Tom Nichols on Trump's "Populist Popcorn" Military

In this Veteran's Day episode, Journalist and professor Tom Nichols joins hosts Heidi and Joel Heitkamp to discuss current leadership at the Pentagon and Justice Department, the state of American democracy, and Republican foreign policy shifts.

Listen to gain insight into the impacts of political loyalty, leadership challenges, and shifts in military and governmental norms. You'll learn how these changes affect America’s standing in the world and the daily lives of rural communities.

Join us on The Hot Dish every week, where we serve up hearty conversations that resonate with every corner of the country.

The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project, making sure the voices of the rest of us are heard in Washington. To learn more, visit https://onecountryproject.org or find us at https://onecountryproject.substack.com/.

• (00:00) - Tom Nichols describes how he sees himself as an Old-School Conservatism
• (12:11) - Tom Nichols discusses Trump's fascination with the military
• (18:10) - Heidi and Joel discuss with Tom Nichols how Trump's reelection diminished worldwide trust
• (28:17) - Joel, Tom Nichols and Heidi discuss how Democrats are acting as gutless leaders
• (39:29) - Joel points out that if he's in a dogfight, he wants to be able to bark back

Creators and Guests

Host

Heidi Heitkamp

U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp served as the first female senator elected from North Dakota from 2013 – 2019. he is the founder and Chair of the One Country Project, an organization focused on addressing the needs and concerns of rural America. Heidi was recently named the Director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, a university she has long been committed to and a place where she enjoys engaging with students over civic discussions while encouraging them to seek opportunities in public service to our country. Heidi also serves as a contributor to both CNBC and ABC News.

Host

Joel Heitkamp

He is an multi-award winning talk show host both regionally and nationally. Before radio, he served in the North Dakota Senate from 1995-2008.

Producer

Cheri Brisendine

Assistant Producer at Voxtopica

Editor

Ismael Balderas-Wong

Head of Production at Voxtopica

Producer

Richard Fawal

Richard Fawal is founder and CEO of Voxtopica.

Guest

Tom Nichols

Tom Nichols is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a contributor to the Atlantic Daily newsletter. He writes about international security, nuclear weapons, Russia, and the challenges to democracy in the United States and around the world. He is a professor emeritus of national-security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, where he taught for 25 years.

What is The Hot Dish?

Former U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp and her brother, KFGO radio talk show host Joel Heitkamp, engage in animated discussions with newsmakers, elected leaders, and policymakers who are creating new opportunities for rural Americans and finding practical solutions to their challenges. Punctuated with entertaining conversations and a healthy dose of sibling rivalry, The Hot Dish, from the One Country Project, is informative, enlightening, and downright fun.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:00:04]:
Welcome to the Hot Dish, comfort food for rural America. I'm Heidi Heitkamp.

Joel Heitkamp [00:00:09]:
And I'm Joel Heitkamp. You know, we're real happy today to have Tom Nichols with us. He is going to join us here on the podcast. A staff writer for the Atlantic and a contributor to the Atlantic Daily Newsletter. He writes about international security, nuclear weapons, Russia, and the challenges to democracy in the United States and around the world. He's a professor emeritus of national security affairs in the US Navy War College, where he taught for 25 years. He served as a legislative aide in the Massachusetts House and in the U.S. Senate.

Joel Heitkamp [00:00:47]:
Now, I want to make sure you know this. His books include the "Death of Expertise" and "Our Own Worst Enemy: the Assault from within on Modern Democracy." Tom, good to have you with us here on the Hot Dish.

Tom Nichols [00:01:02]:
Yeah, thanks for having me. Good to be with you.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:01:04]:
And I read your stuff all the time and find it incredibly enlightening. And I think back to, you know, 10 years ago, 13 years ago, I would read your stuff and you would make me so mad. You know, you would be saying stuff, I mean, always with an articulation that was readable, that had a point of view, but it's not something I would have agreed on. I don't get how you're now one of the public enemies number one against this administration when you have such a long history of defending Republican foreign policy. How did that happen, Tom?

Tom Nichols [00:01:42]:
It's, you know, Heidi, it's a strange thing. I mean, I think back to those days, you know, when we were just before we started recording, I was talking about working for a Republican senator. And, you know, back in the day, I'll steal a line from Chris Matthews. I would have been one of the staff people plotting against you, you know, in the, in the Senate, but within the confines of the Constitution. Not because I thought, you know, the Democrats or, or liberals were my enemy. We just disagreed about policies that, you know, we all loved our country. We all believe in the Constitution and the rule of law. We just disagreed about how much money should we give to a certain country, how, you know, how many nuclear weapons should we have, you know, things like that.

