Transcript: Trump Press Sec Goes Full Cult as Davos Mockery Gets Worse

And that’s really something that we need to consider as a country: how much our primary system is distorting and damaging us on both sides, honestly, but more on the Republican side. And open primaries might be a very good reform to think about if we get through this in any sort of reasonable shape.

But yeah, the Republican Party has become a sort of prostrate bunch of men and women who simply echo the party line. Karoline Leavitt, back to her, right? I mean, that plaster, glazed-eyed, Yes, Master. That’s what they look like.

Sargent: Right. And so after the speech—just want to bring this up as well—Trump really wanted to show that all this is having an effect. After it was over, he tweeted this:

“Based upon a very productive meeting that I have had with the Secretary General of NATO, we have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic region. This solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America and all NATO nations.”

He also said he’s not going to impose the tariffs he’s threatened because I guess everybody’s listening to him. Now, I think it’s worth reminding people here that we can already get what we want from Greenland. So it’s possible that these talks will just create some fig-leaf way of saying that Trump is getting big concessions, though obviously we can’t know for sure yet what this entails. What do you expect from that, Mona?

Charen: Yes, that’s exactly what I expect. There will be some cosmetic thing that Trump can point to as [a] big victory, but this is a total climb-down on his part. And it’s going to be dressed up as something else.

But you know, that’s unimportant. The fact is the very process by which he brought us to this point is what matters because that is what has destroyed the NATO alliance. There can be some face-saving sort of non-deal deal here, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that every European country now and Canada now knows that NATO is dead. NATO’s dead. It was killed at Davos this week.

Sargent: Is there any way to come back?

Charen: I can’t read the future. I just think it is possible to imagine a world in which the Europeans align themselves with other like-minded nations around the world, including Canada and others, and try to pursue some of the more reasonable policies. But it’s going to be the work of at least a decade because the fact is the U.S. was for so many decades a very reliable ally.

We did shoulder a huge military burden that let the Europeans spend more on their health care plans and other things because we were spending more on defense. Look, Europe has roughly as large a GDP as the United States does. But it’s going to be a struggle for them to gear up their defenses.

And where does that leave the United States? It leaves us no longer the first nation in an alliance of other strong nations; it’s going to leave us much weaker, where we have to rely completely on ourselves. And so the world is going to get more dangerous for us too.

Sargent: Well, just to close this out, I just want to point out that the coverage of this was absolutely brutal for Trump. So all the spin in the world of Karoline Leavitt can’t cover it up.

I’ll just read something from CNN as an example. They say that the crowd “grew more restless and uncomfortable as the speech wound on, sitting largely in silence and offering only tepid applause at the end of the marathon remarks.”

A number of journalists and others have relentlessly pointed out the conflation of Greenland and Iceland and not let Leavitt get away with the spin. Still others have pointed to the hideous racism and the absurd discussion of the West getting polluted by foreign cultures. Another disgusting thing.

Charen: He had to say the thing about “low IQ” people… you know, obvious. I mean, it’s just the most blatant racist stereotyping of Somalis. Unbelievable stuff. So cringing.

Sargent: Yeah, it’s just an absolute horror show for America for him to say that.

Charen: It is. And for him to be the president… and we did this to ourselves. Nobody did it to us. I mean, as Lincoln said, if we will perish, it’ll be by suicide.

I’m not saying we’re going to perish. I’m just saying that this is a complete abdication of world leadership and respect. And so for us, it will require a long time to climb back into respect. I think it’s also for us at home.

All of us have a sense of this country’s institutions having failed, obviously. We are going to have to figure it out for ourselves what kind of a country we’re going to be going forward. How can we reform? How can we rebuild? And it’s going to… it’s going to be a rough go.

Sargnet: Well, the work begins now. Mona Charen, really, really wonderful to talk to you. Thank you so much for all that.

Charen: Thanks, Greg.