Tales from the first tee
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Tales from the first tee
A Veteran Diplomat On Trump’s Second Term And American Norms
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A former Republican, Vietnam veteran, and longtime US diplomat joins us for a blunt look at what breaks first when a presidency runs on loyalty instead of limits. We talk about the “guardrails” that used to stop bad ideas in their tracks and what it means when those guardrails disappear: fewer people willing to say no, more governing by unilateral moves, and more public retaliation aimed at critics. Along the way, we challenge ourselves to listen outside our algorithm and ask what we might be missing.
We dig into immigration reform with more nuance than the usual cable news fight. Border security and compassion are not opposites, and we walk through what controlled legal immigration can look like, how ICE should support local policing rather than dominate it, and why focusing on serious criminals is both more effective and more legitimate. We also explore why political slogans and identity driven messaging can boomerang, and why an economic story about opportunity, work, and mobility still moves persuadable voters.
Then we widen the lens to executive power and national identity: the controversy around private money funding major public projects, the lawsuit opposing a massive Arlington Cemetery arch that veterans call a vanity build, and how intimidation through litigation can wear people down. On foreign policy, we weigh Venezuela and Iran through the hard questions leaders should ask before military action, and we lay out why Ukraine is a clear moral test with real consequences for Europe and the broader world order. If you care about democracy, civil discourse, and US leadership at home and abroad, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share this with a friend who disagrees, and leave a review, what’s one guardrail you think America needs most right now?
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Why This Conversation Matters
SPEAKER_00Yogi Berra was thought to have said a lot of things. So when you come to a fork in the road, take it. This week a departure from golf and a break from my monocasts to speak to a friend. Hope you enjoy it. John and I spoke during the final months of the twenty twenty-four presidential campaign. The episode aired in May of 2024, and our discussion took place prior to the Trump Biden debates, when we were both hopeful that the curtain had been pulled to reveal Donald Trump failed his first term, evidenced by countless articles, interviews, and books written by his previous cabinet, and the January sixth uprising at the Capitol underscoring his unwillingness to accept defeat despite every judge's decree that it was a fair election. John wanted to go on record and share his thoughts as an ex-Vietnam veteran, a former US diplomat, senior advisor to the US State Department and Special Operations Command, and former Republican. He served several presidents and administrations and had a sense of how things work in the US government, how respected leaders lead, and how Donald Trump operated under a different set of rules. A set of rules that seduce followers to follow him with unwavering loyalty in exchange for power. And a set of rules that aggressively target opposition and disloyalty with prosecution, dismissal, and demeaning. John wanted to get a megaphone and a soapbox and stand up in protest in the middle of Marion Square in Charleston. I convinced him a podcast was probably a better solution. Well, the podcast didn't seem to move the needle. Seventy-seven million voters wanted more of what Donald Trump promised, or at least didn't want more of the Democratic leadership. Susan and I returned to Charleston during the Memorial Day weekend, spent some time with the Gundersons, and John was gracious enough to sit down for a follow-up podcast to either correct his position on the second Trump term or underscore his major objections with the administration. I didn't anticipate a change of view, considering that John and two other Vietnam vets are in litigation with Trump over the proposed Trump arc of Arlington Cemetery. So I pat myself on the back for my spider-like senses to anticipate which direction the podcast was going to lean. John and I both watch or listen to both sides of the news to better understand each side's position and agenda. I listen to Fox, I listen to CNN, I listen to ABC, NBC, I read different news. I want to understand what am I missing? What point of view am I missing by just watching and listening to the news that's fed by my algorithm? Whether you're a diehard MAGA or left-leaning, we invite you to listen to a true patriot who continues to serve his country and share his points of view. And I'm not sure that this second episode is going to change any hearts and minds. I think people are pretty much set on which position they take. But that's irrelevant. We have the First Amendment rights to allow us to speak our minds. And unless you're Egene Carroll, Leticia James, James Comey, John Bolton, Lisa Cook, or Christopher Krebs, we should have the right to speak our minds without retaliation or litigation. So here you go.
No Guardrails In A Second Term
SPEAKER_01Given that Biden had cognitive problems, you had the pandemic, you had all the difficulties, you had an open border which could be exploited, and the Democrats didn't do a good job making their case. So when Trump came in, I knew that I was worried about not having any guardrails, like in the first term. He had some people who said no to him. You don't have it now. You have sycophants around them, true believers, so nobody says no to him.