Tom Nichols [00:02:26]:
And I think what's interesting is that all of the things, I mean, I've changed my mind on some things. We all do. We get older. I mean, I worked in the Senate when I was 31, and now I'm 65. So I, I have some different views on things, but I, I think I haven't changed. I think that the, the litmus Test for the Republican Party is just loyalty to Donald Trump, whose, whose policies, I would add both foreign policy and his domestic policies are nowhere in the neighborhood of conservative, at least conservative as we would have understood it 20 or even 10 or 15 years ago. You know, statist, big government, deficit spending, anti-NATO, anti-atlanticist, pro-Russia. I mean, that's, that's not, I'm, you know, if that, if, if that's a conservative now, then I'm not a conservative, but I think of myself as an old school conservative and I haven't really changed that much.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:03:29]:
And one of my, one of my lines that I use now is the era of Big Governments back. It's just not the Big Government you recognize from the Republican Party.

Tom Nichols [00:03:37]:
Well, and you know, the Republicans, socialism has become one of these, you know, scary words that people are throwing at each other. But when I see the US government buying 10 and 20% stakes in private companies, you know, I was a scholar of the Soviet Union. When the State starts owning major enterprises, that feels like socialism to me.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:04:02]:
You know, or at least a move towards oligarchy.

Tom Nichols [00:04:06]:
Well, it's, it's crony capitalism, of course, is what it really is. But, you know, the idea that, well, we'll have trade wars and then we'll just bail out farmers, I mean, that's huge kind of left leaning populist statism. That is not identifiable to me anyway as anything like conservative. And I think 90% of things Donald Trump is doing, if, if Joe Biden or Barack Obama or you had ever voted for something like that, people would have lost their minds. But this is all about loyalty to Donald Trump now. It's not about principle. It's not really about ideas for the Republican Party.

Joel Heitkamp [00:04:45]:
Tom, in the world that you lived in as not only an aide, but an expert when it comes to all of this, could you ever imagine that we'd be saying Secretary Hegseth. I mean, how did, how did we get to there? Because it's clear to me that he doesn't have what it takes to do the job. I mean, how did we get to there?

Tom Nichols [00:05:07]:
That's a very kind evaluation to say he doesn't have what it takes. I would argue he is the most manifestly unqualified Secretary of Defense perhaps in modern history. And I think we got there. There's a, there's a kind of a big explanation and a smaller one. The bigger explanation is that the Cold War ended. And despite America being involved in kind of imperial policing in places like Afghanistan, the costs of foreign policy were borne by a very small number of volunteers. And so Americans just didn't have to think about foreign affairs. They didn't have to think about foreign threats.

Tom Nichols [00:05:48]:
It's been 25 years since 9/11. And I think when you have a country that loses that sense of seriousness, you can shrug and say, yeah, why? Why not Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense? What could go, what's the worst that could happen? You know, because nothing really matters. And I think that's endemic to this whole movement. So the smaller explanation is that people now have people on the right, I would argue, become so tribalized about supporting Donald Trump that I think, I would imagine that a lot of Heidi's former colleagues probably had a minor aneurysm when they. They heard that Pete Hegseth was being nominated. But there. But again, it's like, well, I can either vote, I can vote against him and be a principal person and get primaried out of my seat by MAGA world, or I can sort of shrug and hope that, that nothing really bad happens. And I think that we're in that kind of unserious, you know, what does it really matter? The bureaucracy kind of works and keeps things moving.

Tom Nichols [00:06:54]:
And I think that was that in part comes from the first term where there were adults around Trump who, the way I, I describe it is they put pool noodles around him and baby bumpers and, you know, put all the, you know, like when you have a toddler and you put all the breakable stuff away. Nobody's doing that now. So I could not have imagined, you know, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth or Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. I certainly could have imagined, couldn't have imagined the President of the United States siding with Russia against NATO and against our own government. But, you know, this is a time where we're all getting used to a lot of really horrible things.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:07:38]:
Tom, as a lawyer, I think about what's happening at the Justice Department, and I think about, can we go back to the way it was once this is over, or will this just be a race to the bottom? I also think and talk to a lot of my friends who are military, a lot of them who have served at the highest levels of the Defense Department, who wonder the same thing. And so when you think about it, what are the worst things that are happening right now with leadership at DOD and the Pentagon, and can it get fixed?

