Catching up:
“Florida to end all vaccine mandates, first state in U.S. to do so”
“Harvard secures win in fight with Trump over federal research funding” - POLITICO
“On Epstein Files, Women Lead the G.O.P. Resistance to Trump” - The New York Times
“US strike on 'Venezuela drug boat': What do we know, and was it legal?” - BBC
“Newsmax files antitrust lawsuit against Fox News” | AP News
“South Park Has Fox News Party Over Trump/Satan's Lovechild”
Happy Thursday.
On today’s “To the Contrary” Podcast, I sit down with David Frum of The Atlantic to unpack the mounting costs of Donald Trump’s foreign policy blunders. From alienating India and Australia to emboldening China and Russia, Frum explains how short-sighted vanity and corruption are leaving the United States increasingly isolated. Our conversation also covers Trump’s entanglement with the Epstein story, the misuse of tariffs, and the growing risks of authoritarianism at home.
Subscribers can listen to an ad-free version right here… or you can watch on YouTube / Listen (and subscribe) on Apple/ Spotify / iHeart / RSS Feed.
Some of the highlights of our conversation
Trump’s late-stage Ceausescu/Liberace decorating style actually sends a message.
DAVID FRUM: There's a famous speech by Winston Churchill about how the houses of parliament in Britain should be rebuilt after they were bombed during the war.
The House of Commons was badly damaged, and Churchill argued for rebuilding it exactly the way it was. And the justification he gave was, first we shape our buildings, then our buildings shape us.
So it's funny that the center of presidential power in the United States now looks like the cavern of some second-tier dictator. But it's also sending a message to everyone who comes in the room about the kind of president this is and the kind of country the United States has become.
The reason for the pervasiveness of the classical, really the Georgian architectural style through Washington has been that it is an architecture that the Americans who first adopted it associated with the modesty and restraint of a classical republic.
This is not the style of kings and monarchs. It was not built in the Baroque style.
It was built in this style of architectural restraint to indicate the power here is restrained. The president is restrained. The president is a magistrate, not a king. He's the highest ranking public servant. He's a government employee like anybody else.
And every aspect of the architecture is supposed to reinforce that message about the modesty of the president's role.
And when Trump busts out of that and says, I want to look like Ceausescu…. It's funny because the taste is so bad. But it's also every way he can, he is telling you: I do not accept the historic, legal, and constitutional limits on this office.
How could I be more clear about how I want to use this office and the kind of person I am? And if you people are fool enough not to get it, that's on you, not on me.
Nota bene
Garrett Graff in his newsletter, Doomsday Scenario: “America Tips Into Fascism”
Saying that our country has tipped over an invisible edge into an authoritarian state plainly is important — and easier than most in the media and pundit class will pretend it is.
They will presumably for some period of time — perhaps even a long period of time — stick to euphemisms (with lines like “No president has asserted such direct and sweeping control over the nation's capital” and “Through immigration crackdowns and cultural purges, President Trump is wielding government power to enforce a more rigid, exclusionary definition of what it means to be American.”) and continue to give voice to “both siders,” but the reality is that only one political party is responsible for this moment. They will say that Trump’s motives are inscrutable or unclear — but the effect of Trump’s governing style is undeniable.
American fascism looks like the president using armed military units from governors loyal to his regime to seize cities run by opposition political figures and it looks like the president using federal law enforcement to target regime opponents.
American fascism looks like the would-be self-proclaimed king deploying the military on US soil not only not in response to requests by local or state officials but over — and almost specifically to spite — their vociferous objections.
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Thursday dogs
It’s all about the green ball. Even at the lake.
