David Frum

So it's a double pleasure to welcome her today on The David Frum Show.

Mona, thank you for joining.

All right.

So let me ask you, for the benefit of those whose memory has lapsed or who were maybe born more recently than some of us.

Would you mind recapitulating your political journey from the start until Donald Trump appeared on the scene a decade ago?

I want to take the story up to 2016 and then slow down.

Sure.

Okay.

So where were you in the election of 2012?

And why?

So you were on board with the conservative program into the second Obama term.

When Donald Trump declared for president on that June day in 2015, did you take it seriously?

At what point did you decide or accept that this might be a real thing?

So this is a very full buffet and you can have more than one serving and make more than one trip.

But as I hear you talking about your reaction, you are emphasizing in the first trip to the buffet,

The human qualities of Donald Trump.

That's, as you're describing it here, that was the first reaction, the first repulsion.

Yes.

How did the rest follow?

Because you start with the human reaction, but since then you've had, as we'll continue to discuss, a pretty dramatic political evolution.