidi, coming off
of Veterans Day and of course, you know, the whole Shutdown
and you know, this isn't the reason that we wanted to talk to
Tom today. I get it. But it also ties into a man
(27:51):
that was your good friend that you got to know very well in your time
in the Senate, and that's John McCain. You know, and
both of you, when I heard suckers and losers, the first
thing I talk about or talk thought about, I should say, was
how incredibly, how terrible it was to call John
McCain that. And hi, you know, on Veterans
(28:13):
Day. That has to bring a bad memory for you.
Well, it brings up the loss even more
profound because right now, the gutless
Republican Party people who profess that they
have loyalty to the, to the kind of rule of law
loyalty to the norms that involve nonpartisan
(28:35):
behavior at the military, they say nothing when banners
fly out of Donald Trump's picture, they say nothing when
Kristi Noem puts a video up in airports
that is clearly in violation of the Hatch act, they say
nothing. Guess what? John McCain would be saying a lot
and he would be leading that effort. And
(28:57):
where are those leaders? I mean, the best we've got right
now is Rand Paul, which is so
ironic, let me tell you. But at least he's speaking
up about what's happening in the Caribbean. At least he's speaking up about
long trade relationships that are being injured.
And it's just like, I don't know why they
(29:19):
want to be a United States Senator. Why don't they just give the proxy
to the President, go home and golf? I have no idea why those people
want to sit in the Senate and be
absolutely gutless and fearful
and cowards, literally cowards. Because I will tell you
one thing. They all know this is not good. They are not
(29:42):
stupid people. They are gutless people.
Well, being a Senator is a good gig, though there's a lot of these folks
who can't imagine being any. You. I'm, you know, I don't. I worked
there years ago. You you were, you know, this. There are people who just can't
imagine being anything else. Yeah, that's it. And, and
they're going to do what they have to do to stay there. And that
(30:05):
Trump relies on that. And, and he relies on a certain amount of
bullying to say, if you cross me, your phones will ring, you'll get
death threats. I mean, this is another thing, you know, that
we've normalized in our political experience is that
threats of violence, threat, death threat, they're just a
normal part of American politics now, apparently.
(30:29):
Tom, I know we only have a little time left, but I have to ask
you about this. With what happened in Israel and what's still
happening in Israel and the role that can play on, on
America's defense of itself even.
Was this between Netanyahu and Trump
all staged? Was this a way that
(30:51):
Netanyahu could help Donald Trump? And
is this about, Is it a lot of collusion going on there,
Tom? Joel, I, I just don't know. I, I mean,
you know, I think I'm always reluctant
to go for complicated explanations when the simple ones are
staring right at us. You know, Israel, I
(31:14):
think after October 7, Israel was going to go to war. That just was
inevitable. You know, did it have to be
as violent or as drawn out as it was? I think a lot of that
has to do with Netanyahu and his personal fortunes in
Israel. Whether they, there was some kind of deal between Trump,
I, I doubt it. I suspect that Netanyahu
(31:38):
annoyed Trump a lot because the whole thing made Trump
look bad. And what's the one thing you're never supposed to do? The only time
Trump's ever lashed out at Putin is for the same reason, When you
make Donald Trump look bad. That's his only
kind of yardstick for all this. So I just don't know, but I
doubt it. And I think, you know, what's happened is
(32:01):
awful and it's a tragedy. And look, give, you know, we'll give one cheer
to Donald Trump for pressuring Netanyahu into a ceasefire. I
think Netanyahu attacking Qatar probably
helped move that process along. That wasn't the smartest move in the
world. But as to, you know, I don't even want to
speculate about things like collusion. I just don't have any evidence of that.
(32:23):
Well, Tom, thanks for so much for joining us. I hope you'll come
back. I mean, one of the things, we do a show
basically about rural policy, but we know
because we've lived there, that a disproportionate number of people
who serve in uniform come from rural America, and they care
deeply about their service. They believe in their service. And,
(32:46):
you know, it's really, really hard for them to step up and say,
you know, that might have been a mistake, that might have been something we
shouldn't have done. But I think that there is more and more
questioning of the norms that are being torn
down at the Pentagon and more and more concern.
The question is, can you survive the next three years? Well, I
(33:09):
think anyone who thinks, you know,
and I understand that for folks in the military, I was never in the
military. I taught military officers for 25 years. The President
is the President. You can almost hear the capital P when it's spoken
as Commander in Chief. But the, but
imagine, and I would say this to folks who have
(33:32):
served, imagine if Barack
Obama or Joe Biden or Bill Clinton had demanded the same
level of personal loyalty and unquestioning
obedience to really dangerous orders,
like killing people on the high seas. If they had demanded that of
you, would you be defending that? And I
(33:55):
think the answer is no. I think Donald Trump has made it again. He's kind
of fudged difference. Say that if you don't want to obey my orders,
no matter how bad they are, that you are, you're not a patriot, you're, you're
a traitor, you're treasonous. But the, the people in the United
States military are sworn to defend the Constitution,
not a particular man. And I think that's the most
(34:17):
important thing, thing that everybody should remember. Well, Tom, this has been a real
treat for me. I watch your work from afar. I have a lot of respect,
really do. So thanks for joining us on the Hot dish. My pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
You know, Heidi, the Shutdown, the longest shutdown ever in history.
