♪ >> Hello, and welcome to the first episode of Season Two of Canada Files .

I'm Jim Deeks.

I thank you for joining us.

Our guest on this edition is David Frum, a staff writer at The Atlantic and a frequent commentator on politics and public affairs on MSNBC and other network news programs.

Most people don't know that David was born in Toronto in 1960 and maintains dual Canadian and American citizenship.

David has built a respected reputation as a conservative thinker, columnist and author of ten books including Trumpocracy in 2018 and Trumpocalypse in 2020.

Both strongly critical of Donald Trump and his presidency.

We've recorded this interview a few days after Trump's departure from the White House.

>> Welcome David Frum.

We will get into the presidency and the legacy of Donald Trump in a few moments.

One of the purposes of Canada Files is to examine the lives of prominent Canadians.

With your focus on American politics, you certainly qualify.

At the outset, how did conservative thinking and right-wing politics become your passion?

>> David: I grew up in the 1970s-- a time of inflation, seeming social disarray.

The predominant liberal and social democratic ideas of the post-war period seemed to be not working anymore.

A lot of young people of my cohort went looking for new ideas.

How do we restore a working economy and society?

I was one of those who joined that turned towards the ideas of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

I was influenced very much by what was in the air in my time.

>> You grew up in a very comfortable Toronto home.

Your father was a successful property developer and your mother, as most Canadians will remember, was probably the most famous and respected broadcast journalist in the country a generation ago.

Knowing Barbara Frum as I did, I would have said she was one of the most scrupulously unbiased journalist and a political centrist.

I'm wondering if either of your parents tried to influence your outlook on politics and public affairs when you were younger.

>> My parents had enormous influence over my outlook.

And a definitional one.

I'll speak about my father in a moment.

The thing to understand about my mother-- the experience of talking to Barbara Frum was disorienting.

You could never predict in advance how she would approach things.

She had the finest, purest reasoning mind.

Barbara and Murray did have different views, especially when I was younger-- in 1980 we had quite different views.

I think I had some influence on them over time.

But they certainly have influence on me to this day.

I hold them up as checks on my thinking.

I do ask myself all the time what they would have believed.

My dad, I could be more sure of what he would say.

With Barbara, you could never know.

>> With that family dynamic, you graduated from high school in Toronto.

Then you went to Yale and studied history and onto a law degree from Harvard, no less.

Right out of the gate, you came back to Canada and got into journalism.

I'm thinking, with a Harvard law degree as your pedigree, you could have written your own ticket in the law profession in Canada.

Was journalism always your intention?

Did you never want to be a lawyer?

>> I could tell a purposeful story about how this went.

Or I can tell the truthful story.

There was a lot of floundering in my 20s, like a lot of people.

I'm often asked by younger journalists how you get into journalism.

I say that you can't just start in journalism.

You have to fail at a lot of other things first.

I spent most of that period reading a lot, travelling a little, making a lot of mistakes-- not sure what to do and some stumbling around.

I got into journalism very much by accident.

Writing was something that came naturally to me.

The challenge of writing better was interesting to me.

I spent a lot of time on that.

I would not be accurate if I presented any great plan or made conscious decisions to choose one path than another.

>> You chose journalism and for the next few years, you stayed in Canada and worked for a magazine much like The Atlantic is today.

And wrote for US publications.

Then in 2002, you were rather surprised to get an offer to work at the White House.

at the beginning of the George W. Bush administration.

Was getting into the inner workings of politics and government an intention?

Or was it is by accident?

>> It was a flukie thing.

I had covered the Bush campaign in 1999 - 2000.

I'd gotten to know some of the people involved in the campaign.

I liked them.

We developed some friendships.

It never occurred to me that this would be a role for me.

The main reason it happened, to emphasize the element of luck was because of the Bush v Gore recount.

The Bush people could not be certain they were going to form a government until around December 2nd or 3rd-- a month after the election.

The government had to be constituted very hastily, especially the White House staff.

So living in Washington and being available was a major recommendation to anybody.

I got approached, "Can you come and do it?"

