Marco Rubio Hails the Accomplishments of Western Civilization

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0:32From the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. The global meltdown in the bond market continues with French riots. One of the fallout symptoms, but the United States is not immune from all of this turmoil. We'll dissect what's going on in global finance. plus U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio uses a diplomatic trip to Greece to give a speech defending the achievements of Western civilization and urging a revival of European and American confidence and unity. We'll tell you why this matters. Welcome, I'm Paul Gigo, and those are our topics today here on Potomac Watch, the daily podcast of Wall Street Journal Opinion.

1:18My guests today are my journal colleagues, Kate O'Dell and Joe Sternberg. Welcome to you both. So let's start with the riots in France in the last several days, which began with students protesting against the condition of school buildings, or at least that was the story. But they have really built into something much larger and persistent. So Joe, let's look behind the surface explanation or justification. And what do you think is going on here? Well, I think it is actually sort of related to that school issue in the sense that France is broke. So it's sad to report. The government is running a debt-to-GDP ratio of about 120%.

2:01Their deficit is now chronically over 5 % a year. So the government is spending large quantities of money that it doesn't have. Their borrowing costs are going up. This is creating a lot of pressure on the budget. Politicians are aware of this. and everyone else in society is becoming aware of it too. And so what you have seen over the past few years has been a series of various strikes and protest movements. The students now are the latest and I think the most violent of these are symptomatic of this fiscal strain. It's because this is the way that people are trying to compete to make sure that if money is not going to get spent, at least their causes are going to be protected in some way.

2:47This is what happens when the French government runs out of money. Runs out of other people's money. The thing is, though, it's interesting. Donald Trump weighed in, of course, he always does. And his diagnosis, Kate, was this is rampant and runaway immigration. And that's the cause of this. And of course, him and he has a kind of default view that immigration is the root of all evils, I guess, in the world. But what do you make of that in regard to France in particular? Well, look, I think you can acknowledge that mass migration has been a problem in Europe and that it has contributed to France's social unrest.

3:27However, in this case, Joe is right to point to the structural economic problem. I mean, French growth under 1%, France confiscating, 51 % of the economy in taxes, it now is in this position where it can't grow and it can't reform its entitlement system. So it has all but abandoned raising the retirement age in France for now. Macron tried to raise the retirement age to 64 and ran into massive political opposition and gave up on that. And now the upcoming candidates to replace him in France have really no plan for changing the retirement system. And so these structural economic factors are really what's driving this protest far more than whatever fair points we may have in the United States about Europe not managing its immigration system properly.

4:16Kate mentioned, Joe, the different right and left likely presidential candidates are Monsieur Mélenchon on the left. And he's backed the protests, I think, out of the political calculation that you made, which is we want to get ours if we're in straightened circumstances. The reaction of the right to Marine Le Pen, who right now, I guess, has to be the favorite for the French presidential election in 2027. I mean, she's made the finals two before, but this time she probably is the front runner. How has she reacted? I know she's trying to take advantage of the protests and their unrest, the disorder, by trying to run as a law and order voice.

4:58But what about the fiscal side of things. A bit disappointing and then very disappointing. So the bit disappointing, I mean, give her credit for at least understanding on some level that this fiscal situation is a problem because I think that she's come out with a campaign promise that they would bring government spending down to about 50 % of GDP. And think for a minute about that sentence. From 51 to 50? Yes, the reform is that you're going to spend only 50 % of the economy through the government in this massive entitlement state. So that already, I mean, in the French context, it would be a helpful reform.

5:36I don't want to gainsay that, but we also have to understand that we are talking about very low-hanging fruit that they are still struggling to pluck. But then, you know, in terms of other structural problems that have actually been driving the out-of-control spending. So you have the welfare state. Her only real solution to that is to restrict benefits to immigrants. And there's a good argument in general as a matter of principle that people are going to immigrate to a place they should at least plan to work instead of benefiting from the generous welfare state. That said, it's not clear that there is enough savings to be reaped from this one reform to right the ship.

6:16And then the elephant in the room here is the pension system, their equivalent of America's Social Security, which is currently consuming about one quarter of the government budget every year. About 14 percent of GDP is spent on these old age benefits. And not only did she oppose Emmanuel Macron's proposal to increase the retirement age to 64 from 62, she wants to cut it to 60, which would have the effect of making more people eligible for these retirement benefits for longer because life expectancy isn't going to be reducing. And that's a political gambit because she can read where the winds were blowing.

