Why Trump's Appalling 9/11 Lie Is Just The Start | The Daily Beast Podcast

Anybody who would try to steal valor from first. responders who responded on 9/11, many of whom were killed. He wasn't anywhere near this. His first response to the falling of the towers in 9/11. was to say, well, now my building is now the tallest building in the area. And then he has been making up stories like this for the past. 25 years, trying to say 9/11 was about me. If Donald Trump didn't have stolen valor, he would have no valor at all.

And you know, Trump talks about being carried out of the rubble of 9/11. Well, we're all living in the rubble of Trump's psyche. and we can't get out. Welcome to the Daily Beast podcast. I’m Hugh Dougherty, I’m Executive Editor of The Daily Beast. I'm in for Joanna Coles. She is stuck in the United Kingdom in a crazy series of events. that we are going to talk about with our brilliant guest, David Rothkopf. This morning we have got lots more to talk about than that, don’t we David?

Yeah, but we could talk about that. It's a likely story. She's off on some high jinks and she's, you know, taken down the British. air traffic control system as a cover for whatever, her secret mission. We will find out the secrets of Joanna's secret and obviously glamorous, because everything in Joanna's world is glamorous. Mission. Exactly. Including us. Including those including us. We put on jackets for the podcast. David, we are the height of glamor.

We haven't done. You know what we should have done. Get ready with me videos like Joanna does. Yeah, I'd love to see you do that. But. But I've chosen I've chosen this white shirt. because all I have are white shirts, and I blew it. It's blue. Blue is it? I can't. Yeah. No, no, no white after Labor Day it's well known. Well you're alive. White shirts. But I'm bleary eyed because the US open tennis. match went till 330 in the morning last night, and I was watching it.

on television, so I don't know which end is that. I have to say, David, I was actually there and we come. on, we strategically had to make a decision to leave. Unfortunately, before the 3:30 a.m. finish. It was epic. It was amazing. We're going to get into that before we get into all those topics and. and others that are way more important. And please hit the subscribe button, join the Daily Beast community. It's because of your support and your subscription that we are able to bring.

fantastic independent media conversations with stars like David Rothkopf. So before we even get into that, David, it's slightly confusing. It's Wednesday, you're usually here on a Monday. Usually it's Joanna. It's all the world is turned upside down. Well, if we're not if we're not adaptable, we're we're not going to make it. through the next two months. Right. What's going to happen in the next two months as we get closer. to this election and everybody goes crazier and crazier, is going to require.

that all of us, including our audience, remains flexible. And so but by the way, you know, a lot of the people watch the podcast, not on the day that it's posted. So there may be there may be some Wednesday habituated. who are just like, oh yeah, that's where they are. Joanna looks like crap today. But otherwise everybody is always delighted to see see you David. Your expertise. I was going to say needs no introduction, but, we should say you are a distinguished columnist.

You are a former member of the Clinton administration, and you have been editor of Foreign Policy magazine, and I haven't even finished the first page of your distinguished resume. Yeah, we'll keep going. But we should start this morning talking about, you know, probably the people have always talked. about Trump's always hitting the third rails of American politics, but you do not really get more transgressive.

than getting into 911 and making it all about you. And that's what we've seen Donald Trump doing. I just want to play this sensational, jaw dropping, unbelievable clip. And just to set the context, Donald Trump was speaking on on Tuesday. at the white House in front of the relatives of people. who died on September the 11th, and firefighters who were there. digging through the dirt and people whose relatives are suffering from illness.

And yet this is what he had to see. If we get two firemen, we thought it was coming down on top of us and two firemen, big, strong guys. And I'm not the smallest guy in the world. They grabbed me under the arm and they got to get out of here, and they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do. I'm big. They lifted me up. and they started running with me and said, fellas, I can run myself. But they were amazing. But they thought it was coming down.

It didn't come down US steel. So there's some truth hidden in there. Yes, yes there is. No there's not, there's actually no there's no truth hidden in there. Be starting with. his statement that he's not the smallest guy in the world. He is the smallest guy in the world. I think, you know, anybody who had tried to steal valor. from first responders who responded on nine over 11, many of whom were killed, 3000 other people were killed.

Great national tragedy. We know where Donald Trump was. He wasn't anywhere near this. His first response to the falling of the towers in nine over. 11 was to say, well, now my building at 40 Wall Street is now the tall. or whatever the building was, is is now the tallest building in the area. That was his first response. And then he has been making up stories like this for the past 25 years. Trying to say 911 was about me.

