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Date: 2026-03-03 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00029427

TRUMP'S LEADERSHIP OPINION - ANNE APPLEBAUM ... PoliticsJOE Anne Applebaum: Donald Trump has reinvented reality PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvBsWZS8VXI
Anne Applebaum: Donald Trump has reinvented reality PoliticsJOE Jan 1, 2026 730K subscribers ... 108,605 views ... 4.4K likes This year we had Anne Applebaum in the studio to discuss the ideas in her book Autocracy Inc. During the conversation, Anne went into great depth about the MAGA movement's dismantling of democracy while in power, and how it has moved to question the very basis of fact. Like PoliticsJOE? We need your support: / politicsjoe How this was made Auto-dubbed Audio tracks for some languages were automatically generated. Learn more Will luxury flats kill London's nightlife? \| MOTH Club report ... by PoliticsJOE 2025: The rise of Zack Polanski ... by PoliticsJOE Judith Butler: How to save men from the radical right ... by PoliticsJOE Ian Hislop reviews the chaos of 2025 ... by PoliticsJOE Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess Transcript 0:00 Can Trump be seen as a reliable narrator? The sort of conversations that we're having here are, well, Trump is now moving, he's now on the side of Zilinski and he's moved away from feeling that Putin is some sort of deity that um he must have a special relationship with. Do you think any of that talk has weight to it or can he shift? So, it just so happens about 10 days ago, I was in Ukraine and I was in a room full of Ukrainian journalists and editors. was a kind of conference and I asked is there anybody in this room who thinks that there's going to be a ceasefire soon and nobody raised their hands. The Russians have not talked about a ceasefire that Putin has never said he wants a ceasefire. The Russians are not are not acting like they want to stop the war. They haven't dropped their war aims which continue to be the occupation and destruction of Ukraine. Um and so it's almost like there's one conversation happening in Washington and in the ether and among people journalists who are writing about it. You know there's some kind of thing happening and negotiations going but on 1:01 the ground actually nothing has changed and nobody who really follows the conflict and who understands what Putin did is doing believes it will change. Uh so we're in it's a very weird thing where Trump has actually successfully I think created this alternative reality where there are peace talks and negotiations that don't actually exist and then on the ground there's nothing there. Um you know I mean the other thing I think that's really hard to understand and accept aside from the fact that he's seeking to destroy the American government administration is that Trump doesn't have a strategy. So he doesn't think strategically or geopolitically. He doesn't think well if I do if I let Ukraine be defeated by Russia then that will have an impact on how China sees Taiwan. I mean that's not how he thinks. He thinks very much in the present. So every conversation that he has he has to win. So if he's in the room with the president of South Africa or the president of Ukraine, he has to emerge 2:00 from that conversation as the victor. And he doesn't think about the further implications of that. So if he shows fake pictures to the president of South Africa that show a white genocide that didn't happen, that of course has implications and it has implications for how America's perceived in Africa and how America's for future relations with South Africa. he doesn't care about any of that. His interest is in winning the moment um and in using and in creating chaos that he can then use to manipulate people for his own political and maybe financial benefit. And it's really hard to get people to understand that that's what the US president is doing that he doesn't have a deep strategy. I mean, it may be that people are right that um he'll be frustrated because Putin, who he imagines is his friend, keeps bombing Ukraine even though he told him not to. I maybe he'll in a burst of anger say, 'Right, let's have sanctions on Russia.' Maybe, or more sanctions on Russia, 3:00 maybe. But he won't do that as part of a concerted strategy to end the war. That feels rather juvenile. Yeah, you can sort of understand perhaps why the European mind can't comprehend that. Many American minds can't comprehend it. Got a line towards the end of your book where you talk about Americans would do well uh with your long history of imagining yourselves to be exceptional. Would do well to remember that your domestic politics have always been connected to and influenced by large a struggle for freedom and the rule of law around the world. Does Trump remember that? Because what you're essentially saying is he's only trying to win the argument within the room. He's not perceiving it. He's very much so he's very much not interested in being the leader of the democratic world. He is not interested in the connection between politics in America and politics in the outside world. Um on the contrary, as I said, he's a he's attracted to autocratic leaders with whom he feels he has more 4:00 in common uh than you know piddling little European countries. Um he he you know and if if anything he finds the language of the autocratic world useful. I mean what does he need to do in order to stay in power? What was what and what did he use to get power? He used language that undermined independent media and press. He used language that undermined courts. Um he he he denigrated the legitimacy actually of the of his political opposition of his democratic opponents. He called them vermin and he called them, you know, radical left Marxists when he was talking about, you know, people who are a normal part of the American political system. So he's he's spent a lot of time trying to um undermine democratic institutions in America. And so is he bothered by the fact that that makes America look weaker around the world or that that makes us um that that loosens our links to the allies who made us 5:00 strong? No, he doesn't care. Then what was the interest in Italy? because there seem to be this heavy focus from Trump's administration in uh forging links with Maloney and also well with the Vatican recently. I think well I think they're hoping that