From WXXI News.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour has been made in a cease fire.

Two weeks of a cease fire.

One of President Trump's favored timelines.

And the United States has put forward its own 15 point plan for Iran.

The Iranian regime has put forward their own ten point plan, and the two plans are worlds apart.

Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz is not fully open, even though President Trump says he's working on a deal to run the strait alongside the ruling Iranian regime.

So what does this look like exactly?

Is there a winner in this war?

Is that the right word for this?

Thomas Wright is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

He described a recent development that he says indicates how united some of our adversaries are becoming and how that's a danger to us.

He writes about the E-3 sentry with its distinctive rotating radar dome, which is a flying command center that allows American forces to see and coordinate the battlefield well.

In recent weeks, Iran destroyed one on a runway in Saudi Arabia and damaged another.

The United States only has a handful of E-3 is deployed in the Middle East, and there is a limited global fleet.

So this was a big deal.

And Wright says that Iran probably did not act alone.

A Chinese satellite firm called Nizar Vision published imagery of U.S.

military movements and aided, likely in targeting.

The Daily Telegraph reports that China provided Iran with sodium perchlorate, which is a precursor used for solid missile propellant.

And China isn't the only power that assisted Iran.

U.S.

intelligence assessments indicate that Russia supplied Iran with intelligence to target U.S.

forces with advanced drone capabilities.

The Trump administration has not commented on China's support for Iran.

White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt told Fox News that Russian assistance does not really matter.

And on another occasion, she said it is not making a difference to U.S.

military operations.

In other words, Trump administration doesn't care if Russia weighed in on this.

Meanwhile, in a press conference on Monday just two days ago, President Trump hammered U.S.

allies.

He said that NATO hasn't helped us at all.

He says it's not just NATO.

He said, quote, you know who else didn't help us?

South Korea didn't help us.

You know who else didn't help us?

Australia didn't help us.

You know who else?

Japan.

End quote.

Now, here's how Thomas Wright concludes this.

He says the war has exposed the contradictions of the Trump administration's geopolitical worldview.

Under this president, the United States, he says, as rewarded Russia, ignored China, punished Europe, and abandoned its Asian allies and partners to an economic crisis that it helped set in motion.

And Wright says the following, quote, The Iran war has laid bare a new geopolitical reality.

America's adversaries are becoming more coordinated, sharing resources and capabilities in ways that amplify their power.

While America's global alliances along its greatest asset are neglected and fragmenting.

The United States is, in effect moving forward, a world in which it faces more connected opponents with a less cohesive coalition of its own.

This is a major shift with profound implications for U.S.

national security, and it's one that the Trump administration shows no sign of recognizing, let alone reversing, end quote.

And as if to amplify that idea, just this morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth praised Israel for being a capable ally in the battlefield.

And then he said, quote, the rest of our so-called allies should take some notes, end quote.

Well, the CEO for the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies, Mark Dubowitz, is making a different conclusion.

He says the cease fire comes on day 40 of this war.

First came the 12 day war last year.

Now the 40 day war, 52 days that do it says, has severely degraded the Iranian regime's nuclear program, its war making capacity, its leadership and its economy.

And yes, the regime is still standing.

But he says much of what kept it standing is not, and doom of its concludes that the United States should in fact, be disappointed with NATO.

He said on Fox News this morning that the Trump administration learned what kind of partners we have.

And Dubowitz said that the strongest American allies at the moment are Israel, Ukraine, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, not NATO.

If you watch the actions of Vice President JD Vance, perhaps he thinks one of our biggest allies is hungry.

And Vance and Marco Rubio have been in Hungary recently helping with an election cause for Viktor Orban in what could be a very close election in Hungary.

So how do we sort of way all of this here's someone who's a regular guest helping us do that is Doctor Valerie Perry, senior associate for the Democratization Policy Council.

It spends most of her time in Europe, but is back here in our area.

Make sure, Doctor Perry, that microphone, you get that real close to you because we're actually in the studio together today.

And it's nice to see you.

Thank you for being here.

Thanks, Evan.

It's good to be here.

Even closer.

Valerie, I'm going to get you that even really close to that microphone.

So we're going to talk about Hungary coming up here, because I think that is an underreported story in that a lot of Americans have been understandably focused on Iran.

