Transcript of Trump’s New World Disorder with Adam Tooze and Ivan Krastev

Sag mal, Nikola, hast du auch immer dieses Gefühl, bei der Steuererklärung mit einem Bein schon im Knast zu stehen? Boah, nee, gar nicht. Wieso Steuer ist so die Steuer-App, mit der ich wirklich nichts falsch machen kann? Wow. Das heißt, damit ist alles sicher? Ja, genau. Wieso Steuer ist die Steuer-App, die dich versteht. Weil Steuer betrifft ja dein ganzes Leben. Arbeit, Kinder, Partner. Du kannst nichts falsch machen.

Stimmt. Nice. Fühlt sich gar nicht wie Steuern an.

Steuern erledigt? Safe. Mit Wieso Steuer? Jetzt kostenlos testen. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Weekly Show podcast. My name is John Stuart. I'm the host of the Weekly Show podcast, and we are here during exciting times. It is January 20th. I think this is coming out on the 21st, which is the day that Trump lands in Europe. Reverse Mayflower. He's getting on the, probably not boat, I would say, nuclear power submarine, and landing at Davos to tell them which parts of Europe he would like, the Whitman sampler of all that Europe has to offer and what he would be putting in his rucksack and taking back to the United States. We're actually talking to two really just fascinating, I think, experts on Europe and the political scene there. As it relates to America, we go through a myriad of ideas in terms of, is there an actual strategy behind the dismantling wrestling of the Atlantic alliances and maybe moving away from this whole, I don't know what you would call it, liberal democracy model, which has so, so been an albatross around America's neck for so long. So we're going to get to Adam Thues and Yvonne Krastev.

We're jumping right in today, guys. As I've always promised on this podcast, we are nothing, if not, reacting to the day's news, even though we only have it once a week. We are here in an astonishing moment in history. We have Yvonne Krastev, who is the chairman, Center for Liberal Strategies, located in Bulgaria. Also, by the way, founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, which may come in handy right around now when we're looking to foreignly relate to the EU. Also, our good friend Adam Thues, you obviously know his chart Substack. And by the way, gentlemen, welcome.

Thank you for having us.

I don't want to jump in with the excitement, but my God, Adam, you're in Davos and you just had a panel. Tell us a little bit as we get started on your panel that you held in Davos. And then we can talk about what the breakfast, what the continental breakfast is there, the types of pastries.

The dark secret of Davos is the catering sucks. So It is not the honey pot that you're promised.

It is brutal. That is stunning.

It is brutal. It is brutal. This is the sensational piece of information in this podcast.

That's going to get pick up, Adam. That's getting pick up.

You do not come here for the luxury entertaining.

I would have thought Hot and Cold Running Muesli. Am I wrong?

Well, that would be, yeah, and all day long. Yeah, the whole forum is overshadowed by Greenland. Well, just Trump in general. If it hadn't been Greenland, it would have been the Fed. If it hadn't been the Fed, it would have been Venezuela. But because the forum, though it is a global organization, has its heart beating in Europe, this really comes home here. And we're just waiting as a series of buildups for Trump's promised arrival tomorrow afternoon. God knows when. The whole place will be in chaos all day long. But we've had Besson, I had Lupnik, we've had Macron, the Chinese vice Premier, we've had von der Leyen.

Am I wrong to think Macron was sporting what appeared to be Tom Cruise aviators while giving a speech?

The gossip is that he was high as a kite, to be absolutely honest, and he came across that way. I mean, he was jolly. It was a disinhibited speech.

As he was speaking, I could actually hear faintly, Highway to the Dangerous House.

It was crazy. He made a reference to dick size as whether or not this was going to be like this was driving it.

A Danish MP told the American President in language he thought he might understand, Fuck off. He told him to fuck off.

It's wild. So then I had the pleasure, it turned out, of hosting Howard Lutnik, the commerce Secretary, and his embarrassed analogs, Rachel Reeves, who's the UK Treasury Secretary, and Minister Champagne of Canada. Mark Kanye was speaking and apparently gave like, he just fleamed the Americans while we were on the panel.

Stemwinder, baby.

And then we had CEO of Bank of America and CEO of Ernst & Young to give us the business perspective. I love doing this high wire chairing. It's Harry, I don't need to tell you. It has its own fascination, its own dynamic energy. And we were brief to wind things up a little bit. We were told not to play things down, so I didn't. And I just bluntly asked, essentially, because Bultzlotnik presents himself as the- You bluntly asked about Greenland.

You went straight Greenland.

Well, I mean, Bultzlotnik, he set himself up because he came into the Green room, boasting about all the money he was mobilizing. So I was quizz him a bit. And at some point, he literally said, You got to understand, when it comes down to it, I am, quote, the Hammer. It's like some ambulance chaser advertising on the New York subway.

He referred to himself- As the Hammer. As the Hammer.

Yeah. So, gift to moderator, Mr. Commerce Secretary, on the one hand, I hear all the Abil in energy, and then I hear this note of menace. How would you anticipate Europeans who are not fundamentally differently wired than you, reacting to this mixture. That didn't go very well. And he went off down his track, and then I brought him back, and he just point blank refuses to ask questions about Greenland and about the Fed. Can I bring you back to Greenland?

No. It's unnecessary. The Western hemisphere is vital for the United States of America. Our national security people are on it, and they care about it. I'm going to leave it to them to address with our allies, with our friends, and with everyone how they work it out. But the Western hemisphere matters to the United States of America. The United States of America, as I've just articulated, really, really matters to the world. When America shines, the world shines because they all need to make sure America is strong and powerful to take care of them, God forbid. And so I think America and the Western hemisphere are vital to America. And I'm going to leave that to my national security people to address.

Right. It was this brutal pulling down the roller blinds as I've seen on a panel like this. It's very unusual because it lays you open, right? It's not really the most sophisticated The way of just absorbing it would have been to roll with a hit and to give some spiel.

No, he shuts it down. It's incredible for someone to refer to themselves as the hammer and then be presented with nails and say, Oh, no, no, no.

Other people A few nails.

What I saw from Lutnik was, No, no, no, that's not my... I defer to my colleagues in the international departments. Now, Yvonne, I want to bring you in here. You've been observing this for years. You are the author of the book After Europe. I'm assuming you are working as we speak on After America, the sequel to After Europe. As you watched, I'm assuming you did some of Adam's panel in Davos and some of the other. How much of this did you anticipate as being the underlying cleavage point between America and the EU and the world order of the past 80 years? Is this a crystallizing of a moment you foresaw?

Yeah, listen, I do believe that it's a moment which it's not easy to forget. From this point of view, by the way, it's very interesting if you see West European and East European, how we're reacting to this. I do believe West European are shocked because they don't understand what Trump is doing. And East European, we are scared because we do.

Brilliant, sir.

Because we have I've seen this before. In a certain way, this is a revolutionary moment. He basically going, he's overtaken, to be honest. The problem with the revolutions is that you cannot run them. They're running you. At some point, you don't know what you are doing because the speed is overtaking you. You start to radicalizing. If you're going to ask him, probably three months ago, how important Greenland was, he's not going to tell you, but now he cannot stop. Here, in my view, is the interesting story because Europeans, and this is where I do believe Trump totally misread European Europe. He said that Europe is weak, and this is true, but Europe is so weak that we cannot cave up.

Now, why do you say that?

