143. Iraq, Trump, and America’s Slide to Authoritarianism (Congressman Seth Moulton)

30:13But the opportunity for Democrats is to say we do need to change. The status quo is not acceptable. We were too focused on the status quo in the past. We've got that message. We're hearing you. We're listening to voters. And we want to change, but it's going to be a change looking forward. We're going to tell you how we can tackle the challenges of AI and be there for you if AI takes your job. We're going to not just rebuild the Department of Education that Trump and Musk tore down brick for brick. We're going to rebuild it to meet the needs of the new economy. You know, when we need more vocational education, when people are worried about getting automated out of jobs, when people know that an education system just built on books is not sufficient for the Internet era.

31:01So there's a huge opportunity here for Democrats to really show how to lead. But you're right, Rory. It has to be leadership based on change. People are impatient. They're frustrated with the status quo. and they know that government as we know it hasn't been good enough. Okay, Rory, Seth, quick break and then back for more.

31:27You said something very interesting though when you talk about this. You said you've got this small group, you call yourself the reformers, but you're working very quietly in the background. Is that because the Democrats in a sense have lost their confidence about what they stand for? You're actually having to dig really deep to find out what you stand for and also how you tackle an opponent that, as you said earlier, any decent Democrat party should have been able to beat. So why do you have to do this in secret? Why is there not a big public debate going on about what the Democrats should be?

32:01Well, because it's not coming from party leadership. We're not just putting reformers in positions of party leadership power. And so therefore it has to be more behind the scenes. But I think many of us would like to see these ideas catch on. And, you know, we're talking about them in forums like these. You see some prominent senators. Chris Murphy comes to mind as someone who's putting ideas out there. I don't know that I agree with all his ideas, but at least he's having this conversation. But the honest truth is that there are a lot of Democrats in positions of power who are just happy with the status quo.

32:36And I think that's part of why they don't want to admit what you just said, which is that this should have been the easiest election of our lifetimes. And therefore, even though statistically we might have lost by a little, you know, there was a – you can cite the popular vote margin between Harris and Trump as being, you know, historically low or whatever. But the reality is we should have crushed him. We should have crushed Republicans across the board with this guy at the top of their ticket. And when you don't, when you don't win in what should be an easy election, then you've got to look yourselves in the mirror and ask some tough questions.

33:10And again, if we do that, if we are honest about our mistakes, then I think we have a tremendous opportunity going forward. You know, we should be the party that Americans trust on the economy, the most fundamental issue in any election, because Trump is in the process of wrecking our economy. We should be the party that Americans trust on national security. Even though they've really seen Democrats as weak on national security for a long time, we're the ones who believe in alliances, who believe in a globe where we're partners with democracies and enemies of autocracies around the world, the exactly opposite of what Trump is doing.

33:46So there's huge opportunity for Democrats right now. I mean, I'm actually very excited about our prospects going forward, but we've got to have an honest conversation about what happened first. Seth, one of the things that really is disturbing us, particularly in Europe and elsewhere, in fact, is the sense that President Trump is weakening and punishing his allies. So we've just seen 25 % tariffs announced against Japan and South Korea. The European economies, which are struggling, and it's absolutely right, they've not been contributing enough to defense. But as they are forced overnight to lift up to 5 % GDP spending on defense, that is their welfare budgets, their health budgets being driven to the edge.

34:29And at the same time, he seems to be considering lifting sanctions on Russia, etc. Right? So there's a very, very odd pattern happening. I mean, if you were thinking, who are you going to put tariffs on? For an American president to think, I'll put tariffs on Canada and I'll lift sanctions on Russia is a complete reversal of kind of 100 years or more of the way that America thinks about the world. So how do we repair this? Because so much trust is being lost. It's such a bewildering world for what were American allies unquestioning American allies since the Second World War? It's a tough position to be in, Rory, because it takes a lot of work and often a lot of time to repair trust.