I saw protesters on the far bank of the Hudson River celebrating, you know, the fall of the towers, all those awful Muslims. He made that up. He made up that he was there. He's made up all this stuff. And, you know, you think about it and you realize this follows a pattern. If, if, if Donald Trump didn't have stolen. valor, he would have no valor at all. This is a draft dodger who tries to sell himself as a warrior, and it is a man without a hint.

of humane, decent, courageous qualities who tries to put himself. in the middle of all of these things and suggests that he was the hero. And it's it's disgusting. And I'm surprised the people who were there who lost people didn't walk out. And of course, I'm not surprised. But I am disgusted that not one of the so-called hyper, you know, patriotic Republicans.

who wrapped themselves in the flag every day did not attack Trump. for this lie in the way they would have had any Democrat said anything like this. If a genie gave me. three wishes, I would use all my wishes to wish for my cats to live forever. But since genies don't exist as far as I know, I feed my cats Smalls. Smalls is fresh, human grade cat food.

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plus free shipping and free treats for life when you go to Smalls. One last time, that. 60% off your first order, plus free. shipping and free treats for life when you head to Smalls. Beast. Well, you and I were both. I think just about the whole of the United States was glued to the tennis. last night. Ted Cruz was on CNN and he was giving Trump a passing.

oh 911 was 25 years ago. And yes, it's 25 years ago. It's pretty hard to forget where you were and what you were doing on nine over 11. Well, that's right. But, you know, I mean, the story is actually bigger than that in some ways. This is the big story of this week, right? Because the 25th anniversary of nine over 11, which is certainly a watershed moment in American history,

is at the end of the week on Friday, and there is going to be a ceremony in New York. And, you know, it's going to be there. every living president except Donald Trump, because Donald Trump. wanted to give a speech and make it all about himself. And they wouldn't let him. So he said, well, I'm not going then. I'm not going to go and honor the dead, honor. the people who sacrificed their lives, honor. the firemen and the policemen who ran into a building that was burning.

and certain to collapse and try to rescue people, honor. all the people who subsequently died in the US. Conflicts that followed that as an effort to hold al-Qaida accountable. Who's not going to be there? The president. But what is the president doing? The president is holding a festival. in Dallas, Texas, to celebrate himself.

David, why are you not there? Well, because the The Daily Beast. private plane that I require to fly to these kind of events was unavailable. I think Joanna must be using it. We might have to do an airlift to get Joanna back, to get it, to get her back from the UK. But I'm ready to go at a moment's notice. Nothing I like better being with a bunch of slavering sycophants. who are, you know, you know, in, you know, sitting there standing up one.

after another, you saluting the worst president in American history. for all of his great traits. And by the way, some of them will actually be breaking the law as they do it. For example, Todd Blanche is going to stand up and give a speech there. about how great the president is, and that's against the law. It's against the law for cabinet members. to campaign like that for the president. But he's going to do it anyway, which says everything you need to know about.

Todd Blanche and the law and having Donald Trump and you know, nobody's, you know, the coming you guys have written about this. You know, the Republican Party has. lots of people who you might think want to go to an event like that. And they're like, I think I'm lost in my hair. And so now Trump has put out some social media posts saying, well, you know, the only people we want, they're the ones for whom the races are close. The reality is something different.

Trump controls. hundreds of millions of dollars of campaign funds for the Republicans, and he is only giving it out to those who make the loyalty oath. But I'll tell you one other thing that I heard from a Republican. just the other day. There's a lot of concern that because the way. some of these funds work, you know, the. they're controlled by the president and he can hold on to them after the fact. He may not distribute the money.

He may not actually use the hundreds of millions they've got to help win. He'll use some few millions of it, but he'll keep the rest of it. so that he can put it to Trumpy purposes later on. And all of this is making people in the Republican Party behind the scenes. more pissed off with the president of the United States. than I have seen them in the past ten years. And that includes right after January 6th.

Right. And, you know, just to go over some of some of what's happening, this first of all, they're calling it a midterm convention. And our brilliant columnist Nelson, who's one of the great humorists, points out. that there is literally no such thing as a midterm convention. But they have then said it's the biggest ever. midterm convention, which by definition, I guess is true. Right. It's the only it's it's the and it may be the loneliest as well.

No, no. That's that is absolutely true. But you know Trump likes naming things as we know. And so he'll, you know, name it a midterm convention. And he'll say therefore it's the biggest ever. And I was pleased to see, by the way, that his predilection for naming things. has been set up by the great trolls at South Park, who have renamed South Park for the entire year. South America, which is just, you know, they they get it right every time.