(34:40):
Those people that were debating how to open it back up or people that you
worked with, many of them. So I have to ask
you, what effect did that have? What effect did that have
on the Senate? What effect did that have on the Democratic Party? Well,
it's hard to know, Joel, because obviously there is a big
point of disagreement and a lot of hurt feelings and a lot of people
(35:03):
had different perspectives. But the other thing is, you look at the vote,
it's not a coincidence that it was only eight votes. They gave
a lot of people who had, they called upon them to walk,
you know, to give, they gave him a walk. And you know, Dick
Durbin, who's leaving the Senate, he's also an institutionalist. You know,
Catherine Cortez Masto was on that side to begin with,
(35:27):
so was Angus King. And so I think that when you
look at kind of how they did the count, you don't know how
many people in the Senate behind them
actually are glad that this happened. And I'm not saying it's everyone. I saw
comments that Elizabeth and Bernie made, and I get it. But
the time is to turn. It's done. And so
(35:51):
my advice to my colleagues is start preparing for
the December vote on the ACA. Start gathering the
numbers, start calling out your colleagues on the other side. Start reporting
what's going to happen to people's healthcare if they don't fix
this. Make the other side accountable. Win the fight.
They wanted to win the fight kind of in this leverage game.
(36:13):
And I'm saying win the fight on the principles of
what you're fighting for and get at it right now. Start talking
about healthcare again right now. And I think it's gonna make a lot of
Republicans really uncomfortable when they start seeing
people whose premiums have doubled or tripled, who are working poor.
And so I say lick your wounds, have your
(36:35):
fights. Get back in the arena. Talk about affordability,
talk about what you can do. And I've been saying, coalesce around
a bill that would cap credit card interest at something other than
28%. I mean, think about that,
28%. It's just unheard of
that that would be the interest rate on credit cards. And so
(36:58):
find another issue to work on together as a
Caucus and start preparing for a December vote. And if they don't,
you give you a December vote, all hell is going to break loose.
Well, I said on Meet the Press Now that the Democrats were
never going to win this if the whole point was to
extend, you know, the Affordable Care act. The point was to make sure the
(37:19):
Republicans own healthcare. I mean, that's the point of
the shutdown, was to make sure that the Republicans own
healthcare. Because you know what, with what they did in the Big Beautiful Bill, those
premiums are going to go up
the area. I may disagree with you on a little bit, actually. I do disagree
with you on when you say, look, pick another fight, take another fight,
(37:42):
take go back and fight. We don't fight like he
does. I've been in a couple scrapes, maybe more physical.
I get that. Then literal. But
we don't fight the way he fights. We wouldn't have
shut off food to people that need food and then got on a
plane and went and had a Gatsby party or whatever the hell he had.
(38:05):
My point is this. You can debate other
issues. Go ahead and do it all you want. I agree with it. But
until you start fighting a little bit like Newsom does, you're not going
to lay a lick on him. And he fights dirty. And
the Democrats better learn how to fight dirty. I would say this.
The biggest disappointment is there aren't any ads running. Here
(38:27):
is a President who was willing to starve children to
basically take away health care from the poorest Americans.
I mean, you can't make that up. That is Marie
Antoinette. That is, you know, King GeorgeIII.
That is like, I'm going to do it because I'm going to do it.
And I think that people need to be reminded now that it's over.
(38:50):
The SNAP benefits are going to be there. The package they
agreed to will prevent that from happening in January.
But this is also a President who doesn't care about the law. He doesn't care
what the law says. He got a district court opinion that said,
hey, send all the money out. And when States
obeyed with the district court opinion, he threatened the States
(39:13):
who obeyed with the court opinion. I mean, that
we are so bereft of the ability to take
really bad behavior and message it to the public in a
couple really good ads. And that's the thing that irritates me more than
anything. Well, and I would argue that those ads would mean
you're fighting that you're, you're, you're getting right up in his
(39:35):
grill. And, you know, obviously there's people
who disagree with me. You know, take the high road, show you're
classy, you know, do many of those things.
I just think when you're at a dogfight, you better bark. And,
you know, when you're cutting food off from people, when you're shutting airlines down,
when you're doing all those things that he could do, they sat in a room
(39:59):
and thought, how can we inflict pain? And if
we inflict pain, what we're going to do is we're going to get people
to come forth and make a deal. I'm
fine with getting it back open. It was always going to open this way.
I'm not fine if we don't get ready
and make sure that this ends up being their
(40:21):
responsibility when it comes to healthcare. If we let that
slide, if we let him sit there and go about
messaging in a way to where, look, that's
the Affordable Care Act's fault that it's been going up for how long.
That's not our fault. If we let that be the
message, then you know what? It's on us. It really
(40:43):
is. Well, and the thing is that now the real work
begins, which is to prepare for that December vote
to figure out. And honest to God, if I hear one
more Senator tell me, well, I'm doing
TikToks, I said they don't want to hear from you. They want to hear from
people who are hurting. They want to hear from how does this affect
(41:05):
their lives? And you know, you basically
going to camera. That's not very persuasive. I'm sorry.
You know, I used to think that I had a great bully pulpit,
too, until, you know, you run for reelection and don't win
because you haven't brought people along. And I think
that is the real challenge here and what I'm going to be
(41:28):
watching for. Yeah, I guess we both are, Heidi.
Hey, listen, thank you again for joining us on the Hot Dish brought to you
by One Country Project, making sure the voices of the rest of
us are heard in Washington. You bet. Learn more at
onecountryproject.org. That's where you're going to see us. Learn
(41:49):
a lot more at onecountryproject.org where we want
to hear from you. We'll be back next week with more Hot
dish comfort food for rural America.