35:08That's why when you break that trust in Marine Corps training, they don't give you several weeks to try to rebuild it. They just send you home. And I think that there are a lot of countries that are looking at their partnership with America and saying, just send it home. We're done. We can't trust them anymore. He told us the first time that Trump was an aberration, but here he is back again, and he's worse than before. So this is tough. This is a very difficult situation. What we're trying to do in Congress, and trying to do this in a bipartisan way, is meet with our allies overseas. We go on congressional delegations, especially from committees like I serve on, the China Committee and the Armed Services Committee, and meet with our allies and say, here, here are Democrats and Republicans sitting together, telling a different tune than you're hearing from the White House.

36:04The problem is we just don't bring as much credibility as we used to. And we certainly don't bring the credibility we would have if we were backed by the administration. But I had this conversation recently with Vietnam, one of our most important allies against China. It's an amazing story of how Vietnam, 40 years after the war, became such an important U.S. ally. But what are we doing to them today? We're cutting their funding for USAID, for health programs, and slapping tariffs on their exports. And sitting in Hanoi with Democrats and Republicans, watching the Republicans try to just tap dance around what they know is a terrible policy, but they're so scared of some word getting leaked back to Trump that they weren't loyal.

36:50They're very careful about what they say. But the point is, we're trying to show at a little bit lower level than, you know, at the presidential level that we still want to be with you. And we need to weather this storm with Trump and repair these relationships. But you're right. It's going to be hard. You said back in 2016, Seth, that you made the Trump-Hitler comparison, talking about his rise to power and Hitler's rise to power and certain parallels. And I think there's a lot in that. But as you just said there, this is far worse than term one. And you mentioned Chris Murphy there, and we talked about Chris Murphy a fair bit on the podcast.

37:28If you're talking to him, by the way, we'd love to talk to him as well. But whenever I see him, and he does some great stuff on corruption in particular, and another message I read that you sort of put out there the whole time is, we can't just hate Trump, okay, no matter how much material he gives. But I sometimes think you're coming over as very kind of measured. Sometimes with Chris Murphy, he kind of wants to take Trump and punch him and, you know, really kind of chop his head off kind of thing. I'm interested in the psychology of how you fight this sort of enemy, how you fight a campaign like this.

38:00If I was sitting in Vietnam with a bunch of Republicans who were kind of indicating to me they think Trump's a complete loser and awful and the policy is terrible, but they don't have the balls to say so because they're worried about word getting back. I'd be finding it quite hard to deal with these people. It's very hard because they're just cowards. That's what they are. They're really just cowards. Because what they say in private, what they say in the skiffs, you know, where we're supposed to talk about classified information, I guess, unless you're Pete Hegseth and then you, you know, text your wife about it.

38:36But when we have meetings in private, confidential spaces like that, the Republicans, I mean, they disparage Trump left and right. And they know so many of his policies are stupid. And yet they're so scared. They don't have that fundamental integrity to go out and say those truths in public. Where do you think we are on the authoritarian scale? Where are we? Let's say that, you know, over here is Scandinavian democracy and over here is authoritarianism? Where do you think we are on that path? Well, we're certainly sliding towards authoritarianism. You know, exactly where we are at the moment is hard to say.

39:19But what Trump and Musk have been doing is slowly, actually not so slowly, pretty aggressively chipping away at institutions. And a lot of this is quiet. It's behind the scenes. It's just, you know, ruining the integrity of the FBI because it's run by a bunch of jokers and they're firing all the good people. Some of my closest Marine veteran friends work at the FBI and they're just appalled by what's going on at the top of their organization. The same thing's happening at the Justice Department. Other entire institutions have been just completely basically put out of existence. Ted Cruz just cut a bunch of funding for weather forecasting at NOAA, the sort of big weather climate organization, just before all these poor kids died in Texas floods that were not adequately forecast.

40:10So the internal damage that's being done here is very serious. And you might not actually see the real signs of authoritarianism until there's some big story or for some big tragedy. But we're certainly moving in that direction. And there are so many people in Washington who see this happening and are just not willing to stand up and fight. So the other thing I don't understand is that a lot of the stuff that the president is doing, I didn't think the president had the constitutional power to do. So first time around, when he tried in his first term to put tariffs on against Canada, I remember a Gary Cohen saying, Mr.