SPEAKER_00So would you say, from a strategy standpoint, uh in terms of the way he likes to lead, that he learned something from his first administration?
SPEAKER_01Well, what he learned is what he's known his whole life, that what counts is taking care of himself, taking care of his family, taking care of his money. And nobody says no to him whether when it doesn't fit along with what our national interests are. Now I must say I was worried about the second administration. I was wrong. He's worse than I expected.
SPEAKER_00Right. Let's talk about some things that have happened.
Renaming America By Fiat
SPEAKER_00I'll just mention a few things. This is almost like I'll throw out the concept or the fact or the idea, and then you give me your thoughts. There's been some renaming of things either on a map or a department. So the the Gulf of Mexico becomes the Gulf of America. The Defense Department becomes the Department of War. How do you feel about those?
SPEAKER_01I'm not surprised. I mean, usually when you do things, you have some sort of feedback on it. When you do something like they'll do, you know, build a monument, the Lincoln Memorial. That was passed by Congress. It went through review. The Defense Department is called a Defense Department. We used to have a Department of War. We didn't have a Defense Department. In 1945, we changed the War Department to Defense Department. We didn't have a CIA. We didn't have a Joint Chiefs of Staff. We didn't have all these institutions. And we renamed these things, put them together to serve a common purpose, and that had bipartisan support. Now you have somebody who unilaterally does things without any regard to the American public, to our long-term national interests.
SPEAKER_00What
Border Control And ICE Reality
SPEAKER_00are your thoughts on ICE, the need for ICE, how it was implemented, and perhaps what you might have done differently?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I think that a couple things. One, a nation is a sovereign nation, has certain rights and duties. And one is the right and duty to control the border. So having said that, the second thing, which is more important, is that immigrants have been good for this country. We're all children of immigrants. I'm a first, second generation from Norwegian and Polish background. Those immigrants who come to this country are more likely to have a job, less likely to be on welfare, and more likely to pay taxes. So how do you then reconcile the two? One is to right and duty control the border, and secondly, we want immigrants. Unfortunately, Biden just forgot about the first one and just let everybody in. Which it does a disservice for those who are waiting online to come here, for refugees. So finally, in the last year, too late for him, they had a border, they had an immigration reform that was supported by conservative Republicans. Donald Trump didn't like it because it hurt a talking point. So the Democrats should do reasonable control, immigration ones. Bush put one, W. Bush, Obama did one. Ronald Reagan was the last one to give amnesty to a bunch of uh immigrants who came here illegal. And that's been good for the country. So you've got to be able to balance the two that we need more immigrants. We're all getting older. We have some need somebody to take care of us. So you bring in immigrants who want to come to the country, but in a controlled fashion. Unfortunately, the Republicans used to have some reasonable people. Now it's the Donald Trump view. American first, which is in my view, largely America alone. And we are hurting ourselves by not having. Five of the ten richest people in the United States company companies are immigrants. We used to attract people from all over the world to go to our universities and stay and invent things and do things and work on the you go out in the street here today, the gardeners, the construction people are mostly people coming from abroad, working hard, taking care of families.
SPEAKER_00How do you manage the process of bringing in legal immigrants? And then the second part of that is creating a narrative to help us accept those that are legal that are not from places that we're from.
SPEAKER_01Well, now we're from all over. I mean, you know, 1920 we were largely a white nation, and then you had a African American. You had almost no other outside of Europe and African American. We have from all over the world now. So Democrats should be pushing this idea. We are for good immigration that helps our nation. It's a patriotic duty. We want to be taking care of all of us who are now getting retirement benefits. We can't afford to do that unless we have people working. We have a below replacement birth rate. We need immigrants. So the question is to have an immigration reform that allows people to come here in a controlled fashion. And only I would take George W. Bush's proposal as a Democrat said, let's use that.
SPEAKER_00Which was what?
SPEAKER_01Which was border control immigrant and on the thing uh allowing the DACA kids who came here as youth, who have been in the country all these years, who are good citizens, stay here. And those who have been here for five years, not committed a felony, learn the language, have a job, stay here. Even if they came here illegally, they are good Americans and they've proven so.
SPEAKER_00So you control the spigot of how you vet what comes in, but you are now sitting with the call it the past administration's open policy, and a lot has flooded into the country that didn't go through that process. How do you deal with what came here illegally? Because obviously the doubling of ice and putting those agents in Minneapolis was an attempt to do something like that, but it was a failed attempt.