Welcome to the Hot Dish, comfort food for rural America. I'm Heidi
Heitkamp. And I'm Joel Heitkamp. You know, we're real happy today to have
Tom Nichols with us. He is going to join us here on the
podcast. A staff writer for the Atlantic and a contributor to the
Atlantic Daily Newsletter. He writes about international
security, nuclear weapons, Russia, and the
(00:27):
challenges to democracy in the United States and around the world.
He's a professor emeritus of national
security affairs in the US Navy War College,
where he taught for 25 years. He served as a legislative aide
in the Massachusetts House and in the U.S.
Senate. Now, I want to make sure you know this. His books include
(00:50):
the "Death of Expertise" and "Our Own Worst Enemy:
the Assault from within on Modern Democracy." Tom,
good to have you with us here on the Hot Dish.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Good to be with you. And I read your
stuff all the time and find it incredibly enlightening. And I
think back to, you know, 10 years ago,
(01:13):
13 years ago, I would read your stuff and you would make me so
mad. You know, you would be saying stuff, I mean, always
with an articulation that was readable,
that had a point of view, but it's not something I would have agreed
on. I don't get how you're now one of the public
enemies number one against this administration when you have
(01:35):
such a long history of defending
Republican foreign policy. How did that happen, Tom?
It's, you know, Heidi, it's a strange thing. I mean, I think back to those
days, you know, when we were just before we started recording, I was talking about
working for a Republican senator. And, you know, back in the day, I'll
steal a line from Chris Matthews. I would have been one
(01:57):
of the staff people plotting against you, you know,
in the, in the Senate, but within the confines of the
Constitution. Not because I thought, you know, the
Democrats or, or liberals were my enemy. We just
disagreed about policies that, you know, we all loved our country.
We all believe in the Constitution and the rule of law. We just disagreed about
(02:19):
how much money should we give to a certain country, how, you know, how many
nuclear weapons should we have, you know, things like that. And
I think what's interesting is that all of the
things, I mean, I've changed my mind on some things. We all do. We get
older. I mean, I worked in the Senate when I was 31, and now I'm
65. So I, I have some different views on things, but
(02:41):
I, I think I haven't changed. I think that the,
the litmus Test for the Republican Party is just loyalty
to Donald Trump, whose, whose policies, I would add
both foreign policy and his domestic policies
are nowhere in the neighborhood of conservative,
(03:02):
at least conservative as we would have understood it 20 or
even 10 or 15 years ago. You know, statist,
big government, deficit spending,
anti-NATO, anti-atlanticist, pro-Russia.
I mean, that's, that's not, I'm, you know, if that,
if, if that's a conservative now, then I'm not a conservative, but I think
(03:24):
of myself as an old school conservative and I haven't really changed
that much. And one of my, one of my lines that I use now is
the era of Big Governments back. It's just not the Big Government you recognize
from the Republican Party. Well, and you know,
the Republicans, socialism has become one of these,
you know, scary words that people are throwing at each other. But
(03:47):
when I see the US government buying 10 and 20%
stakes in private companies, you know, I was
a scholar of the Soviet Union. When the State starts owning major
enterprises, that feels like socialism to me.
You know, or at least a move towards oligarchy. Well,
it's, it's crony capitalism, of course, is what it really is.
(04:10):
But, you know, the idea that, well, we'll have trade wars and then
we'll just bail out farmers, I mean, that's huge
kind of left leaning populist statism.
That is not identifiable to me
anyway as anything like conservative. And I think
90% of things Donald Trump is doing, if, if Joe Biden or
(04:33):
Barack Obama or you had ever voted for something like that, people
would have lost their minds. But this is all about loyalty to Donald
Trump now. It's not about principle. It's not really about ideas for the
Republican Party. Tom, in the world that you lived in as
not only an aide, but an expert when it comes to all of this, could
you ever imagine that we'd be saying Secretary
(04:55):
Hegseth. I mean, how did, how did we get to
there? Because it's clear to me that he
doesn't have what it takes to do the job. I mean, how did we get
to there? That's a very kind evaluation to say he
doesn't have what it takes. I would argue he is the most
manifestly unqualified Secretary of Defense
(05:16):
perhaps in modern history. And I think we
got there. There's a, there's a kind of a big
explanation and a smaller one. The bigger explanation is that the Cold
War ended. And despite America
being involved in kind of imperial policing in places like
Afghanistan, the costs of foreign policy
(05:38):
were borne by a very small number of volunteers. And
so Americans just didn't have to think about foreign affairs. They
didn't have to think about foreign threats. It's been 25 years
since 9/11. And I think when you have a country that
loses that sense of seriousness, you can shrug and
say, yeah, why? Why not Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense? What could go,
(06:00):
what's the worst that could happen? You know, because nothing
really matters. And I think that's endemic to this whole
movement. So the smaller explanation is that
people now have people on the right, I would argue, become so
tribalized about supporting Donald Trump that I
think, I would imagine that a lot of Heidi's former colleagues
(06:24):
probably had a minor aneurysm when they. They heard that Pete Hegseth
was being nominated. But there. But again, it's like, well, I can
either vote, I can vote against him and be a principal person and get
primaried out of my seat by MAGA world, or I can sort of shrug
and hope that, that nothing really bad happens.