But it's really interesting to see what JD Vance has been saying.

And I don't have the lay of the land the way you do.

We're going to get to that coming up here.

Let me just start with the last 24 hours.

24 hours ago, we had a president implying that nothing was off the table, maybe even nuclear weapons, that an entire civilization could soon be erased.

And it didn't happen.

Now we have the cease fire.

So what do you make of the last 24 hours?

I mean, I think it's clear that in his mind at least, this is really the latest installment of a reality show that has a cliffhanger that you can keep sort of drying out, etc.

but in terms of actual responsible foreign policy and foreign engagement, etc., it's just been shocking.

I think what frustrates me perhaps the most is just the notion that you can say the president of the United States can say a whole civilization will die tonight, and there is barely any true outrage about that.

I mean, it was interesting to see that some on the right, whether it's like Tucker Carlson or Marjorie Taylor Greene, etc., it's been surprising to see them speak out.

While so many of the Republicans in Congress who should be more alarmed by this, either because of the immediate impact, but also what it means in terms of contributing to this completely eroded discourse and standing, have remained silent.

And it's just, another way that any moral credibility and standing that the United States has or ever had is really being squandered for absolutely no benefit.

So I want to try to Steelman, you know, the arguments in favor of what the United States has done here.

That's why I read people like doom, Evarts, and others who I don't think are sort of fellow travelers with you intellectually or analytically.

But I do want to know what the supporters of the war are saying.

And one of the things that they say about the last 24 hours is that they argue that nobody in their right mind thought we were going to use nuclear weapons, that, that we had to really get Iran's attention to get them to the bargaining table.

And then it worked.

And so here we are with a ceasefire.

You don't buy that.

I don't.

There's been some reporting and some reminding that in the first Trump administration that he had been toying with possibly using tactical nuclear weapons in some cases, and he was talked out of that by the people who are around him then and who are the adults in the room.

And the problem is, we don't have those adults here now.

And so, I mean, we should be glad that it did not come to that.

But I think, again, we've gotten to a point now where, I mean, if words mean nothing, then how do you actually communicate anything?

And how do you actually have a policy and how do you actually have trust?

I think it was two weeks ago or so when he had another one of these deadlines, and he came out and basically said that we're having very fruitful negotiations.

And the Iranian government immediately said, no, we're not.

And the scary thing is, a lot of people around the world, including some of our allies or our erstwhile allies, believed Iran instead of the United States because it's become so erratic.

And so that kind of relationship and that kind of trust in the notion that no one feels that they can believe anything coming out of the white House of the Pentagon, is really very damaging.

And would be especially damaging if all of a sudden there really was a crisis where you needed to have trusted institutions and trusted mechanisms for communication.

So I want to ask you about regime change in the context of one of the ostensible causes for this war, which was to give the Iranian people the chance to.

And President Trump's words, take back your government.

And we've talked to some Iranian Americans on this program in the last month, and there's a split in views about whether they thought the war was a good idea, because there's a split in trust in this administration, but there's not a split in views in the Iranian diaspora that I see on the ruling regime.

They hate it.

They want it gone.

There was a lot of celebration when the Ayatollah was killed.

And so let me ask you from a couple of different directions, and I want you to walk us through what you see here.

First of all, there was extraordinary reporting this week in The New York Times from I think it was John Swan and Maggie Haberman.

Clearly, somebody is leaking from the Trump administration because their reporting takes us inside the room February 11th.

Netanyahu comes to the white House.

He's selling the white House and joining a war against Iran, just as he has sold previous White Houses, who turned him down on this.

And there's this a little bit of a split in the Trump administration.

J.D.

Vance doesn't like the idea.

Marco Rubio flat out says, if this is about regime change, that's B.S.

it's not going to work.

And we should not assume that the protest movement is going to overthrow.

That cannot be a cause here.

And then they convince Trump, well, if we say that regime change is just killing the Ayatollah, well, then that's a different regime because so maybe we can be successful as long as we decapitate the leadership, even if the ruling regime stays in place.

Which I thought was bizarre.

And so, all of which is to say, now you've got PDX, that this morning he read a list of all the people have been killed.

And it was a long list of Iranian leaders.

And in his view, like, what else do you want from us?

We've killed their regime leaders.

And you know, they're going to have to pick up the pieces.