This is the paradox. Yeah, because listen, Europeans now, when it comes to Greenland, this is very much facing your own societies? Because, of course, he could have got, to be honest, he has been gone to Greenland. If he was quiet, if he takes time, if he was talking to the Danish.

I'm sorry, are we discussing Donald Trump still? Quiet and conciliatory.

Yeah, but exactly. But he cannot do this because in a certain way, this is a very interesting story. I always believe that if he was in a movie production, he was never going to produce films, just trailers.

That is absolutely true, Yvonne. He loves the announcement. He loves the pronounce. He does not like the maintenance and the follow-through. I think you're beginning to see that so much of... Well, let's even bring it to the central lever by which he is using coercion, and that's the tariff's.

Well, this is why I thought it was fair game. Ask that, nick. He's tariff man.

He's tariff man. He's the hammer. Adam, you were exactly right. But we negotiated with the EU. First of all, he threw out all the deals that had been done and renegotiated new tariff levels. Everybody agreed, everybody walks in. Now, not even six months later, he decides, Okay, I know we negotiated all these deals with Europe, and we have our tariffs in place. I am now going to throw those over. So at every turn, if you don't do what I want, I am going to re examine these negotiations. Adam, that has to be the most... Then what is the point of anything, of any treaty?

I mean, it's real abuse as language. The way they do it is to say, Look, you're getting all upset. We're just threatening here and brutalizing you, and you know what's going to happen. We're going to sit down afterwards and make up, and then it's all going to be okay. It's literally that language of serial abusive relationships. Like, I love you, actually, but I had a bad He might.

But he's been taught that there is nothing he can do that makes people walk away and not give him what he wants. Yeah.

And so they will keep coming back. And it's not clear it's really a ratchet, right? Because China has ended up in a really remarkably favorable tariff position. China, of course, pushed back and said, this far, no further. I'm agreeing. I would agree with you, Ivan, that this does seem like a moment where Europe might finally start moving down that route. They have this thing called the anti-coercient instrument, which was, of course, devised for China and Russia because the Europeans were worried about rare-earth type moves or gas cut offs from the Russians. But Ouzola von der Leyen, I think... No, it was Macron that said it today. If we use that instrument against America, the world is topsy-turvy.

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That's his problem with all of this. He doesn't like enlightenment Europe. He likes Hungary Europe. He likes the right-wing authoritarian European Europe. In some respects, isn't what he's doing further weakening what we consider to be enlightenment Europe and empowering, I won't even say Maloney, I think he's gone much further than that, but empowering Orban and the others. And isn't it maybe more likely that his theater further weakens people like Macron and Starmer and strengthens the illiberal leaders?

Listen, this is, I don't believe it's his major mistake, because of course, there is, particularly in the Eastern part of Europe, people who like his anti-immigration policy. As you know, Eastern Europe is not particularly the place where sexual minorities are dward, but Greenland is different. Listen, it's about land, it's about territory. Here's the problem. Most of these people on the far, on European far-right. They're nationalists, which means they know their history and they believe that the land is secure. He has a real estate view of land. They're not like this. One of the paradoxes that if it was about any type of a work or if it was about migration, he was going to have an ally. Now his ally is silent. He's allowing, by the way, I don't know how interested and to a certain extent how skillful the liberal leaders are going to be, but it is the moment to have a new consensus on Europe. Do you know what happened in the European Parliament when basically they decided not to ratify the trade deal that was reached six months ago? Then when the President of the Parliament said, We are standing behind Denmark and Greenland.

So the mainstream parties, the members of the European Parliament from the mainstream parties went up. Then suddenly, one by one, the nationalistic MP starting to stand up again also, including the urban people. Because this is the story which he got totally wrong. Because he's not a classical nationalist. He's not interested in history. To be honest, he's not interested in future, and this is why it's so difficult to have a contract with him. If somebody does not believe that future matters, you cannot have a contract with him because it's based on the fact that there is future. I'm not sure that Trump is interested in anything which is beyond his life time. This is why he created a difficult moment for his allies. Yes, for sure. East European countries are going to insist that we are not going to use the bazooka, that we are going to be more proportional. This is for sure. But you should have listened to the Polish Prime Minister. Tusk went very hard. Listen, for Poland, which is the most pro-American part, for him, basically, America was defense from Russia. The way he starts talking about this, it means also that he knows that his public, so the majority of the polls on these issues are going to side with Europe and not with Trump.

Let me ask you, let me push back a second on one thing, and that was, and then Adam, I'm going to ask you. Donald Trump, when you say he's only interested in his lifetime, I actually think it in some ways might be the opposite. I think he thinks only in terms of legacy. Look, he puts his name like an eight-year-old on everything that he owns, and he views through the prism of history this idea that I'll be the Louisiana Purchase guy. I'll be Seward's father. I'll get America Alaska. I'll get them Greenland. I almost think he's thinking it's not about that he doesn't think past his lifetime. It's that he doesn't think about what we're going to need to manage and hold on to this new world order that he's creating. But Adam, go ahead.

I like that version. I think there is a neo-nationalist group within the Trump administration that is closely affiliated with the AFD and Orbán and so on. But I would associate them more with the Millers and the Vances in the administration. I think there's a Rubio or Neo-Conwen, which is probably having a pretty hard time with all of this because they're a more conventional NATO-orientated Atlanticist side. And then I think the President is sui generis, and I totally agree with you, John. What really struck me is some line about how America is being trying to get this deal done for 150 years. President after President has wanted to buy this real estate, and I want it, and I want my name on it, and that is the key. And I think it's these differences within the Trump coalition. We're seeing it here at Davos. They did an event for the Churin Shroud under the headline, The World's First Self was Jesus. This is good. In America's Pavilion, which is celebrating 250 years of the United States, they got Gillian Tate, the anthropologist editor of the ex-editor of the FT to preside over an American-hosted event on the Churrin Shrout.

There's that element. And then there's Donald Trank really wanting to... Because I also feel Donald Trank loves it. He likes Scotland. He loves the glitz of Paris. He can tell- He likes Scotland because he has golf courses there.

But if Scotland didn't let him build, he would hate Scotland.

But he appreciates good guilt work, and he knows you can't get it in the US, and they have it in spades in Paris. And his mate, Macron, who's a bit of a player, actually digs him, which is why he's saying, Donald, what's wrong? What are you doing in Greenland? I don't understand. Oh, my Lord. But I think there is a faction in the Trump, which is really down the The East European, Hungarian side.

Adam, you're right, but it's different about him because normally, this is about legacy, probably. But he cannot trust that when he's going to die, they're going to make all this naming after him. This is the interesting story. This is a person who wants to give the speech on his funeral.

No question.

This is very important. He wants to do it for himself. This is why, in my view, his understanding of time is very interesting. I remember when he was talking about what they have discussed with the Chinese President, he said, She promised me that he's not going to attack Taiwan while I'm in power. I do believe this is important because on the other side, for how long you're going to live, how long you're going to be in power, this is changing dramatically. I do believe we're totally underestimating the importance, for example, of the famous Putin Xi talk about we're going to live 250 years. There is something happening with the idea of time, and this is why he's so on one level, exceptional, but on the other level, symptomatic for something that is beyond him. This is why trying to focus psychologically on Trump, in my view, we're making a mistake.