SPEAKER_01Because they didn't go after the even though Trump said, I'm gonna get the worst of the worst, they went after everyone. It's the guy who's doing your garden, your guy So low-hanging fruit. Yeah, the low-hanging, but they should have, if they went to that and got the guys who committed felons, who had done things that are illegal and kicked them out, he would have been very popular. But they overextended. And because you have people like Steve Miller who are really racist, I think the average voter, even those who vote for Trump, they're not racist, they have a different view. You've got to you've got to be able to separate the dead enders, the racists, from those who have difficulty with some immigration. And if you do that and appeal to a larger group, like everyone from Reagan to George Bush to Obama tried to do, then you'll get the smart immigrants, you'll get the ones who work in the fields that we need, the ones who who are good family members who pay taxes.
SPEAKER_00So is there a connection between, okay, now we have a problem, we have people that are breaking laws. Um, some are from this country, some are in here illegally. How do we vet that out and how does ICE integrate with that, or should they be two separate things?
SPEAKER_01The Department of Uh Homeland Defense, excuse me, that was created after 9-11. Because we had nothing to take care of these things to integrate these functions of DEA and ICE and Coast Guard. They're all defending the country in some ways. But the prime people who deal with local crime and things like that are local police forces, human services. But sometimes they need some help. And they call in ICE, they call in DEA, they call in the FBI. But they should be supporting the local police, the local mayors who are elected and represented. They don't take over those functions because they don't know these guys are there to knock down doors. They don't understand who the good guys and bad guys are.
SPEAKER_00Do you support or agree with the premise that there are illegals here causing problems and that we should have a process to search and then deal with those people?
SPEAKER_01I support what's in the Constitution and what we do. You have a rule of law. If it's a bad guy and you have a suspect, you go to a court and you get a warrant. Very easy.
SPEAKER_00Right. So you have uh a Mueller situation, serve the country, but it one of his jobs was to look for some of the things that Trump did wrong. And so he dies. Trump has something that no president I've ever heard has said about people that have died. Um what are your thoughts, or is it just me overreacting?
SPEAKER_01I think you're underreacting. What he's doing is just not only wrong, it is inhuman. No other president, no human being says that somebody, by the way, Muller, here's a guy who's fought in Vietnam, who works for a Republican, the Democratic administration, who's universally respected within the department, and you didn't like the way he inspected. Say he's glad he's dead, but that's real Trump. Because if you don't have a moral compass, what's right and wrong, and your whole life is aggrandizing your own ego, you don't care about these things, and you don't even understand this is just wrong. Any person of faith or anybody who has any real beliefs has to say, Mr. President, just don't do that. But he has a bunch of suck-ups around him who are afraid of him, who have no courage.
SPEAKER_00You know, I tend to think, and you know, I think dialectically in terms of thinking there are two things could be true at the same time.
Polarization And Democratic Messaging
SPEAKER_00One is Trump has proven to do behave in a certain way his whole life, whether it was business, his personal life, or uh governing the country. There's also, is he the result of the imagination of a certain sector of this country that uh didn't like the way things were going, political correctness, um, the pendulum going too far left. Um is this, is he just the perfect candidate for this emerging to satisfaction in the United States? And that's why, regardless of how he behaves, his true base sticks with him.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think you're right. Both can be true. I think he is both the cause and the result of what we have today. And he is the result because there is this polarization in the country. And the one thing he does well is he knows what the weakness of the dark side of human nature and real problem. There was a real problem of the white working class in the Midwest losing its jobs, and most people didn't think about that. There was a real problem of open borders that you were losing control. His solutions were all wrong, but he identified it, and a lot of people were uncomfortable with that. And he got elected with a minority of votes, by the way, by Hillary Clinton, beat him by three, four million votes.
SPEAKER_00But we have the electoral college.
SPEAKER_01We have the electoral collection. But I'm just saying it doesn't mean that the majority of countries of the citizens support him, but the system works that way.
SPEAKER_00So we accept 70 million people somewhere in that vicinity have spoken and either voted against um what was available to vote for um in Kamala, um or they support the direction that they believe he said he wants to take the country. So it seems like it's two forces working. It's an imagination of our population and somebody who is astute enough to read dissatisfaction and then has a team to help him um magnify that and deliver fear.