The Witz named that Trump Appaloosa. And in fact, it seems that the MAGA lot of actually embraced that as an idea. And, you know, people called it Trump and Palooza because that's a bad idea. This guy is so far behind in the polls. He is so down that if you in a if you're in a tight. race, hanging on to Donald Trump is the last thing you want to do. And you know, there are candidates across the country who are raising him. from his website, from their websites, but he's holding this Trump Appaloosa. The tickets are revealed on Monday,

are being given out for free to try to get people to go. There's a local Republican Party that's just 20 miles up the roads that said, oh, we'll just have a watch party in our in our local hall. Well, it's only 20 miles, guys. Even, you know, even those who are half an hour in the car away, like, oh, don't think I'm going. You can still get a hotel room. I just mentioned that, David, if you if we. if we fire up the private jet, we will find a find a hotel room.

And on top of all that, you if you want to speak, if you want to speak, if you want to be a candidate who's there? You're supposed to pay $25,000 just for the honor of attending. And then, it's all up against the football anyway. Yeah, well, I mean, that there is that, you know, this is not Trump palooza like Lollapalooza. This is the Trump fire fest, right? Like the fire fest. That was such a big fiasco.

As one of these things goes, it is ridiculous. He has said that it is sold out. It is not sold out there. You know, there will be children, there will be elementary school classes. bussed in wearing Trump shirts, and surely. there will be many shots of the big empty hall there. But the other thing is, you know, what Trump wants to do at this. is he wants to say, hey, I'm a big success. My economic policy, big success, my international policy,

big success, the war in Iran, we won the war in Ukraine. We are solving the war in Ukraine. We are making America energy independent. We are, you know, blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah. Guess what? The only way he can do that is lying. So what the principal byproduct of this. gathering in Texas is going to be is a volcano of lies. You know, just an explosion of and literally, I think,

up to. possibly including the introduction of some of the people who are attending. this thing will have to be lies for this thing to work out. But what they are going to say about Trump is, is a scene setter, a tone setter for the upcoming election, because the only thing. the Republican Party can do in order to sell themselves for this. election is to lie, because the economy is in bad shape,

because the Iran war continues because of prices. Brant crude went up over $100 again today. Diesel prices in some places in the United States are over $7 a gallon. because 25 million people. are either losing Medicaid or they're losing the subsidies. that enabled them to pay for health care in these period of months, in the next couple of months, and on and on and on.

So they don't have a good story. All they have is lies. And that's why so many Republicans are just staying away and saying, you know, maybe I'll just go to the state fair and eat some fried butter. instead, or, or just stay home and lock yourself in a basement. and hope that people don't notice your campaigning, which I think some of them are, in fact, are in fact doing. But I mean, all of this we're we're expecting.

But first of all, we're stating Trump to speak three times at this convention, which says that maybe they had some booking issues. We are not going to see Melania Trump. Well, have we seen Melania Trump? I mean, has Melania Trump spent one night at the white House since they got there? I don't think she has. Right? I mean, you guys have covered that. We believe that she has spent zero nights at the white House, thanks to the work of Michael Wolff, the purest chronicler of the Trump era.

The and. on top of that, we know who's going to be with Donald Trump. It will, of course, be Natalie Harp, his, his, his human printer, his entourage. We just learned that the that she. and other members of the entourage got cash gifts from him. And the economy is doing well for them. Well, look, you know, here's here's a couple of things about that. First of all, you know, you're not allowed to supplement. the salary of federal employees.

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They've just launched their subscription and members get access. to exclusive discounts before everyone else. Go to San. Beast to. get the unbiased truth on the stories that matter. Only on the Straight Arrow app, lets exit. the echo chamber. Well it's good. I was going to ask you, David, what for? Bill Clinton. did this. I've done other things in my life.

I was just that was, let's not hang all that on me. The the five, $5 in a Christmas card. There wasn't anything like that back then. But the reality is, you know, Trump has said, no, no, these are my personal gifts to Natalie and to Walt. Now to, you know, his his his body, man. Who with? Natalie. We're on the good plane. Yes. They were not on the decoy plane. Yes. And of course, it's, you know, pissed off some people in the white House. By the way, as you have reported,

more and more people getting more and more upset at the white House. But there is an interesting contrast there, because Melania Trump is making. millions of dollars from whatever deal they had struck with her. to remain the president's wife, but not have to ever show up, showing her sophistication in dealing with the president, whereas the president feels like he's. got a fork over the cash to Natalie to keep her and her printer nearby. By the way, other people getting this money, Margot Martin,

who's in the white House communications team, she has regularly been mistaken, even by Fox News for Melania Trump, because she kind of looks like her from a distance. So there's a lot of questions here, rush. Look, the reality is there is a lot of dysfunction. in the middle of this white House. And we all, you know, you're very respected journalist. and you try to cover things in a respectable journalistic way. But, you know, the relationships between these people are abnormal.