So take me through how you see this question of regime change, how successful we think we have been in that, and what it might mean for a protest movement.

I mean, I think unfortunately, the Trump administration is looking at Venezuela as a model for this because they feel that that was successful, neat and clean and that they got the puppet that they want there.

But but as that regime change in Venezuela.

I would say it's not.

I mean, again, I think decapitation is the right word, but they seem to like that model because it's simple, it's transactional, and they want to control without any of the responsibility or without any of the, the democratic values in terms of relationships.

What worries me, and I'm no expert on Iran, though, is that while there have been a lot of people killed, including the, the former Ayatollah, I mean, a lot of experts are noting that the son who's now in charge is actually even more hardline.

And the fact that this regime, I mean, over for more than four decades, it's designed to be resilient.

It's designed to be cohesive and not in a progressive way.

And I mean, has the forced to to really back that up, as we saw earlier in the year when the force of the state was used to kill so many protesters on the street in cold blood.

And so the notion that what has been happening now with the American and Israeli attacks on Iran is going to somehow open up an opportunity for change from the bottom up, just doesn't really make any sense.

If anything else is going to be harder for people on the streets to be able to speak out.

And as we've as we have seen the the war play out over the past several weeks, more and more people are can in Iran can agree that they'd like to see a different regime, but there's going to be less and less space to do so.

Just because of the the damage that's been done and also the fact that, I mean, attacking a country and calling for the destruction of the thousand thousands of years of civilization is not really the way to motivate people to figure out the new type of regime they want.

Yeah.

He said it would take 100 years to rebuild their basic infrastructure.

If you went through with this plan last night to your point about what the protesters are dealing with now, here's reporting from an Iranian reporter just this morning who writes, there is no real cease fire inside Iran.

And then post video of Mohseni AJ, the head of the judiciary in Iran, who ordered courts to accelerate execution sentences, especially for protesters.

Hundreds of Iranian college professors are on death row waiting to be hanged.

And the reporter says people should not stop talking about Iran.

So I want to again, I'm going to try to steal this.

I see this going two ways here.

Number one, your point about this being a very difficult time for protesters?

Not an easy one, or maybe even more difficult now.

I take that point.

We're seeing that.

But if this regime continues doing this, there's more scrutiny on them than ever.

Does this open?

Does this reopen the possibility of more American strikes, more conflict until there is a change in regime?

Could that.

Happen?

I mean, again, I think a at times of war in times of being attacked makes it easier for any regime or government to basically say we need to close ranks.

We need more troops on the streets.

We need to repress anything that would weaken us at this time.

But even before that, it's you have to wonder what Trump and others thought that the people of Iran were going to be able to do in terms of, quote unquote, rising up and taking advantage of this opportunity when the the power of arms and force is so fully held by the regime in Iran.

I mean, the fact that we've seen I mean, some reports say around 30,000 people were killed.

And as you just noted, executions are still happening.

It's not like the Iranian people have the opportunity or the ability to be getting arms and fighting back.

And so right now, it really is just slaughter.

The bigger picture idea of how do you sort of support regime change in the long term, whether through, information, trying to support, you know, diaspora, people in exile in terms of supporting something through more of soft power.

All of that was decimated when the United States, stopped engaging on foreign aid, whether through USAID or in other mechanisms.

And so the fact that we've gone to just you is hard power at the same time as the state in Iran has a monopoly on force and power, really makes me wonder what he expects to see.

I mean, and again, we've now seen just how brutal that regime can be.

I, I want to hear your take tube for we're going to talk about Hungary in a moment.

I do wonder what you think about the comments of someone like Mark Dubowitz, who's the CEO for the foundation and, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which honored on paper, sounds like what you do.

Maybe a different view of the world, perhaps.

Do you want to tell people what the Democratization Policy Council's mission is?

Oh, sure.

No.

Democratization Policy Council was founded to basically advocate for a more effective and more accountable, democratized strategies by, consolidated democracies, whether engaged in policy, trade, human rights support, etc.

so trying to basically hold democratic countries accountable in their own efforts to promote rights based democracies and, good governance.

And so, you know, I wonder if you think that Dubai, which has any sort of good points here when he says what we've learned about our alliances is that we should be disappointed in NATO, that NATO didn't show up when we asked them to, that the UAE did that.