SPEAKER_01And that's true, and they and he's been able to exploit it also because I think the Democratic Party has not had a position. They were too I mean, uh anyone says defund the police is stupid. You need police.
SPEAKER_00It was the worst marketing slogan I've ever heard. Exactly. Because that's nearly not what they wanted to do. They wanted a rethink and a retraining um to mitigate some of the problems that we're having uh in some of the cities, but it took on and maybe it took on, and the Republicans said, This beautiful, we now have a cr a battle cry against this.
SPEAKER_01The Democrats have, you know, that's a segment of the party. And the same with getting rid of ICE. Every society, every country in the world needs somebody who needs to do customs and other patrol. What you need to do is limit it, cut some of their funding, and give them rules. And the same with police. Every country needs police, especially minority in the cities who are the ones who face bad crime and higher crime. So there's a bunch of intellectuals sitting in, you know, San Francisco and Boston saying these things. Same with CRT about basically the idea that this country is racist. We have a racial problem which was terrible, you know, and all those things that we've got to confront.
SPEAKER_00During the segment of the interview, the Gunderson's faithful dog Maya saved the family from an unannounced neighbor, likely bringing over some freshly baked holiday traits or the CNN crew queuing up to talk to John about his most recent lawsuit with the president. For the next minute or so, you'll hear his wife Iica in the background trying to stifle the noise to allow us to continue our discussion. So, apologies.
SPEAKER_01So the Democrats have to get away from appealing to only appealing to groups and identity and appeal to everyone, especially working people. And those ideas that you need better economics, social mobility, basic needs met, and the lack of oligarchs running the country. So the large pitch they should have is economic, and it shouldn't be identity politics. And I think they would get a large portion of those votes they lost in the last two elections.
SPEAKER_00Changing the subject a little bit to things that a president can do that previous presidents might not have done on their own. So
White House Projects And Private Money
SPEAKER_00right now the East Wing is under construction. There is a projected ballroom that's being built, and there is second thoughts on how it's going to be funded, particularly in light of the recent attempt on the president's life, which uh seem to be, from a timing standpoint, a very good time for for him or his supporters to ask for more money for the ballroom for security security purposes. Typically, what would be the process for any president to make changes like that?
SPEAKER_01Again, I'm not an expert, but I know that any time you have to do any major expenditure, you go through Congress. It's in the Constitution. They're the ones who make the budgets, and then the uh president can propose one, the Congress can pass it, or the Congress can pass it and give it to the President. Every major can Construction project in Washington, DC has been done with congressional approval. Now he's the President Trump says, well, we'll fund this privately. First, that's a lie because it's a billion dollars that's happening. Secondly, it's wrong. If you start having private donors funding things, they want something in return. Imagine if Kamala Harris had won this and said, I'm gonna have George Soros rebuild the East Wing, the Republicans would have been up in arms. Because then you sell influence that way. It's just wrong. You can't do that.
Arlington Arch Lawsuit And Sacred Ground
SPEAKER_00So recently, on that same vein, there is a movement now to create an arc by Arlington Cemetery to celebrate the 250th year of the country. You and two other Vietnam vets have uh started a lawsuit against that, and you're suing the president of the United States. Give me a little more background on that, why you felt that way when you heard that news, and how how is it going?
SPEAKER_01Well, what a coincidence you bring that up, Rich. Uh I just did a video on it this this uh yesterday. And I I this is something I hadn't thought about. Uh it just came out of the blue. A good friend of mine, uh, who was also a Vietnam vet, who's whose father's buried in Arlington, heard about it and was up in arms about it. You know, we all, three of us all served in Vietnam together. We were also on the Foreign Service together. And we thought, you know, this is sacred ground. We all visited Arlington, and if you've been to the tomb of an unknown soldier, you look at it at this vista and you see these iconic buildings. You see the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Vietnam Memorial, the Korea Memorial, World War II, and that's part of Washington. And all of those had got permission from the Congress and veterans. This new arch is going to be larger than the Arc de Triomphe, larger than Lincoln Memorial, the Statue of Liberty, and it will block that whole vista. And that vista was formed after the Civil War when that ground Arlington was done as a symbol of unity between the states. And now he wants to have this vainglorious attempt, gilded arch to go over that's not for veterans, it's for his own ego, and it's wrong, and we want to stop it.
