In this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum breaks down what he calls “the week of the four scams”—a stunning display of misinformation and corruption from President Donald Trump involving fake trade deals, manipulated markets, and even a personal jet from Qatar. David is then joined by Indian Member of Parliament and Chairman of the Committee on External Affairs Dr. Shashi Tharoor to examine the recent India-Pakistan cease-fire and just how much (or little) credit the Trump administration can fairly claim for brokering peace. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at theAtlantic.com/listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the 'four scams' attributed to Donald Trump this week?
Hello, and welcome to episode six of The David Frum Show. I'm David Frum, a staff writer at The Atlantic. At the very beginning of the first Trump presidency, back in 2017, I posted on Twitter the following thought. Regular reminder that Donald Trump's core competencies is not deal-making with powerful counterparties. It is duping gullible victims.
That warning has seldom been more needed than it has been needed in the past days, which I call the week of the four scams. Over these past few days, Donald Trump has taken credit or introduced one after another piece of outrageous fiction, which he is presenting to the world as some tremendous achievement, and we need to be warned against it and to protect ourselves against it.
Now, the first of the scams will supply the matter of my main conversation in the program today, and that is Donald Trump's attempt to take credit for the India-Pakistan ceasefire. The India-Pakistan ceasefire is a real event. It actually happened.
But Donald Trump's role in it was negligible, to say the least, as you will hear when I speak to my guest today, Dr. Shashi Tharoor, who is chairman of the External Affairs Committee in the Indian Parliament and one of that country's leading voices for liberal and humane values. But now let's talk in the interval about the three scams that took place here at home on the home front.
Two of them are the so-called trade deals that Trump is taking credit for, one with Britain, one with China. Now, these aren't deals in any traditional sense of the word. A trade agreement must be approved by Congress. It's a treaty. These are executive announcements, PR press releases, concepts, plans, projects, noise. They don't amount to anything.
Today, in May, American tariffs are dramatically higher than they were the day before Donald Trump took office. And the effort to make them scale up and to scale down is just a distraction, the way the dealer in a three-card Monty game keeps up a line of patter so that you don't notice that you're being deceived and robbed.
The fourth of the scams is the Donald Trump's project to accept from the Emirate of Qatar the personal gift of a jet, a jet plane that would accrue to him personally during his time as president. And that would then be kept by him and by his heirs through the guise of the Trump library and casino and whatever.
fast food restaurant or whatever he calls it, but nothing that is going to be like any kind of charity. And it looks like the plane will keep operating and be available to him and to his family for use afterwards. It is the most astonishing act of brazen corruption in the history of the American presidency, in the history of many post-Soviet presidencies. I mean, it's un-American.
It can't be compared to anything that has ever happened in American history. And it comes on top of the flow of funds to Donald Trump from all over the world via these strange meme coins that he keeps issuing that someone is buying for no obvious business reason, but as a way to direct funds to the pockets of the president.
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Chapter 2: How did Donald Trump claim credit for the India-Pakistan ceasefire?
One last question about the American role. Because when you line up, and I should have mentioned 1999, 2001, 2008, and you see the pattern of the American involvement there. And then you contrast it with the pattern of American involvement in 2025. It does really look like the United States is a receding power in the world that mattered much more a quarter century ago than it does now.
And that the Trump administration seems to want the accolades that it would get domestically from the assertion of great power status. But actually it has given away that status and maybe by its own neglect, maybe by some objective reality.
Yeah, and there was some slightly confused messaging also coming out of all of this, that the first statements of Mr. Trump were that, oh, these Indians and Pakistanis have been fighting for thousands of years, which is slightly odd because Pakistan has only existed for 77 years as a country, so... They haven't fought anybody for a century, let alone centuries or thousands of years.
Then we had Mr. Vance saying, oh, we have no business in this fight. Let them sort it out themselves. And then suddenly, within a day or two of these remarks, the same two people are taking credit for the ceasefire. I'm at a bit of a loss, frankly. about what they did.
Certainly, there is no independent confirmation from the Indian side of any successful or serious negotiating effort by the US here. It's possible that they did this with the Pakistanis. We might learn more from the US. There's always stories coming out in the US media from reliable sources in Washington as to what exactly America did with Pakistan. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough. But for now,
I am a bit of a loss to answer your question, David, but the desire for accolades without too much of effort is a human foible, isn't it? It's something which too many people tend to want to do.
It runs stronger in some human beings than in others. In a few, it's the overwhelming passion of life. Let me ask you, you alluded, I think, a little bit to what will be your answer to this question, but why is it so hard to reach an enduring peace in the subcontinent?