Israel, of course, did that, Ukraine did that, Saudi Arabia did.

And those were that's where our true friendships are at the moment.

What do you make of that?

Well, first of all, I think it's interesting that when Ukraine very sadly noted that they would share more of its drone technology because they're experts now in both repelling and, and deploying drones there.

Trump said he doesn't need anything from Ukraine.

He doesn't need anything from Zelensky, once again showing how much he disrespects Ukraine and anything associated with it.

But I think that was a very smart move coming from Kyiv.

In terms of NATO, I mean, one has to wonder, what do you or others would expect when a war is launched without consultation with its allies, including NATO and European allies, who are far closer to the theater of war?

And then all of a sudden, you make a mess and you say, okay, now I want your help.

I mean, again, is that really how adults work?

Is that how he would want to sort of engage in his personal or professional life, that someone goes ahead and does something as a complete and then complains and asks everyone to clean up the mess.

And I think that's the problem.

I mean, allies are there to be consulted.

That's why in most engagements, in most other past efforts where the United States has become involved in military actions, it's been after a period of time of consultation with allies so that they knew what was going on.

You can make sure that you've got the, the weaponry and also the diplomacy to go along with it.

Not to mention actually selling it to the American people in advance of doing it, as opposed to doing it several weeks later.

The way we've seen with this, Intervention and so it sounds like part of what you're arguing is if we're attacked, of course, NATO should stand with us.

But we weren't attacked here.

We did the attacking.

We didn't consult with NATO.

We laid out multiple reasons for that, which were sort of garbled and confused over a number of days.

And we've kind of exploded the world's economy, we've shocked markets, and now we're demanding they come to the table.

You're saying it's reasonable for an ally to say, look, this is not, an action that we want any part of that's reasonable.

For an ally.

I mean, I think it's reasonable for allies to think that there should be consultations that are respectful and to discuss what is the strategy and how is this going to move forward.

Especially the fact that, Trump was calling for this precisely when it was unclear how he was going to free up the Strait of Hormuz.

It led a lot of analysts to say, well, wait a minute, is the US Navy does not have a strategy here that they can even invite its allies to participate in.

Then what are you asking them to sign up for?

And I would also just remind any, detractors of this that when we look at the history of article five and NATO, I mean, when it was invoked by the United States after 911, NATO came to us.

I mean, so when you look at this relationship, the notion that, the notion that our allies have not come to our support in the past is simply not true.

And it's also, I think, important to say that because of Trump's rhetoric and actions, it's really reasonable for more and more NATO allies to suspect that, if not, legally or in terms of international treaty, that, NATO is really almost, substantially weakened, if not dead now because there are so few people who would actually trust that the United States would come to to their, to their side.

If, for example, Putin rolled into Estonia or Lithuania.

It's really hard to see that and Trump view because of Trump's transactional ism.

He sees this as a one way street that they need to come to us.

They need to do what we say, but they don't, deserve respect or consultation or engagement as equals.

So in the work that you do to recognize the erosion of democratic practices and norms within existing democracies, what do you see in the United States over the course of this Iran war, not just in the second Trump administration in general, which I'm curious to get your take on that, too.

But is it is anything that's happened in the last five weeks indicate to you that we are seeing democratic norms eroding, whether that's congressional authorizations, balance of power, participation of, you know, any kind of authorization from anybody outside a ruling executive?

What do you see here?

I mean, I think it's, contributes to what we've seen in terms of an erosion of institutional engagement checks and balances and a deliberative process.

Again, the fact that, one day they'll call it a war, and the other day they won't.

Yeah.

Leads to a number of questions.

The fact that, so much has been spent in terms of, money throughout this war.

I mean, in mid-March, I think it was at 11 or 12 billion.

And several weeks have passed since then.

The fact that we've seen this new budget dream that Trump has put out there for 1.4 trillion for defense, it's just a starting point.

But again, and I think it tells us a lot about what his worldview is for the United States and what we can see from that.

That wishlist of a budget is that he or the people around him want to see a federal budget that is all about power, force, coercion.

Surveillance, abroad and potentially at home if you're looking at homeland security, etc.

while anything related to the well-being of citizens, of making sure that people are educated, have health care, have economic opportunity, have clean air would be relegated to the states, if anything at all.