6:57She saw the protests that really ran on and off for four or five years against Emmanuel Macron's pension reform efforts. But again, if you can't solve a quarter of the budget by trying to rationalize that spending or reform the benefits, you're not going to be able to get a handle on this fiscal disaster. We are going to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about the similarities between France and the United States in terms of their ability to finance the welfare state when we come back. You're either all in on this model or maybe you're building with another. You're either speed or is it security?

7:35You're either custom or are you ready to use? or your AWS AI. With hundreds of models, ready-to-use agents, speed and security built in, you don't have to pick a side. You can have them all. How will AI revolutionize your business? AWS AI is how. This is Matthew Hennessey, the editor of Free Expression. I want to personally invite you to come check out what we're doing, signing up for the newsletter couldn't be easier. Just go to our homepage. Directly below the Wall Street Journal logo, you'll find the magic words, free expression wedged between opinion and arts. There's an option to sign up for the newsletter right at the top of our section.

8:23Just hit that button and you'll start getting the world's hardest working newsletter delivered directly to your inbox Monday through Friday. If you aren't a journal subscriber, the newsletter is free, but we are gonna need your email address. There's a lot of fun stuff in the newsletter that you can only read in the newsletter, and I don't want you to miss any of it. Sign up for free expression today. We'll see you in your inbox. Welcome back. I'm Paul Gigo here on Potomac Watch, and we're talking about France and the United States with Joe Sternberg and Kate O'Dell. Her position reminds me of the United States Republicans during the debate over their big, beautiful bill.

9:04They were trying to sell some kind of modest Medicaid reform. And what did they stress? Oh, we're going to deny benefits, Medicaid benefits to immigrants. And they did that because the polling was supportive and good. However, that's not where the money is. I mean, there's some, but the money is in the other elements of the program. And much larger reform is required, which leads me into the United States of France. And that is, what is the United States? Our 10-year bond this morning was 5.3 % higher than France's. It's been up, I think, 75 basis points in two and a half months. And our debt to GDP, 100%, lower than France's, but heading in the trajectory is the same.

9:55And the other thing that's the same, Kate, is the lack of interest by any major politician. certainly the two major parties, of actually doing anything about it. When do we hit French levels of crisis? Well, no, there isn't much interest in doing anything about it to the extent, you know, watching campaigns this fall, you don't see anybody seriously proposing to confront this crisis early. You see in places like New Hampshire, Chris Anunu getting beat up for even suggesting that we needed to reform Social Security before we get a more than 20 percent benefit cut before that crisis comes. So no, look, I don't see a lot of American politicians treating France as the cautionary tale that they should.

10:37And if there's one other kind of element of this cautionary tale that we haven't covered that I think would be a better use of the president's time than the immigration stuff, it's the way in which France is not going to be able to defend itself because of its welfare problem. France spends 2 % of its economy on defense. You know, compare that to Joe's talking about the pension system, 14 percent. They're supposed to go to 3.5 percent to try to rearm, deter Vladimir Putin, who started a war in the European backyard. And this is an existential threat to them getting there, this fiscal crisis that we have.

11:13And that is also coming to the United States as well. We already spend more on debt service than we do the U.S. military. And so that's just like one other feature of the way this crisis is coming. Well, and I would argue that some people on the American left actually want the welfare state to crowd outspending for defense. This is part of the goal. So they want a shrinking defense establishment. So they really mind an entitlement state that is unaffordable because they think that that will be the last thing that the voters will tolerate being cut or reform. Never talking about really cutting benefits here.

11:47We're talking about reform in the structural of the program. We are going to take another break and when we come back, We'll talk about Marco Rubio's big speech in Greece about, of all things, Western civilization and how to preserve it when we come back. Why can't we get AI to production? Our competitors are all ready. How do we keep data secure? When do we actually see ROI? All this talk about AI. But talk doesn't transform businesses. AWS AI cuts through the noise. making AI easier to securely deploy and scale. With ready-to-use agents and the broadest set of AI tools and services, you can build, buy, or partner your way.

12:28Stop overthinking. Start building. AWS AI is how. Don't forget, you can reach the latest episode of Potomac Watch anytime. Just ask your smart speaker, Play the Opinion Potomac Watch Podcast. That is, Play the Opinion Potomac Watch Podcast.

12:50From the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. Welcome back. I'm Paul Gigo on Potomac Watch here with Joe Sternberg and Kate O'Dell. But let's turn today for the rest of the show to Marco Rubio. He gave a speech in Greece with the backdrop of the Acropolis. Always pretty impressive for a politician to get that backdrop. But it's unusual for a secretary of state to depart from what is a diplomatic mission to Europe. He's meeting heads of state, including Mr. Mitsotakis, the prime minister of Greece, who, by my lights, is the best prime minister in Europe and has been so for about a decade.