Tom Nichols [00:08:11]:
I think DOD and DOJ, the problem is the same, which is that we're burning through years of accumulated experience by getting rid of people simply because they are not making some political cut, you know, making.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:08:27]:
But I would also argue we're changing the mission of those two groups.

Tom Nichols [00:08:31]:
Oh well, the DOJ especially, I mean, that's just Donald Trump's personal law firm and that's how he wants it to be. And I think he's trying to turn the, the Pentagon into his personal militia, into his personal army that is loyal to him, does what he says and, and obeys the President before the Constitution. And he's trying really hard to do that. The problem is, you know, how do you get that back afterwards? I think when Donald Trump is gone and you know, knock on wood, that he will be not run for a third term and we won't have to go through the, that nonsense, but that his movement, as we saw, you know, this week, last week in the elections, his movement can be defeated. People just have to come out and vote. And I think you're going to have to get kind of reverse the purge of the purge, so to speak. You're going to have to get rid of all these cronies and lackeys and unqualified people that were brought into these two institutions. And the military, that's going to be hard because you're losing three and four star generals.

Tom Nichols [00:09:36]:
My, my friend Elliot Cohen pointed out in an article in the Atlantic that when Hegseth did that little stunt of calling everybody into the auditorium and you know, talking about fat soldiers and all that nonsense, that this former, this 44 year old former Major was talking to an accumulate a room with an accumulated 25,000 years of military experience in it.

Joel Heitkamp [00:10:07]:
Yeah.

Tom Nichols [00:10:07]:
And I mean, it's just, it's laughable. I mean, if it weren't so dangerous and so inimical and to the American constitutional experience, it would be almost. You know, I keep saying these guys are just a constant Saturday Night Live sketch, but it's not funny because Hegseth is firing people because they, he doesn't want to hear that we can't just murder people on the high seats. And you know, I don't know what are we going to do next? Invade Nigeria or something that whatever the president saw on TV 10 minutes ago.

Joel Heitkamp [00:10:43]:
So, so that, that's, I have to ask this though, Tom. You know, I got the impression in the first Trump administration that, and maybe it was because it was coming off of military activity, you know, call it war, call it whatever you want. But I got the sense that one of the things that Trump pushed the most that he saw as a strength was not using the military, was not Being aggressive. When it came to looking for a fight, it seems to be just the opposite now that it's like, I've got Pete Hegseth, we've got all of this. Why not take it out, why not use it, and why not get into a fight?

Tom Nichols [00:11:22]:
I think he, you know, in his first term, he, he end his second term, he ran as a peace candidate, but that was always just, I think, populist popcorn that he was handing out because I don't think he really believed it. Remember, this is the same guy in his first term who calls Jim Mattis and says, we're going to kill Assad. I want a plan to kill Bashar Assad. And Mattis apparently said, okay, well, get right to work, Mr. President. He hung up the phone and then said, we're not going to do that. Now that worries me. That was a bad thing in the first term because you had the Secretary of defense basically saying, I will selectively ignore the President at will, which is not a good tradition to begin in civil military relations, especially when the secretary is a former general.

Tom Nichols [00:12:11]:
But my point is, Trump had a lot of crazy ideas about using the military. And he, he doesn't. He, he, if you want to try and square the circle and be fair to the president somehow, he's saying, I don't want to get involved in bogged down these long, complicated wars where I have to read briefings and understand stuff. But I do like the idea of using the military for these showy big, kind of showstopper set pieces, like, you know, we're going to send B2s into Iran, we're going to blow up terrorists Nigeria, we're going to fly out and just explode boats out in the middle of the Caribbean. I think he thinks that's different from the things he ran against, which were being involved in Afghanistan, being involved in Iraq, having these long presences there. So, I mean, I think it's always helpful to think of Donald Trump as very childlike. He's fascinated by the military. He loves the idea of powerful military strikes executed at his command.

Tom Nichols [00:13:17]:
And he gravitates toward the military because it is the one institution in American life that he, I think, correctly realizes has to obey his orders and can't push back as hard as even the DOJ or FBI or anywhere else. So I, I mean, he's being inconsistent, but I think in his mind he's saying, no, no, I don't want to get involved and bogged down in any long wars. I just want to use the military a lot for of showy explosions everywhere that I can make happen by picking up the phone.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:13:47]:
Made for TV Military.