I was unsure.

I'd never worked in government.

I'd preferred John McCain in the Republican primaries over George W. Bush in 2000.

I was moved by curiosity, personal friendship--- and a sense of responsibility.

You don't say no to those kinds of responsibilities.

I started work in the Bush administration about 4 or 5 days after inauguration in 2001.

>> What were your functions in that job?

>> George W. Bush was not naturally articulate.

A lot of politicians in that situation would react by dismissing the importance of clear speaking.

He actually up-valued what he wasn't good at.

He built a comparatively small speech-writing team.

Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, at one point, had eight or nine speech writers.

George W. Bush had four and treated us well.

We had responsibilities.

I think the main reasons I was hired was my background in economic journalism.

I was there mostly to deal with the domestic agenda-- the tax and economic plan.

The US was heading into a recession because of the dot com bust.

I worked on agriculture, trade, transportation-- all those kinds of issues.

I wrote a lot about trade issues in those days, before 9/11... probably what I worked on most.

I remember spending a lot of time developing expertise on agriculture issues.

>> You were later credited with coining the phrase, "Axis of Evil" in relation to the regimes at that time in Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

This was a time we all remember America, and the president in particular, were quite fixated on wanting to eliminate Sadam Hussein as the President of Iraq.

Looking back, was that fixation and paranoia about those countries in the Middle East justified?

>> I completely shared that at the time.

The premise was 9/11 was one of the worst failures in the history of American government.

The information was all there to be known.

The ability to stop the attack was all there.

It was distributed.

The US government collectively had all the information it needed to protect America.

But the connections were not made.

The CIA didn't share with the FBI.

The FBI didn't share with the CIA.

Warnings were not taken seriously enough, partly because of the people making the warnings were left over from the Clinton administration.

There's always prejudice in a new administration against paying attention.

It was a tragedy and a horror.

But it was also an embarrassment.

Afterwards, there was a strong feeling that the US and the Bush administration must never be embarrassed in this way again.

Having been too lax, it was not going to repeat that mistake.

Next time, it was going to be ultra -vigilant.

So we made the opposite mistake.

Whereas we had not been ready and active enough in assessing the al-Qaeda threat.

We, as an administration, became too forward-leaning and too ready to believe the worst.

Every piece of information about Iraqi actions and capabilities was given the most alarmist interpretation, rather than the least.

I absolutely shared that.

We thought we had all this evidence about what they were up to.

They were up to "no good" in all kinds of ways-- against their own people and their neighbourhood.

You got the information they're importing aluminum tubes.

Those tubes could have been used for conventional rockets.

Which would be annoying but not a world threat.

They could be used in a nuclear program.

Which did you choose to believe?

We chose to believe the most alarmist.

Embarrassment over the failure of 9/11 is a classic story of government.

Government is all about locking the barn door after the horse has gone and that's what we were doing.

>> As President Bush's second term was coming to an end, you had left the White House by then.

You announced you were going to work with the campaign team of Rudy Guiliani who was seeking the Republican nomination for President in 2008.

I won't ask you about that but what's your view of Guiliani today?

>> I had lived in New York in the 90s and worked for a New York think tank.

I had good exposure to Rudy Guiliani when he was mayor.

It became apparent to me pretty fast in 2007-2008 that the man who was running for President was not the same man who had been mayor of New York.

Obviously the change has been more extreme since 2007-2008.

I think it's a good thing for everybody that the campaign didn't go any further than it did.

<< Talking about Guiliani gives us a segue into asking the question that most Canadians would want me to ask.

What happened in and to America in 2016?

>> This is a huge question.

I've written so much about it.

The full answer is in the books.

The first thing to bear in mind is in 2016, Donald Trump got 46.1% of the vote.

Which is a bit better than John McCain in 2008.

But otherwise worse than every single person who was nominated by either party in the 21st century.

Worse than Romney, Kerry and Gore-- worse than most people who lost.

There was a large element of fluke as to how he won the presidency.

It's shameful enough that he got the nomination.