It was so interesting hearing the Chinese vice Premier today who gave the Chinese calm, and they have these extraordinarily technocratic senior politicians. I literally sat and took a note, Yvonne, which was they have this idea of the flow and the tide of history. The Chinese have this intact, coherent, modernist vision. If you do Trumpy things, the real problem with them is not that they're bad or wrong. It's just they're out of keeping with the time and history will punish you. This, obviously, is just completely disintegrated in the Trump camp.

Let's take a step back for a moment and look at this from that more historical perspective and maybe get a sense of what's going on here. My understanding of the formulation of this special relationship is based on a World War II era feeling that this is a battle between liberal democracies, foundational constitutional republics, and authoritarianism, whether that authoritarianism reared its face in communism or fascism. We were going to demonstrate that free peoples rule with a wiser, more stable, more prosperous hand. We did all kinds of alliances. But basically, we were going to prove that capitalism and democracy and the consent of the governed was far preferable, not just morally, but also in terms of tangible result than these other authoritarian regimes. That That original bargain, that original what drew us together, I think is over. And what appears to me to be is it is now an alliance, Trump being merely an implement of that between the battle between woke and not woke. And that's how they're drawing. So when everybody talks about what does Putin have on Trump? Putin doesn't have shit on Trump. They agree. And the acolytes, that's what everyone's trying to hide here, is that in truth, Trump actually and that side of America, agrees we want a less gay friendly, more religious, anti-elite rule by strongmen.

What do you guys think of that new... As that being the polarity of the world? Am I overstating it?

I'd like to know if you touching on something important, but slightly overstating it. I do believe that- Bring it. Yeah. Behind this, of course, is a major important fear, but it's very much rooted in demography. It's much more the fertility rate. Here, the gay man and the gay women are much more the symbol of why we do not have kids. This fear that to one level, your country is very powerful, but on the other side, that it's in total decline. This is very important not only for Trump, but for the right-wing imagination, because you start to live like the last man, why we're not reproducing what is happening. Is this not a suicidal societies? Is this a individualism and so on? I totally agree with you that they don't think in terms of democracy versus authoritarianism. Secondly, Trump himself, in a certain way, he talks that America is great, but I don't believe he does not trust American model, neither as an economic model, nor as a political model. He's all the time envying others. He's envying the Gauss. He's envying the Chinese.

But, Yvonne, he trusts it in the hands of, and this is what gets to what I'm talking about. He does trust the American model as long as it's in the hands of white, Christian.

That's true.

That's when he trusts it. The whole thing you're talking about in terms of demographics, they're only concerned about demographics in the sense that minorities... Look, Elon Musk just put out on his platform, he agreed with it, a statement about if Whites are ever the minority, they'll be slaughtered.

But this is the most important.

This is what they're talking about.

Totally agree. He's very important because for all this talk about Cold War, we believe that the most important thing that happened in 1989 was what happened in Berlin, the end of the fall of the wall. But in a certain way, if you see these people, they identify 1989, what happened in South Africa. Suddenly, you have a majority which is different than And by the way, it's much easier to become from communists, anticommunists, than from white to become black and the other way around. And this a story that there are too many people-I've seen movies about that.

I think that's true. Yeah.

And there are too many people not like us, and democracy is about numbers. And this comes the fear of democracy, because democracy at the end of the day is counting. And the fact that we are going to be outvoted, this created this anxiety about democracy. And this is not by accident that most of these people, they're not so much talking how you're going to govern the world, but how you try to run out of the world, how to escape. We should go to Mars. And by the way, why Greenland is so interesting? Greenland is important because you have everything there but no people. In a certain way, you have the resources. I don't believe that we should go on another planet. This is part, particularly when it comes from the Silicon Valley type of an imagination, because this world is becoming unlivable for us.

But if it's unlivable for the billionaires that control everything, what chance did the rest of us have? But Adam, speak to, get back to, is this what's happening? Is America now acting as though they are fearful of democracy, and that democracy actually is the wrong thing because we've populated the country with people that they don't believe are worthy of that.

I do think the race I don't want to play these off against each other, but I think the race as an organizing category is more powerful than woke in general.

Okay.

Because historically, I think the form of conservatism and rightism that has clustered around Trump comes out of the backlash against civil rights. I mean, if you think about the American Party as going through a series of convulsive major changes, one is the New deal and another one is the Civil Rights Revolution, and then the Civil War and Reconstruction before And the immigration changes at the same time, Civil Rights Act and then the Alien and Immigration. And immigration happens at the same time, '65, right? Yeah. So Trump has a solid track record as a standard racist, an anti-Black racist. In his party days, he was notably... He's not a standard conservative on sexuality, including on homosexuality, right? So I think the line, this idea of great displacement, the savagery of ice, the casual, anti-Black, anti-Chinese, just the comprehensive white power vision, that rings true to me as an organizing idea of a conservatism. Does it make you hostile to democracy? I'm not sure that follows. It makes you hostile to liberal versions of it or the version that American liberals have pushed. It makes you hostile to the inhibiting norms of the rule of law, all those things.

But of course, their idea is that once you get the cis-incendry down to the people who should be allowed to vote, then that group will solidly return their politics. So I don't think it's illiberal. It certainly wants to... I mean, one of the most shocking pieces of news in the last 24 hours is that the Americans have clearly been waging a campaign against French judges presiding over the case that was going to prosecute Marine Le Pen for various types of corruption, corrupt practices. Officials from the American Embassy visited French judges. So they have a thing for judges. They have a thing for the independence of the judiciary. This is a problem.

But understand this, they've been doing that around the world. Around the world, yeah. They did that with... They put 50% tariffs on Brazil to get Bolsonaro.

But this is to do with the independence of the law, right? It's not democracy, it's the independence of the law.

But there is some important paradox, and the paradox is the following quote. It's some of the countries that he likes a lot. Emirates, the Gulf countries. Listen, this is the country who is the highest number of immigrants in the world. It's not about migration. It's about migration with rights. If they're going to come simply as a laborer- Yeah, those are workers, laborers.

They don't have full rights.

Exactly. This is in my view the story, and I took a look. This is very famous. In 1953, during the anti-communist protest in East Berlin, Brecht has this famous poem when he said, If the government does not like the people, they should elect the new people. Now, suddenly, you have a government who believes that they should elect people because otherwise, the situation is getting out of control. So migrants are fine. By the way, this is also true for Europe. People normally are going to say, Victor Orbán is very much against foreigners. Do you know that in 2018, Hungary was the country that gave the most labor permits in the European Union? The problem is about you can share labor market, what you are not going to share is power. And this understanding of democracy where citizenship goes with ethnicity, with race, and things like this, this is changing.

It goes all the way back. I mean, if you look at the constitutions of Australia as it becomes an independent Commonwealth, which was a huge inspiration for racists in California and also conversations in South Africa, it literally says that we will decide who the people are with a view to excluding Asian migrants. So this Brechtian quip that the government should elect a new people is for those who have always been addicted to trying to defend white rule at the frontiers of power, this has always been a key legal It's been explicitly formulated constitutional principle.