13:32Reformed help bring Greece out of its mess. But Marco Rubio gave a speech on Western civilization, of all things. Remember that? Let's listen to a corner of that speech. The Thumos, as the ancient Greeks called it, the fire of passion, strength, courage, pride, is the heart of great civilization. And without it, without it, nations lose their will to fight, the will to strive, the will to survive. Today, too much of the West has forgotten this quality. Over time, we in the West came to feel ashamed of the very things that made us exceptional. We felt embarrassed that our achievements set us apart from the rest of the world.

14:18Our prosperity somehow became a source of guilt. We no longer believed we deserved and had earned our greatness. The word nationalism became a dirty word, and so we tore down our monuments. We condemned our own history. And in too many places, we taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit. Well, there you go. Thumos, not a word you hear every day in a politician's speech. But I commend this speech to our listeners because I think it is fascinating on many levels. And just the willingness, Joe, to actually defend something called the West, which we used to refer to all the time back in the Middle Ages of the 1980s.

15:05We don't think about that anymore. You don't hear that much at all from politicians, including, in fact, you hear from much of the left-wing intelligentsia that it's an archaic concept, and in fact, a racist one. And that's part of what Rubio is getting at, right? It's that lack of self-confidence in Western principles and history, and an almost embarrassment about it. There's lines in the speech where he talks about, we were embarrassed by our own prosperity as if we were guilty about it. What do you make of Rubio taking this line? Well, Paul, I think it's significant that he was delivering these remarks in Athens, not only because of the historical connection to the argument that he was making, but because I think that a primary audience for this is actually our European allies.

15:49People will remember that this has become a theme of this Trump administration, this notion that America's alliance with Europe has to be built on some kind of common values. I think that this is actually a much more helpful, better statement of what that would look like than some other iterations we've had from other administration officials over the past couple of years. because I think that it's rooted in actual values and not just in ethnic identities, you know, or that sort of sense of nationalism, but more rooted in an understanding of what Western civilization, tracing back to the Greeks and through the long sweep of European history and also Judeo-Christian values in history, what that civilization has accomplished and what about it is worth defending.

16:43And I think that it's important that Europeans hear that, because I think that Europe in particular has lost sight of a lot of those values, has often been an epicenter of this intellectual movement, especially on the left, to try to downplay or devalue those civilizational qualities that have really been a strength for Europe and the U.S., and create opportunities for other people who want to adopt some of those values as well. So I thought it was a terrific speech and the kind of message on values that people should be hearing from U.S. officials. Rather than chastise the Europeans, as some people have in this administration, he said, join us in this endeavor.

17:28We share common history. We share common values. We share, he said, common interests in resisting the threats that are rampant today. As he put it, national interests did not vanish in the face of international institutions. War did not disappear simply because we preferred peace. And now there is war again. There's new competition between great powers again. There's vulnerability, aggression, terrorism, a whole universe of new threats and attacks again, unquote. And Katie's basically saying he's trying to rally the troops, as it were, the intellectual troops, the philosophical troops, the leadership to say, you know, get out of bed, stop sleeping, understand what you face and confront and understand you need to retool yourself politically, intellectually, morally to fight it.

18:17Yeah, I mean, look, I think there is a really global pandemic of self-doubt in democracies, not just in the United States, but also in our European allies, like Joe was describing. And the speech was striking. It was a blunt net assessment. It was not rosy about the challenges that we face, no platitudes about how if we all hold hands, we'll win the future. Rubio said at one point, if we don't make this choice now, we may lose the opportunity to make this choice at all because of the threats that we face today. Now, I think of those threats in terms of China and Russia, and Rubio didn't get into the specifics, constrained probably by his work in the administration and what his boss wants to pursue there.

18:54But he did kind of anchor the Western project in being under a material threat. And I think this is a barrel-proof, potent political message, not just because it's more hopeful and optimistic than other speeches that we've heard from the administration, though it was both of those things, but because it tells Americans something that they fundamentally understand is true, which is that America and the Western project is exceptional, that we are not really reduced to just using our power in the world for might makes right, that there is a creed and an idea behind Western civilization. And I think that has tremendous appeal to the public.

19:29It reminded me a lot of many speeches that Ronald Reagan gave in the 1980s, one cemented in my mind where he says, the West has the morals and spiritual stand to tell the truth about the world and the problems that we face. And I thought this was a very galvanizing call to that, that has a lot of potency with the public. Yeah, he's essentially saying that the Western project, as you put it, is not simply about where you live. It's not about the blood and soil. It's not about your ethnic identity. It is about this common shared heritage and the principles and values that flowed from it. The adventuresome spirit, the democratic ideals.