What we've seen over the past year as well is that Congress really has been willing to give up their powers of the purse.

And this brings with it a lot of risk for democratic process as well, because it makes one wonder how parties can negotiate in good faith if things can be reversed and, through pocket rescissions, etc., or just ignored.

So a lot of this really just does contribute to the decline that we've seen, while at the same time, creating creating a sense among the American people that this is somehow normal.

You know, I mean, seeing what happened in Venezuela and, some would call it a kidnaping of a of a head of state.

We've all forgotten about that.

And somehow that's normal.

Now, going into Iran and, launching an attack against them and threatening genocide and to wipe out the civilian infrastructure that's going to be seen as normal.

So one has to wonder.

I mean, to be honest, I'm if I was in Cuba right now, I'd be a little bit worried because I can imagine that doing something in Cuba has certainly been on the list among many in the administration for some time, and it would sure be an easy way to get Americans to stop paying attention to Iran by shifting to something in this hemisphere.

And it would be the type of political gain that I can certainly see this administration playing.

In terms of the American people, what worries me is that on the one hand, I was glad to see that when the most recent round of No Kings protests, that in addition to the general No King slogans, etc., that there were a lot of anti-war protests out there.

And so you could see that a lot of people were sort of channeling their frustration and their messages on the war, but also the broader risks of this presidency.

But but in general, to be honest, I mean, we're not seeing we're not seeing tons of anti-war movement among the people of this country.

Most of the coverage that I at least see when I'm reading about news in the States, when I'm, when I'm abroad, is focus on the economic impact, whether that's the long term economic impact of this war or just the price of gas at the pump.

And again, this is this is what matters to people while they're here.

The way this looks outside of the United States is quite a shallow and callous.

People are thinking, oh my God, I mean a million.

I think it's a million people in Lebanon have been displaced 20% of the population.

And, people aren't really talking about that.

You know, there's not nobody's telling Netanyahu not to do it.

There's even a question in this latest cease fire about whether or not, Lebanon was included.

Pakistan says it was.

And Israel Israel is saying they weren't.

And yet the way this portrays the United States of America and the people in this country is not good for a reputation, and it makes people look very, shortsighted and callous.

And I think Trump is betting that either people will forget about this, or they won't care that he is affecting the reputation of Americans around the world.

For absolutely no gain for the American people in general.

When we come back from our only break, we're going to talk elections.

There are elections coming up in Hungary.

I'm curious to know if Doctor Perry is concerned about whether this administration will seek to suspend or affect, American elections, later this year?

We'll talk about that and we can welcome your feedback.

The email, as always, is connections at Zorg connections a sign that org.

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This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Hungary has elections in a matter of days.

Vice president JD Vance was in Hungary over recent days and campaigned for Viktor Orban.

He challenged the people of Hungary.

He said that, do you want to just stand with faceless bureaucrats, or do you want to stand with someone who cares about you?

And if so, you need to to bring bring back this regime.

And Viktor Orban and the Trump administration.

Donald Trump says he's 100% behind Viktor Orban.

My understanding, Doctor Perry, is that when you look at democracy, democracy scores and index indices, Hungary is not sort of on the list of spreading more rights to the people and and doing it, the right way here.

Well, I'll let you take the floor.

No, I mean, there's a reason that Vance and Trump and a lot from the the right in the United States who would like to roll back democratic process and democratic institutions have long looked at Hungary as a model.

Because Viktor Orban in his Fidesz party has been working on this for about 16 years.

It's ironic that Orban came to power first as a reformer, as someone who everyone thought was going to have a bright, European future.

But then, after being out of office and coming back, he shifted to the right and started, an effort of constitutional reform and trying to basically fix the system to ensure that there would be less competitive elections and that he could control institutions, media and the judiciary.

The fact that his government has been in charge for 16 years now and is basically, Ben Ben in power at a time where people are more and more dissatisfied, either with the improvements that they're seeing in their life with the closing of public space and civil society and media that they see and the economic opportunities.

This is exactly why there's finally some coordinated opposition in the country.

And it's interesting to see that, Peter Maguire, the the opposition candidate who's been quite good, he's been, really effective at basically trying to unify the opposition and making sure it wouldn't be splintered in terms of doing grassroots campaigning at the local level to get people involved and sending out a different message that's based on anti-corruption, which is something that the vast majority of people in Hungary would agree on.