SPEAKER_00So he's like the loophole president, because in every situation where even constitutional scholars would suggest he needs to go a different route through Congress to get things approved, he and his legal team find 200-year-old loopholes to justify legally his actions and to try and get his opposition to um either back off or at least he just feels like everything is litigious and eventually he's just gonna wear everybody down because he has the resources. How do you fight something like that?
SPEAKER_01Well, you fight him by fighting him, and he's done this his whole life. He's sued somebody, and those people say it's not worth it. So he's gotten away with it. He's never had anyone to get back, you know, the people who have been against him. But he's intimidated people. And he's intimidated the Republican Party, and that's very sad because, you know, I I was actually a young Republican, a young Republican in college, and you know, that was a different Republican Party. But he's intimidated those who say that, well, it's not worth it. Well, it is worth it. Because he's gonna be gone at some point, the country's gonna remain, and we wanna have a country that not only has legal standards but moral standards, and it's not a country that follows one man and one man whose sort of vainglorious thing wants to name everything the Kennedy, the Trump Kennedy Center. I worked with the U.S. Institute of Peace. It's now the Trump Institute of Peace. And by the way, that was started by Ronald Reagan. So it's not some, you know, kumbaya sort of leftist organization.
SPEAKER_00But he didn't call it the Reagan Peace, yeah. So it's not an I so like you say, fight the fight and continue to fight the fight if you believe you're right, because if you don't, then he will continue. And he might not have to be litigious anymore. He's just going to use his power to get things done.
Venezuela Success And Iran Miscalculation
SPEAKER_00So goes to Venezuela. He is some would say he's successful in the mission of um helping change the regime, perhaps in the same way it cre it creates uh favorable cost of oil to the United States, and then with that assumed success, he decides to go to Iran one after the other. But that didn't go as well. Why do you think he went to Iran? Is it about nuclear proliferation? Is it about regime change? Is it about both? What do you think the intelligence was that allowed him to go in and do what he did after telling us months ago that we obliterated the nuclear program? And then where are we today with this and where do you think this is heading? So I know that's a lot to unpack.
SPEAKER_01Okay, we got another 45 minutes here. Well, here's a premise that you have to start with, and Democrats don't often do. One, there are bad guys and bad regimes in the world that we are better off without them. So how do you deal with that? You deal with that unilaterally, or you deal with that with allies and others, and use sort of constitutional norms to do that. And so I think the Democrats have to approach it not that, you know, we're defending it look like we're defending a Maduro or a Khomeini, but what is the best way to change the world, make it safer, and uh limit their powers? Venezuela is somewhat of a fool's paradise. So it's a country that we had good intelligence on, we had good forces, SEALs, and others who are trained on the missions, a Delta, I think. And we were able to do something, a spectacular military success. So we get Maduro out of there. But we don't change the regime, by the way. It's still totalitarian or authoritarian, they still arrest their things, and the oil companies are not rushing back there. So it's a limited success. So Trump sees, I've got this great tool, U.S. military. We can do anything with the U.S. military. We have the best in the world. So basically, these capabilities deter it then cherms the strategy. I did it in Venezuela, I can do the same thing in uh Iran. And so he doesn't ask the question. Anytime you make a strategic decision, you have to think, do we have allies? Can it be successful? What are the unintended consequences?
SPEAKER_00Do you think he was cautioned and that or do you think being surrounded by those loyalists, they know exactly his point of view? They probably know that if they said do nothing, they might not still have the same position as they have today. So do you think that he didn't get the right intelligence because of the consequences?
