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Chapter 1: What recent event in Austin highlights the dangers of the Trump administration's approach?
Hello, and welcome to The David Frum Show. I'm David Frum, a staff writer at The Atlantic. I'm recording the show at a grave moment in American history. My guest this week will be Tom Nichols, my colleague at The Atlantic, former professor at the Naval War College.
And we'll be discussing our anxieties about the way the war with Iran has been managed, our fears about the uses to which the war will be put by the Trump administration, and our hopes for a better future for the people of Iran, but a future that cannot be separated from the dangers this war poses to the people of the United States. There will be no book talk this week.
Our conversation will be too substantial for that. So I will just preface now with some thoughts before the dialogue about what is at hand. I should stress, I record this program midday, Monday, March 2nd. It will not be released on audio for a day and a half.
Chapter 2: What are the implications of a potential war with Iran for American freedoms?
It will not be released on video for two days. So there may be intervals. There may be gaps in the things you know about the situation at home and abroad and what I know as I speak to you. But I want to speak about something that just happened a very few minutes ago that is a real indicator, a real warning of the dangers that the United States faces in this war with Iran.
Shortly before I began the recording, CBS News obtained and published images or purported images of the alleged shooter in the Austin, Texas mass shooting. The alleged shooter was wearing a t-shirt, which apparently, according to the images that have been released, reveals an image of the Iranian flag.
Now, I personally very much doubt that the shooter was in any way an agent or operative of the Iranian state and was in any way operating on behalf of the Iranian state. Might be wrong, but I doubt it.
But there's no question that Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism and that it has over many decades not only built networks all over the world, but activated, triggered networks that have committed acts of terrorism all over the planet. Buenos Aires, Berlin, Washington, D.C., any prudent administration.
in a war with such a power would have to anticipate that one resource available to that world's leading state sponsor of terrorism would be to activate terrorist networks in the United States. You simply have to plan for that, even the best administration with the greatest respect for American liberties. What if you have an administration that does not respect those liberties?
What if you have an administration with a proven record of falsely accusing Americans of terrorism for acts like legally recording the operations of immigration authorities that has repeatedly lied about what the Department of Homeland Security is doing and why it's doing it, that has covered up casualties of American citizens at the hands of the Department of Homeland Security?
What if you have that kind of government?
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Chapter 3: How does the Trump administration's handling of Iran compare to past U.S. interventions?
Well, that possibility of Iranian sleeper cells inside the United States, that's not just a resource for the Iranian regime to use against the United States. That's a resource that the Trump administration can use against the liberties of American people. After all, if it's really possible that there are about to be acts of terrorism by Iran inside the United States,
How can Congress continue to blockade funds for the Department of Homeland Security until it gets reforms in the way that the Department of Homeland Security operates, including an end to the lying that it's been such a disgrace of the Department of Homeland Security?
You're going to see a real press by the Trump administration to say, release the funds and let the Department of Homeland Security resume its operations exactly the way it wants to, including falsely calling people terrorists if they operate a camera near an immigration agent. you're going to see attacks on the freedom of the press.
This administration has already made it clear that it regards it as illegal, criminal, for reporters simply to ask questions of Pentagon employees about what they're doing with the American people's money, about what they're doing with the American people's security, about what they're doing with the lives of soldiers entrusted to their care. That has been the view of this administration.
No, you are not allowed to ask any of these questions. We're going to yank your press credentials if you have any unauthorized conversations with anybody in the building. You're not allowed to do that. Only the designated leaders of the building get to speak at all.
And if they're not speaking and if they're saying things that look like they might not be true, you can't second guess or question them. We have had many instances over the first year of the Trump administration of false invocations of emergency powers.
The whole tariff nonsense, the tariffs that were struck down by the Supreme Court, those tariffs rested on false claims by the President of the United States about economic emergencies. Well, now there's a real war, and there's a real risk of terrorist activity inside the United States. That's a much more plausible emergency than anything Trump invoked about tariffs.
And what court will say, you know what, we don't think you're telling the truth about this either. Courts will be very reluctant to do that. So there'll be new assertions of emergency power in all kinds of contexts.