Tom Nichols [00:13:50]:
Absolutely. Everything, Donald Trump's entire consciousness, to me, seems to be mediated through television.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:13:57]:
Yeah, it's all about ratings.

Tom Nichols [00:14:00]:
Well, and also that apparently. That's like I was trying to figure out the other day, what on or where did he get this kind of, you know, burn his saddle about Nigeria. And apparently he was watching TV and he saw something on TV and said, okay, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, post on truth social Nigeria, better cut it out. You know, that's not a policy. That's. That's an old man watching TV and shaking his fist and saying, those darn Nigerians are going to pay. That's, you know, that's how he thinks. Everything happens through television.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:14:34]:
But you do have to remember he stopped. What is it, six or seven or.

Tom Nichols [00:14:37]:
Eight or nine, whatever, eight wars.

Joel Heitkamp [00:14:40]:
Aren't you supposed to say teen in front of that or after? I mean, it's -

Heidi Heitkamp [00:14:45]:
18 you think?

Joel Heitkamp [00:14:46]:
18. Well, it'll be 18 by tomorrow. You know, it's all about declaring victory. So what price do we pay when you're blowing boats, when you're murdering people on the high seas? I mean, what, what price, as a country do we pay? Because it appears to me that other world leaders have learned how to deal with them, and that's to basically suck up to them. So what price do we play, pay Tom?

Tom Nichols [00:15:12]:
Well, when it comes to the world leaders, they manage up, right? There's that business, right? You manage up when you have a bad boss. And all these people have said, you know, tell him that he's a. It's, it's. I keep coming back to that Twilight Zone episode, you know, with Bill Mumy is the super powerful kid that everybody's afraid of. So they constantly say, it's good what you did. You're doing good, Anthony. That's terrific.

Tom Nichols [00:15:35]:
You know, it's the same thing. No matter what Trump does, somebody picks up and says, it's good what you did, Don. And they give him presents and little awards and plaques and things. I mean they're managing -

Heidi Heitkamp [00:15:49]:
And nominations.

Tom Nichols [00:15:50]:
They're managing him like he's a fourth grader and not a very mature fourth grader. What we lose with these operations, first of all, we're risking the lives of American service people. Even though we're just out there blowing up boats. Every time you launch something, every time you move military assets around, people can get hurt. Even if it's just by accidents, even if it's unintentional but we're also losing our position as leader of the free world. And I know a lot of Trump's people will say, well, who cares about that? You know, that's, that's deep state stuff. Because I think too many Americans don't realize that their quality of life, their material security, their day to day quality of life really depends on the functioning of an international system of peace and security and trade that they don't really see every day. It just happens.

Tom Nichols [00:16:48]:
They don't know how things end up in the grocery store. They just get there. And so if, that, if we. I've talked many times to audiences where I say, look, if you want to live in a world where Beijing and Moscow make the rules, you're going to end up with that and you're not going to like it. And by the time you realize that, it will be too late. Because when you, especially when the President orders these kind of kooky, you know, I can kill anybody I want sort of orders, you lose the presumption of the benefit of the doubt if you ever actually need to use military force. I mean, the lesson of 60 years, 80 years since the end of World War II is allies are the best thing to have. One of the reasons the United States can do many of the things it does and Russia can't.

Tom Nichols [00:17:38]:
For years, I sort of, even when I would go to Russia and sort of tweak my Russian friends and I'd say, it's nice to have allies. You don't even have friends. I mean, Russia doesn't even have friends. They have clients. China has, you know, sort of friends, mostly clients. The United States has been blessed to have 32 countries in the most powerful alliance in history that have our backs. And Trump is going to squander that. When you talk about seizing Greenland, you're literally talking about attacking one of our NATO allies.

Tom Nichols [00:18:10]:
It's insane. I mean, there is something, I think there's something genuinely wrong with the man. But electing him twice, I think has sent a chilling message to our allies that the first time wasn't a one off, that, you know, we could always say that first term was like America. You know, we went on a, like Brexit, right? We all went on a bender and we woke up the next morning and we went, oh, crap, you know, what did we do? The problem. And you see it in Britain now, right? They had one referendum and they all regret it now. We didn't regret it four years later. We said, yeah, let's try that again. And our allies have said, oh, okay, so this wasn't just a mistake, that there are 75 million of you or 80 million of you who actually think this is a good idea, and that makes us less trustworthy, and being less trustworthy makes us less secure.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:19:01]:
Yeah. Both Joel and I spend a lot of time with veterans, and I think people misunderstand. They think they're politically engaged to guarantee veterans benefits, and certainly that is a high priority for them. But a high priority is maintaining a strong military, maintaining an independent military. And, you know, you see a record number of veterans right now running for public office on both sides, but a lot of Democratic veterans saying, this is a bridge too far. This is not why I wore the uniform. This is not why I fought for my country. How.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:19:35]:
What, what would you say to a veteran out there who is dismayed by what's happening?

