IN THE MAKING: Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump's UK Visit, Robert Redford, and the TikTok Deal

Ira Chaleff: 00:00:00

It kind of confirms our humanity that when we have a sense that we know someone, whether we really know them or not, that we recognize the preciousness of human life.

And our role is to then take that into our politics, into our conversations, into our policy, and see what can we do to make the world a little better place. While we're here.

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:27

With reaction and insights to the biggest stories and breaking news from the USA and a little bit of history thrown in, this Is America. A History in the Making. Welcome to this week's edition of A History in the Making.

It's been a couple of weeks, but I think we've got an awful lot to talk about. So joining me today to do that is the Chair emeritus of the nonpartisan Congressional Management Foundation.

And his newest book, To Stop a the Power of Political Followers, has won several awards and received high praise from both sides of the political spectrum. And we'll put a link to that book in the show notes as well. And I highly recommend you check it out. A big welcome to the podcast to Ira Chaliff.

Ira Chaleff: 00:01:21

Thank you so much, Liam.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:22

Thank you. Yeah, it's a pleasure having you on. And we've got a lot to get through in half an hour, so let's sort of dive in.

te visit since I think it was: 2019

As a Brit, I don't think Trump is particularly popular amongst the general public in the uk, but he's receiving quite a welcome. And it seems like the King particularly is going all out to ensure this is a positive diplomatic affair.

Does the US really care much about this or is it just us?

Ira Chaleff: 00:02:10

You're right that it's a bigger story in the UK than here in the States. Having said that, the political right particularly is looking at this as a validation of Trump's stature in the world.

And that doesn't necessarily mean that he's fondly thought of, but that he is recognized as a force in the world. And they're making a fairly big splash that this is the only US President who's ever been invited by the royal family twice.

And the pageantry, of course, is very much aligned with Trump's aesthetics and value system. So it's, it's kind of, and in some ways, given all of the angstful stories that there are out there at this moment in our world.

It's kind of a benign story in a sense.

Liam Heffernan: 00:03:15

State visits always strike me a little bit as just all for show.

There's a lot of pomp and pageantry, but actually it doesn't feel like there's anything really happening that isn't being done day to day, week to week, between, you know, the heads of states anyway. Right.

Ira Chaleff: 00:03:30

I think, though, that we can't underestimate the value of symbolism. You know, most people don't spend a lot of time following the news and stories. They get their impressions somewhat graphically from pictures, etc.

So there is political value in having these kinds of pageantry, even though, you know, one can criticize them for the expense and the security measures, etc. And whether or not anything substantive is really happening.

But I think we do need to honor the role of symbolism and, and even pageantry in national politics.

Liam Heffernan: 00:04:12

Yeah. Well, it certainly jazzes up the 24 hour news channels, gives them something to talk about, which is, which is nice for them, I guess.

I guess it doesn't hurt all the time. Trump is president, whether you like him or not, you know, ensure that there's some sort of positive relationship. And I guess that's.

That's what it's for, right?

Ira Chaleff: 00:04:33

Yeah.

And it's kind of interesting that King Charles is getting fairly high marks in some quarters for this because in a way, he's being portrayed as the elder statesman at a time in European American relationships that are so fraught with peril, actually. So.

And whether or not he can meaningfully do something, he certainly can't hurt the effort to try to continue the relationships that have created stability for 80 years since World War II.

Liam Heffernan: 00:05:13

Fair point. And let's move on to something that has been incredibly politically divisive.

And I'm very interested to hear your thoughts as someone who is very successful at staying relatively neutral politically. And that is, of course, the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Ira Chaleff: 00:05:30

So.

Liam Heffernan: 00:05:31

So I don't need to give the information about what's happened. I think everyone in the world knows what happened recently, but the fallout has been quite intense.

Both sides of the political aisle are using quite strong rhetoric, and it's definitely exposed the very fragile political landscape that exists in America right now. Right.

Ira Chaleff: 00:05:55

Well, there are several ways we can approach this.

One thing that's been very interesting is that some of the icons on the progressive left of center, such as Rachel Maddow and Ezra Klein, have written beautiful testimonials about Charlie Kirk. Why not?

Because they agree with his policy positions, which they fairly vehemently don't, but they respect that he was using the political process, the civil processes of debate, of trying to educate according to his lights, and that he would engage respectfully in dialogue with those who opposed him. And in a certain way, this is a pretty good model for what we need to be doing. Because what is politics?

