If Trump Wins: “Inviting the Dark Ages Across the Planet”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now, talking of democracy, the United States has a hard time being that standard bearer as Donald Trump is doubling down on his vision of being a dictator. Yes, that is what he told the New York Young Republican Club’s annual gala this weekend. I said I want to be a dictator for one day. Jeffrey Goldberg is editor-in-chief of “The Atlantic.” He recently launched a special edition of the magazine warning of the grave and extreme consequences if Trump were to become president again. And he tells Walter Isaacson now why a second term would be even more dangerous than the first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And, Jeff Goldberg, welcome back to the show.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE ATLANTIC: Thank you.

ISAACSON: “The Atlantic” keeps setting the agenda. It’s the one magazine that can do that. Why did you pick doing a special issue like this on the dangers of a Trump presidency?

GOLDBERG: Because it’s — well, a number of reasons. One, I think that a second Trump presidency, based off of what we all saw on January 6th, I think a Trump presidency, another Trump presidency, poses an existential threat to American democracy. I’m not making a partisan point. If Trump were a registered Democrat and did what he did, we would say the same thing. I think it’s not too late to try to make these sets of arguments. It’s — you know, it’s actually more than 20 different writers taking on their subject area expertise. So, we have pieces on immigration and national security, the staffing of the military, the civil service, Supreme Court issues. But it’s really, ultimately, about a candidate for president — a former president who is a current candidate for president who does not respect American democratic ideals and democratic norms. And it’s worth calling out, and it’s worth calling out in one place and in one package so that people can see it. I don’t make the assumption that people in media, in politics here in Washington, where I am, you know, we sometimes assume that everybody is following events the way that we do. And — but what we know also is that at this stage in a presidential campaign, a presidential cycle, people aren’t paying regular attention. And so, I thought it would be good to remind people before the primary process begins of what happened the last time around.

ISAACSON: You say, as “The Atlantic” always does, that you’re not part of any party or clique. But one of the things you all write is that the Republican Party now has mortgaged itself to Donald Trump. Explain that.

GOLDBERG: Yes. Well, so my argument — I think the institutional argument and my individual argument always been that one prerequisite for a healthy democracy is to have at least a strong, vibrant liberal party and a strong, vibrant conservative party. You want to have other streams of thought? Great. Other parties? Great. But that’s the sort of a minimum. And what we’ve seen, unfortunately, in the Republican Party is that it’s become less a kind of hotbed of interesting conservative ideas, right, and policy prescriptions that you can take and then hold up against liberal policy ideas and prescriptions and then argue it out in the marketplace. It’s become a cult of personality and it’s subsumed itself to Mar-a-Lago in a very, very unhealthy, and to me, un-American. And so, we’re in this shape we’re in not because Donald Trump is the putative Republican nominee, but because too many Republicans who know better are going along with this kind of cult of personality. And, you know, you know, this, and I know this. There are a lot of Republicans, not just the Mitt Romneys and Chris Christies and so on who are actually calling out Donald Trump, a lot of Republicans who aren’t calling him out who know what he’s about and what happened on January 6th and what happened before and after January 6th and are upset about it, but they’re — they want to keep their jobs or they’re scared of harassment and retaliation. And so, they don’t say anything. And these are the — for instance, these are the kind of senators who knew better, you know, the Rob Portman’s of the world who didn’t vote to convict in the second impeachment trial, even though they knew that Donald Trump had fomented an anti-constitutional rebellion against the settled election results of 2020.

ISAACSON: You have about two dozen people writing in it, and one of them is David Frum, who makes that point, that it will be a revenge presidency, that he’ll take the FBI and weaponize it and do things, and I thought that was a little bit overblown, but he just came out in the past few days and said it outright.