Tom Nichols [00:19:40]:
Oh, boy. You know, I would. I would remind every veteran that to be like George Washington, the first commander, our first commander, who said, remember that when we took up the soldier, we did not lay aside the citizen. And that if you're upset about what's happening, you are a citizen of the United States first and foremost. That's more important even than being a veteran or a, you know, a New Englander or a Californian or a Southerner or whatever it is. I mean, I. I wrote a. Just before the election, I wrote a cover story for the Atlantic about Washington, and I.

Tom Nichols [00:20:19]:
I was so moved, studying him, because in his will, he refers to himself as George Washington, a citizen. The first thing he writes, I, George Washington, a citizen of the United States. You know, and to say, be involved. Speak up. You know, bring your military background to this debate and to. And to say those things, Heidi, that you just said, I didn't sign up for this. It's not why I wore this uniform. You know, I didn't.

Tom Nichols [00:20:50]:
I didn't join the military to salute any one president. And I think that Trump has been very successful at fudging for a lot of people, and I think that's our fault as Americans that we didn't do enough civic education anywhere. But especially in the military, he's fudged the difference between loyalty to the Constitution and loyalty to the commander in chief.

Joel Heitkamp [00:21:12]:
I want to ask about Russia, Tom, while we have you on, you know, you line this deal up in Alaska, you buy all the red carpet or else you ship it up there, you roll it up, you talk about the relationship you have with Putin. There hasn't been any results with that. Had any other president done that? First off, there would have been a big question in regards to what happened, why there? And yet there's no accountability when it comes to a result of it.

Tom Nichols [00:21:45]:
Oh, Donald Trump's never. First of all, Donald Trump's voters will never hold him accountable for anything. They live in a completely sealed off reality. After that summit on social media, I'd said, you know, hey, this is, I have some, some experience, you know, writing about this stuff that's a failed summit. I mean, Trump got his, got his head handed to him by, by Putin who flew in and said, I'm not doing any of these things that you're talking about. No, I don't want to have lunch with you. I'm getting back on my plane. I go tell Zarinowski, excuse me, go tell Zelenskyy.

Tom Nichols [00:22:20]:
I want, what I want, and I'm getting on my plane and going back to Russia. And by the way, thank you for making me look good and making yourself look like an ass. And, and, and his supporters are like, see, he's fighting for peace. He's doing, I'm like, did we, you know, there. It's almost like talking to people that are like, have, having a break with reality. I think the other problem though goes back to what I was talking about earlier, which is people say, all right, so summit fell through. What's a big deal? There's a war raging in the middle of Europe right now. Hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians and tanks.

Tom Nichols [00:23:00]:
Literally there is a gigantic war happening in Europe. And I think because Americans, it doesn't affect them and because it's not because there are so many sources of information that just bombard the average citizen with everything from war in Ukraine to the price of eggs to, you know, tornadoes and hurricanes, they just go, you know what, okay, whatever. 40 years ago, I'm, I'm an old enough to, you know, we're all old enough to be Cold War kids. A failed Summit during a war in Europe would have been considered a national crisis. But we don't think that way. And Donald Trump in particular, our expectations, and this is something unfortunately, that both the right and the left share. The expectations of Donald Trump are so low that no one really even blinks when he fails. Because it's every day that every day there's some disastrous misstep.

Tom Nichols [00:23:58]:
Tariffs, inflation, going up, personnel problems, you know, we, the, the, the big flap about SignalGate that ended up where, you know, Secretary of Defense or the, the National Security Advisor is texting my boss at the Atlantic, you know, classified stuff is just astonishing. I mean, in any other Administration, people would be up in arms. But Donald Trump has worn us down. He's worn us down so that when it happens, we go, what are you going to do?