Politics is essentially the capacity for people with highly divergent perspectives to come together and figure out how to live together and not use violence as a way of solving their problems. So he was actually modeling that.

Now, of course, we have the terrible irony that he's then gunned down with violence, the, you know, the antithesis of a political process.

Liam Heffernan: 00:07:29

Does this raise other questions, though? Not. Not so much about whether or not you should meet aggressive language with actual aggression?

Because I think the fact that politicians or anyone should be shot or assassinated based on, you know, having particular views, I think is. I personally don't think is correct at all. And I don't think anyone necessarily is condoning political violence here.

But the fact that someone felt that that was the appropriate or maybe only response, that they had to really exercise their discontent, the fact that they were able to have the means to do it, and the fact that we're in a climate where this isn't even the first time this has happened in the last year. I mean, there were two assassination attempts on Trump leading up to the election.

It feels like there are much deeper issues at play here that are feeding, or should I say, rather enabling people to act in this way. And I think if we focus purely on the assassination, maybe we're missing the bigger problem.

Ira Chaleff: 00:08:44

Yeah.

So let's start with agreeing to utterly reject that the shooter had no other options for dealing with their deep frustration, even rage against the viewpoints that Charlie Kirk espoused. Let's start with that, because it's not true that they had no other options.

One of the things that's kind of muddying the picture is how much of this event and some of the other recent events are more political statements than they are expressions of a disturbed individual who is then using the political issue or pretext even to vent their internal rage against the way life is treating them from their. Their perspective. Now, as you know, we're a country of guns. There are something like 80. Over 80 million Americans own guns legally.

Now, let's just round that out to 100 million.

So if 99.9% of those people use their guns responsibly, and you only have 1/10 of 1% who don't, because they're somewhat you know, mentally unbalanced or have been radicalized in some way, that still leaves 100,000 people who could perform this kind of violence.

So I think it's really important that we distinguish that sliver of disturbed individuals who then use their political left or political right position from the body politic, which almost unanimously rejects that as a solution.

Liam Heffernan: 00:10:52

So are you in favor of tighter gun control in America?

Ira Chaleff: 00:10:56

It's a very complex issue. Personally, this is just a personal opinion. I'm disturbed by the prevalence of high power, high speed guns and ammunition. Why?

Because they make it virtually impossible for law enforcement to respond in time before there's mass carnage. But when you go back into our history, the whole question of the right to bear arms is actually a very sophisticated political question.

It goes to the, to the point that in a dictatorial regime, the first thing a dictator does is control the airwaves to get their message out. And the second thing is to disarm the populace. I mean, that's historically what happens.

So embedded in the American psyche and Constitution, we recognize that to balance this potential of a government gone rogue and tyrannical, we need some, we need, we have the right to bear arms. Now, the actual debate, this isn't probably the forum to go into it.

It gets much more sophisticated because the Constitution doesn't just say the right to bear arms, it says the right for a well regulated militia being. And then you go into the question of, well, what is a well regulated militia? And the historical debate is, well, who regulates it?

Because if it's a government regulated, doesn't that undermine the reason to have a militia that could stand up to a rogue government? So, you know, unfortunately this becomes an issue like so many issues that are oversimplified.

So my short answer is yes, I think we need to find ways to reduce the propensity of gun violence. And we have to do so in a way that's consistent with our own history, culture and constitution.

And by the way, just in terms of the Charlie Kirk event, what kind of throws the whole kind of picture askew is this shooter didn't use one of these high power semi automatic rifles. He, he used a single shot rifle that hunters, you know, throughout the ages and throughout our country use responsibly.

And he used it with one bullet.

So that, that's almost mind boggling, you know, because no gun regulation we would ever pass would say that people can't own a hunting rifle that is capable of shooting a single shot at a time.

Liam Heffernan: 00:14:06

That, that's a fair point, I guess.

I'M I've always been far on the side of if no one can buy a gun, then no one can shoot a gun and no one can be killed by a gun and then you wouldn't need them.

Because I always think the argument on the pro gun side is that, well, it's about self defense, second Amendment, blah blah, blah, but take them all away and there's no longer the risk, right?

Ira Chaleff: 00:14:32

Yes, but that's in a theoretical world, governments, the theory of government is that they are supposed to have a monopoly on the use of violence. And so governments have tremendous armaments.

If one is, if the rationale for having guns is to counteract the potential of a government misusing that capacity, well then guns already exist. It's just they're, you know, in the formal government's hands.