40:50President, this is going to take 180 days, you need congressional approval to do this. We now sort of invented a universe where he just gets out of bed in the morning, send some message on truth social, and apparently the entire federal administration as opposed to get behind bombing Iran, putting up tariffs. I mean, where's the separation of powers? I mean, is there anything that he can't do? Does anybody have any power in the system left? Or is he a kind of absolute monarch? I don't get what's happening. The issue is that Congress has ceded all its power, because under Republican leadership, we can't do anything without the Speaker of the House essentially allowing it.

41:23So for example, we should just vote on whether the president should have these tariff powers. And if all these Republican cowards want to just give away those powers, then fine, vote that way. But the Speaker of the House won't even allow us to have that vote. Another example, I mean, these civil servants work in USAID. They get contracts. Congress approves money to these organizations. They're supposed to be protected as civil servants. And turns out he can just turn up on day one, he can fire them all. Again, you know, he appoints people like Elon Musk to positions, where they don't seem to go through a proper hearing before they get appointed.

41:57I mean, I remember I sat down, I'm talking to you in this house where you've been, and I remember talking to Rosa DeLauro here when she was running appropriations. And she was saying to me, no, no, no, there's a lot that he can't do because we have congressional power over this. We voted for this money. We've made these decisions. But that doesn't seem to be true anymore, right? This is how weak the Republicans are. I think Speaker Johnson will probably go down in history as the weakest Speaker of the House in American history, because he has just ceded all this power to the administration. You can make a similar case for the Supreme Court, which is now heavily conservative, just ceding so much power.

42:33These are the checks and balances in this tripartite government system that we have, that when one branch gets out of line, the other two keep it in line. But when the Supreme Court is basically just doing Donald Trump's bidding after Mitch McConnell and others used some questionably constitutional means to get certain justices elected. Brett Kavanaugh blatantly lied in this confirmation hearing and yet was still approved by the Senate. And then you have a Congress that just ceded all its power. So as much as we Democrats can stand up and scream and send letters, which used to be a way to keep the administration in check because they had to respond to these letters, I mean, just throw them in the trash now.

43:13So there's very little that we can do without some courageous leadership. And these Republicans are just so scared, so scared that one of the biggest champions of USAID in Congress was Marco Rubio, Senator Marco Rubio. And he got in these vicious fights that have been reported behind the scenes with Elon Musk because of Elon Musk's cuts. And yet, at the end of the day, he likes his job as Secretary of State too much. And so he's just going to do Donald Trump's bidding. That's this slide towards authoritarianism that's happening throughout the country. So you've got to win the midterms and you've got to win them well.

43:50We got to win the midterms and not win with a whimper. You know, there are some of these establishment Democrats who are saying, oh, just lay over and play dead, just purely run on reaction to Trump, anti-Trumpism. That's not leadership. That's not a plan to take the country forward. That's not a plan that says to Americans, we're not happy with the status quo either. So I am optimistic about our prospects in the midterms, but we've got to make some big changes to show that we can lead if we're going to win big. Can I take you back to Iraq and Afghanistan? First of all, on Iraq. So you were out there, I was sitting alongside Tony Blair, who was clearly one of the sort of key decision makers in the whole thing.

44:32And I just wondered what it was like for you to be engaged in something, whereas you said both the time you felt was a mistake and you felt that even more strongly subsequently. So that's my first question, how that feels to be serving in operations that you think the big picture is a mistake. And secondly, how you felt when you went out to Kabul at the time of the withdrawal and what you saw there and how that made you feel about American power as well? Well, first of all, to be fair, in the earliest days in Iraq, look, we all thought they legitimately had weapons of mass destruction. I mean, we were invading in chemical weapons suits.

45:14So we were really being lied to. And I didn't know enough to be an outspoken critic at the time. But as the war dragged on and I saw lots of mistakes being made, I'll tell you probably the hardest question I've ever gotten from anybody in my life was from young Marines in my platoon saying, sir, why are we here? Why am I risking my life for this? And as someone who had become quite critical of many aspects of the war, it's a really tough question to answer. But what I fell back on is that sense of service, that we may not be in a position to make United States policy, but someone else is going to have to go in our place if we're not here.