Heidi Heitkamp [00:24:31]:
Well, if you look at this and you think about past elections, a 5 deferment for bone spurs guy telling real soldiers how to conduct themselves would not have been anywhere near what I would expect that the military would tolerate or people who support the military. But yet we're dealing with someone who has absolutely zero experience with the military. Zero experience.

Joel Heitkamp [00:25:02]:
Yeah.

Tom Nichols [00:25:02]:
And zero experience in, in politics until he became, until he became president. You know, it's, it's interesting because other. It used to be that you had to have some military service in your background to be a credible candidate. Bill Clinton's the first president that just gets by that, right? Or just says, you know, but, but Clinton went out of his way to not look like. To look. To try not to look like he was antagonizing the military. You know, Dick Cheney didn't serve, George Bush in the National Guard and so on. Trump not only didn't serve, but goes out.

Tom Nichols [00:25:40]:
And this is a very Trumpian things. You're in the military. Let me tell you how to do war. He is, like, when he, he did the same thing with doctors. They're trying to give him a tour, and he's like, you know, I know so much about medicine. Let me tell you about medicine. There is kind of an aggressive ignorance about the man where he's, it's not just that he doesn't know things, but he wants to tell you about the things he doesn't know about. And I think that, yeah, it is surprising that he, that his supporters, who claim to be very pro military, really put up with a huge amount of hostility he has for the military.

Tom Nichols [00:26:21]:
You know, the Atlantic broke that story years ago about suckers and losers and his kind of dismissive view of people who've died in conflict. You know, standing there in Arlington Cemetery and looking around all these graves and going, I don't get it, you know, what was in it for them? But again, I think it's, it's this notion that so many of Trump's supporters have that, yeah, you know, he's crude and he, he's ignorant, but he hates the people we hate. He makes people mad in a way that we find enjoyable, so they just cut him slack on all this other stuff, or they convince themselves. And I've had this conversation so many times with Trump supporters where they say, well, that's not what he meant. I know what he meant. And it's like in we both speak the English language. I'm pretty sure we both can, you know, figure out what he said and what he meant, or they just deny it. They say he never, he never suckers, losers, he never said it.

Tom Nichols [00:27:18]:
You know, all those things that are reported just fake news or lies, you really are not going to get past people who have erected, you know, a kind of dome of lucite around themselves that just is impenetrable to facts or reason. And that's just how it is now, unfortunately.

Joel Heitkamp [00:27:39]:
Heidi, coming off of Veterans Day and of course, you know, the whole Shutdown and you know, this isn't the reason that we wanted to talk to Tom today. I get it. But it also ties into a man that was your good friend that you got to know very well in your time in the Senate, and that's John McCain. You know, and both of you, when I heard suckers and losers, the first thing I talk about or talk thought about, I should say, was how incredibly, how terrible it was to call John McCain that. And hi, you know, on Veterans Day. That has to bring a bad memory for you.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:28:17]:
Well, it brings up the loss even more profound because right now, the gutless Republican Party people who profess that they have loyalty to the, to the kind of rule of law loyalty to the norms that involve nonpartisan behavior at the military, they say nothing when banners fly out of Donald Trump's picture, they say nothing when Kristi Noem puts a video up in airports that is clearly in violation of the Hatch act, they say nothing. Guess what? John McCain would be saying a lot and he would be leading that effort. And where are those leaders? I mean, the best we've got right now is Rand Paul, which is so ironic, let me tell you. But at least he's speaking up about what's happening in the Caribbean. At least he's speaking up about long trade relationships that are being injured. And it's just like, I don't know why they want to be a United States Senator. Why don't they just give the proxy to the President, go home and golf? I have no idea why those people want to sit in the Senate and be absolutely gutless and fearful and cowards, literally cowards. Because I will tell you one thing.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:29:39]:
They all know this is not good. They are not stupid people. They are gutless people.

Tom Nichols [00:29:46]:
Well, being a Senator is a good gig, though there's a lot of these folks who can't imagine being any. You. I'm, you know, I don't. I worked there years ago. You you were, you know, this. There are people who just can't imagine being anything else.

Joel Heitkamp [00:30:00]:
Yeah, that's it.

Tom Nichols [00:30:01]:
And, and they're going to do what they have to do to stay there. And that Trump relies on that. And, and he relies on a certain amount of bullying to say, if you cross me, your phones will ring, you'll get death threats. I mean, this is another thing, you know, that we've normalized in our political experience is that threats of violence, threat, death threat, they're just a normal part of American politics now, apparently.