and you know, what they're doing and how they're doing it. and what Trump demands of. And we know that, right? Because we've seen cabinet meetings, we've seen cabinet meetings. that unlike any cabinet meetings that have ever taken place anywhere. other than North Korea, involved people going, oh, you're so beautiful. Oh, you're so handsome. Oh, Mr. President, no president has ever had better smelling breath than you do. Oh, Mr. President, the ferret nesting on your head looks so realistic, you know, and the.

But but they do it and they do it every time. So, you know, to me, what is weird thing about this moment, a kind of a scary thing about this moment is I don't think. there has ever been a moment in the history of the world. where more global events are a product. of the psychopathology of one person. And, you know, Trump talks about being carried out of the rubble of nine over 11.

Well, we're all living in the rubble of Trump's psyche. and we can't get out everything that we do. You know, the way our economy works, the way the world works, whether we're safe or not, how. AI gets regulated, you know, how corrupt our system is. Whether we're a democracy anymore is all driven primarily. by the psychopathology. of a malignant narcissistic personality. In the middle of this whole thing is like paying pretty girls.

to hang out near by him and paying his wife not to visit him. And, you know, ditching the. the real national security team so that he can be protected. on a plane because he's a coward and always has been all his life. Whereas in lying about nine over 11, we're it's somehow. our nightmare is being trapped inside of Trump's psyche. and there is no way out, apparently.

Well, that's the long as that psyche is, is still sort of spluttering forward. And, you know, that's a, that's our, you know, our, our, our problem. You know, I have to say I don't think everybody should go, well, you know, he's old and he'll drop dead or he'll leave office or something like that. And sometime soon. I don't think you should. You should be that chill about it, because there have been other things. happening in the world that remind us that Donald Trump is the product.

of the efforts of some really cynical people, some of whom are extremely rich, to try to shape the government. to serve their economic interests, and at the same time. serve their political biases, which tend to be. white supremacist, nationalistic, xenophobic. And, you know, there's a great example of that far away in Germany, in a state. most people in the United States have never heard of, the far right party.

won a big political victory this week, which was celebrated by Who? Elon Musk and Donald Trump. You know, this is a far right party with echoes of Nazism in Germany. And these guys are celebrating it. 80 years after we finished a war. that was caused by the rise of a far right party like that. And now Elon is spending $100 million.

to go and influence US elections. Elon, who claimed credit for Trump winning in 2024 because of whatever it was. that he did to manipulate election results back then. And on top of that, you've got things like, you know, we're approaching the one year anniversary of the Charlie Kirk assassination. We've got Turning Point, Charlie Kirk's group working hard.

on its white Christian nationalist agenda. to lay the groundwork for a political campaign for JD Vance, who we know will say anything to anybody about anything. to advance JD Vance, although it's not his real name. And, and and so here we are. You know, in a world in which we're trapped in Trump's crumbled psyche. But we also must look ahead and realize there are successors waiting in the wings.

who will be well funded, who will carry forward. and may not be quite as corrupt as it was under Trump. It may not be quite as chaotic as it was under Trump. There may not be quite as much sort of comic relief. as there is under this clown president, but a lot of the bad stuff. is going to continue on, or at least they're going to try to make it continue. And honestly, you have a piece on The Daily Beast. as we speak, and we'll get the QR code up on YouTube. So you'll be able to scan and go direct and read.

David's piece is absolutely must read. about this, this link. between what we see here in the United States and what's been going. on, as you see, a small German state of part of the former East Germany. that has turned to this alternative for Deutschland AfD party. that it's the German government itself, say are dangerous and extremist. You know, they're being funded by people. who want to advance this far right view of the world.

And they're not they're not alone. Obviously, there are similar rumblings in France. In Italy, there has been the election of a populist. follow to the right party, although, as people point out, as moderated in government and in fact, weirdly, has no anti-Trump. And don't forget, don't forget the UK. And I was going to say that Joanna is stranded in the UK, but at the same time in the UK, my native country,

there has been disorder on parts. of the southern coast fomented online, and its people. who are protesting against immigrants arriving by boats. This has been a running saw in the UK that the UK, of course. is surrounded by water, so there's no land border and people have been crossing. the English Channel in small boats to try to reach the United Kingdom. This is a source of huge tension. and this is blowing up in the face of,

I think, you know, a huge amount of online. fuel being thrown on the fire by people who want to create. disorder and difficulty and what you've got. Are literally large groups, legions of supporters. of the Reform Party in the UK showing up. wearing black ski masks, you know, as this kind of army to turn away the immigrants. This is the same message as in Germany.