46:03And that's at its core where someone like Donald Trump is just so different than everyone who serves because he said the opposite. He said, I don't agree with Vietnam, so I'm happy to have someone else go in my place. some other American can take that seat on the airplane over to Vietnam. And, you know, I'd love to know if that American who took Donald Trump's place in Vietnam ever made it home. And then look, going to Kabul, I mean, we were trying to get answers from the administration that they wouldn't give us. And we tried for months, myself and other veterans. I asked tough questions of Secretary Austin, for example, in our committee hearings that he just wouldn't answer.

46:43And we were facing important policy decisions. There was a group of lawmakers who wanted to deliberately delay the withdrawal, force it on the administration. And we didn't have any idea what was going on on the ground. So myself and a Republican, probably the two people who had spent the most time on the ground in Afghanistan, not just with a military unit. So we kind of knew how to navigate the place. I'm not comparing myself to you, Rory. You blow us out of the water. But in the United States Congress, the bar is pretty low. And myself and Peter Meyer, we had that experience. We thought it was the right thing to do.

47:19We were incredibly careful to make sure we never disrupted operations or took a single spot of someone trying to get out of Kabul during the evacuation. But we got on the ground and we did realize things were not what we thought back in Washington. And, you know, we could go into the details, but besides directly saving dozens of lives ourselves on the ground there, we were able to affect policy coming from Congress and Washington in important ways that made a terrible situation just maybe marginally better. One of the things that I think makes this a little different is you're a bit younger than me.

47:58So that when I got to Iraq in 2003, I came having been working on Bosnia and Kosovo, very much part of that kind of world of the 90s, which was at a time pretty optimistic world. Richard Holbrook, U.S. power, getting involved, bringing peace, regretting the fact that we hadn't gotten involved in Rwanda, rules-based international order, international criminal court, and the whole shebang. And that world feels a very, very long way away now. I mean, the idea of America as a global policeman seems to have faded. The very idea of the rules-based international order is fading. How do we think now about order, America's role in the world going forward?

48:37What are the lessons you've learned from the last 20 years? Well, America goes through cycles of being heavily involved and being quite isolationist. And usually throughout history, when we're isolationists, like we were in the 1930s, it doesn't end well for us. So I think that there are thoughtful Americans, including, you know, several veterans in Congress who are really trying to help strike this balance and figure out what the lines should be for when we get involved, that we're not afraid to use American force, that we're not afraid to invest in foreign countries, that diplomatic programs and even military presence can have their role.

49:18But we don't want to start big ground wars in the Middle East again. You know, we don't want to go to war with China. We want to prevent war with China. We want to stop Putin, but we don't want to have to resort to American troops on the ground in Ukraine. Striking this balance is something that I think thoughtful leaders in America are really trying to do. It's when you get reckless leaders like Donald Trump who make decisions on a whim, who are attacking allies like Zelensky one day and then supporting him the next, or literally trumpeting Kremlin propaganda, something that must make Ronald Reagan roll over in his grave.

49:59The recklessness of Trump's foreign policy is the problem. You know, every once in a while, he can get it right. A broken clock is right twice a day. But the recklessness and the unpredictability is not helpful to anyone. That more steadfast leadership is what we need. And I hope you'll see that more with future leaders in America. I've been to the Pentagon a few times, and you get a real sense in there of America's power. You really sort of, you feel it. And of course, the closer and closer you get to the top brass and the Secretary of State's part of the building, you feel it ever more. You've already mentioned Pete Hegseth.

50:43Again, what does it say about America that he is there in that role? And what do the senior, you don't have to name names, I wouldn't expect you, but what do they think about this? And how do they cope with this guy being there? Hegseth has just no respect, I'm sorry to say. And it doesn't make me proud as an American to say that we have a Secretary of Defense, one of the most important positions, not just in the country, but in the world, who has zero respect. He lies every day. He's the most unqualified secretary in history. And all the top brass are afraid that he'll just go ahead and fire them if they disagree.