The one smidgen of truth in Donald Trump's post about a thousand years is for a thousand years, Hindu majority and Muslim majority, Hindu ruled and Muslim ruled states have coexisted peacefully and successfully in the subcontinent. Why can't they do so now?
Well, I mean, that's the irony of all of this. I mean, it's utter nonsense to imply that there is a thousand year battle between Hindus and Muslims. On the contrary, every great Hindu king had Muslim soldiers and generals on his side. Every great Muslim king had Hindu generals and soldiers on his side. And the two communities have coexisted.
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Chapter 3: What is the reality behind Trump's so-called trade deals with Britain and China?
But as China has colonized Pakistan in this way over the past generation, a succession of American presidents, starting with Bill Clinton, developing very rapidly under George W. Bush, the president for whom I worked, under President Obama, a little maybe less energetically, have sought to build an American-Indian partnership that is closer and closer.
And there are a lot of difficulties in the way of this. But there has been effort very much on the U.S. side, a little more doubt on the Indian side. President Trump has just slammed India with a whole new set of punitive tariffs, undercutting all the fine things that he and his vice president say about India.
How would you assess the state of that U.S.-India partnership, so founded by Bill Clinton and nurtured by W. Bush and President Obama?
Well, you know, and even in the first Trump administration, it was going fine.
I mean, I would have said that in many ways, the India-US relationship was above partisan politics, that it certainly transcends the political divide within India and appeared to have transcended the political divide in the US because both Bush and Clinton, both Obama and Trump 1.0, all supported a very close relationship. But everything has become very confused in Trump 2.0.
There have been the tariffs, which certainly have hurt India quite significantly.
There have been the very, very stringent policies with regard to immigration, including legal immigration, H-1B visas, spouse reunions and so on, which tends disproportionately to hit Indian techies who provide a lot of IT services in the US and who obviously want their families to join them and so on, who are going to find that challenging.
But even more, Mr. Trump's statement yesterday and today has been very troubling because it has de facto handed Pakistan a victory that Pakistan has not earned by choosing unnecessarily to imply an equivalence between India and Pakistan. It was equating the victim and the perpetrator.
By speaking in terms of getting the two to sit down together and talk to end their thousands of years of conflict, apart from the fact that it hasn't been thousands of years, there is a fact that we are certainly not going to give Pakistan the satisfaction of earning negotiating rights at the point of a gun.
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Chapter 5: What is the controversy surrounding the gift of a personal jet from Qatar to Donald Trump?
Just as Jewish Americans have an impact on America's policy towards Israel, I expect Indian Americans to continue to have an impact on America's policy towards India. And I believe that will be the case whoever forms a government in India. I may be wrong, David. We'll find out the hard way. But as of now, the changing complexion
of Indian politics may not make such a difference to the US attitude to India, because there are now more and more sort of permanent structural factors sustaining that relationship, including the presence and role of the Indian diaspora in America.
Will the ceasefire hold?
I think so, yes. I don't really think that Pakistan has much to gain from starting a new misadventure because India has been able to demonstrate that they can hit very hard.
They've destroyed the runway in a major air base called the Rahim Yar Khan Air Base and have severely damaged another air base, the Air Marshal Noor Khan Air Base, which is right next to Pakistani military headquarters at GHQ Rawalpindi, not far from the capital of the country. So I think it's been a sobering wake up to the Pakistanis that this is not an adversary you want to monkey around with.
Now, did they achieve their goals? Partially, yes. And Mr. Trump's statement would be cause of rejoicing in Islamabad that, look, we're back on the map with the US. They're treating us as the equal of the Indians. So they might feel that, look, we pulled off something very good by doing what we did.
So I don't think they would see a reason now to get back again to the battlefield and possibly risk further defeat and further opprobrium. They would actually feel they've actually pulled off something here. So I think not.
And as far as India is concerned, India has never been the belligerent, has no interest whatever in initiating conflict, and ideally wants to be left alone by Pakistan to get on with its own business and focus on its economy. So for all these reasons, I believe the ceasefire could hold, can hold, should be holding. But it's not even 24 hours yet.
And in fact, on the first day of the ceasefire, which in our time zone is yesterday evening, I'm afraid the Pakistanis violated it in three places by sending missiles across to Indian cities, hitting civilian targets, homes and cars. We were able to stop many of those missiles, but we did take a few blows and we hit back as well in retaliation. So the message is very clear, David.
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