20:12And he even put it at one point, you know, martial values, the willingness to fight for them when need be and sacrifice for them when need be. So it was sophisticated at many, many levels. And I guess the question, you know, a lot of people will, first of all, there was a kind of glib press. The press can't help itself sometimes. It was kind of a glib dismissal of the speech as Rubio tries to put a mega spin on Western civilization, which in fact is the wrong way to think about it. Go ahead, Kate. You want to say something? Yeah, it is absolutely the wrong way to think about it. If anything, it's really striking here that he is carving out like a distinct intellectual lane.

20:58It's distinct from the critique that America is just too desiccated, too decadent. It's really an exhausted project. All we can do is grab the steering wheel of state power at home and act brutally in the world. Which is a theme. A potent theme. On the right, on the political right. Yes, on the American right. It is. But it also, I mean, I was very struck by the fact that he dedicated an extended amount of time to rejecting another idea that sometimes swirls in the Trump administration orbit as well, which is just our enemies are fundamentally motivated by the same things we are. They all want prosperity and peace for their kids.

21:32And you've seen this in the way the administration has negotiated with Iran and in Ukraine at times. And he really rejected that as well. And so you do see him trying to fuse different features of the coalition. And I think it is striking that in the right where that's tearing itself up over all sorts of things, including the welfare state in Israel. You're not seeing the speech get panned. And that's because I do think it does fuse some important parts of the center-right coalition in ways that are additive, as opposed to shrinking the base of support for those ideas. Joe, this being a political act in the sense that he's a political figure as a secretary of state, there is an inevitable speculation of whether or not Marco Rubio and has been would decide to run for president in 2028.

22:20I don't think that this speech per se was an indication of his intentions at all. And I don't mean to say that. I will say this. That was a presidential level speech in the sense that it was about vision. It was about bigger things than merely tactical observations about the opponents. It sought to put the agenda of the United States right now and what he hopes will be the agenda of Europe if they join us in this larger context of a civilizational project, which is an attempt to motivate people to fight for something worth fighting for. Yes, and that's why the media seems to be having so much trouble digesting it.

23:03I mean, the reason it seems like a presidential speech, and quite accurately, I would entirely agree with you, Paul, that it did sound like a presidential caliber address is because the ideas in it were so big. And I think that the trouble that we have, and this is really at the core of one of the problems that Rubio was identifying here, is that we find ourselves in the situation in the West right now where key intellectual institutions in our societies, whether it's the academy, the universities, whether it's the media, seem to have allowed to atrophy their capacity to deal with big issues. So obviously, a lot of the media reporting is going to default to this very simplistic horse race style question of is he running or isn't he running?

23:49And if he is running, is he ahead of this person or that person? Because that's what they know how to do. Whereas engaging with the actual ideas here, trying to grapple with the philosophy behind it and understand what that would mean, you know, both for America and for Europe and for the nature of the relationship between America and Europe. I mean, that requires a certain amount of intellectual heavy lifting. And I think that part of the challenge underlying the Rubio speech is that if we're going to affect the kind of new thinking about Western civilization that he's calling for, we are going to have to get back in the habit of thinking.

24:26Wouldn't that be nice? Kate? Well, I mean, I think it's a fair point that this is maybe not a speech that you give if you're really looking forward to getting back to your fishing boat. in Florida. This is suggestive of a larger intellectual ambition to me. Who can say at this point about 2028? But I think one major takeaway that's much larger than Rubio's personal ambitions is one that I was trying to drive at earlier, which is just I think the intellectual competition to inherit the Republican Party is a very live contest. And the popularity and the reception of this speech, I read, really, really demonstrates that beyond what Rubio might do in the next 24 months.

25:02Well, and if he is running for president, praise the Lord that he's deciding to do it with a big speech about ideas instead of some kind of triangulation on thwarting welfare reform to appeal to this sliver of the electorate or that sliver of the electorate. Yeah, or saying, well, I don't really want to disagree with anybody on the right about anything because, you know, our enemies are all on the left. Well, not in today's environment, they're not. All right. Thank you, Kate. And thank you, Joe. And thank you all for listening. We are here every day on Potomac Watch. So we'll hope you will join us tomorrow.

25:40Thanks for listening. You're either all in on this model or maybe you're building with another. You're either speed or is it security? Or you're AWS AI. Don't pick a side. Pick them all. AWS AI is how.