I think that has to do with a lot of the failures of traditional Republican politics.

Republican voters felt the great recession the same as anyone else.

They felt the slow recovery from the Great Recession .

They felt the same things I've been talking about since 2005.

To put it bluntly, Republican voters were telling their party leads, "We want more healthcare, less immigration and no more Bushes."

Going into 2016, the party said, "What you want is less healthcare, more immigration and Jeb Bush."

Republican primary voters said, "Nuts to that.

No, we don't!"

To give Trump credit although obviously he's a monster.

In 2015-16, he was talking about things.

He didn't offer constructive solutions.

But he was talking about the opiod epidemic that were killing tens of thousands of people at a time that the other candidates were dismissing it.

He undertook that there would be no reductions in social security or Medicare if he were president.

All the other candidates said they would shrink it.

He promised more healthcare coverage.

Everybody else was talking about the repeal of the Affordable Care Act .

His promise was a lie.

To get rid of Obamacare And replace it with something terrific.

I won't tell you what's in it.

He promised something better.

He talked about immigration and how the US needed to slow it.

He talked about things that mattered.

When he first appeared, I thought maybe he could be a positive force.

Maybe in the summer of 2015, he will show that this conventional Republicanism isn't working anymore.

He will beat one of the frontrunners-- maybe Jeb Bush in the early primaries.

At that point, the party will get the message.

To integrate the themes this demagogue is talking about.

Demagogues talk about things that people care about.

That's how they get to be demagogues.

Then they will find some way to domesticate this agenda into something responsible.

Somebody like Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, or Rick Perry, governor of Texas, will take his themes and create a responsible approach.

That never happened.

Donald Trump declared in June 2015.

By July 2015, he's the frontrunner.

He stays the frontrunner except for one November week in 2015 all the way until he gets the nomination.

>> Once he got in with that low percentage of plurality of votes-- did his conduct in office surprise you?

>> Everyday, you would say, "It can't be worse than this!"

Then he would find some way to make it even worse.

I knew he had no respect for democracy.

I knew he was hostile to American global leadership.

The Russians had an unhealthy grip of some kind on him.

I knew that he was a crook.

That he would use the presidency to make money.

I underestimated the degree to which he was psychologically damaged.

Even by his own "crook ambitions", he could have been a more successful crook.

If he'd had a little more self-control.

That self-control degenerated in office.

Until we got to the end where he incited this violent attack on the Congress of the US.

<< We're recording this interview a few days after the inauguration of Joe Biden.

But a few days before the Senate will vote whether or not to convict Donald Trump on his second impeachment.

I won't ask what you think the outcome will be but what it should be.

I assume your opinion will hold, even after we know what the outcome is.

>> This time around, President Trump incited-- and you saw it on video.

There's no question about the facts.

He incited a mob to attack the Capital to interrupt the vote so he could illegally hold onto power.

That's as bad a thing as a President can do.

The President waged war on the government.

He incited a mob of people.

We can see him dancing in the tent before the incitement begins.

We can see the crowd responding to him.

We can hear what he's saying which is you have to go stop it.

He has this fantasy that Mike Pence can interrupt the counting process.

The target was Congress and his own Vice President!

If this is not the behaviour the founders had in mind, what do we think this process is for?

<< As I mentionned, the title of your most recent book is Trumpocalypse, Restoring American Democracy.

When you were watching the riot unfolding on the Capital on January 6th were you thinking, "This is the Trumpocalype unfolding right before our eyes"?

>> It was horrifying!

Having lived through 9/11, what happened on January 6th, was not as instantly terrifying and horrifying as that.

Because there were so many elements of farcicality to it.

People did die.

It obviously wasn't going to work.

9/11 did bring down buildings.

It really did smash up the Pentagon-- was aimed at the Capital.

There could have been a decapitation strike against the US government.

If the plan had succeeded, what would have happened?

Joe Biden would have been sworn in on January 20th.

It was a stupid plan.

It could have done a lot of damage.

They could have executed people on livestream tv.