51:19So you can't even have any debate in the top ranks of the U.S. military. So there's total dysfunction at the Pentagon right now. And that chaos is not good for anybody. Pete Hexeth, of course, is not respected by the troops either because he breaks all sorts of rules, laws that would get a private thrown in prison, like sharing classified information. And yet he thinks that he's completely above the law and can walk off scot-free. So what Pete Hegseth shows is what Donald Trump is all about. And it's dangerous for the country and the world. And what do Marines think of the vice president? Well, I mean, look, I can't speak for every Marine.

52:03Look, every bit of service is important. Everyone has a role to play. And when I was on the ground in Kabul, I saw absolute heroism from Marines who were wading out into the sea of thousands of people to find our allies and bring them to safety, knowing full well that they could get blown up at any minute. And when several Marines did get blown up, they went back out there a few hours later. But right on those front lines or just behind, like right inside the gate, were State Department workers who were heroes as well. They were the ones who had to do the immediate vetting when these Marines brought these Afghans in to check that they were the ones that we were trying to rescue because they had worked alongside us for years in that country.

52:46And so there are a lot of important heroic ways to serve. But the vice president shouldn't exaggerate his service. He should especially praise those who did more heroic things than him, because that's the modest, respectful way to treat your record as a veteran. I'm going to finish with a final question Seth which is to invite you to be a little bit more reflective I mean you talk understandably and you know obviously when I was a serving politician I too would have put huge emphasis on the positive and the public service but my experience at least was that the job can be quite tough can be quite tough with families can be quite tough in the age of social media and I wonder whether you could give us a little insight into what modern democratic politics can feel like at its worst as well as at its best.

53:35You know, look, at its worst, you feel like the values that you were taught growing up in an institution like the Marine Corps, the values that have been central to our country, a country that believes in truth and democracy and the power of the people, sometimes it can feel like those values just don't matter anymore. Because a guy who made his business his bankrupting casinos and lying his way through life that none of his friends from New York trust, that he's now at the top of your game, the top of American political leadership. And that can be pretty disillusioning. And all the while, you know, you're stuck in Washington in a powerless Congress that's voting on meaningless things because no one's actually willing to do our job and uphold our constitutional responsibilities to take on the president and stop these horrific things from happening.

54:35You're just stuck there. And my four-year-old and six-year-old are running around at home asking, where's daddy? Why isn't he home yet? Why isn't he home? It's the day before the 4th of July. and I'm down in Washington to vote against the largest transfer in history of wealth from poor Americans to wealthy Americans. You know, I ran into a guy two days ago who said, this big, beautiful bill is great for me. I got two private planes. I get to depreciate them. But I didn't ask for that. You know, how about helping out my son, who's a veteran, trying to buy his first house? So it can be very disillusioning.

55:15It's hard on families. And I'll say one other thing, Rory. When people say, oh, gosh, how do you survive in Washington today? It's so awful. You know, is it as bad as a rock? It's not as bad as a rock. Let's put this in perspective. You know, no one's shooting at me. All right. So I think it's important to have that perspective. But it takes a toll on you personally. It takes a toll on your family. That's the part that bothers me most. and yet in the midst of this you still can do good and one of my best days I think in Congress was speaking to a school group out on the Capitol steps and they asked what are you doing what are you doing that makes a difference in my life and I talked about passing the bill to establish 988 the national mental health hotline that I worked on with a fellow veteran, an Air Force vet from Utah, a Republican.

56:15He and I co-authored this bill and actually got it signed into law under Trump, which was a hard thing to do because Trump is not one to support mental health. And I shared some statistics about how many lives this has saved, but I don't think these middle schoolers were very impressed by my statistics. But a lady came up to me, a woman who said, I'm very sorry to interrupt her, but I just want you to know that your bill saved my daughter's life. And then she introduced me to her 13-year-old daughter. And that's why we need good people to keep doing this work. So my final question related to that, do you think you'll have another go at being the presidential candidate?