This is the same message as Le Pen's party in the National Front in France. This is the same message that Orban had until he was defeated. And it's the same message that you get from MAGA, Donald Trump. Turning point that the problem is all I elsewhere. And if we would just put up walls and make our countries whiter, more traditionally run by men, more traditionally Christian,

keep out anybody who has. any slightly different view that everybody would be better off. And so, you know, it's easy. It's easy because Trump is coming. Trump trumps, you know, I mean South Park has plenty of material with Trump. The problem is, you know, Elon celebrated this German victory. Trump celebrated calling it the populist party. in, in, in in Germany. And it's it's it's it's.

it is for a shadowy. of of a difficult times ahead for all of us. And it means we just can't drop our guard and just sort of. look at our watch and say, well, Trump's gone soon because there's more to come. You mentioned JD Vance. We've also seen Marco Rubio, who a conventional wisdom had been. this is somebody from the sort of the establishment of the Republican Party. He also appears to be very willing to make noises that are in sync.

with this sort of rightwards drift, not not just noises. Right? You know, he has taken departments within the State Department. that devoted themselves in the past to the promotion of democracy, and he's turned them to the promotion of these right wing parties. and the condemnation of what they call censorship, which has been efforts in the past. to reduce hate speech and some of the vile things that have been said.

by these parties, which actually violate European laws. So what he's trying to do is turn the State Department programs. that once promoted democracy and do not any longer. into programs that promote the far right around the world. And this is, you know, this is not Donald Trump's plan. This is Vladimir Putin's plan. This is Vladimir Putin's plan to create a right wing movement. And we see it around the world, whether it's belay in Argentina.

or whether it was Bolsonaro in Brazil, or whether it's Modi. or whether it's Erdogan, or whether it's Bibi Netanyahu, or whether it's any of the people that we mentioned in Europe or MAGA. Turning Point and the GOP in the United States, they're all one movement. They talk to each other, they coordinate these things. And by the way, I would not rule out and we've already seen some rumblings of this. that Vladimir Putin may conjure up, in consultation.

with the real estate brokers that we sent over to negotiate with him. a week ago, Wyckoff and Kushner, he may conjure up some October. surprise to try to help the GOP coming into November. Like, okay, let's go to the negotiating table. in Ukraine and Trump will go, oh my God, we're going to have a negotiation. I am the peacemaker. Give me that Nobel Prize. Everything is going great. None of this could have been done without me.

And and then of course, it all blew up afterwards. because all of these things are a fabric of lies. But but the point is, they work together. to try to produce outcomes. And and you know, we saw that in 2016. Sorry. Sorry, Donald, but Russia, Russia, Russia was real. There was Russian efforts. to try to get Trump elected, and there was a reason for it. And we're seeing that reason right now. And Putin and Trump, in fact, appear to have spoken this week.

We only know this because the Kremlin said that they did. We haven't had anything out of the white House. They have spent the white House communications Department that might. normally confirm these sort of things, have spent their time. trolling people on Twitter and accusing us. Why do they including coming after The Daily Beast? Well, I don't understand. I hope because we speak frankly, openly and we. we report fairly and we put all the facts out there. We let people to say. But Steven Chung said, I have a brain the size of a peanut.

I haven't examined your brain, David. I, I am very convinced that it is much, much more functional than a peanut, and it's at least the size of a Brazil. But listen. But, but but but you know, you're absolutely right. that the white House would normally be taking a different stance. But this is not a normal white House. And just part of that. Right. As you were saying, you have these parties in Europe and elsewhere.

in the world that are, you know, marching much further to the right. The traditional American approach was that these things stop at the water's edge, and no previous American president would have encouraged Marine Le Pen. They would certainly never have encouraged an act of. right wing, far right wing party in Germany. Who's whose own government say they are too extreme to govern? This is. ordinary Joe for or especially Nigel Farage.

Yeah. Right. Right. Or Malay. But they but they do it and and and you know, there are their deals. Everything is a deal. Vladimir Putin is in a heap of deep water right now. Right. Because the Ukrainians are winning that war. The Ukrainians are using drones to strike Russia's energy infrastructure. The the Russian central bank is, according to reports, cashing in its goals because it doesn't have the resources to survive.