And I think that we're in that kind of unserious, you
(06:47):
know, what does it really matter? The bureaucracy kind of
works and keeps things moving. And
I think that was that in part comes from the first term where there were
adults around Trump who, the way I, I describe
it is they put pool noodles around him and baby bumpers and,
you know, put all the, you know, like when you have a toddler and you
(07:09):
put all the breakable stuff away. Nobody's doing that now.
So I could not have imagined, you know, Secretary of
Defense Pete Hegseth or Director of National Intelligence
Tulsi Gabbard. I certainly could have imagined, couldn't have imagined the President
of the United States siding with Russia against
NATO and against our own government. But,
(07:32):
you know, this is a time where we're all getting used to a lot of
really horrible things. Tom, as a lawyer, I
think about what's happening at the Justice Department, and I think about, can
we go back to the way it was once this is over, or
will this just be a race to the bottom? I also think and talk to
a lot of my friends who are military, a lot of them who
(07:54):
have served at the highest levels of the Defense Department,
who wonder the same thing. And so when you think about it, what are
the worst things that are happening right now with leadership
at DOD and the Pentagon, and can it
get fixed? I think DOD and DOJ, the problem is
the same, which is that we're burning through years
(08:17):
of accumulated experience by getting rid of
people simply because they are not making some political
cut, you know, making. But I would also
argue we're changing the mission of those two groups. Oh
well, the DOJ especially, I mean, that's just Donald Trump's personal law firm
and that's how he wants it to be. And I think he's trying to turn
(08:39):
the, the Pentagon into his personal militia, into his
personal army that is loyal to him, does what he
says and, and obeys the President
before the Constitution. And he's trying really hard to do that.
The problem is, you know, how do you get that back afterwards?
I think when Donald Trump is gone and you know, knock on wood, that
(09:03):
he will be not run for a third term and we won't have to go
through the, that nonsense, but that his movement, as we
saw, you know, this week, last week in the elections, his
movement can be defeated. People just have to come out and vote. And I think
you're going to have to get kind of reverse the
purge of the purge, so to speak. You're going to have to get rid of
(09:24):
all these cronies and lackeys and unqualified
people that were brought into these two institutions. And the military,
that's going to be hard because you're losing three and four star
generals. My, my friend Elliot Cohen pointed out in an article in the
Atlantic that when Hegseth did that
little stunt of calling everybody into the auditorium and you know,
(09:48):
talking about fat soldiers and all that nonsense,
that this former, this 44 year old former
Major was talking to an accumulate a room
with an accumulated 25,000 years of
military experience in it. Yeah.
And I mean, it's just, it's laughable. I mean,
(10:11):
if it weren't so dangerous and so
inimical and to the American constitutional
experience, it would be almost. You know, I keep saying these
guys are just a constant Saturday Night Live sketch, but
it's not funny because Hegseth is firing
people because they, he doesn't want to hear that we can't just
(10:33):
murder people on the high seats. And you know,
I don't know what are we going to do next? Invade Nigeria or something that
whatever the president saw on TV 10 minutes ago. So,
so that, that's, I have to ask this though, Tom. You know, I got the
impression in the first Trump administration that, and maybe
it was because it was coming off of military activity,
(10:55):
you know, call it war, call it whatever you want. But I got the
sense that one of the things that Trump pushed the most
that he saw as a strength was not using the military, was
not Being aggressive. When it came to looking for
a fight, it seems to be just the opposite now that it's
like, I've got Pete Hegseth, we've got all of this. Why not take it
(11:18):
out, why not use it, and why not get into a fight?
I think he, you know, in his first term,
he, he end his second term, he ran as a peace
candidate, but that was always just, I think, populist
popcorn that he was handing out because I don't think he really believed it. Remember,
(11:38):
this is the same guy in his first term who calls Jim
Mattis and says, we're going to kill Assad. I
want a plan to kill Bashar Assad. And Mattis apparently
said, okay, well, get right to work, Mr. President. He hung up the phone and
then said, we're not going to do that. Now that worries me. That was a
bad thing in the first term because you had the Secretary of defense basically saying,
(12:01):
I will selectively ignore the President at will, which is not a good
tradition to begin in civil military relations, especially when the
secretary is a former general. But my point is, Trump had a lot of
crazy ideas about using the military. And he,
he doesn't. He, he, if you want to try and square the circle and be
(12:21):
fair to the president somehow, he's saying, I don't want to get involved
in bogged down these long, complicated wars
where I have to read briefings and understand stuff. But I
do like the idea of using the military for these
showy big, kind of showstopper set
pieces, like, you know, we're going to send B2s into
(12:43):
Iran, we're going to blow up terrorists Nigeria, we're
going to fly out and just explode boats out in the middle of the Caribbean.
I think he thinks that's different from
the things he ran against, which were being involved in Afghanistan, being involved in
Iraq, having these long presences there. So, I
(13:03):
mean, I think it's always helpful to think of Donald Trump as very
childlike. He's fascinated by the military. He
loves the idea of powerful military strikes executed at
his command. And he
gravitates toward the military because it is the one institution in American
life that he, I think, correctly realizes has to
(13:25):
obey his orders and can't push back as hard as even the
DOJ or FBI or anywhere else. So I,
I mean, he's being inconsistent, but I think in his mind he's saying, no, no,
I don't want to get involved and bogged down in any long wars. I just
want to use the military a lot for of showy
explosions everywhere that I can make happen by picking up the
(13:46):
phone. Made for TV Military.