They're always have been, always will be, unless, you know, the second coming and we, you know, we, we enter some kind of nirvana. But you know, that's not an historical projection at this time, is it?

Liam Heffernan: 00:15:23

Let's put that can of worms to one side for a second.

I just finally, on the Charlie Kirk shooting, it feels very much like we are, we're heading into an era very much like we had in the 60s where political assassinations just feel far more plausible and far more, far more real. Is this a dangerous time to be in US Politics?

Ira Chaleff: 00:15:50

I'm glad that you are raising that because, okay, we're back to the role of the media.

The media partly exists to inform us, but because of the economics also exists to attract our eyeballs, keep our eyeballs, the 247 news that you alluded to. And it has to stir us up and the same thing online to get as many views and hits and what have you. So whatever event happens gets massively blown up.

Literally.

I'm sitting here in the east coast of the United States and someone in Texas or in the middle of the country shoots two people and it's a breaking news story for me here. What, you know, in the scheme of 340 million people, that is not the news story. But, but we make it the news story, if you see what I mean.

And I think we need to step back and have a mature assessment. I lived through the 60s, I lived through all of those terrible political assassinations and they were deeply disturbing.

What we're going through now in some way is not as fundamentally destabilizing as what happened there when we had the President and the, and the President, the main contender to be the next president and the main civil rights leader, etc. Etc gunned down. In a sense, our violence right now is more random. It is bad.

It needs to be addressed through all the religious pulpits and all of the, you know, social influencers that we can.

But we will never totally eradicate this because we have the, you know, the combustible mix of 340 million people who have some incidence of instability and 300 million guns. I think they're about equal in population and guns. Some things are going to happen.

So, yes, we have to work out sensible ways of protecting our judges, protecting our lawmakers, so that good people don't shy away from public service. We have to do it not in a panic. We have to do it mindfully and figure out the best we can do given the realities of the situation.

Liam Heffernan: 00:18:45

Yeah.

And I think therein is the challenge in finding that balance between ensuring that everyone has free speech and everyone has the freedom to express themselves, but ensuring that other people are not harmed or brought to harm tangentially from that.

And I think that it's a fine line in having a healthy democracy and giving people that freedom to express themselves without allowing for the possibility that that can. That can become, I guess, hostile.

Ira Chaleff: 00:19:19

Yes.

Well, and this is where, you know, education comes in, preparing people to have serious debates, to not run away from people that they disagree with or shut them down or demonize them, but to learn how to stand in the discomfort of that disagreement and continue the dialogue until some point of commonality, hopefully can be found.

Liam Heffernan: 00:19:47

It feels like we've all gotten very comfortable in kind of sitting in our silos that are sort of perpetuated by social media, where we're in these sort of little echo chambers of people that will agree with us. That we've become a little bit unfamiliar in how to disagree with each other.

Ira Chaleff: 00:20:03

Absolutely. There's a group at the moment in the US Called Braver Angels, and it's.

I don't know how large a group is, but they've got pods all over the country where they bring together people on the political right and people on the political left, and they sort of create the space in which respectful listening can occur. And this is hugely important.

And in my newest book, which is called To Stop a the Power of Political Followers, as you mentioned, this is one of the things I advocate for, that we need to move out of our comfort zone, not just talk to the people that agree with us. And it is uncomfortable. Let me not minimize that.

It can turn your stomach listening to someone on the other side, and I don't care which side it is, believes diametrically opposed to what you believe. And yet we need to learn to sit with that, become curious and recognize their humanity. And hopefully they will recognize ours.

Liam Heffernan: 00:21:20

Yeah, and I think that's a very important note to end on, and not just in the US actually, but I think around the world.

If we can all start to understand and talk to each other and compromise with each other more, then I think the whole world will be a better place for it, I guess.

On the subject of social media, as I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, there is another story in the last day or so which I guess it's sort of relighted, a story that was quite big at the start of this year in TikTok.

And Donald Trump has announced that he's done a deal with TikTok so that it can stay in the US There was that brief panic when lots of American influencers were saying their goodbyes on, on TikTok, but deals were done to keep it alive for a while. And now Trump has said that some deal has now been done to make that permanent.

It seems like a small thing, you know, it's only a social media platform, but actually there's a lot more underneath this about the sort of US China relationship, isn't there?

Ira Chaleff: 00:22:24

There is. And of course for me, I'm going to go even, even deeper.

My concern is that in the United States is generally a feeling that government hasn't been working well enough.