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Chapter 4: What mistakes from the Iraq War are relevant to the current situation with Iran?
We know that people around the president, people who have the president's ear, have been urging him to use emergency powers against the elections of 2026. the possibility of that temptation being accepted are much higher today than they were 10 days ago or a week ago. And there may be more legal predicates to allow him to do it.
In every way we can imagine, and in many ways we cannot, we're moving into a terrain of extraordinary danger to democratic institutions. The war in Iran is not just a foreign policy question. It is an urgent domestic policy question. It is a massive grant of power to a president and administration that have proven again and again that they will abuse any powers that they are entrusted with.
We all wish, of course, a safe and swift return to American personnel in danger. We wish a safe and swift return home to all the allied personnel in danger. And we wish urgently a better future for the oppressed people of Iran who've been so maltreated and murdered by the most aggressive and most repressive regime maybe on the entire planet.
But Americans also are entitled to think about their safety, their security, and their freedom. And that is suddenly called into question in a way that has been quite theoretical until the Trump administration came along.
And even in the early days of the Trump administration, the second Trump administration, while it has been less theoretical and more actual, has not been as imminent and ominous as it is today. But the threat now is as imminent and ominous as possibly could be, or as it yet has been. Perhaps it can get even worse.
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Chapter 5: What concerns does Tom Nichols express about the administration's competence?
And as an American, it's your job now not to lose either your ideals or your confidence. The courts still work. The liberties of the Constitution are still on paper. And it's going to be up to all of us to make sure that those courts continue to operate and that those liberties remain real.
against an administration that will use any excuse to try to cramp, to avoid the courts, neuter Congress, and negate those liberties. Any excuse, and now they've got a better excuse than they've ever had before. So, as I said, a grave moment in American history, a dangerous moment in American history.
Not blind to the opportunities for a better Middle East, but don't be blind either to the risks of a much worse future for Americans here at home. And now, my dialogue with Tom Nichols. But first, a quick break.
Tom Nichols is an ex-professor at the Naval War College, an expert in nuclear weapons, and of course, a colleague at the Atlantic who filed early in the morning of the first hours of this war in an act of amazing summary of knowledge and expertise. Tom is a five-time Jeopardy! champion and now a returning
two-time guest on the david farm show i'm very grateful to him for making the time on this busy day i'm going to just for the information of listeners and viewers point out we're recording midday monday the audio will post early morning wednesday video midday wednesday so there's a gap for a lot of events to happen in the united states and around the world but we're going to do the best we can to focus on some
domestic issues raised by President Trump's action in Iran. Tom, let me just start with this. I think you and I belong to that tiny little Venn diagram, section of the Venn diagram, that is broadly sympathetic to action against the Iranian regime and deeply worried about action by the Trump administration.
Absolutely. No one should be shedding any tears for the mullahs. And, you know, we should all be hoping that now that we're committed to this, whatever this is, I suppose one of the things we should talk about, but if it's regime change, that this goes well.
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Chapter 6: What might be the consequences of a lack of planning for an end game in Iran?
But not only am I worried about the history of regime change, I mean, I supported, as you did, the Iraq war, you know, and as we saw that, you business. But I'm also concerned about the competence of this administration to pull off something of this size. And I think because of the people who are in it, the president is the president, but I wish he had a better team around him.
So yeah, I'm concerned. I hope the Iranian regime transforms into something else, but I'm very concerned about this team trying to do it.
Okay, let's break this into pieces. Here are the pieces that I think we should address. The first is your question, what is this? The second is competence of the team. And the third is intentions of the team, both for the region and here at home. So I'm going to try to get to all of those points. Let's talk about what this is.
I listened to the recent press conference by Pete Hegseth, who denounced other wars in very personal terms waged by Presidents Obama and Biden and President W. Bush, I presume. And he said, this is not going to be a war of regime change. There's no nation building. There's no democracy building. I thought, what kind of guy looks at the Iraq war, says, you know what we did wrong in Iraq?
We spent too much time planning for the end state. Everyone thought the problem was we did too little planning for the end state, but the Hegseth and company say, nope, too much.