Absolutely. Everything, Donald Trump's entire
consciousness, to me, seems to be mediated through
television. Yeah, it's all about ratings. Well,
and also that apparently. That's like I was trying to figure out the other day,
what on or where did he get this kind of, you know,
(14:08):
burn his saddle about Nigeria. And apparently he was watching TV
and he saw something on TV and said, okay, tap, tap, tap, tap,
tap, post on truth social Nigeria, better cut it out.
You know, that's not a policy. That's. That's an old man watching TV and
shaking his fist and saying, those darn Nigerians are going to pay.
(14:29):
That's, you know, that's how he thinks. Everything happens
through television. But you do have to remember he stopped. What is it, six or
seven or. Eight or nine, whatever, eight wars. Aren't
you supposed to say teen in front of that or after? I mean,
it's - 18 you think? 18. Well, it'll be 18
by tomorrow. You know, it's all about declaring victory. So
(14:52):
what price do we pay when you're blowing boats, when
you're murdering people on the high seas? I mean, what, what price,
as a country do we pay? Because it appears to me that
other world leaders have learned how to deal with them, and that's to basically
suck up to them. So what price do we play, pay
Tom? Well, when it comes to the world leaders, they manage
(15:15):
up, right? There's that business, right? You manage up when you have a
bad boss. And all these people have said, you know,
tell him that he's a. It's, it's. I keep coming back to that
Twilight Zone episode, you know, with Bill Mumy is the super
powerful kid that everybody's afraid of. So they constantly say, it's good what you did.
You're doing good, Anthony. That's terrific. You know, it's the same
(15:37):
thing. No matter what Trump does, somebody picks up and says, it's good what you
did, Don. And they give him presents
and little awards and plaques and things. I mean they're managing
- And nominations. They're managing him like he's a fourth grader
and not a very mature fourth grader. What we lose with these
operations, first of all, we're risking the lives of American
(15:59):
service people. Even though we're just out there blowing up boats. Every time you
launch something, every time you move military assets around,
people can get hurt. Even if it's just by accidents, even if it's
unintentional but we're also losing
our position as leader of the free world. And I know a lot of Trump's
people will say, well, who cares about that? You know, that's,
(16:23):
that's deep state stuff. Because
I think too many Americans don't realize that their quality of
life, their material security,
their day to day quality of life really depends
on the functioning of an international system of
peace and security and trade that they don't really
(16:45):
see every day. It just happens. They don't know how things end
up in the grocery store. They just get there. And so
if, that, if we. I've talked many times to audiences where
I say, look, if you want to live in a world where
Beijing and Moscow make the rules, you're going to end up with that
and you're not going to like it. And by the time you realize
(17:08):
that, it will be too late. Because when you, especially when the President
orders these kind of kooky, you know, I can kill anybody
I want sort of orders, you lose the
presumption of the benefit of the doubt if you ever actually need to use
military force. I mean, the
lesson of 60 years, 80 years since the end of World War II is
(17:31):
allies are the best thing to have. One of the reasons the United States can
do many of the things it does and Russia can't.
For years, I sort of, even when I would go to Russia and sort
of tweak my Russian friends and I'd say, it's nice to have
allies. You don't even have friends. I mean, Russia doesn't even have friends. They have
clients. China has, you know,
(17:53):
sort of friends, mostly clients. The United States has been blessed to
have 32 countries in the most powerful alliance in history
that have our backs. And Trump is going to squander that.
When you talk about seizing Greenland, you're literally talking about
attacking one of our NATO allies. It's insane. I mean, there is something,
I think there's something genuinely wrong with the man. But
(18:15):
electing him twice, I think has sent a chilling
message to our allies that the first time wasn't a
one off, that, you know, we could always say that first term was like
America. You know, we went on a, like Brexit, right?
We all went on a bender and we woke up the next morning and we
went, oh, crap, you know, what did we do? The
(18:37):
problem. And you see it in Britain now, right? They had one referendum and they
all regret it now. We didn't regret it four years later. We
said, yeah, let's try that again. And our allies have said, oh,
okay, so this wasn't just a mistake, that there are
75 million of you or 80 million of you who actually think this is
a good idea, and that makes us less trustworthy, and being less
(18:58):
trustworthy makes us less secure. Yeah. Both Joel and I
spend a lot of time with veterans, and I think people misunderstand. They think they're
politically engaged to guarantee veterans benefits, and certainly
that is a high priority for them. But a high priority
is maintaining a strong military, maintaining an
independent military. And, you know, you see a record number of
(19:21):
veterans right now running for public office on both
sides, but a lot of Democratic veterans saying, this is a
bridge too far. This is not why I wore the uniform. This is not
why I fought for my country. How. What, what would
you say to a veteran out there who is dismayed by what's happening?
Oh, boy. You know, I would. I would remind
(19:44):
every veteran that to be like George
Washington, the first commander, our first commander, who
said, remember that when we took up the
soldier, we did not lay aside the citizen.
And that if you're upset about what's happening, you are a
citizen of the United States first and foremost.
(20:06):
That's more important even than being a veteran or a, you know,
a New Englander or a Californian or a Southerner or whatever it is.
I mean, I. I wrote a. Just before the election, I wrote a cover story
for the Atlantic about Washington, and I. I was so moved,
studying him, because in his will, he refers to
himself as George Washington, a citizen. The first thing he
(20:29):
writes, I, George Washington, a citizen of the United States.
You know, and to say, be involved. Speak up.