Joel Heitkamp [00:30:29]:
Tom, I know we only have a little time left, but I have to ask you about this. With what happened in Israel and what's still happening in Israel and the role that can play on, on America's defense of itself even. Was this between Netanyahu and Trump all staged? Was this a way that Netanyahu could help Donald Trump? And is this about, Is it a lot of collusion going on there, Tom?

Tom Nichols [00:31:00]:
Joel, I, I just don't know. I, I mean, you know, I think I'm always reluctant to go for complicated explanations when the simple ones are staring right at us. You know, Israel, I think after October 7, Israel was going to go to war. That just was inevitable. You know, did it have to be as violent or as drawn out as it was? I think a lot of that has to do with Netanyahu and his personal fortunes in Israel. Whether they, there was some kind of deal between Trump, I, I doubt it. I suspect that Netanyahu annoyed Trump a lot because the whole thing made Trump look bad. And what's the one thing you're never supposed to do? The only time Trump's ever lashed out at Putin is for the same reason, When you make Donald Trump look bad.

Tom Nichols [00:31:52]:
That's his only kind of yardstick for all this. So I just don't know, but I doubt it. And I think, you know, what's happened is awful and it's a tragedy. And look, give, you know, we'll give one cheer to Donald Trump for pressuring Netanyahu into a ceasefire. I think Netanyahu attacking Qatar probably helped move that process along. That wasn't the smartest move in the world. But as to, you know, I don't even want to speculate about things like collusion. I just don't have any evidence of that.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:32:23]:
Well, Tom, thanks for so much for joining us. I hope you'll come back. I mean, one of the things, we do a show basically about rural policy, but we know because we've lived there, that a disproportionate number of people who serve in uniform come from rural America, and they care deeply about their service. They believe in their service. And, you know, it's really, really hard for them to step up and say, you know, that might have been a mistake, that might have been something we shouldn't have done. But I think that there is more and more questioning of the norms that are being torn down at the Pentagon and more and more concern. The question is, can you survive the next three years?

Tom Nichols [00:33:08]:
Well, I think anyone who thinks, you know, and I understand that for folks in the military, I was never in the military. I taught military officers for 25 years. The President is the President. You can almost hear the capital P when it's spoken as Commander in Chief. But the, but imagine, and I would say this to folks who have served, imagine if Barack Obama or Joe Biden or Bill Clinton had demanded the same level of personal loyalty and unquestioning obedience to really dangerous orders, like killing people on the high seas. If they had demanded that of you, would you be defending that? And I think the answer is no. I think Donald Trump has made it again. He's kind of fudged difference.

Tom Nichols [00:33:59]:
Say that if you don't want to obey my orders, no matter how bad they are, that you are, you're not a patriot, you're, you're a traitor, you're treasonous. But the, the people in the United States military are sworn to defend the Constitution, not a particular man. And I think that's the most important thing, thing that everybody should remember.

Joel Heitkamp [00:34:20]:
Well, Tom, this has been a real treat for me. I watch your work from afar. I have a lot of respect, really do. So thanks for joining us on the Hot dish.

Tom Nichols [00:34:29]:
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Joel Heitkamp [00:34:36]:
You know, Heidi, the Shutdown, the longest shutdown ever in history. Those people that were debating how to open it back up or people that you worked with, many of them. So I have to ask you, what effect did that have? What effect did that have on the Senate? What effect did that have on the Democratic Party?

Heidi Heitkamp [00:34:55]:
Well, it's hard to know, Joel, because obviously there is a big point of disagreement and a lot of hurt feelings and a lot of people had different perspectives. But the other thing is, you look at the vote, it's not a coincidence that it was only eight votes. They gave a lot of people who had, they called upon them to walk, you know, to give, they gave him a walk. And you know, Dick Durbin, who's leaving the Senate, he's also an institutionalist. You know, Catherine Cortez Masto was on that side to begin with, so was Angus King. And so I think that when you look at kind of how they did the count, you don't know how many people in the Senate behind them actually are glad that this happened. And I'm not saying it's everyone. I saw comments that Elizabeth and Bernie made, and I get it.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:35:46]:
But the time is to turn. It's done. And so my advice to my colleagues is start preparing for the December vote on the ACA. Start gathering the numbers, start calling out your colleagues on the other side. Start reporting what's going to happen to people's healthcare if they don't fix this. Make the other side accountable. Win the fight. They wanted to win the fight kind of in this leverage game.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:36:13]:
And I'm saying win the fight on the principles of what you're fighting for and get at it right now. Start talking about healthcare again right now. And I think it's gonna make a lot of Republicans really uncomfortable when they start seeing people whose premiums have doubled or tripled, who are working poor. And so I say lick your wounds, have your fights. Get back in the arena. Talk about affordability, talk about what you can do. And I've been saying, coalesce around a bill that would cap credit card interest at something other than 28%. I mean, think about that, 28%.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:36:52]:
It's just unheard of that that would be the interest rate on credit cards. And so find another issue to work on together as a Caucus and start preparing for a December vote. And if they don't, you give you a December vote, all hell is going to break loose.