So therefore, and this is true in any country and any time in the world when that becomes the prevalent sentiment, we are more prone to be open to a strong man who says, I can fix this. And the way they fix it is to disregard a lot of the norms for how policy is usually developed, etc. And, and they just start solving problems.

If these problems are the right problem and they do get solved, they actually become more popular and there can be short term benefit.

The danger here, of course, is that as we know, going back to John Locke, that eventually benign dictators either cease to become benign or they cease to become a dictatorship. But otherwise they move towards more and more tyrannical standing and action, if you will.

So my concern here is that the US Congress passed legislation saying that TikTok had the Chinese ownership, had to be divested within a certain amount of time.

And, and the Trump administration keeps extending that deadline and a little bit of that may be okay if there's some legitimate reason to continue negotiations.

But my concern is that there's a pattern emerging of the Trump administration disregarding congressional law and prerogative and that moves us further and further towards a one branch of government which our constitution is designed to avoid. And we then start seeing that play out in odd ways.

So for example, Nvidia, who is again, you know, we had law passed to prevent the sale of chips to China that could be used to forward its AI accelerated development.

And now the Trump administration as of this week is saying, well now we, Nvidia can sell these chips to China as long as it gives 15% of its revenue back to the US government. Well this is something that this model doesn't historically exist in our government.

So that's my concern that all of these deals, whether they're good for us or not good for us, need to be brought back at least reasonably into a three branch of government system.

Liam Heffernan: 00:25:37

Anyone that's listened to the podcast will probably not be surprised that I am a critic of Trump.

So speaking transparently from the left here, it does strike me since Trump has gotten back into power that especially when you look at sort of the, like the tariffs that he's been trying to put in, it's all very one sided. And his approach seems to be we're not going to do anything that doesn't ultimately have a net benefit to us.

And that just seems like a really single minded approach when it comes to foreign relations.

Ira Chaleff: 00:26:14

You know, I was thinking about that this morning and I came up with a slightly new perspective for me and that is, okay, what is Donald Trump? You know, okay, he's a businessman, he's a developer, he's a showman. You know, these are some of the things that have informed his life.

Now he looks at everything almost from a profit sheet basis. You know, will I be making money or losing money? This isn't how the government is designed to work.

But interestingly enough, because politicians don't treat the budget as their own money, he seems to treat everything as his own money, whether it's technically his own money or not. Because more normal politicians don't.

We wind up with these massive, massive budgets that are sooner or later are going to the piper is going to have to be paid. So Trump comes along with this very radically different perspective.

If he used it within the framework again of our transatlantic treaties and our three equal parts of government, I think he might do us some good. But the people. Now a lot of my work, Liam, has been not around leadership, but it's around the followers that surround a leader.

Because followers need to make sure that the leaders strengths don't get overplayed to the point where they become liabilities.

And that's what I'm calling for, is that the people who support Trump and who see his capacity to perhaps shake up things that need shaking up, that they figure out how to contain his impulses so that they stay within the bounds of constitutional government, but give him his head on some of these things that actually may in fact produce some good results.

You know, even like, you know, we have a point, in fact with NATO, you know, the fact that, yes, he did it in a bullying way, but he was right that NATO had to step up and fund itself better to be, you know, a viable buffer against Putin.

So this is where I think it becomes really important not to get hyper polarized and say, well, just because I'm for Trump, everything he does is great. Just because I'm against Trump, everything he does is bad.

No, we have to be more rational and parse out what is okay and can we support and what isn't, and we have to resist.

Liam Heffernan: 00:29:19

Is this not the problem with Trump's second administration?

Because as you noted, talking about followers, just looking at that first tier below, Trump in his first term, he smartly surrounded himself with the likes of Mike Pence and others who were better politicians. They knew how to play the game.

And it seems very much like this time round, he realized actually that didn't work out too well for him in being able to push through as much of his agenda as he wanted.

So this time he's going to surround himself not necessarily with, you know, seasoned politicians, but with people who are a supportive of him and, and be compliant with him. And because of that, he's not really having. He doesn't have any voice of reason in his ear telling him what may or may not be a good idea.

Ira Chaleff: 00:30:08

Yes, you're hitting on a crucial point here.

And in my book, I look at the different circles of followers, and two of the germane circles to the point you're raising are the elites who can get his ear and the confidants who have his ear.

And what I look at historically in the book is that those who support a leader unquestioningly, and it's the leader's right to choose the people they want around them. A wise leader will mix it up so that they hear a variety of viewpoints.