You know, bring your military background to this debate
and to. And to say those things, Heidi, that you just said, I didn't sign
up for this. It's not why I wore this uniform. You
(20:49):
know, I didn't. I didn't join the military to salute any
one president. And I think that
Trump has been very successful at fudging
for a lot of people, and I think that's our fault as Americans that we
didn't do enough civic education anywhere. But especially in the
military, he's fudged the difference between loyalty to the Constitution and loyalty to the
(21:11):
commander in chief. I want to ask about Russia, Tom, while we have
you on, you know, you line this deal up
in Alaska, you buy all the red carpet or else you ship it up there,
you roll it up, you talk about the relationship you have with Putin.
There hasn't been any results with that. Had
any other president done that? First off, there would have been a big question
(21:35):
in regards to what happened, why there?
And yet there's no accountability when it comes
to a result of it. Oh, Donald
Trump's never. First of all, Donald Trump's voters will never hold
him accountable for anything. They live in a completely
sealed off reality. After that summit
(21:57):
on social media, I'd said, you know, hey, this is, I have some,
some experience, you know, writing about this stuff that's a failed summit. I
mean, Trump got his, got his head handed to him by, by Putin who flew
in and said, I'm not doing any of these things that you're talking about. No,
I don't want to have lunch with you. I'm getting back on my plane. I
go tell Zarinowski, excuse me, go tell Zelenskyy.
(22:20):
I want, what I want, and I'm getting on my plane and going back to
Russia. And by the way, thank you for making me look good and making yourself
look like an ass. And, and, and his
supporters are like, see, he's fighting for peace. He's doing, I'm
like, did we, you know, there. It's almost like talking to people that
are like, have, having a break with reality.
(22:41):
I think the other problem though goes back to what I was talking about earlier,
which is people say, all right, so summit
fell through. What's a big deal? There's a war raging in the middle
of Europe right now. Hundreds of
thousands of troops and civilians and tanks.
Literally there is a gigantic war happening in
(23:04):
Europe. And I think because Americans, it doesn't affect them
and because it's not because there are so many sources of information that
just bombard the average citizen with everything from war in Ukraine to
the price of eggs to, you know, tornadoes and hurricanes, they
just go, you know what, okay, whatever.
40 years ago, I'm, I'm an old enough to, you
(23:26):
know, we're all old enough to be Cold War kids. A failed
Summit during a war in Europe would have been considered a national
crisis. But we don't
think that way. And Donald Trump in particular, our
expectations, and this is something unfortunately, that both the right and the
left share. The expectations of Donald Trump are
(23:48):
so low that no one really even
blinks when he fails. Because it's every day that every day
there's some disastrous misstep.
Tariffs, inflation, going up, personnel problems,
you know, we, the, the, the big flap about SignalGate
that ended up where, you know,
(24:10):
Secretary of Defense or the, the National Security Advisor is
texting my boss at the Atlantic, you know, classified stuff
is just astonishing. I mean, in any other Administration, people would be up
in arms. But Donald Trump has worn us down.
He's worn us down so that when it happens, we go, what are you going
(24:31):
to do? Well, if you look at this and you
think about past elections, a 5 deferment
for bone spurs guy telling
real soldiers how to conduct themselves would
not have been anywhere near what I would expect
that the military would tolerate or people who support the
(24:53):
military. But yet we're dealing with someone who has
absolutely zero experience with the military.
Zero experience. Yeah. And zero experience in, in
politics until he became, until he became president.
You know, it's, it's interesting because other.
It used to be that you had to have some military service in your background
(25:15):
to be a credible candidate. Bill Clinton's the first president that just gets by
that, right? Or just says, you know, but, but Clinton went out
of his way to not look like. To look. To try not to look
like he was antagonizing the military.
You know, Dick Cheney didn't serve, George Bush in the National Guard
and so on. Trump not only
(25:38):
didn't serve, but goes out. And this is a very Trumpian things.
You're in the military. Let me tell you how to do war.
He is, like, when he, he did the same thing with doctors. They're trying
to give him a tour, and he's like, you know, I know so much about
medicine. Let me tell you about medicine. There is kind of an
aggressive ignorance about the man where he's, it's not just that he doesn't
(26:00):
know things, but he wants to tell you about the
things he doesn't know about. And I think that, yeah, it is
surprising that he,
that his supporters, who claim to be very pro military,
really put up with a huge amount of hostility he has
for the military. You know, the Atlantic broke that
(26:23):
story years ago about suckers and losers and his kind
of dismissive view of people who've died in
conflict. You know, standing there in Arlington Cemetery and looking around all these graves and
going, I don't get it, you know, what was in it for them? But
again, I think it's, it's this notion that so many of Trump's
supporters have that, yeah, you know, he's crude and he, he's
(26:45):
ignorant, but he hates the people we hate. He makes people mad
in a way that we find enjoyable, so they just cut him slack on all
this other stuff, or they convince themselves. And I've had this conversation
so many times with Trump supporters where they say, well, that's not what
he meant. I know what he meant. And it's
like in we both speak the English
(27:08):
language. I'm pretty sure we both can, you know, figure out what he said and
what he meant, or they just deny it. They say he never,
he never suckers, losers, he never said it.
You know, all those things that are reported just fake news or lies, you
really are not going to get past people who have erected,
you know, a kind of dome of lucite around themselves
(27:31):
that just is impenetrable to facts or reason.