Joel Heitkamp [00:37:09]:
Well, I said on Meet the Press Now that the Democrats were never going to win this if the whole point was to extend, you know, the Affordable Care act. The point was to make sure the Republicans own healthcare. I mean, that's the point of the shutdown, was to make sure that the Republicans own healthcare. Because you know what, with what they did in the Big Beautiful Bill, those premiums are going to go up the area. I may disagree with you on a little bit, actually. I do disagree with you on when you say, look, pick another fight, take another fight, take go back and fight. We don't fight like he does. I've been in a couple scrapes, maybe more physical.

Joel Heitkamp [00:37:49]:
I get that. Then literal. But we don't fight the way he fights. We wouldn't have shut off food to people that need food and then got on a plane and went and had a Gatsby party or whatever the hell he had. My point is this. You can debate other issues. Go ahead and do it all you want. I agree with it.

Joel Heitkamp [00:38:12]:
But until you start fighting a little bit like Newsom does, you're not going to lay a lick on him. And he fights dirty. And the Democrats better learn how to fight dirty.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:38:22]:
I would say this. The biggest disappointment is there aren't any ads running. Here is a President who was willing to starve children to basically take away health care from the poorest Americans. I mean, you can't make that up. That is Marie Antoinette. That is, you know, King GeorgeIII. That is like, I'm going to do it because I'm going to do it. And I think that people need to be reminded now that it's over.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:38:50]:
The SNAP benefits are going to be there. The package they agreed to will prevent that from happening in January. But this is also a President who doesn't care about the law. He doesn't care what the law says. He got a district court opinion that said, hey, send all the money out. And when States obeyed with the district court opinion, he threatened the States who obeyed with the court opinion. I mean, that we are so bereft of the ability to take really bad behavior and message it to the public in a couple really good ads. And that's the thing that irritates me more than anything.

Joel Heitkamp [00:39:29]:
Well, and I would argue that those ads would mean you're fighting that you're, you're, you're getting right up in his grill. And, you know, obviously there's people who disagree with me. You know, take the high road, show you're classy, you know, do many of those things. I just think when you're at a dogfight, you better bark. And, you know, when you're cutting food off from people, when you're shutting airlines down, when you're doing all those things that he could do, they sat in a room and thought, how can we inflict pain? And if we inflict pain, what we're going to do is we're going to get people to come forth and make a deal. I'm fine with getting it back open. It was always going to open this way. I'm not fine if we don't get ready and make sure that this ends up being their responsibility when it comes to healthcare.

Joel Heitkamp [00:40:24]:
If we let that slide, if we let him sit there and go about messaging in a way to where, look, that's the Affordable Care Act's fault that it's been going up for how long. That's not our fault. If we let that be the message, then you know what? It's on us. It really is.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:40:44]:
Well, and the thing is that now the real work begins, which is to prepare for that December vote to figure out. And honest to God, if I hear one more Senator tell me, well, I'm doing TikToks, I said they don't want to hear from you. They want to hear from people who are hurting. They want to hear from how does this affect their lives? And you know, you basically going to camera. That's not very persuasive. I'm sorry. You know, I used to think that I had a great bully pulpit, too, until, you know, you run for reelection and don't win because you haven't brought people along. And I think that is the real challenge here and what I'm going to be watching for.

Joel Heitkamp [00:41:29]:
Yeah, I guess we both are, Heidi.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:41:35]:
Hey, listen, thank you again for joining us on the Hot Dish brought to you by One Country Project, making sure the voices of the rest of us are heard in Washington.

Joel Heitkamp [00:41:44]:
You bet. Learn more at onecountryproject.org. That's where you're going to see us. Learn a lot more at onecountryproject.org where we want to hear from you. We'll be back next week with more Hot dish comfort food for rural America.