SPEAKER_01Yes. And I think those who try to say something were fired. He fired, I don't know how many generals and admirals who are not going along. Most of them, by the way, are female and minority. So in this first term, he had a Secretary of Defense, Mathis, who said no sometimes. He had a Chief of Staff, John Kelly, who said no sometimes. He had a Secretary of State, Tillerson, all conservatives, by the way, who said no. None of those are people around. You have Pete Heggs, the least capable, experienced Secretary of Defense, I say defense, not war, in our history, who actually is a true believer. So we have nobody saying, you don't have to be totally disagreeable, but you have to say, let's think about what the unintended consequences are. What happens to the Straits of Hormuz where 20% of the oil and gas and fertilizer comes through? What happens to our own inflation, gas prices? What happens to our credibility with the Europeans? What happens to the Ukrainians when all the things like the Tomahawk and the Patriots are moved from Ukraine that we were to supply to the Middle East? All those questions should have been asked. And then we can make a decision. But he had the hubris, which I was able to do in Venezuela, I can do it in Iran. And it's a war of choice. We didn't need to do it. We were doing the right thing, and we should try to limit their capabilities, nuclear. We should try to change, you know. I think if that regime changes, great. We've cut back all our information services. We used to win the Cold War with Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. We've cut back all the Middle East ones that helped the Iranian people and helped the dissident. So he's fighting with one hand behind his back, and nobody's telling him that.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So
Corruption Claims And Family Enrichment
SPEAKER_00during this conflict, prior to the conflict, there were two, I'd say, newsworthy for months, uh headlines. One uh had to do with Epstein, and the other, it's been going on for a few years, has to do with Ukraine and Russia. At least one of those two things is continually going on, and that's Ukraine and Russia. I really don't know what's happening with Epstein and the information that was redacted or not even included. Do you think part of the decision to go into Iran uh was to blur some of the facts and detract from things that were causing uh Americans to worry about the 47th president?
SPEAKER_01Well, let me say one thing to be clear about it. I've never been to Epstein's island.
SPEAKER_00That makes two of us.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Yeah. So we both can agree on that. Yeah, right. They've never been invited happily. Uh, but it shows the moral turpitude of a lot of people. But that's uh you get into money and wealth and power and entitlement with Epstein, which uh, you know, Trump is very happy in that world. Now, whether this Iran had to do with domestic reason, that's the wag the the tail wagging the dogs phenomenon. Uh I'm a little skeptical about that, uh, because I think Trump uh thinks about it, but his main driver is what's gonna help him electorally or politically, or more importantly, his own family. Think of the billions of dollars he gets. He complains about Hunter Biden, who's a really troubled kid, and really, you know, is it's a s a real tragedy. Getting a small contract with an oil company wrong, and absolutely wrong. Against press privilege, we should denounce it. His son-in-law, he gets out of power, he gets two billion dollars to start a hedge fund. Talk about corruption in that family. So I think that these things he does are largely based on ego and what will help him, and he's gotten away with it, and he has no one around him and say, No,
Ukraine As A Clear Moral Test
SPEAKER_01Mr. President. You know, Ukraine, you know, obviously I have a uh vested interest. Not a vested interest, uh it's a little more emotional because I served there in, you know, uh opening up the embassy in 1991. Here's the question. Most wars are somewhat gray areas. Who started it, what the causes are in the Middle East and elsewhere. Ukraine is one of those things, it's black and white. One big country, a totalitarian regime, attacks another country, neighbor, without reason. One big country kidnaps the kids of that other, the smaller nation, attacks civilian targets, the maternity wards, schools. And who's the good guy and bad guy? And the Ukrainians, unlike in Vietnam, don't ask for our troops on the ground. I was in Vietnam, I realized I went there and I realized, you know, it's a lot murkier than we thought when we went in. Here is a case of a right and a wrong. And uh that one attacked another one, and the other one who's loo who was the one attacked, didn't ask for our group boots on the ground. They just wanted the equipment to be able to defend themselves. And that is in not only their interest, it's our national interest. Ukraine is the most hardened, battle-hardened troops in the in Europe now. If they're a member of the West, Russia would never do anything else. If they become part of this Russia, the world changes. What happens to Poland? What happens to Moldova? What happens to the Baltic? What happens to Taiwan if the Chinese said, oh, the Russians can take uh Ukraine, we scream about it, but we don't really do anything.
SPEAKER_00So one of the things when Trump was campaigning is um he said if he was president, there would have never been a war in Ukraine. And when he becomes president, there's still a war in Ukraine, and he puts all the blame on past administrations that weren't his. I don't think these two things can be true. And I think you can't prove a non-existent. So he wasn't president, so it did happen. So you really can't say whether it would or wouldn't. But the fact that he hasn't been able to negotiate a settlement for both sides would suggest that whether he was in or not in, this is something that Putin needed to do or wanted to do.