And that's just how it is now, unfortunately. Heidi, coming off
of Veterans Day and of course, you know, the whole Shutdown
and you know, this isn't the reason that we wanted to talk to
Tom today. I get it. But it also ties into a man
(27:51):
that was your good friend that you got to know very well in your time
in the Senate, and that's John McCain. You know, and
both of you, when I heard suckers and losers, the first
thing I talk about or talk thought about, I should say, was
how incredibly, how terrible it was to call John
McCain that. And hi, you know, on Veterans
(28:13):
Day. That has to bring a bad memory for you.
Well, it brings up the loss even more
profound because right now, the gutless
Republican Party people who profess that they
have loyalty to the, to the kind of rule of law
loyalty to the norms that involve nonpartisan
(28:35):
behavior at the military, they say nothing when banners
fly out of Donald Trump's picture, they say nothing when
Kristi Noem puts a video up in airports
that is clearly in violation of the Hatch act, they say
nothing. Guess what? John McCain would be saying a lot
and he would be leading that effort. And
(28:57):
where are those leaders? I mean, the best we've got right
now is Rand Paul, which is so
ironic, let me tell you. But at least he's speaking
up about what's happening in the Caribbean. At least he's speaking up about
long trade relationships that are being injured.
And it's just like, I don't know why they
(29:19):
want to be a United States Senator. Why don't they just give the proxy
to the President, go home and golf? I have no idea why those people
want to sit in the Senate and be
absolutely gutless and fearful
and cowards, literally cowards. Because I will tell you
one thing. They all know this is not good. They are not
(29:42):
stupid people. They are gutless people.
Well, being a Senator is a good gig, though there's a lot of these folks
who can't imagine being any. You. I'm, you know, I don't. I worked
there years ago. You you were, you know, this. There are people who just can't
imagine being anything else. Yeah, that's it. And, and
they're going to do what they have to do to stay there. And that
(30:05):
Trump relies on that. And, and he relies on a certain amount of
bullying to say, if you cross me, your phones will ring, you'll get
death threats. I mean, this is another thing, you know, that
we've normalized in our political experience is that
threats of violence, threat, death threat, they're just a
normal part of American politics now, apparently.
(30:29):
Tom, I know we only have a little time left, but I have to ask
you about this. With what happened in Israel and what's still
happening in Israel and the role that can play on, on
America's defense of itself even.
Was this between Netanyahu and Trump
all staged? Was this a way that
(30:51):
Netanyahu could help Donald Trump? And
is this about, Is it a lot of collusion going on there,
Tom? Joel, I, I just don't know. I, I mean,
you know, I think I'm always reluctant
to go for complicated explanations when the simple ones are
staring right at us. You know, Israel, I
(31:14):
think after October 7, Israel was going to go to war. That just was
inevitable. You know, did it have to be
as violent or as drawn out as it was? I think a lot of that
has to do with Netanyahu and his personal fortunes in
Israel. Whether they, there was some kind of deal between Trump,
I, I doubt it. I suspect that Netanyahu
(31:38):
annoyed Trump a lot because the whole thing made Trump
look bad. And what's the one thing you're never supposed to do? The only time
Trump's ever lashed out at Putin is for the same reason, When you
make Donald Trump look bad. That's his only
kind of yardstick for all this. So I just don't know, but I
doubt it. And I think, you know, what's happened is
(32:01):
awful and it's a tragedy. And look, give, you know, we'll give one cheer
to Donald Trump for pressuring Netanyahu into a ceasefire. I
think Netanyahu attacking Qatar probably
helped move that process along. That wasn't the smartest move in the
world. But as to, you know, I don't even want to
speculate about things like collusion. I just don't have any evidence of that.
(32:23):
Well, Tom, thanks for so much for joining us. I hope you'll come
back. I mean, one of the things, we do a show
basically about rural policy, but we know
because we've lived there, that a disproportionate number of people
who serve in uniform come from rural America, and they care
deeply about their service. They believe in their service. And,
(32:46):
you know, it's really, really hard for them to step up and say,
you know, that might have been a mistake, that might have been something we
shouldn't have done. But I think that there is more and more
questioning of the norms that are being torn
down at the Pentagon and more and more concern.
The question is, can you survive the next three years? Well, I
(33:09):
think anyone who thinks, you know,
and I understand that for folks in the military, I was never in the
military. I taught military officers for 25 years. The President
is the President. You can almost hear the capital P when it's spoken
as Commander in Chief. But the, but
imagine, and I would say this to folks who have
(33:32):
served, imagine if Barack
Obama or Joe Biden or Bill Clinton had demanded the same
level of personal loyalty and unquestioning
obedience to really dangerous orders,
like killing people on the high seas. If they had demanded that of
you, would you be defending that? And I
(33:55):
think the answer is no. I think Donald Trump has made it again. He's kind
of fudged difference. Say that if you don't want to obey my orders,
no matter how bad they are, that you are, you're not a patriot, you're, you're
a traitor, you're treasonous. But the, the people in the United
States military are sworn to defend the Constitution,
not a particular man. And I think that's the most
(34:17):
important thing, thing that everybody should remember. Well, Tom, this has been a real
treat for me. I watch your work from afar. I have a lot of respect,
really do. So thanks for joining us on the Hot dish. My pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
You know, Heidi, the Shutdown, the longest shutdown ever in history.