That has been a problem in terms of corruption.

It's also difficult because even if there's an I mean, even for those who would like to see something different for Hungary, even if there's an overwhelming electoral mandate for this new government, we've seen from the case in Poland that rolling back democratic decline is not easy.

It's hard to get back into the institutions, to rebuild them, to get the right people.

They are in, to rebuild the trust, that you need to have a judiciary in the institution.

So it will not be easy in any case.

But the fact that so many people have been, demonstrating that they want something different for Hungary, it is a good sign that people there recognize that there's something not right for that European country.

All right.

So let me ask some very ignorant questions.

Number one, could could Orban actually lose here?

There's a lot of polls that show he could.

What.

Will the elections be.

Fair?

Well, one can expect, and this will sound very familiar, that if Orban does not win, that there will be claims of electoral irregularities, that there will be claims of, basically that of fraud in some ways to try to challenge the results.

This would be more likely if it's a very close race.

And, and we have to remember too, it's a parliamentary system.

So even if the main opposition candidates party wins, if they don't have enough, then it could still be possible for Orban to put together a government, perhaps working with a party even from further on the right.

So there's a lot of moving parts in this.

There are independent observers in the country who will be observing this, and who hopefully will be able to give some additional credibility to whatever the results are.

But there have also been some concerns because one of the election observation missions is headed up by a woman who had once been a translator for Vladimir Putin, leading many in Hungary to question whether or not they'll be able to trust that independent, observation report.

Certainly, Putin and the Kremlin have a lot riding on this, too, right?

They do.

They do because Hungary has really long been the soft underbelly of the European Union in terms of trying to disrupt, the way that the union works based on consensus and to try to shift things more to the right, with the goal of at least weakening, weakening, if not breaking, the European Union.

And that's what really troubled me.

In addition to, Vance being there in such a an openly partizan way, standing on the side of the candidate they want, which is not a normal way that past administrations have, have looked at the electoral outcomes of other countries.

But also just when you when you think about why is it that the United States would want the European Union to fall apart, you can look at issues of values of not wanting, a democratic values based organization to be able to offer a different vision, an alternative to people around the world.

But you also have to look at some business issues and opportunities.

There have been a number of times where we've heard people around Trump talking about their frustration with the fact that the European Union has had, for example, different regulations in place related to the internet and the digital space and artificial intelligence.

And Silicon Valley doesn't want those guardrails.

They don't want them here, and they want to destroy them there.

So there's a again, there's a unfortunately, a cynical business reason that we can see some people who stand to make a lot of money, having in terms of wanting to disrupt the way Europe works.

So the election is on Sunday, this coming Sunday.

Well, we have results Sunday night on that.

To be honest, I'm not sure.

I'm sure that, I, I guess, like, in many places, if it's an overwhelming victory, we will.

But if it's close, then it will come down to a recount, etc.. And if it's California, it's sometime in the next six months.

Exactly.

So okay, so that's there's an eye on in Hungary, when you look at the way that the erosion of democratic norms affects, elections.

Do you look at this coming November in the United States and think this will be business as usual?

The elections will be.

It will go off without a hitch.

Or do you expect some kind of move from this administration to say we're going to suspend some more?

You know, the president talking about nationalizing control?

What do you expect?

I mean, I think it's been clear that there are plans to try to affect the elections coming in November, whether that was from the Save America Act, which, I mean, again, there's some Republicans support it.

Others don't because they I think they start to recognize that some of their own voters and supporters would be affected by it.

But the fact that Trump just last week, I think it was put out that executive order trying to engage the federal government in certain aspects of the electoral and the voter registration process, demonstrates that he hasn't given up on that.

Immediately after that executive order came up, we saw different constitutional law specialists and electoral law specialists come out and say, this is blatantly unconstitutional.

And so there's already a number of states who have filed.

There's already a lot of different legal actions going on here.

But as so often, with politicians whose goal is to break and obfuscate.

Again, this is sowing the seeds of doubt so that if all of a sudden we see that there's a close elect electoral outcome in November, or that there's a landslide, and we see a shift in the House or the Senate or both.

This will give something to Trump and his supporters to say, see, we told you that they were going to cheat.

We they prevented us from putting these, checks into place, and it'll help them to craft a narrative.