SPEAKER_01I think you're right. And uh, you know, they they ask about him, would it have occurred if he had been in, you know, only because it was Biden in power. Well, countries do things based on their own national interests. What they see, and you know, Putin is absolutely wrong, but it's based on his own. Uh and he realized, I think, that in 1920 the Russians took over Crimea, and they had little green men take over, and we yelled a little bit about sanctions, but we didn't do much anything. Then he saw that we had left Afghanistan very quickly, and in in in some ways parallel to how we left Vietnam, so he said, I can I can do these things. They make decisions like the Republicans will say, well, all wars started under Democratic administrations. World War II under Roosevelt, uh, World War uh Korean War under Truman, Vietnam, under Kennedy, and but you have to ask yourself, in World War II, if the Republicans had been in the power, would you have then gone to war? Yes, because we were attacked. North Korea was attacking South. And so it had little to do with the party. These are larger forces of history, and we're a little bit of hubris to think that everything depends on what we do. And then you deal with the situation as it is. And in my view, the situation as is, the Ukrainians are fighting our fight, and and we should give them the equipment to do that. And what has surprised me is not that uh Trump has been neutral about Ukraine, he's taken the Russian position. Who would take the position of this uh former communist KGB guy? Believe his intelligence. The first proposal was a 28 proposal that Trump put forward with these two useful idiots, Kushner and uh Steve Wilcox. That's a direct translation from a Russian proposal. That's treasonous to to sort of take the position of your enemy.
SPEAKER_00He uh seems to be impressed with oligarchs. He seems to be impressed with singular uh powers in any country that have that take care of any kind of negative feedback that get their way. And I remember when he first came into office, I don't know if it was his first or second term, where he thought Putin's information was better than the CIA. Helsinki, first term. We've talked about both domestic and international policy and how the administration has addressed both.
Restoring Civil Discourse And Trust
SPEAKER_00One of the underlying drivers to our current administration's approach is the devaluation of civil discourse, elimination of the diplomatic method of listening to opposing viewpoints, followed by a measured response, which by the way, bleeds down to society. Chinese say the fish rots from the head down, and I believe that in every organization I've ever worked with or for. And so you can see it's like becoming okay to bully in an argument. If you are racist, it's almost like you've given been given a license that it's okay for whatever reason that is. So I see that as a a significant side effect from leadership today. But is that like a long tail of whoever comes in next? Hopefully it's um a more rationally thinking leader. But how do you unravel this long tail of discord that's happened in the United States? And I'll use the Biden-Trump debates as kind of example of what it looks like when you're given you're given an okay to act that way with others. How do we unravel that, or is this just what the future looks like?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, as a sort of undue optimist, uh inveterate optimists, I have to think we're better than that, and we will not go to where Trump is. And you look at any of these midnight postings on social media, what the hell is he doing at 3 a.m. complaining about the 2020 elections or Obama's traitorous? It's both a waste of time, but indicative of what sort of mindset he has, which is vindictive and mean-spirited and small-minded. And most there's no president who would ever have call his opponents scum and traitors and loony, which he does every day. And it's debase the language. So I have to think we'll get away with that from that. But I think that's a that's a legitimate point of debate is how we are losing our civility, how we treat each other, how we talk talk to each other. And so, as you say about the fish running from the head down, that's what we have to fight. And I think that, you know, that this next election will be fought on some of those grounds. Uh unfortunately, you know, Trump will not run. He better not run. Uh, so he's not gonna.
SPEAKER_00I just don't know. Um I say this. I I wouldn't be surprised if he found another loophole, and let's say it's we're in war, and therefore when you're in war, you um can't change administrations. I don't know that to be true, but I just know he's the loophole president. And so whether he fights to make that happen, the U.S. public has to make the call on whether he chooses to run or not, whether they're okay with how we're dealing with the world, how we're dealing with ourselves, how, and it almost becomes like a marketing challenge for me in anything, hearts and minds. How do you convince a public of a certain thing? Because nobody knows what truth is anymore. So, how do you develop that dialogue? How do you develop the narrative for the US public to agree that enough's enough? We need a change. Change for me, my whole life, change seems to be the one word that every opposition party has used against the one that's in power every time. It never changes. It's like every Everybody wants change. Most people are not happy about the future if given a bit what a bad future could look like. So I want change. I I didn't like these things that have happened to me. I want change. And so that is going to be the Democrats have to figure out a way to deliver that message where people are buying in to your right. We thought it was going to be this. It's now this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, change being the only constant. We know it's going to be there. And the Democrats have to be both ambitious and modest. Ambitious and that we've got to change the culture, change the policy. But modest is to say, we don't have all the answers. I don't know the perfect immigration proposal or tax proposal. But let's get all the stakeholders and talk about it. Let's get business and labor sitting in it there. Let's get NGOs and you know Christian organizations and others getting as part of it and say, you're America, let's do this together. But first of all, what we have to rid ourselves is this person who's un-American, unpatriotic, and interested in only himself, who has destroyed the civility of the country.