A leader who has more strongman tendencies will do what you're saying to surround themselves with people who will tend to simply implement their vision and not question it. Here's the rub. The rub is that they all want him to succeed and they want to succeed themselves, unless they are willing to find their voice.

When they know that he's going too far, they will wind up ultimately with him not succeeding in one way or another, and with them not succeeding and having their own legacies tarnished. So it's not easy to be that close to power and support it vigorously, but also maintain that independence to tell it when it's going too far.

But it's absolutely necessary to do, do that.

Liam Heffernan: 00:31:47

Okay, so moving on, there's one more thing that I think we should probably address in this show, and that is the passing of Robert Redford.

We're going very different tone here entirely, but I'm a film grad myself, so this came up on my newsfeed and I was like, oh, man, Robert Redford's died. And it was a shame, right? And I don't mean to diminish his death in any way whatsoever to those who loved him and knew him.

But I think going back to what we were talking about earlier, you know, when you look at the amount of gun crime in the US when you, you think about the fact that there's a mass shooting on average every single day in the US we don't hear about that. What we instead hear about in the headlines is the, the passing of an octogenarian.

And as harsh as this might sound, and, and again, not to belittle the death of Robert Redford, it feels like we give far disproportionate coverage to famous people who die versus things that actually need the coverage.

Ira Chaleff: 00:32:55

I, I'm not sure I fully accept your premise because, you know, our earlier conversation was every time two people get shot anywhere in the country, I get a newsfeed.

So, you know, in some ways we're bombarded with this, but I take your point that we can say, oh, two people died, and I don't know who they are, of course, and they were mothers and fathers and daughters. And, you know, there's a whole humanity that we miss by just hearing that they. They died or were killed at the same time.

Human beings have a limited capacity to hold emotionally a number of people. We each do it in our own lives. You and I have a handful, a couple of handfuls of friends that if they died, we would just be sobbing family members.

And what happens culturally is something similar. I went last night or the night before to a Willie Nelson concert, and he's 92 years old, and it was a brilliant concert.

But at the same time, it was evident that I may be seeing his last concert.

And it really pulled at my heartstrings because this was someone who gave to us something very special to those of us who really love his music, which millions and millions of people do across the political spectrum. Robert Redford, in a way, somehow had a similar place. And I, too, sort of like had a little lump in my throat when I read it.

Had I ever met Robin Redford? No, of course not.

But I think it's okay, Liam, because I think kind of confirms our humanity, that when we have a sense that we know someone, whether we really know them or not, that we recognize the preciousness of human life and our role is to then take that into our politics, into our conversations, into our policy, and see what can we do to make the world a little better place while we're here for the short time we are here.

Liam Heffernan: 00:35:22

Yeah, and that's a valid point.

And I think it does sometimes take just a single figure to maybe tap into some sort of universal grief or nostalgia or feeling that can, in those moments, bring people together. Ira, we could talk for hours, I think, about everything that's happening in the US at the moment, and especially about your book as well.

So we're going to have to get you back on the podcast at some point, if you'd be willing for that. But I can't thank you enough for joining me today to start to understand what the heck is going on in the US Right now.

Before you go, do remind people where they can contact you and specifically where they can get hold of your book.

Ira Chaleff: 00:36:08

Well, this is if I don't know that they can see my name. So the spelling is important. I R, A, C, H, A, L, E, F, F as in Frederick.

And so if you go to my name@author irishhaliff author.com, you'll go to my website, you'll see all my different books and talks. And I have, you know, been honored to speak at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and other places around the world. So I invite you to do that.

And if you can't remember my name, check out the book To Stop a Tyrant, which is now also available as an audiobook.

And it's beautifully read, and I encourage you to do that because this is a moment where we each need to find our way of responding to the historical events of our. Our lifetime.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:08

Absolutely. Did you, did you narrate the audiobook yourself?

Ira Chaleff: 00:37:12

I only narrated the preface. I had someone who had a much more mellifluous voice read the book, and his daughter also read sort of the sidebars in the book.

So it's a lovely back and forth between them.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:30

I mean, that sounds great, but you've, you've got a voice for radio, Iris, so don't, don't, don't diminish yourself. The next one, the next one, you need to narrate yourself, you know.

Ira Chaleff: 00:37:41

You know, in our country, maybe in yours as well, a backhanded compliment is you have a face for radio.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:51

Yeah, I hear that. I hear that a lot. Yeah. Thanks so much for listening to a history in the making.

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