The Ukrainian government estimates that the Russians probably can underwrite. this war into 2027 or 2028, but the implication there is that. their economy is in such bad shape that if there is no solution, it will collapse and this may come down on Putin. So what does Putin want? Well, what he'd like is a US that forces a solution. that he can call a success and that, you know, I mean, I don't know if you saw a bit I know you guys reported on it,

Steve Wyckoff, Kushner going into Britain and saying, these are the meetings we will treasure. Yes. You know, these, I mean, fawning, fawning over Putin, a war. criminal responsible for the kidnaping of tens of thousands. of Ukrainians, the deaths of probably 1.5 million Russian troops, not to mention tens of thousands of Ukrainians, one of the worst people in the history of mankind.

And Steve Wyckoff is like, when I look back on my time. in government, this is what I will cherish. And one of the one of the things that was really noticeable. was that after this meeting, they got driven to the airport. in the Russians cars, which seems I mean, I'm no expert. There's a reason people don't do that, right? Because the cars of listening devices in them. Right. But, you know, similarly, there's a reason people don't. bring their phones on these trips.

And we know that earlier on, Wyckoff brought his phone on these trips, these these people view. themselves as close allies of the Russians. And that's why I'm saying that when I look between now and the election, I think, oh, I expect, you know, there have been Russian surprises before. I expect some kind of coordination. We've got reports that Cache Patel is going. to go over in the weeks before the election to Russia. We are still waiting for cash. Patel's.

Moscow Moscow voyage. John Ratcliffe beat him to it. But he has he has not said that he's not going so right. And so what is all that about that they don't do this stuff, just, you know, either they're making money or they're holding onto power. And those are the only two things that are interested in. And the only reason they're interested. in holding onto power, by the way, is to keep making money. And so are they going to go and try to cut some kind of deal,

try to make some kind of pretend peace deal, try to do something to prop up. the Russians, try to do something to put pressure on the Ukrainians. who have the upper hand at the moment, even though we predicted they would not. I yeah, I would expect something out of that. And can they use pressure on the Russians to help possibly, you know, get some different kind of outcome from the Iranians? They'll try. I think the Iranians will say fuck off on that, by the way, because everything's. going just fine from the point of view of the ruling elites in Tehran.

Right. And they've they've forced up. You mentioned gas, gas prices, diesel prices. People in the northeast are about to start buying their fuel oil. Particular big issue in Maine, in Massachusetts and, and New England generally. And those prices have hit a record high. And what is the energy department of Donald Trump blame it on. Well, obviously Joe Biden, we've actually forgotten to mention. that to Biden is to blame for all of this, because that's all we ever hear.

Well, and and and oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You're right. I did miss another important cause, which is you, Chris, you know, and and the Secretary of energy of the United States said. we've got a fuel problem in the world. because Ukraine is blowing up Russia's refineries. And it's like, say what? Say what? You know, the the war criminals, the illegal aggressors.

in this thing bear no responsibility for that war. It's actually Ukraine trying to defend itself that is responsible for this thing. But it's you know, it's similar to Trump saying, the reason that we don't have enough precision. armaments is not that he just wasted them all in this illegal war in Iran. It's because of Joe Biden giving them all to to Ukraine. Yes, they they they blame Ukraine. They blame Biden. They accept no responsibility for themselves.

And it's all a piece, you know, you take this, tie it to what we were talking about. At the very beginning of the podcast. Trump lied about nine over 11. He lies about his role in nine over 11. Then flash forward to the event in Dallas. Trump is going to get up on stage and lie, and the people closest to him. are going to lie, and candidates are going to lie in order to get money. And then what's the rest of the campaign going to look like? Lies. And why? So that Trump can remain in power so that he can maintain.

his corrupt reign as long as possible? And all the guys who donate the big money behind that are saying, yeah, that's fine, because that'll help us tee up act. to the presidency of JD Vance, which is going to be even more repressive, less democratic, less diverse, more white Christian nationalists, more traditional male roles than than we've seen before.

It's going to be more repressive. And so all these little stories, you know, sometimes people say, oh, this story here, story or Dallas or Ukraine or what's. going on in Iran or what's going on in Ireland. They all connect. They're all connected. One one thing we haven't talked about on the international front is our northern. neighbors, Canada, who appear to be carving out a very different path. They don't have a rising populist movement. They instead have an incredibly popular prime minister.