Hey, I just... How did you sleep last night? Did you wake up at 2: 00, sweating, thinking a little bit about what if Greenland invades us? What did you ever think about that? Yeah. Well, I didn't sleep very well. But here's the other thing. If you want to sleep well, you got to sleep there on what they call an avocado green mattress. Avocado Green Mattress. Avocado Green Mattress. It sells mattresses. That one is in the name, but also pillows, solid wood furniture. It's all made with the materials that support your sleep. Restorative sleep, not the crappy sleep that you get with, I guess, what you call two melatonins and three gabapentin. That's not the right sleep. You get all of it without the harmful chemicals. They use certified organic, non-toxic materials. Offer sleep trials of up to a year to make sure you get the best mattress for you. I don't see anybody else doing that. Avocado. Dream of better. Now, they're having a great sale on mattresses. Go to avocadogreenmattress. Com/twb. Tws to get up to 15% off. That's avocadogreenmattress. Com/tws for up to 15% off of mattresses. Avocadogreenmattress. Com/tws. Now, I want to separate what we're doing in Greenland and what we're doing in Venezuela from this larger context about democracies, because to my mind, again, the exceptionalism that supposedly was America was that we were going to do away with that, that the rights of citizenship are unalienable, and that the people that are there, if they are citizens, that the whole point of it was that it wasn't going to be tied to a religion, a race, a practice, a political ideology, that it would be about the consent of the governed within a constitutionally mandated system.

That was supposed to be what was so novel and again, what transformed what was either feudal systems or warlord systems or authoritarian systems into this prosperous world order, which, by the way, and I want you guys to comment on this, how crazy is it that America is complaining about the 80 years since World War II of the world order that we created. This is what we... We were the driving factors of disarmament of these various places, of creating of these institutions. That was us.

John, the last serious effort to buy Greenland was made in the 1940s by the people who made that global order. So the glitch in this is that at the moment they were creating that order, Yes. They had their eye on Greenland because it is... And in World War II, it had proved important real estate. And its position within Denmark and the Danish sovereignty is really ambiguous. It's the product of settler colonialism, right? So this This is not- But we all are. Well, many of us, many of us, some more than others, right? But we have to be realistic about the logic of that earlier epoch of power that is celebrated now in retrospect.

So am I making a mistake, Adam, by thinking about this through an idealistic prism? Is that the mistake we make when we try and... Are the formulations of our criticism, should they not be moral and idealistic, but actually much more pragmatic?

But is it also not true that part of the strengths of Trump came from the fact that for many people around the world, this was disorder? Yes. For example, his major point was, I'm against liberal hypocrisy. We are talking about democracy, but in many places, it was not about democracy. From this point of view, the legitimacy of Trump, paradoxically, comes from the fact that he's the nightmare for the conspiracy theorist. Because before America goes to Venezuela, talk about democracy, people suspect it's about oil. Then he comes and said, No, it's only about oil.

It's about oil.

You cannot be conspiracy theorist anymore unless you believe that he goes there for democracy and just talks about oil.

Then the Exxon shows up and says, We can't invest there.

Exactly.

It's like, What?

But what he's not understanding is that... Hypocrisy, of course, was awful, and many of the people I hated it, but also hypocrisy is a constraint. Because I'm saying that I go for democracy, I should do certain things, and there are certain things that I will not do. From this point of view, this is, in my view, changing dramatically because what Trump does not understand, he, as every revolutionary leader, does not respect borders, talking to the French judges, for sure. Other American diplomats have been talking probably to French judges during the Cold War, too. But normally, you are telling to the people, Do it because we're going to invite you on our party. His major story is, I'm doing just for the Americans. I don't care about any of you. This is an interesting story. This is a major change. For the first time, you have a a major radical way to change the order. At the same time, he's not telling anybody else that they can benefit from this. A colleague of mine, an American colleague of mine, told me something that is right or wrong, but I believe that it resonated strongly with me.

He said, It's not by accident that the only business in which Trump really felt spectacularly was the casino business. Because in the casino business, in order to make money, you at least should try to create the illusions that others are winning. For him, allowing others to win is psychological unacceptable. What he didn't like about the liberal order was that if America is so powerful, why we're not getting the spoils? If we have taken the city, why basically we are not allowed to do in the city everything we want.

But, Yvonne, within that, though, in what world can we argue that the last 80 years, America hasn't taken the spoils? We may not have it distributed very well throughout our population where we have tremendous inequality and lots of poverty. But who's done better in these last 80 years than we have?

Listen, his answer is going to be in the last 30 years, the best did China. Then he said how it happened that after World War II, Japan and Germany did so well. Because this is his idea of a zero-sum game. For him, that you are governing not because you're doing well, but because your enemies are doing badly. This is interesting. He goes, and you You're totally right. America benefited a lot, but not everybody. He goes to these poor Americans and said, They're telling you that you're the hegemon? And this American said, Yes, you're right. We are not.

I think Japan is crucial in this story.

Japan is crucial because this is how he was socialized.

And this is exactly. If we think of him biographically, that's the key moment. And that is not a moment which has, say, China's globalization or Mexico and after, you'd say, American Capital benefited on a really gigantic scale from that.

But not the workers.

Japan is a more clear-cut case of a national industrial country that really did assert itself. Now, overall, it's probably welfare-enhancing because the stuff they made was high quality and cheap. Wall Street, in the end, does begin to make footholds in Tokyo. But I think that experience of the '70s and '80s is very formative, and I think it just reverbs round, and he slots new countries into that space one after the other. And that talk at the time was very commonplace, right? That zero-sum vision. And there's an element the Germans and the Japanese did pursue within the fixed-chain trade system of Bretton Woods. Strategies, which meant their currencies were undervalued. America, of course, in the early stages, in the '47s, '47, '48 Marshall Plan and so on, deliberately accepted that as the trade. They would be part of the American hegemonic block in the Cold War, and American consumers would benefit from the inflow of relatively affordable high-quality goods. And we'd be the reserve currency, though, for all of it. It didn't need to worry. It would It would out-competit, it would out-innovate, it would rise to the top. No stress. And through the early '70s, that bargain works pretty well on balance.

Not, of course, for everyone in American society because of racism and inequality. But nevertheless, standard of living go up. So you don't see that divide opening. And it's really from the mid '70s that it breaks down. And at that point, I think a national meccanthalism, Japan as the bad guy, merges with a social resentment, which is driven by the real stagnation, indeed, deterioration of the standard of living of the American working class. And you begin to get that hard hat coalition, these labor populist, nationalist, protectionist forces gaining quite a lot of strength. And by the '90s, Buchanan and people like this can really begin to make a powerful case along these lines.

But Buchanan was, as a national figure, vilified for the nakedness of what he was talking about in terms of the blame racism. We're so beyond Buchanan at this point. But I want to talk about, you say, well, there were flaws in terms of globalization and clearly maybe letting China into the WTO or allowing capital to travel so easily when labor couldn't. And not figuring out a way to make that a more, ameliorate the downside of that for the American worker, which I wholeheartedly agree with. But reforms to that system could have so strengthened it rather than destroying it because the system they appear to be going back to, and this is really what I think people need to understand, the system we're going back to in terms of exploiting resources rather than even sharing the benefits in a slightly less fair way, I don't think people understand how much it takes for an empire what you have to spend to exploit resources because those other countries want to be free, too. Venezuela wants to be free, too. All of them. The fact that we think, Oh, we're the biggest, so we'll go in and we'll exploit Greenland and we'll exploit Venezuela, and that people's resentment doesn't have a cost to goods and services, seems nuts.

You're touching because it's critically important, at least from my point of view. Paradoxically, Trump does not understand nationalism. So himself talks about this and that.

And yet uses it very well.