And again, I think it's worth noting that the amount of electoral fraud in the United States is infinitesimally low.

Yes, I understand that point.

I'm also curious to know if you see, if there is some momentum toward the, Let me put it this way.

When there is a midterm election, typically the party out of power has an advantage in this country.

We've seen there's a few examples where it didn't go that way 2002, but for the most part, this should give the Democrats an advantage.

Now you've got a president who has the lowest approval rating of his career, and the Iran war has been the least popular war ever pulled in recent American polling.

Gas prices may go much higher than they are right now.

And again, I know that to the international community, it feels crass to talk about that, but that's going to affect voters.

It's going to affect the economy, for sure.

And now you've got some people in the coalition that supported this president's election in 2024 who are furious.

You mentioned Tucker Carlson.

Alex Jones called for the 25th amendment to be invoked.

You have people who probably have a lot of sway in young voters who were kind of flippant toward Trump.

Well, now they're going back the other way.

So if he is this unpopular in November, how does anything he does actually stop what would be a sort of a tidal wave against him?

Is there any way if it's close, that's one thing.

And you mentioned that in Hungary, but if the dynamics are so far against him, is there anything this administration could do to try to prevent those losses?

I mean, I think a lot of this election is going to be based on turnout and, whether or not the parties can get people out to vote in different important states and races.

What we've seen over the past couple of months, in terms of special elections around the country has shown that there really has been, a much better showing, by Democrats, including in places that have been Republican strongholds.

And so that sort of shows the direction that, things have been going.

But that being said, though, again, it doesn't take a lot to change to sort of change the narrative and try to get your base out to, to support it.

One can imagine a scenario where, you know, after a period of very high gas prices, that they come down and this is spun as something that the president has delivered.

The president has spoken about, you know, sending out, you know, checks to people basically to sort of share in the largesse.

I mean, and we've seen this in other countries around the world where prior to an election, either, retirees or people get money.

I mean, it's a literal buying vote.

I wouldn't put that off the table.

New York State is sending a, what was 150?

How much are the checks?

The, what are the New York state checks that just came out?

The, the inflation relief checks for for New Yorkers in an election?

You know, I'm just observing.

Sure.

Know.

Exactly.

And so this is why, I mean, this is why money shouldn't be sent out just to make it with the view of trying to influence votes, but done during a certain process.

But I wouldn't take that off the table.

Trump is also going to have a strong platform all summer with the 250 year anniversary of the United States.

I mean, he's going to have an ability to try to look like he's a domestic statesman, try to look like he's strong, and take every opportunity he can to hammer on the culture wars, which he does all the time, in which, unfortunately, is often fairly successful.

So again, the Democrats would be well advised to again have a big tent approach and recognize that this is theirs to lose, and really try to make sure that they can do what they need to do to win.

But I think you're giving us appropriate caution.

It's April.

November is a long way away.

If the elections were next week, there's no question almost certainly what would happen.

In fact, the Senate could go the other way.

But there's a long time for gas prices to go up and then perhaps come back down.

I'm with you on that.

The president would probably claim some sort of success of gas prices.

Get back under four bucks, although all of that was sort of self-inflicted with this war.

And so I don't know if the American people will actually give him credit for that.

Hill.

I understand the idea there.

But yeah, you're right.

All summer long there's going to be Ultimate Fighting Championships are going to the white House, and the president's 80th birthday is going to be celebrated that night, and they're going to wave the flag up for 250 years.

I mean, it's going to be a big patriotic sort of image fest all summer.

It is into the fall.

And it's also going to be dueling narratives.

I mean, we've there's been a lot of reporting about the way that the Trump administration and those supporting these, celebrations are trying to sort of shape a narrative of American history that most historians would not agree is reality.

And so it's going to be interesting to see if, from the local level in particular, there's more of an interest in the truth and the complexity of the American story, or whether or not this is really able to, send a single narrative, that Trump wants to send.

I would also just say that with the economy, I mean, even if gas prices come down, there's going to be a long tail to this economic disruption in terms of the broader shipping impact, etc.. And you can't disentangle this from the broader economic environment.

And, I think I hope that the Democrats will recognize again what some of their talking points and efforts need to be in terms of demonstrating why people who might not care about democracy and values, but think about their pocketbook should be keeping in mind.