And they also, we've seen this week, have seemed to have the ability. to troll back at Donald Trump. In fact, we have a clip from British Columbia. Welcome to BC Canada. Strong, proud and never the 51st state. Sorry, I'm not sure you get. more Canadian than ending your troll with sorry. Yeah, yeah, it's it's true, but a lot of their trolling is bit great. There have been little videos showing armies of beavers.

wearing Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniforms, and Moose's. and Canadian geese fighting back against American eagles. And it's it's been quite inspiring. You know, Mark Carney the the Prime Minister is. a brilliant guy. who has served with distinction in a number of very difficult. jobs, both in the UK and in Canada. But he was not super popular when all this began.

He's he's seen his popularity ratings go from enough. to be elected to somewhere I believe in the 60s and 70s. Which. Right. Because because Donald Trump turned him into Winston Churchill. He turned him into a war prime minister who was standing up for Canada. And, you know, he's done it in this extraordinary way that we as Americans. can only look at with jealousy and weep, because he's done it. by knowing the facts, understanding his brief speaking history.

I mean, he was lecturing Trump over the weekend on, you know, that the tariff technique that Trump is doing is, is, is, has been tried before by President William McKinley in the 19th century. And it failed then, and it produced economic unrest then. And it will now. And you go, oh my God, this guy actually understands history. He understands trade. Trump doesn't understand trade. I was a trade official. I was going to. That's why I wanted to ask you about this. You dealt with the tiny nitty gritty of, yeah, I was involved in these issues.

I, you know, I was deputy Under Secretary of Commerce and then I was acting Under Secretary. I ran the International Trade Administration for some time. And, you know, we would deal with a lot of these kind of issues. And there were issues with Canada over, you know, lumber and aluminum and some other kinds of things. But, you know, over the weekend, Trump said, we're going to ban. the sale of Bombardier aircraft, Bombardier aircraft in the United States, which are the ones that make Canada Challenger.

It's a aircraft that's associated with Canada. And I flashed back on my time in the government. and I went and looked it up. And it's still true. Canadair Bombardier. makes jets that have more U.S. content in them than Gulfstream jets, which are made in South Carolina. The Canadair Bombardier has. a headquarters office in Wichita, Kansas. The Bombardier jets often use GE engines,

whereas Gulfstream jets often use Rolls-Royce engines. The reality is that Donald Trump does not understand trade. He doesn't understand global supply chains. He doesn't understand how tariffs don't work. He doesn't understand who is paying the tariffs. He doesn't understand the effect on the economy. He is the biggest ignoramus on global trade issues that we've ever had. in a senior position, with the possible exception of his sidekick, Peter Navarro.

Oh my God, his trade whisperer, who is one of the great imbeciles of modern times. But but, you know, all of this has teed things up and turned. Mark Carney, who is, you know, a former head of not one but two central banks. Yes, right. The nerdiest of all possible jobs. He's turned Mark Carney into kind of a cult hero. You know, the former prime minister of Canada is dating Katy Perry, and he's not getting any of the headlines because Mark Carney has been.

put to the front lines of this thing and has covered himself in glory. And Americans are, you know, like JioPhone. I literally talked to somebody who was a member of the. Obama administration who just got back. this weekend from Nova Scotia, where she was looking at houses. You know, I mean, people are looking at Canada in a whole new light, and it's not the one that Donald Trump thinks they're looking at.

It went right. Because, I mean, just just in the last 24. hours, he's also sought to ban Canadian. I think he's banning Canadian alcohol. I'm not sure quite how you do that. But if you're if you're drinking or a bat, drink up apparently. And he, he seems to he seems to have to go back. to your unified theory of, you know, the sort of populist movement on the right when he can't ferment this.

sort of movement in Canada, he doesn't really know what to do. He seems like like a toddler that's sort of just vibrating. Well, that's how is that different from how he's handling Iran? How is that different from how he handled global tariffs than the global trade war? How is that different from how he's handling relations with NATO? How is it different from how he handled things with Ukraine? How is it different from Maui's handling. our health care policy in the United States? How is it different from how he's handling the environment, where the management.

of our national resources in the United States or the education. department, it's is yours, as you put it. There is a unified theory of right wing cluster fuckery. that we, you know, connects everything and. is, is, is, you know, I mean, we can talk about, you know, we're like, you know, oh, yeah, we're influencers. And we were, you know, doing a VOD cast on a podcast, on a streaming content. and, you know, all that kind of stuff because that's what people do these days.

But these are real human lives that are suffering. They're dead people in Iran, their families. that have been shattered by this, they're Americans without health care. There are people dying of measles and other. infectious diseases that didn't need to die of those kinds of things. There are people who are going bankrupt because. they wanted a tax cut for Elon Musk. And so they took it out of the retirement health care benefits of poor Americans.