GOLDBERG: I don’t think it’s overblown. And one of the reasons I don’t think it’s overblown is I just spent a long period reporting on a large article that appeared a couple months ago on General Mark Milley, the now former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who became a real thorn in Donald Trump’s side because Milley realized, as he was serving in the Pentagon, in that top job, he realized that Trump’s loyalty was not to the constitution, but himself. And after my article came out about Mark Milley and about his relationship with Donald Trump, Trump said that — he said this plainly on social media, he said that Mark Milley should be tried for treason for the things that he said and done. So, like, I believe in taking people at their word. Donald Trump will come into — if he comes into office, he will authorize his Justice Department to investigate Mark Milley. Remember, Donald Trump is a person who threatened — in his first term, he threatened to call back to active-duty Generals Stanley McChrystal and William McRaven, two retired four-star generals, you know, incredible American patriots and soldiers. He threatened to call them back to active-duty, which you can do as president in order to court martial them. Why? Because they were critical of his leadership. There’s nothing secret here. There’s no — I don’t think there’s anything overblown. He will blow open the norm that has existed for a very long time that — especially since the Watergate era, that the attorney general operates autonomously from the political operation of the White House, right? That attorney general always annoyed presidents, right? Because they are in the cabinet, but they’re running their own show. And the reason they’re running their own show is because they have to have prosecutorial independence, right? Donald Trump’s going to get rid of that. He’s promised to get rid of that. So, I — look, I don’t — you know, you don’t want to be a chicken little on the one hand, but on the other hand, you don’t want to downplay the threat, especially when he’s articulated the threat.

ISAACSON: Your article about General Mark Milley was very revealing, especially since we thought that the adults in the room were going to be our safety net in the first Trump presidency. Tell me about those adults in the room, what they’re saying now, and whether you think there will be adults in the room if there is a second Trump presidency.

GOLDBERG: The whole point of a second Trump presidency from Trump’s perspective is that they’re not the adults — “adults in the room.” He does not want a team of rivals. He does not want serious advisers who say to him, yes, maybe you shouldn’t do that. He wants people who will agree with him. The adults in the room, the first time around, and those include, you know, Rex Tillerson and James Mattis, the first secretary of defense, and Bill Barr, the attorney general, John Kelly, his DHS secretary, and then his chief of staff, and so on. They, to a person, believe that a second Trump presidency would be a threat to the constitution of the United States. They’ve all said it publicly. I mean, it’s kind of astonishing that they’re not heard, because in ordinary play — if this was — if ordinary political physics was applying here, the rules of physics are applying, you know, when all of your cabinet or most of your cabinet from your first term comes out and say that you’re an active danger to the republic, voters would pay attention to that. And by the way, we’re not talking about, you know, rabid left, we’re not talking about the faculty of Oberlin, you know, coming out and saying that Donald Trump is a danger to democracy or like the mayor of, you know, Portland, Oregon, you’re talking about retired marine generals, right? You’re talking about pretty tough guys Republicans who are saying that this guy is dangerous. They did a good job for as long as they lasted in checking some of the worst impulses of Donald Trump. And Donald Trump has tremendous resentment for them because he realizes that, in many cases, they — he was outfoxed by that. And that’s what he doesn’t want to have happen the second term. It’s going to be MAGA from day one. And what John Kelly did alone, throwing himself, you know, into the gears of the Trump administration to prevent some crazy things from happening, you know, again, if ordinary rules applied, you know, John Kelly would be getting, you know, awards from Congress for doing what he did.

ISAACSON: So, that raises who might be in a second Trump presidency. McKay Coppins, you know, one of your great staff writers, speculated a bit on it. I’ve seen Axios speculating now. It seems a bit like trying to handicap a dog race. But think through who might be in a second Trump presidency.