Maloney will prove to be a far-right leader like themselves. I mean they're looking to promote other they're looking to promote the far right around the world. Uh I don't know to what extent they're right about her. I mean she's a she's a more ambiguous figure but they're they're looking for those kinds of partners. They like people who talk their their language. Um, I mean, as for the pope, I think the interest in him is first of all that he's American, which is pretty surprising. But even before that, you had JD Vance down there meeting. Well, that was because the the the pope picked a the previous pope, the late pope, picked a fight with JD Vance. So JD Vance made a somewhat weird speech in which he said that you know Christianity tells us that we should first love our 6:01 family then our community you know then the world. He but implying that um as Christians our duty is to people immediately around us and not to other human beings. And this was an this is an argument against immigration. We don't owe anything to anybody else on the planet. And um and and Pope Francis very unusually made a statement contradicting JD Vance. He said no Christians Christians believe that every human being has value. We don't rank our our um our loyalties in that way and we actually Christianity has a long tradition of welcoming strangers and lifting up the people who are are the most most impoverished and most unlucky in the world. and we feel have have a special loyalty or dedication or interest or responsibility rather for them. And so Francis actually contradicted the vice president. I think that Vance's visit to Rome was to I'm not quite sure what it was for. Um was 7:02 maybe one of the last people who saw the pope actually was meant to somehow heal that gap. I mean Vance is a Catholic convert. quite a large part of the intellectual farright in America are also Catholics. Um, in in Catholicism, you don't get to choose who your leader is. So, the pope matters, even if you disagree with him. And I I expect it was part of that. I mean, this is why the choice of the current pope, which by the way, I think has nothing to do with US politics. It's just that he's he's he had a large support among especially other Latin American Catholics because he spent most of his career in Peru. Um but I think it could be it might be an interesting he might have an interesting influence on US politics. We'll see. Do you think when JD Vance is um well reimagining the Bible and Christian teaching amongst other uh proclamations that he makes? Do do you think that he knows people are listening or people who 8:02 can correct him are listening or perhaps is this administration sort of in the business of what they say is mantra and it will go and no one will correct them? I I think they're in they're what they're seeking to do is create a world in which they the the disagreements with them aren't heard that they are their reality is the only reality. you know, they've recast the White House press corps so that it includes um propagandists who will simply repeat whatever they say. Um they're looking to put pressure on American big television stations and some newspapers as a way of making sure there's an echo chamber around them. Um no, I don't think they want to hear criticism. I think that and they and one of the ways in which they hope to retain power is by undermining even the idea of criticism, not taking criticism seriously. Not even when, for example, when a few weeks ago um uh the 9:00 secretary of defense was texting accidentally a journalist, but also his family and lots of other people the war plans of the uh of the US military. Um the the Trump administration was very keen not to sack him, not to fire him, not to reprimand him because they don't want to give the impression that they are that any criticism or that any wrongdoing can be attached to them. They want to just resist everything. We don't hear anything. We're not we're we're we're untouchable. The uh the mechanism of the propagandist in the in the White House briefing room is is very interesting. There was I think the first was Natalie Winters, wasn't it? From Steve Bannon's war room. The having a propagandist in there, what what effect does that have on the room or on dialogue? I mean, if you're an American citizen watching it, are you are you pleased that this sort of that this sort of quote unquote journalist is now present in the room? Is there an anger 10:00 at traditional journalism and traditional media outlets that Well, there's Yeah, I mean there's been a over I mean over over a decade or really more I mean over two decades there there has been constructed a huge argument against journalists that journalists are biased that that there's no such thing as objective journalism that um you know uh and you know of course journalism is flawed and traditional media may be very flawed and there are um you the world of sound bite television um maybe even on its way out um but you know in particular but but the the attempt to create distrust and to build doubt um has been one of the biggest projects of the American farright as I said for a long time and and again the purpose of that is clear the purpose is to create a world in which only they are heard and in which contradictions aren't aren't nobody nobody nobody hears the 11:00 contradictions, nobody can correct them, nobody can check facts. I mean, maybe I don't know if you remember during the um during the campaign uh last summer, there was a debate between JD Vance and um and Mike Waltz and the there was a moment when one of the people interviewing Vance corrected him slightly. This was over this was to do with the Haitians who were supposed to be eating dogs and cats. Do you remember this fine moment in American politics? And and Vance says, 'Wait, there isn't supposed to be factchecking, you know?' So, they want to live in a world where there's no facteing. Mhm. Would that be terrible? I mean, it would it would mean that there's no critical conversation, there's no nuance debate, there's no and and that would be a world in which um politics has no relation to reality, in which it kind of goes off into its own world. And I mean and that that is actually what autocratic societies often look like. uh where the the political conversation is has nothing to do with the reality that most people experience.

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