No, because he basically really cannot understand that the more you talk about Venezuelian oil, for the Venezuelians, this becomes the major issue. It became the magic things. The resource nationalism does not come from nowhere. From this point of view, he's basically fueling the forces that are going to create a problem for the world that he wants to create. Because all these people, even Denmark, this is absolutely amazing with Denmark. If you look at Denmark, Denmark should be one of the very few European countries that he likes. Paradoxically, there is a certain nostalgia in all this Trumpian movement, and this is very much based on social cohesion, migration, whiteness. Paradoxically, Denmark is one of the countries that he should love most. This was a country which basically was quite effective in protecting their borders. Secondly, this is a country with a lot of social cohesion. This is a country that was a very important American ally, so full loading is not there. Basically, the soldiers have been dying in Afghanistan, and they have been dying out of solidarity with the United States, not because there was a problem for Denmark itself.

Boy, were they? They stood next to America, no question.

But the problem is that in a certain way, when Trump talks about the world, he sees only America. This This is the problem with Europe. In a certain way, you go there and you basically see only the things that you know from the United States. Here are the Europeans and they're like the Democrats and they're like this and they're like that. Paradoxically, he does not have a much interest in other places, particularly when it comes to the allies. This is this strange a combination of one level person with a strong imperial imagination and on the other side, incredibly provincial. Even when he decides to remake the UN, what he's doing with the peace board, it's a golf club. You go with a billion- Billion dollar entrance fee. Yeah, but it is a golf club. So in a sense, institutionally, the golf club is the way he to physically see the well-being run.

Right. And that's how they do business.

And he doesn't understand the economics, right? Because if you were serious about Greenland's resources, anyone could have invested in Greenland. America has a great Treaty, 51, the Waltht Treaty renewed. Those resources are not somehow lying fallow, hidden behind a protective wall of Danish anti-American nationalism that prevents good American businesses from... No, it's a weird My personal favorite interpretation is it's the map of the game risk. Venezuela and Greenland are very large on that map.

Can I tell you what I think it is, Adam? And I think he said it. I think What he's saying is, No, we don't want to rent it. We want to own it. You know how it is. If you rent a place, you can't even put pictures up and put holes in the wall. But if you own it, you get to do whatever you want. And Yvonne, you touched on this earlier. You said that what Trump does is he finds a way that the world has always worked, and he is transparently explicit about it. But the thing that I think maybe we're missing a little bit is it's not the only way that the world has ever worked. It isn't only mob threats and trying to coerce people. I don't think we're fully appreciating how difficult it is to have something sustainable and prosperous through coercion only. And to Adam's point, we could have had all of it, and we did have more bases there. We let them go fallow. Adam, is Europe Are they believing yet that this is a real... Because I saw your panel and I saw the faces on the Europe.

It was disbelief. I think everybody keeps thinking, Oh, no, they're going to pull out of this spiral.

Or not. I mean, depending on what you saw earlier in the day, you saw the opposite logic. The common denominator is it's as though the Americans forced the Europeans to actually come up with a concerted investment strategy for Greenland, which they've never previously have. And the Europeans are actually going to make the movie and he's made the trailer. I mean, they're going to make the sequel to the film that he never made. And so they're going to end up doing some weird, actual European program. I mean, Greenland, it's 56,000 people. It's a territory the size of both Alaska and California put together. It currently runs entirely on Danish public money. So 25 % of its GDP, half its 50 to 60 % of its public budget is coming from Copenhagen and Danish taxpayers. So if that's what America wants to take over, this is a substantial. I mean, not huge by American standards, but nevertheless, this is a net negative in its current form. And what the Europeans are going to do is their usual European thing. They'll do a regional policy and they'll find a few billions to transform this. And Ivan, in Bulgaria, knows the story only too well of how mixed the results of those programs can be.

They can be very real, but it depends critically on the politics in the place where the money is applied.

I'm a chef type dude. A lot of times people watch me at home and they'll be like, Are you on the bear? I'll be like, Well, I could see how you I made that mistake. I like to throw down for a little bit of the mind you. But for me, the one problem I have is the olive oil. How much to use? Is it the proper olive oil? I used to have an olive oil fountain in the house, like a chocolate fountain, but it was sloppy, a lot of slippage. But Graza, extra virgin olive oil, always fresh. They pick, press, bottle all their olives in the same season. You know me, I used to A bottle them. It must have been 10, 20 years. Same olives. You pick between the two blends. You got sizz, you got drizzle. Available in glass bottles or cool squeeze bottles. For everyday cooking, that'd be your sizz, your roasting, your sauté. You drizzle, that's You dip of bread. You drizzle over ice cream. That's right. People do that. They also put salt on it. Look, I'm very sophisticated. The bottles and refill cans are 100% opaque to block UV rays that degrade the oil, and it keeps it fresh.

So head to graza. Co and use TWS to get 10% off and get to cook in your next chef quality meal. Trump views, though, the EU as having been created to hurt the United States. I mean, he already views it in a very aggressive... I don't think he views it as aligned with the United States in that way.

No, but also in a certain way, he view as hostile everything that he does not understand. No, but that's true. To be honest, I have a sympathy with him. Like dogs. European Union is not easy to understand. In a certain way, in the European Union, what is totally absent is the possibility to have a politics based on a personal relationship because having a personal relationship with who? As a result of it, for him, everything that's coming is just bureaucracy constraints, everything that he hates about America, he sees there. But But also what is interesting in the case of Greenland is that Denmark is basically what's telling him before, We're going to give you what he wants. His message is, No, I don't want you to give to me. I want to take it from you. This is the story way Europeans understand that it cannot work like this. Because paradoxically, he is the society response also. What he does not understand is the pride of others. Danish people are proud people. By the way, if he was playing a different way, there was a very good article in Foreign Affairs by a former American diplomat, how he can take Greenland, but he can do it in four or five years with investments and doing this and that, and basically talking to the Greenland population and Greenland elite.

But for him, it doesn't matter. For him, it should come fast. It should come for July fourth. It should be used for the midterm elections. In a certain way, this is the symbolism of this. This is where I'm afraid he's playing symbolic games. Europeans does not know how to play symbolic games because this is not where we are from. But he's totally underestimating the capacity of Europe not to cooperate.

Has he made Adam this politically impossible then for Europe to acquiesce to some deal going along with what Yvonne is saying, that... So let's say there is a deal to be made. Is it now too politically damaging to people who are already weak? I mean, the leaders of that Western European flow are much weaker than some of their right-leaning counterparts.

I mean, I'd love to think that. I just really need to check my biases on this. One shouldn't underestimate the capacity of the European to fail.

We have a talent for this, I should agree very much.

We have a real... It's spectacular.

So you think this actually is going to work, that Trump is going to get it?

I think Democrats. We know it. Think Schumann. Think democratic leadership, every bit as bad as that.

Oh, dear Lord.

Plus more division. It's not a done deal, but I love the basic logic. One of the things that's really shocked me is as a action-reaction logic is the promotion of Ursula von der Leyen. In the first term, even certainly right. They had no idea who she was. They just couldn't process the fact that Europe has this complex policy. This time around, Laptick on stage literally said, You know this way, the way this goes. We bully. You agree to be bullied. Then he literally said, Ursula von der Leyen and Donald Trump get together and do a deal. It was like, What has happened here? This is so strange. And the Biden people, of course, prepared this because they really deliberately promoted Brussels and the Commission and von der Leyen into the telephone number that you call in Europe. There's no question now. You call the ECB and you call Brussels. This is where you call. There's no ambiguity about it, really. The Germans and the French you need to talk to, too. But increasingly, the trend has gotten towards that centralization.