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Chapter 7: How could the Trump administration exploit fears of terrorism for political gain?
The answer is launch a war, then see what happens with no particular idea about what's to come next.
You know, you and I were alive during that war and paying attention. And one of the things that I heard constantly, especially from the officers who were coming back to us, you know, from their assignments and coming back through the Naval War College, is that it was...
completely the other way around donald rumsfeld would pretty much throw the secretary of defense at the time would throw you out of his office if you started talking about phase four and what comes after and nation building and all that stuff he don't want to hear any of that stuff he was more like hegseth maybe than hegseth wants to admit he wanted to prove that a transformed small force could knock over the what was at the time the fourth largest army in the world
Right. That, you know, that we could go in and we did that in 91 and then we knocked over that army and then we came back in and that we could do it again with this kind of Jedi force. That's all Rumsfeld was interested in.
So the idea that somehow these previous wars, we spent all this time, you know, chin pulling about what comes next and the mistakes that happened were because we didn't do that.
Right. And now we're not now we're not doing the Trump people think they're doing the opposite. But they're doing, as you say, Rumsfeld on steroids. Rumsfeld without the good manners. Not Rumsfeld's manners were so good. All right, let's talk here about the team at home. I think you and I are worried about slightly different things. You're worried about the competence of the team.
I'm worried that war empowers presidents inevitably. And President Trump and his team have proven, his domestic team have proven they can't be trusted with those powers. And now they're going to have greater powers to, for example, crack down on media reporting. I mean, it's a war.
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Chapter 8: What are the potential risks of U.S. military actions in Iran for both Americans and Iranians?
You can't put troops at risk, obviously. So if Pete Hegseth texts you the war plans by mistake, as he did to our colleague Jeff Goldberg, now there's a real case for punishing the people who receive Pete Hegseth's mistaken texts.
Hold on. Let me just check signal, see if anything's coming in today. You know, I share both of those concerns. One of them is more proximate. Here in the first few days of the war, what I'm really concerned about, our military is operationally the most capable in the world. I mean, they're just the best. But they can only do the missions that they're assigned to do. They can't run the war.
That has to come from the White House and the Pentagon. And the fact that, I mean, I suppose I take some comfort in the fact that Pete Hegseth has been relegated to giving cheerleader speeches at 8 o'clock in the morning when he knows nobody's listening to a Pentagon briefing room that's full of political allies. I like you. The first thing I thought, I mean, look, why are we going into Iran?
I think it is the president's vainglory. He thinks he's on a roll that, you know, that this is easy to do, that you can knock off dictatorships like Venezuela and then have a parade. Right. that this solves a lot of his problems. It gets people not talking about the Epstein files.
I really believe that a huge chunk of Donald Trump's foreign policy is rooted in trying to get people to stop talking about the Epstein files. I think he is that narrow and crass. I think that he will. I had exactly the same thought you did, David, which is great. Now he's going to say I'm a war president. That means you can't criticize me. It means I can stomp on the press.
It means that I can declare a national emergency. Maybe as the British Parliament said in 1944, I think it was, this is not a propitious time for an election. There's all kinds of mischief that comes with a war. Because as you say, presidential war powers, especially once a conflict is underway, become almost unchallengeable.
Right. President Trump has invoked war powers to justify his stupid tariffs. And the Supreme Court said, emergency powers, I should say. And the Supreme Court correctly, in my opinion, said, there's no emergency. You don't have these powers. You can't oppose the tariffs. But this is a real shooting war. There's no question. This is a war. Powers come with that.
If anybody else were president right now, I think you and I would agree the president needs a broader range of powers to bring the war to a successful conclusion, achieve American aims, protect American lives, protect allied lives. But you know he's going to make, you know, you fear he will make wicked use of those powers.
What presidential powers does he not make wicked use of is really the way to put it. Why would anyone assume that this is the set of powers that he will use with prudence and responsibility, especially when you cannot trust the rationale behind this war? There was no gathering of allies. I mean, you know, Bush 43 took a lot of static for the way he went into Iraq compared to this.
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