(34:40):
Those people that were debating how to open it back up or people that you
worked with, many of them. So I have to ask
you, what effect did that have? What effect did that have
on the Senate? What effect did that have on the Democratic Party? Well,
it's hard to know, Joel, because obviously there is a big
point of disagreement and a lot of hurt feelings and a lot of people
(35:03):
had different perspectives. But the other thing is, you look at the vote,
it's not a coincidence that it was only eight votes. They gave
a lot of people who had, they called upon them to walk,
you know, to give, they gave him a walk. And you know, Dick
Durbin, who's leaving the Senate, he's also an institutionalist. You know,
Catherine Cortez Masto was on that side to begin with,
(35:27):
so was Angus King. And so I think that when you
look at kind of how they did the count, you don't know how
many people in the Senate behind them
actually are glad that this happened. And I'm not saying it's everyone. I saw
comments that Elizabeth and Bernie made, and I get it. But
the time is to turn. It's done. And so
(35:51):
my advice to my colleagues is start preparing for
the December vote on the ACA. Start gathering the
numbers, start calling out your colleagues on the other side. Start reporting
what's going to happen to people's healthcare if they don't fix
this. Make the other side accountable. Win the fight.
They wanted to win the fight kind of in this leverage game.
(36:13):
And I'm saying win the fight on the principles of
what you're fighting for and get at it right now. Start talking
about healthcare again right now. And I think it's gonna make a lot of
Republicans really uncomfortable when they start seeing
people whose premiums have doubled or tripled, who are working poor.
And so I say lick your wounds, have your
(36:35):
fights. Get back in the arena. Talk about affordability,
talk about what you can do. And I've been saying, coalesce around
a bill that would cap credit card interest at something other than
28%. I mean, think about that,
28%. It's just unheard of
that that would be the interest rate on credit cards. And so
(36:58):
find another issue to work on together as a
Caucus and start preparing for a December vote. And if they don't,
you give you a December vote, all hell is going to break loose.
Well, I said on Meet the Press Now that the Democrats were
never going to win this if the whole point was to
extend, you know, the Affordable Care act. The point was to make sure the
(37:19):
Republicans own healthcare. I mean, that's the point of
the shutdown, was to make sure that the Republicans own
healthcare. Because you know what, with what they did in the Big Beautiful Bill, those
premiums are going to go up
the area. I may disagree with you on a little bit, actually. I do disagree
with you on when you say, look, pick another fight, take another fight,
(37:42):
take go back and fight. We don't fight like he
does. I've been in a couple scrapes, maybe more physical.
I get that. Then literal. But
we don't fight the way he fights. We wouldn't have
shut off food to people that need food and then got on a
plane and went and had a Gatsby party or whatever the hell he had.
(38:05):
My point is this. You can debate other
issues. Go ahead and do it all you want. I agree with it. But
until you start fighting a little bit like Newsom does, you're not going
to lay a lick on him. And he fights dirty. And
the Democrats better learn how to fight dirty. I would say this.
The biggest disappointment is there aren't any ads running. Here
(38:27):
is a President who was willing to starve children to
basically take away health care from the poorest Americans.
I mean, you can't make that up. That is Marie
Antoinette. That is, you know, King GeorgeIII.
That is like, I'm going to do it because I'm going to do it.
And I think that people need to be reminded now that it's over.
(38:50):
The SNAP benefits are going to be there. The package they
agreed to will prevent that from happening in January.
But this is also a President who doesn't care about the law. He doesn't care
what the law says. He got a district court opinion that said,
hey, send all the money out. And when States
obeyed with the district court opinion, he threatened the States
(39:13):
who obeyed with the court opinion. I mean, that
we are so bereft of the ability to take
really bad behavior and message it to the public in a
couple really good ads. And that's the thing that irritates me more than
anything. Well, and I would argue that those ads would mean
you're fighting that you're, you're, you're getting right up in his
(39:35):
grill. And, you know, obviously there's people
who disagree with me. You know, take the high road, show you're
classy, you know, do many of those things.
I just think when you're at a dogfight, you better bark. And,
you know, when you're cutting food off from people, when you're shutting airlines down,
when you're doing all those things that he could do, they sat in a room
(39:59):
and thought, how can we inflict pain? And if
we inflict pain, what we're going to do is we're going to get people
to come forth and make a deal. I'm
fine with getting it back open. It was always going to open this way.
I'm not fine if we don't get ready
and make sure that this ends up being their
(40:21):
responsibility when it comes to healthcare. If we let that
slide, if we let him sit there and go about
messaging in a way to where, look, that's
the Affordable Care Act's fault that it's been going up for how long.
That's not our fault. If we let that be the
message, then you know what? It's on us. It really
(40:43):
is. Well, and the thing is that now the real work
begins, which is to prepare for that December vote
to figure out. And honest to God, if I hear one
more Senator tell me, well, I'm doing
TikToks, I said they don't want to hear from you. They want to hear from
people who are hurting. They want to hear from how does this affect
(41:05):
their lives? And you know, you basically
going to camera. That's not very persuasive. I'm sorry.
You know, I used to think that I had a great bully pulpit,
too, until, you know, you run for reelection and don't win
because you haven't brought people along. And I think
that is the real challenge here and what I'm going to be
(41:28):
watching for. Yeah, I guess we both are, Heidi.
Hey, listen, thank you again for joining us on the Hot Dish brought to you
by One Country Project, making sure the voices of the rest of
us are heard in Washington. You bet. Learn more at
onecountryproject.org. That's where you're going to see us. Learn
(41:49):
a lot more at onecountryproject.org where we want
to hear from you. We'll be back next week with more Hot
dish comfort food for rural America.
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