GOLDBERG: Right. Just to name two names, obviously Stephen Miller. We know Stephen Miller as the immigration czar and a real hardliner on immigration and other issues from the first Trump White House. There’s a very, very good chance that Trump would nominate him to be secretary of Homeland Security. If the Senate were constructed in a way that wouldn’t allow for him to get through, people are speculating that he could be the chief of staff of the White House. So, you start with a Stephen Miller who’s a real true believer, a real hardcore loyalist, and who believes that he’s there to serve Donald Trump, not the American people or the constitution. Second example would be Rick Grenell, who basically was this Twitter troll who came to prominence in the Trump administration, worked in the intelligence area, became an ambassador and is, you know, Trumpist all the way down. And when Trump, the first day in office says, you know what, I think we should pull out of NATO. You’re not going to get Rick Grenell in the White House saying, you know what, maybe we shouldn’t pull out of NATO. And here’s why. You’re going to have a person who says, yes, sir, I’ll pull out of NATO. We’ll go do it.

ISAACSON: Anne Applebaum and your special issue addresses that issue of pulling out of NATO. And we know that Donald Trump in the next term, if he gets one, wouldn’t be supporting Ukraine. Tell me what the ramifications of all that would be to America’s foreign policy.

GOLDBERG: Well, we would be inviting the dark ages across the planet. Again, not to be overly dramatic about it, but we’re already having it. We’re already in a bit of a democratic recession, right? Russia is feeling its oats in Ukraine and, you know, the Ukrainians don’t have them on the ropes the way a lot of people hoped they would. They’re in the fight, but it’s not going extremely well. Xi and China, the North Koreans, the Venezuelans, Hamas as another example. There are a lot of powerful organizations and countries right now that are run in a very anti-democratic way. And, you know, Donald Trump has made it very clear that he admires strongmen. He said it, he loves Orban in Hungary. He thinks Putin and Xi are great, strong leaders. So, for those of us in the West who think that democracy is a flawed system, but it’s the best one we have you know, it’s going to be tough times in America. You know, and you know this, you know, from 1945 onward, America set the rules of the road that the rules based international order, post-World War II, was established and maintained by the United States. Donald Trump is the first figure of his level of importance to fundamentally question whether America has to play that role or America should play that role or that’s a role worth playing. So, we’re looking at some pretty serious consequences of a Trump victory.

ISAACSON: George Packer writes in the special issue about the press and says, you know, unlike Putin, he’s not going to have to poison members of the press because he’s so undermined a public credibility, the public’s belief in the press. Also, though, he would probably use the presidency to go after some of the media. What do you think about that?

GOLDBERG: Well, I mean, I think, you know, Steve Bannon and Kash Patel, people who are in the loyalist camp, have said just this week that they want to prosecute journalists for fake news or whatever the make-believe charges. I would fully expect them to try to change the laws or use existing laws to punish and persecute journalists they don’t like. I mean, we are — we’re heading into something that seems incredibly dangerous. I just — the — what I tell people is, by the way, you know, and I remember the two of us having this conversation about terrorist groups. Yes, when they tell you they’re going to do something, believe them, right? Or when Putin says, you know, Ukraine is part of Russia and doesn’t exist as — you know, a lot of people said, well, he doesn’t mean that. It’s a metaphor. He’s just saber rattling. Listen to people when they tell you what they’re going to do, it’s safest to listen to people. And if people — if Trump and people around Trump are saying that they’re going to try to prosecute journalists for exercising their First Amendment rights, they’re going to prosecute journalists for exercising their First Amendment rights.

ISAACSON: You know, Greg Sargent, writing in “The Washington Post” a few days ago, said something about, enough with this fatalism, we’re overdoing it, and I think he quoted a scholar as saying, creating an aura of destiny around the leader galvanizes his supporters by making the movement seem stronger than it is. What do you say to that?

GOLDBERG: I admire Greg’s Sargent’s work. I disagree with him on this. I think it’s our job to highlight the threat. I don’t think it’s inevitable. I think what’s inevitable, or I would almost bet money on is that he’s going to get — Trump is going to get the nomination. I don’t see that going any other way though. Who knows? I don’t see his election as a foregone conclusion. That’s why we call the issue — if Trump wins, not when Trump wins.

ISAACSON: Jeffrey Goldberg, thank you so much for joining us.

GOLDBERG: Thank you.