Then what is ultimately then, what is the point of any of this? And does Donald Trump believe, actually, we will have a better world for America without the EU and without NATO? Because if this goes through, I don't understand how the EU is still any way considered a credible organization protecting the sovereignty of its member states. If you do this, what is the point of being there?

But this is a very interesting question because I do believe that there are people around him who still They still believe that the very important is to try to get Russia to decouple from China to make a deal. Their thinking is, if there is not European Union and if there is no NATO, why Russia should not be America's best friend? All these people negotiate and they see this and that. Don't forget, most of these people, they don't come from diplomacy and they don't come from security. They come from trade. This is why for them it's very difficult to understand somebody like Putin who is totally immersed in history and pride and story and economic argument is not the most important. I don't believe this is the real issue. The people around him, I don't believe that... I don't know, is Trump himself in this? They believe that European Union is bad because It is big that if you have 27 small countries, you're going to do much easier with them, that for America it's going to be easier to do it. By the way, not understanding that if this is going to happen, America should try to manage a space which is going to be so both economically, security, and politically-tentious that it's really going to be an issue, particularly for this administration that does not want American money to be spent outside.

Europe is going to be a nightmare. I do believe that somebody should try to show President Trump films about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and so on. Disintegration is not a funny game. It's not a funny game. But of course, there is also this other wing of the Republican Party. I do believe this is why people like Macron and von der Leyen and of course, Merz, they understand that when it comes to Greenland, they are not facing America. They are not even facing the Republican Party. They're facing Trump and small group around him. They do believe that even in this administration, there are people for whom NATO is a value, and losing NATO is against American national interest. So this is why they are going to be, in my view, much more assertive than in other situations.

Ivan, if you're impressed by how Europe can capitulate to Trump, let me introduce you to the Republican Party. Because if you ever want to see somebody sublimate to their dear leader, and is Isn't it, though, in talking about that, Adam, I'm curious what you think about this. If the idea... Let's say there is an end game here that they view it as, if I can get Russia to decouple from China, that's better for than if the EU is strong and productive. I mean, if the United States has to defend Greenland alone, somehow that's better than defending it with 32 other countries. But okay, that's fine. How naive is it to think that Russia would ever decouple from China in an honest and real way and somehow align itself as a great friend of the United States. And why would we want that anyway?

No, I mean, I think there is a real... I mean, I love Ivan's mapping of this. It is fascinating. But I mean, don't we have to talk about the Norway letter? I mean, and the silence about the Norway letter? I mean, this This is like- When he says a Norway letter, he's referring to Trump wrote Norway and said, I don't even care about your Nobel Peace Prize, but since you didn't give it to me, I now don't have to be a man of peace. Actually, he goes further. He says, Now I don't have to care about universal peace. Now, I can care just about America. He actually... This goes to this weird relationship with nationally. He literally says, Now, I can be America first, right? Because previously, I was doing the peace thing and because you... I mean, It's so ludicrous. And the overwhelming, what we've seen here at Davos is that people just are tight-lipped, are shut down about the evident fact that this man to whom they swear a personal loyalty and fealty is truly, it's childlike and basically crazy. I agree with you, Van. There may be strategic groups that want to use this for the purpose of the grand rearrangement that you're talking about.

But I think we have to allow for the fact that there is just this impptiness and madness at the heart of the whole thing that is genuinely infantile.

It's literally Greenland is just another fucking ballroom. It's a toy. It's just another ballroom.

It's a big, big, big ballroom that you get to decorate.

But do you know what is interesting in all this? That part of the pressure coming from this politics is that you cannot distinguish between important and unimportant. No, you can't. It's all- This is very typical, by the way, for the monarchical politics, because important is what matters for the guy. From this point of view, being strategic, Particularly if you're working with the guy, is the biggest mistake that you can do. Be sure that you know what he cares about. When he said that basically he wants to buy a Greenland, I was trying to say this is also a risky strategy because probably the sovereign fund of Norway can come with a higher price. And don't forget.

We have a little debt. Hey, listen, there's no reason to get personal, Ivan. We have a little debt. I'm telling you, next month is going to be a big month and we are on our way back.

It could not have been clear about this. Best credit in the world. On the substance, though, of your question, your John, about Russia and China. I mean, this would be for Putin currently, the greatest disaster in recent history history as the collapse of the Soviet Union. He's spoken about this very eloquently. And I think actually Xi Jinping agrees. This is one thing that Putin and Xi Jinping agree on, is that the collapse of the Soviet Union between '89 and '91, I thought, this is the center of all of their thinking. And for the Chinese, of course, '89 means not just South Africa and the Berlin Wall, but Tiananmen Square. But would a disintegration of Europe lead Russia away from China? It would certainly make Russia less dependent on China, and it would open up an incredibly wide field of influence in Europe. But I don't think there's any reason to think it would squarely... Why would they? They've just won. Why would they give something up? And if energy is the hard core of the Russian regime, both oil, which is globally fungible, and gas, which has to be piped in the main for efficiency, China is the decisive variable in your demand equation.

India is not ever going to be a China. China is the be-all and end-all. They've been desperately trying to get a big pipeline deal with the Chinese done. They've somehow maybe got there. They are not going to back away from that. So I think the idea that you break Europe so as to win... I mean, it has an amazing logic, but I don't think it would work. My modest suggestion is, I think it probably might not work out like that.

And also Adam is making a point which is very important because between Putin and Xi, both of them are obsessed with a long history. You remember famous, she's saying, We see a change, which is, Are you really going to bet on Trump if you want to build a relationship with the United States? And this is the interesting story with the Russians. From our point of view, they're over-excited about Trump. But on the other side, the Russians are very much afraid that they can make a deal that is not going to survive for a long time. This is why on one level, he cannot make a deal, but on the other, others don't believe that they can make a deal with him because they still don't know what is a post-Trump America. We know that post-Trump America is not pre-Trump America. I don't believe that anybody has doubts on this, but how exactly it's going to look like, what a Joe strategic vision is going to have, what of political values is going to share. From this point of view, paradoxically, what we're seeing every day is an identity politics, but on a global level, everybody's asking themselves who we are.

This is for America, this is for Russia.

Look, We're living in a world where they're telling us we have to attack Greenland if we have to to protect it from it falling into the hands of the Russians. Okay, what about Ukraine? Yeah, no, we're going to give that.

Plus, why is it strategic territory? Because of climate change, which isn't happening. Because it's not.

I mean, the cognitive dissonance that it takes to be one of his ardent supporters, and then they all just look at you like, Hey, this is the guy who wrote The Art of the Deal. And you're like, No, he didn't. Some other fucking guy wrote it, and he put his name on it. Basically what he does with all of his projects. And all he's done, as far as I can see, has turned us into a less free, less democratic, more kleptocratic disunion on any of these things. I begin to wonder, and this is really, it gets down to the crucial question, is there a free world and who's going to lead it? Take your time. I mean, am I wrong there, Adam? Is Is that too cynical?

Hey, John, we're making this show. If you want to answer that question, try making this show in Mainland, China.

Okay. All right.