56:59Not anytime soon. I think that there's a time and a place for everything. And most importantly, a time for each one of us to serve. And a lot of people encouraged me to run, including some very, very successful American politicians and said, we need someone who can take on on Trump. And sure enough, I mean, we we found a candidate in Biden, but it was a close race. I guess I'm glad I gave it a shot. But you know what I'm thinking about right now, sitting here today? it's when my two daughters are going to come home from camp and uh and i do want to spend more time with them right now that is the top priority in my life today um so we'll see but the the future lies ahead okay well good luck with it and thank you for all your time thank you very much thank you thank you it's an honor to be on here thank you so much for having me so anister what did you think of my friend seth well he wants critical feedback he said himself he wants critical feedback i saw he was he was um impressive good at projecting himself i think he needs to learn to smile a bit more and loosen up a bit more i think he's got depth and he's got courage he's got guts and that's important and i think his advice for the democrats was pretty was pretty spot on.

58:24So I'm not sure I'd see him as a presidential contender, but that's, you know, that's the first time I've ever met him. But I thought his analysis of the Democrats was good and strong. I thought his account of his own journey through the military and in particular mental health, I was very touched by. And, you know, he absolutely despises Donald drums and what's not all the like. He's walking that very difficult tightrope that you have to walk as a politician who's right in the active bit of your life. And we find that, I think, when we interview senior politicians all over the world, that we want them to offer enough of a glimpse into their soul, but equally they don't want to give hostages for fortune.

59:11And it's a very difficult balance. That's often why I feel that it's easier interviewing people who are ex-politicians rather than serving politicians. I obviously would have liked him to lean more into some of the frustrations and fury that I guess he probably does feel with the party. I mean, part of the backstory to this, of course, as listeners will pick up, is that I guess he disagrees very profoundly with the kind of AOC, Bernie Sanders fringe of the party, and he feels that it should be taken back much more to the center when he's talking about things like immigration costs a living. And he will be a figure that will be controversial.

59:48He was very warm about Zoran Mamdani though. But we often talk about loyalty in politics. And I think he also was completely right about Biden. But you can imagine, if you think back to your time in the Labour Party, I mean the Conservative Party, what it's like to have a congressman come out and say the leader needs to basically go because they're not going to win the election. That's a big deal. That's a big deal. The sense that he can be right, but that his colleagues will feel a bit thrown off balance. by that it was interesting you mentioned when he was talking about his group of reformers he mentioned chris murphy chris murphy's name comes up a lot when we're talking to democrats and i do like the stuff that he does on social media that's all i've really seen of him yeah well we should do that but particularly since people remember that we've done two connect congress people already rose laura and jim hines so chris murphy would get our trifecta so we should yeah and the other thing I thought was interesting it must be bloody hard being there right now I was fascinated by what he was saying about being with republicans when they you know they're talking what they consider to be a safe space and they're basically saying Trump is this that and the other and you know there was a sort of visceral anger in the way that he said they were cowards I suspect that the sort of person that he least respects in the world is somebody who shows moral cowardice because of course if you've done the sort of things and been involved in the sort of operations that he has been in the Marines.

1:01:09He's seen an awful lot of courage. And to see moral cowardice in order to support somebody that he would see as the absolute antithesis of the values that you need to serve in the military, I thought that was very powerful. Well, there's another very uncomfortable thing there, which is he's not making too explicit, which is that a lot of the people that he spends time with and goes on trips with are on the Armed Services Committee, and they're often Republican veterans. So there's a double disconnect. There's his sense that these are people who've served and who he's expecting to live up to these values.

1:01:42But I sat down with an American congressman who you met as well a year and a half ago, who had been in Iraq and in Afghanistan in the military, and who said to me, basically, I agree with you about Donald Trump, but I can't say that because my voters don't agree. So I think what you're seeing with Seth, And he probably is too polite to say this, but he probably thought this about Mike Waltz, who was the National Security Advisor, too, who, again, had done good stuff in the military. What on earth has happened to these people? I slightly felt this, I'm afraid, without going over sore territory on veterans who got heavily behind Boris Johnson, despite some pretty outrageous behavior.

1:02:24Yeah. Anyway, I'm glad we didn't get too drawn into revisiting all the debates on Iraq, but I could see where he was coming from on that one. there we go thank you for that Rory thank you thank you Alistair see you soon