This this is a it's a national tragedy. on top of all of this kind of thing. And it's just, you know, it's just like the nine over 11 national tragedy. It also speaks to the lie of nine over 11. I have to say, it's not something. I particularly like to get into, but I was there on September the 11th. I was a very young reporter. And, you know, the thing that I think. everybody that experienced it so closely closer than Donald Trump,

but everybody that experienced it closely was aware. that this was a moment of profound change in the world, and it was based on on a scale of death that nobody could comprehend. And the lies. that Trump is telling about that I think are particularly cruel. and insulting, but they sort of speak to to this carelessness. I do think that's even the word callousness, carelessness. and obliviousness, because, as you say, this was a turning point in modern history, and it was a calculated.

bet on the part of Osama bin. laden that the United States would react badly to the attack. And we did. And it's not just Donald Trump that reacted badly. The Bush administration launched us into the wrong war, in which hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis died unnecessarily, in which we've spent trillions of dollars setting us back in terms. of our own global competition in which we've alienated the world and so forth. And and he kind of predicted that we would overreact that way.

But the point is that there was also a massive amount. of American sacrifice and loss involved, both in the 3000 people who died that day, and the thousands of people who then went on to Afghanistan. and then went on to Iraq and have died, or who have been, you know, injured in war and who have made other kinds of sacrifices, and Donald. Trump and his desire to be at the center of attention minimizes all of that.

I remember on nine over 11, I had a company that dealt. with national security issues, and I had a couple of partners in that company. One of them was a guy named Tony, like Anthony, like he's former National Security advisor. One of them was a guy named John Gannon, who was the former deputy head of the CIA. And one of them was a woman who had been a senior national security person. who would later go on to be National Security Advisor Susan Rice. And we watched this on our television in actually, the TV and Tony Lake's office.

And as the second plane hit the tower, John Gannon, who'd been tracking Osama. bin laden for a long time, turned to Tony and said, this is UBL within the CIA. They were to him as UBL, Usama bin laden, and they instantly knew what it was. And Washington then became deathly silent. Many people went home. My children will never forgive me for not having gone to school to pick them up, but I talked to people and said, probably just as safe at school as anywhere else.

And we went to have lunch and Tony and John and Susan and I sat and we had lunch. under blue skies a couple of blocks from our office in Georgetown. And we said, the world is not going to ever be the same. Yeah, we. knew that America's role in the world. are relationships with the Middle East, our relationship to terrorism. And remember the Bush administration weeks before.

this was not emphasizing terrorism as a priority, that, you know, they had to enter into this whole global war on terror overreaction that they had. But, but, but the point was, this was a profoundly important moment. in terms of its human cost and in terms of its historic significance. And it is now, you know, 25. years later, we've lost all side of that. We've we've lost all side of this. We have president who go to war in the Middle East without learning.

any of the lessons of the past 25 years, who does not appreciate. any of the human or historical significance of all of this? And it's and it's got us on a slippery slope. which could lead to us irrelevance on the global stage. Mark Carney made this good point that middle power is acting together, may play a more constructive role than the United States or the superpowers did. And we saw that over the weekend.

Several of those middle powers got together and said, you know, we don't like what's going on in the West Bank. We are going to penalize the Israelis, and. we are not going to trade with any company that's doing business in the West Bank. They are leading where the United States is, not because the United States. is now part of Team Putin. And and so all these historical things have changed. And that's what we should be thinking about this week. We should be asking ourselves, what does this tell us? Because if there is one overarching lesson of this, it's.

that we can't make the mistakes of the Bush era, and we should not make the mistakes of the Trump era. If we ever want to move beyond an era. that is defined by our vulnerability and potential losses. David, you could not ask for a better point of moral. clarity and intellectual purpose to end. I think many people will be watching this interview, you know, in the hours leading up to 25 years since.

since September the 11th, it's a sober moment. Thank you for bringing such rigor and such more, as I say, moral clarity to it. Well, it's a it's a pleasure and it's always a pleasure to talk to you. And, you know, I have to say I really admire the, the, the, the, the independent perspectives and, and reporting. that are going into The Daily Beast these days. because you can't find it in mainstream media. And that's why your message that people really ought to subscribe and follow,

I think, is important to them. As individuals. You need sources like what you put together here at the Beast. Well, David, thank you. Thank you for being part of the beast. And Joanna, we'll be back to talk to you next time when we have phone her. all the way from the United Kingdom on Daily Beast. one, on Daily Beast one, our gold Katari. The Qataris have given us a gold plane as well. Thank you. Thank you to everybody who subscribes. You can come and play two if you've been joining us.

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