Try making a show like this in Russia. At the limit, clearly, there are huge differences in the world, and they're still extremely meaningful and absolutely worth fighting for. We still, at this very moment, are the beneficiaries, and the game is not done, and midterms are coming up, and these people are wrong about so many of their hypotheses.

But Adam, being able to make this show, but we're also okay with them taking over a sovereign country that doesn't want to be taken over? No, no.

You know what I'm saying. Is there a pure, clearly defined, do we still know what freedom is? All of that, I agree, is out the window. But really, it would be self-indulgent to deny the huge difference differences which are still very real. It's conceivable a time might come where those differences get erased, but we are not there. And there's everything to play for, and presumably all of us engage in this conversation think that's why we need to talk, we need to talk publicly, we need to raise voice.

That's exactly right.

We need to make We need to laugh. We need to make people think. We need to engage with these questions because this is so not done.

In my view, this is also where the part of the big problem with the current administration is, because we talk as if in the world there is a major of authoritarianism and so on. I don't see it like this. I don't believe that the real problem is that the border between democracy and authoritarianism is the least protected border in the world.

Hold on, Yvonne. You can't just drop that. You can't just drop that in the middle of a podcast and expect me not to stand up and applaud. Say that again.

No, I'm not going to say it again because probably this time it's not going to be so spectacular. The repetition is always a problem.

The border between... Is the least defended. The border between totalitarianism and democracy is the least defended border in the world.

I love that. Because one of the interesting story about the Cold War was that because of the nature of the Cold War, the America has to basically redefine itself as the free world, very hypocritically here and there. But without the Soviet Union, of course, American justice was not going to be as important for America because justice was important because it was forbidden in the Soviet Union. Secondly, because Basically, the Soviets believe that future belongs to them. America should become also very much future-oriented. I'm saying this because I also believe one of the reasons the Cold War never became hot was that both sides believe that future was on their side. This is why they believe that better to fight tomorrow when they are going to be stronger. What makes me really nervous about the world in which we are living is that you have basically people who fear the future. They fear for demographic reasons, for technological reasons. All the time somebody is going to replace us. When you fear the future, you believe that if they are going to be a fight, better fight today, because tomorrow we're going to be weaker. This explains this a strange combination of On one level, this a trailer is about American power, which was real.

Listen, what happened in Venezuela was the operation that took the Russians four years and they cannot finish it. Americans did it for four hours. But on the The other side, there is no future perspective. This is why people are becoming so anxious. This is why you cannot project your life. I don't believe this. Deficit of future is a huge problem for democracy because future, certain type of future is one of the invisible institutions for democracy. If you don't believe in future, democracy cannot function because democracy is also the art of postponing, of timing certain things in the future.

And of persuasion because persuasion is the coin of the realm when it comes to that. Adam Thues, you are in Davos. You are perhaps no one standing closer to the border between democracy and totalitarianism than you right now. Is the fear here while you're there, because all the leaders of that so-called democratic world are probably walking around right now in Davos, is there a will to defend that border as forcefully as perhaps it needs be defended?

We went back and forth on this a minute ago. It's worth saying there's one really depressing thing going on, which is that people are leaving before Trump gets here, which is another way of responding to this border, which is to say, No, I don't have to sit on the edge of this. I don't want to be part of the spectacle. I don't want to be dragged into this. I don't have to be here. And that is a withdrawal It's very ambiguous, because it doesn't necessarily dispose the Europeans are going to meet on Thursday. There's everything to play for. But one of the things that's happening is that stepping away. And people are making choices, literally today, because we know what security is going to happen, and it's going to be mad. And there's one faction which is leaving, and there's another faction who is basically getting locked into the conference center tomorrow and live with all of the insane American security. Because The other leaders come and go in Davos, and there's a bad bubble around them. Ivan will know this well, but they don't change the whole thing. The Americans tomorrow are going to put their footprint on the entire entire show.

You can either choose to not be there for it or... This is no heroics. It's just literally who's going to be part of the Trump sleepover and who not? And then some of us are going to stay for the authoritarian sleepover show that is going to come descend on this place tomorrow.

Adam, do you think the buffet is going to get better with the Americans in town, or do you think it's still going to be wanting?

No, the Chinese, I think, are doing the buffet tomorrow evening, and that is the buffet, I'm afraid. As you would imagine, that is the buffet that you want to be at.

Gentlemen, I can't think of a better note to end on than the fact that the Chinese right now in the world as it stands, provide the best buffet.

I think America is going to need- I only hope that Europeans are not going to do the dishes again.

That's the problem. Trump sees no peers at Davos. He sees only Putin and Xi as his peers. They are the only ones everyone else is working in the kitchen. Help. Gentlemen, thank you so much. What an interesting conversation. It's going to be really wild to see how this is going to turn the next week. Adam Thu is author of Chartbooks Upstack. Yvonne Crossev, Chairman, Center for Liberal Strategies. I really appreciate you guys joining us and giving us those insights. Thank you. Folks, you may have heard other times during this podcast, other certain brands and such. I talk about how much I like to cook, how much I love to create fabulous meals and entertain. I'm going to be honest with That's not always the truth. Truth is, I don't have time to cook. I used to do it, but it was like a short-order thing. If you wanted eggs over easy, I could do that. Other than that, pretty useless. That's why Factor is the deal. Factor makes life easy. Factor, they'll send you fully prepared meals designed by dietitians, crafted by chefs. You eat well without the shopping, without the cooking. It's perfect for me because I like to sit.

I'm a big sit man. If you're trying to eat healthier, more protein, spice up the boring food, Factor is designed to fit those goals. A hundred rotating weekly meals. I've spoken about this before. Generally, I only eat around 75 weekly rotating meals. They've got more than that, even. A hundred. Meals are always fresh, never frozen. You're ready to eat them in two minutes. Head to factormeals. Com/tws50off and use code CWS 5. 0 off to get 50% off your first factor box, plus free breakfast for a year. Offer only valid for new factor customers with code and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easy with factor. Man, those guys, it really was interesting. Yvonne was suggesting that, Oh, no, there may be a method to this madness. I think Adam, probably a long more like what I was thinking, he's like, strategically, we can pull Russia. I think Adam would be like, No, I think he just might be fucking that guy. I think he's just that guy. I think he just wants this shit and he wants to put his name on it.

It's never good when the method is white supremacy.

I like, though. He's like, There are some fears that people have about, obviously, birth rates and demographic.

What could have given you that impression?

Did either of you Did you watch the panel that Adam hosted at Davos?

Yes. Yeah, I wasn't able to watch the whole thing, but, man, he's got to have ice running through his veins.

He's just like with Lutnik, like, What are you doing? What's Greenland about? What's wrong with you people?

The silence after Lutnik's answer of just everybody up there. Adam's like, I think we need to talk about Greenland, Lutnik. No, we don't.

We don't have a- What do you mean Greenland? Why would you even bring that up?

How random.

Seems irrelevant. I love, though, that during the panel, you watch the various people on the panel, almost like they were watching a TV show, too, where it's the highs and lows and the suspense, and they're all locked in.

All that was missing was the popcorn, truly. Yes. It's so rare when you see a panel that's actually going to break news. You're like, Oh, shit.

Well, it's going to... I mean, when Trump shows up, and by the way, for those of you who haven't seen the Macron, it's bananas. He's got on aviators. He looks like a social chairman at a fraternity, and he's just up there like, All right, man, we're just going to... Here's the thing. We're going to take on fucking Theta Kai. They're going down. Fuck those guys.