SPEAKER_00And we and to do that, those that are on the fence have to believe that everything that they're being told, all their messages, their sound bites, visuals, uh it might not be the truth. And nobody likes to be told that they're stupid. Nobody likes to be told that they've been listening to lies. So I think it's going to be, even though the president's approval rating is down in the low 30s, I think the Democrats can't rest on their laurels and they have to believe that a message, a better message, needs to be sent that regardless of what Trump's team is saying, you deserve a better future. And so I think it's a challenge for the Democrats because we've talked about it. I don't know who that spokesperson is to deliver a message where people believe their future is going to be better.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we've talked about my view, has always been engage. And the Democrats, I mean, Hillary Clinton's big mistake is to have listened to some other people around to say, we don't need to go to Wisconsin or Michigan or Pennsylvania because there are voters. And the basket of deplorables and all these things, and so you attack the people as opposed to the policy. And you never attack the people who vote for things, you attack the policy. And you engage. If I were advising the Democrats, and I'm not a Democrat, I'd say every opportunity you get, go on Fox. Kamala Harris should have talked to Joe Rogan. That's a bit of Democratic elitist thinking that you don't need to do that. And have this discussion. And you know, when you're talking, talk like you do, like a normal human being. If if uh Trump says that uh you know Iran was gonna attack us uh right away, that's bullshit. Your own intelligence uh service did not just challenge everything is said in a civil way. Of course I just said bullshit.
SPEAKER_00But that's not uncivil. But when always being told you're you're used to uh being uh he's an idiot, he's stupid, you know, just condemnation of their opposition instead of I don't agree with that because of, and you come out, you know, we've talked about Pete Buttigieg is a very good orator. He's very good at arguing, and he's very rational and he's very legitimate, so certainly you'd throw him in the fray. We have moved away from that, and maybe our skills, because of our reliance on social media and AI, maybe our skills are not what they used to be, not as sharp because we're relying on something else to do our thinking for us.
SPEAKER_01But I think there, you know, uh people worry that there's no spokesperson for the Democratic Party. Well, two and a half years out of the elections in 2008 or in 92, nobody knew who Clinton was in '91. Nobody knew who Obama was, but very few only the insiders do. And they became not only the nominee, but the presidents for two terms. And by the way, if we didn't have a two-term limit, Clinton would have won over Bush. He's more popular than Gore. Obama would have won over Trump because he was clearly more popular than uh than Hillary was. So the reality is that if you have a good message, or at least you know how to do it, that you go to all areas in the country, that you don't speak down to people, and the Democrats have to, they don't have to spell out exactly what their immigration form is. But here's the things that we believe in. We believe in immigration, we believe in control of the border, we believe in those who live good lives in this country should stay. And so then you said, and we'll talk when we're elected, we're gonna bring all the people under the tent, we're gonna get a good proposal.
Final Advice And Closing Reflections
SPEAKER_01And I'm gonna bring Republicans under the tent.
SPEAKER_00What uh we've talked about a bunch of things, we've unpacked some things. Is there anything else that you either want to cover, uh say? Um last words? Hopefully, not last words.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, you tell an 81-year-old guy, last words, that's a bad prophecy.
SPEAKER_00Okay, let me remote it.
SPEAKER_01Okay, here's what I would say. We don't we don't need any more old white men.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01And uh, you know, we need you more young leadership, and we need what I would say is don't give up on the country. Work it, don't be cynical about it, don't live in a bubble and just enjoy yourself.
SPEAKER_00Speak up and vote.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And with that, I thank you.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The time that we spent with the Gundersons reminds me of a better time when rational thinking was at the forefront of problem solving. Good citizenship led to volunteering and helping others that need a hand. Discussing opposite viewpoints in a civil manner that was healthy and enlightening to both sides. Empathy for others was the foundation of leadership, and diplomacy was the first, the second, and third option to defuse the political cancer, which leads to loss of life. And then I think that better time I'm speaking about can be a future time with the right leadership. When you're about to point a finger at your opposition every single time there's an argument, stand clearly in front of a mirror and notice where that finger points. Thanks for staying to the end. I'm your host, Rich Easton, telling tales, well, again from beautiful Charleston, South Carolina. Talk to you soon.