They could have put a gun to Mike Pence's head and made him recite the magic formula that they foolishly imagined would change the outcome, but it wouldn't have.

Biden would still be president.

The vote had been certified.

Inauguration happened on January 20th.

That same sense of wrongness, shame and anger-- the symbolic attacks that terrorists understand.

There is a big difference between a fire that burns down a building and a terrorist attack that brings down a building.

We grieve accidents but we fear these kinds of political attacks.

That's what Donald Trump incited.

Maybe he didn't anticipate every aspect of it.

But he really did want Mike Pence to be coerced into breaking the law and changing the outcome of an election that had been over for weeks.

>> Will you be writing another book on Trump's legacy?

>> I desperately hope not!

Although Clay Aiken from American Idol interviewed me on his podcast.

He said, "You have to write a third book!"

I said, "I don't want to write a third book-- I've had enough".

He said, "I've got your title for you!

Trumpcaceration!"

>> Pretty good.

>> My next book is going to be a history book.

It's going to take a longer view, into deeper themes of American life over my lifetime.

I am hoping that, having got through these shocking events and deeply-troubling four years, American politics is going to find its footing again.

It's not going to be easy-- not going to happen automatically.

The mistrust sown at home and the damage to America's leadership and the world.

Those are not going to be instantly overcome.

With goodwill and hard work, there's a lot of progress that can be made.

I hope it will be made.

>> Let me ask a question from the Canadian perspective about Trump.

He was not a great friend of Canada.

He didn't make many friends here during his four years.

From your vantage point, did he affect US-Canada relations irrevocably?

>> Irrevocable is a big word over a long time.

In the end, because Canada and the US must get along, they will get along.

He did introduce a question mark over future behaviour.

He did something else that will have long term consequences.

Maybe not irrevocable, but long term.

Canadians and Americans are not just interested in their bilateral relationship with each other, but with their relationship to the external world.

Canada needs from the US, open trade between Canada and the US but needs US to open trade with the rest of the world.

Donald Trump damaged America's relationship with so much of the world and did havoc to the world trading system.

Even if the bilateral piece is healed easily.

The two countries are so intimate-- the relationships and the friendships are deep.

The relationship will be rebuilt.

But they are embedded in global networks that are more fragile.

The American position is changing.

Here's a point that needs to be driven home.

When I went to work for George W. Bush the US economy was 8 times the size of the Chinese economy.

When Barak Obama became president, the US economy was about 3 times the size of the Chinese economy.

The two economies are now near peers .

China is may be a little smaller but catching up fast.

Probably by 2030, China will be bigger if it's not already bigger.

None of us live in a world anymore where the US can give orders to the planet, in the way that it could in 2000 or 2008.

Donald Trump never understood that.

He fought it by trying to bark, yell and smash relationships.

That threatens America and everyone who depend on America beginning with Canada.

>> You've spent about a third of your life living in the US.

You became a naturalized American citizen 13 years ago.

You and your wife are Canadian.

You maintain a country home east of Toronto.

I want to ask you, assuming you still feel Canadian what does the phrase "being Canadian" mean to you?

Has it helped or hindered you in your career?

>> There's a part of me that looks from the outside.

That's a bad thing for anyone who wants to be in government but it's a good thing for a writer.

So many of us in my generation grew up watching SCTV.

The whole joke of SCTV was that you were in Toronto watching a badly-transmitted tv from Buffalo.

I think that's why many comedians come from Canada.

Just that experience of watching that tv from across the lake and having that slightly- distance point of view, I think it's a tremendous spur.

I've written my books mostly in Canada, in the place we go to in Prince Edward County.

My wife and I have been going there for 30 years.

My children all spent their summers there.

That's where I do my most creative work.

I see when I sit down to think, meditate and be out of the turmoil, and write for a longer perspective, I'm doing it from across the lake to the "great republic".

>> David, from across the lake today, I want to thank you so much for your perspective.

Your answers were great.

Thanks for being a Canadian and covering the American scene as well as you do.

>> Thank you so much.

>> And thank you very much for joining us on Canada Files .

We'll see you again next time.

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