Senior artist at its finest. Come on.

Kappa rules.

Kappa Forever, baby.

Yeah. I couldn't figure out what shit they give somebody to battle jet lag. Then I'm like, Oh, wait, he doesn't have jet lag. He came in from France.

An hour, yeah. Apparently, he's just high.

I mean, it's hard not to think something's going on behind... Most people don't wear the glasses inside unless you're fucking yay or something like that. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I mean, who could blame him for doing some drugs right now?

You're not kidding. Well, the real news is going to be, obviously, Wednesday when Trump shows up there and the circus is in town. Right now, everybody is still on the American side going, You know Trump. This is what he does. He goes out there with a big ask. You're like, Right, but his big ask is, or the thing that he's saying is, I'm going to take over an Allied country militarily. That's different than staking out a broadly winning position. That's the antithesis of everything.

You know him. He just loves to weave a yarn. He's going to start.

He's going to throw the invasion out there. But he'll set her for 10% raw earth materials.

Yeah. I saw Tillis, who'd actually been critical of him, was saying, I think earlier today, he was like, To be clear, I'm not criticizing the President. I'm criticizing the people that are giving him this advice on great life.

Fuck Tillis. Fuck all those guys. We don't even have a Congress. Congress is now a vestigal tail. It is a neutered cat sitting on a windowsill, watching the world go by. They are useless. I know that as soon as a Democrat gets in office again, they will rear their powerful heads again. But right now, they are embarrassing themselves on a world stage, truly.

Preach. Fuck them. Fuck.

Did you see the Danish MP? Danish MP goes, I will say this in a language Donald Trump understands. Fuck off. I was like, Dude, he nailed it. He pronounced that completely. Then he said it again in Danish. Now I know how to say fuck off in Danish.

Well, everyone loves to learn curse words in foreign languages. It's the first thing we all learn when we take Spanish. Who shows that to Trump? You might want to see this.

Doing that to the Daines. And by the way, the Danes, every time I used to host this thing called the Warrior Games. It's like Invictus, but obviously for more US. It was always the US, so like Marines. Navy, Air Force, Special Forces, Army. Then Canada had a contingent there. Australia had a contingent there. Then the only other contingent that was consistently there, Wounded Warriors, hurt in Iraq and Afghanistan, Denmark. It was the one country that was there every time I hosted, and I hosted it maybe seven times. Every single time. Danish men and women who had suffered grievous battlefield injuries, defending the interests of the United States of America. Now we're like, Yeah, fuck those guys. We're going to take Greenland.

Yeah, because they joined us when we invoked Article 5, and now we're going to go Article 5 against them. You love to see it.

Yeah. All right. What do we got, Bridget? Anybody want to know anything?

Yes. First up, John, be honest with us. We're fucked, right? There's really nothing we can do to stop the damage Trump is doing.

No, disagree. Disagree. Hard pass on that. No. What? No. I'm not saying he's not going to do grievous damage, but isn't that what you do after a devastating storm? You rebuild. You put in the work and you make some changes to the grid. You say, You know what? Maybe we shouldn't bury all the electrical wires underground near the saltwater. Now we're going to put them somewhere else where they can be protected. We'll make changes. We'll do things that will... Now, that is not to say that that's happening a week from now, and it could be catastrophically. But we forget through the arc of history where it's like, after the Civil War, they had what? Reconstruction. Now, didn't last as long as it could have because they decided to appease the South. Reconstruction went the way, and Jim Crow soon settled in. So even the rebuild doesn't necessarily always go the way you want it to go. But fuck, man, no. We can't. No. That attitude, no. Hard pass, no. 100% disagree like the guy says on the subway who I love. I love that guy. Kareem.

Yeah, I shot up to Kareem.

No, fuck that. Now, anything that he does can be redone and done better.

The lesson here is patience. This too shall pass.

No, not patience, but it's going to take... Yeah. The harder we work now, The faster this will be over. That's all. Now, I just got tired.

From your list to Causier's, man.

I hear you. It's a tough time. What else we got? What else we got?

John, do you think Sean Hannity and Jesse Waters defend Trump out of genuine belief, or is it more about personal financial gain?

I think sometimes one blends into the other. I think when you wear a mask long enough, you start to believe you're that character, and you do start seeing everything through that filter. It's one of the interesting things about actors that are method. You play a role long enough, and it's hard. Am I Fraser or am I Kelsey Cranber?

How Austin Butler just kept that accent for two years after Elvis.

Gillian, that's perfect. That's the perfect analogy. Hannah, he's a normal radio host. He's like, I'm on the right. Holmes is on the left. Now he's just like, Look at me, I'm 60, and I take martial arts and defend whatever Trump says. It all falls apart. What else? Last one.

John, I aspire to be a comedian, but I'm really anxious and overthink. How do I become confident?

That's never going to work for comedy.

Never the two shall meet.

We're unnerotic. Come into comedy and learn a healthier way of living. Wait, this person is, say it again, they're neurotic?

Anxious and overthink, and they want to know how they become confident. You don't.

You use, that's your superpower. You're anxious and you overthink. I can't think of a better starting block for becoming a comedian. That's like somebody saying, I'm 6'11 and have an unbelievable vertical leap. I'm thinking of becoming a basketball player, but what can I do to to change to enable that? You're anxious and you overthink. All you need to do is just start writing some of that shit down. Translate it. No, I look forward to watching your specials. That's what I say.

That's very sweet.

That's very sweet. How do these people get a hold of us on these socials? What do they do?

Twitter, we are a weekly show pod. Instagram threads TikTok Blue Sky. We are Weekly Show podcast. You can like, subscribe. Again, you can subscribe and comment on our YouTube channel, The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart. A special shout out to Instagram's newest user, the official Instagram of Jon Stewart at Jon Stewart.

Yeah, I joined Instagram. It's been lovely. I think third day in, I just took a picture of my dog's poop.

It was a bit of a jump scare, I'll be honest.

No, I just want to give people a sense of what's coming. I can't even tell you how much preferable it is to Twitter. Every time I went on Twitter, it's like you had walked into a room of sociopaths, and they were all waiting for you. Yes. This has been like, there's pictures, it's pleasant, you get funny reels. Yeah. So far, nobody's been vicious or any of those. Like, what? I was like, What is happening? You're having fun with it. This is actually pleasant. Good. I've enjoyed it so far.

Yeah, you're crushing it. I don't know if you saw, but all of your famous followers are falling in line. You've got Timberlake coming in. You have Mom Donnie followed you. Justin Timberlake? Justin Timberlake is looking at your dog shit right now.

You know what? No, you know what? I don't want to know because I don't want to get I'm just self-conscious. Now, before I post dog shit, I'll be like, But the mayor of New York- Believe me, the mayor of New York sees a lot of dog shit.

You know what?

But it might be a thing where I'm like, This is his day off. Do I need on his day off to show him what he's walking to work in every day? Fantastic. Well, as always, guys, thank you so much. Great job. Our team couldn't do it without him. Lead producer, Lauren Walker, producer, Brittany Mamedevik, producer, Gillian Speer, video editor and engineer, Rob Vittola, audio editor and engineer, Nicole Bois, executive producers, Chris McShane, Katie gray. We will see you guys next week from Greenland. Bye. The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Bustboy Productions.

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