And again, they can very easily keep coming back to the corruption and self-dealing that we're seeing by this administration.

And the need to basically regulate, better to prevent this self-dealing.

Paul Krugman did a good job of writing about some of the, very oddly and conveniently timed stock trades right before.

Yeah.

And and this is continued.

I mean, a number of people have noted that some of these craziest, tweets or truths or whatever they are seem to often almost be pointed at the stock market to either to influence the oil futures or the or the markets.

And again, this is why stock trading is an issue.

And I'm glad to see that there's been a bipartisan effort to try to again get into a situation where if you are a representative, if you're a Congress person, that you would put your personal holdings in a blind trust so that it doesn't look like so, even just to avoid the appearance of impropriety and the fact that there is a bipartisan movement to do that, I hope that they'll be able to push forward on it so that people in Congress actually have to go on the record to say what they think about that, because that's something most people get, understand.

And this is what's really driving the opposition in Hungary.

You know, when you have an unaccountable system that's been marked by state capture, eventually it always ends up being corrupt.

Always.

And people suffer.

So we can learn positive lessons from Hungary and from what the people are doing there.

All right.

Let's get some feedback here for Doctor Valerie Perry, who's the senior associate for the Democratization Policy Council, on the phone.

This is Greg in San Diego.

Hey, Greg, go ahead.

Hello.

I, have a question.

I I'm trying to think of one good thing, one progressive, positive things that Trump has done for the middle class, lower class in the United States.

He certainly has not shown how to get a a good Easter Sunday address.

I don't think anybody would want to imitate that.

Being a little sarcastic there.

But what has really benefited the average American in this term for the previous term?

Not billionaires, but the average person.

And, I'm stumped.

Thanks, Greg.

Thanks.

I mean, I, I don't I don't know if Doctor Perry can be like the campaign manager for this administration, but do you want to offer anything there?

I mean, I think the fact that he's asking that question sort of answers itself in a lot of ways because it is difficult to find, what has been done for the average person in terms of their pocketbook.

There was some reporting recently, since we're coming up to April 15th in tax season, that a number of people in the middle class and upper middle class are doing much better because of the so-called, one or the the called one big, beautiful bill from last year.

But again, the poor and the lower middle class are not.

And so we're sort of seeing this play out in terms of the policy implications.

However, what worries me as well is that while it's very easy to put out soundbites about tax cuts and how people might have an extra couple hundred bucks in their pocket during the course of a year, we also need to take a look at everything that's been, taken away, whether that would be health care premiums going up, subsidies going down and other elements of society and social life and expenses that families have that are not going to be compensated by all of the any tax cuts they might have.

The bigger picture, and the bigger picture economy, economics of all of these, issues are far more complex, but people are going to feel them in the long term.

I will say, Greg, you asked about this, this administration or the first one.

To me, there's an easy answer.

Operation Warp Speed was a phenomenal success, and there was given the politics of his party.

There was no guarantee that President Trump was going to endorse that.

And he did.

And Operation Warp Speed went incredibly well.

And, I don't think anyone every president gets too much blaming, too much credit for everything.

But I will certainly I think you ought to give the president some credit for that.

I mean, that that was a huge success at a chaotic time.

Thank you, Greg, for the phone call.

So, Charles writes in about the Save act again.

This is the, it's like the sustain American voting.

In elections.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a the save act is designed to require a new form of ID for voters to prove that they are who they say they are, so that it would cut down on fraud.

Charles says cool.

So make everyone show ID in addition to being common sense.

If voter fraud is that low, no one will be affected.

And then if you win, you can say, we played by your rules and still won.

I'm going to let Valerie, Valerie respond to that.

I will say to Charles.

Charles is not wrong in that people in general support this in polling.

The president cited this in the state of the Union.

It's in the 80s.

But that's when you ask general questions about should there be voter ID?

More than 80% of Americans say yes.

Charles is obviously in that group.

The reason that we're seeing more opposition, Charles, you heard it from County Clerk Jamie Romeo on this program last week.

She pointed out that this is going to disproportionately affect women, who often change their names when they get married.

And let's say you're divorced.

Let's say you're divorced twice and you've changed your name twice, and you have to go back and get every document related to that.

If you don't have it, they may deny you the chance to vote.

That will be a disproportionate effect for starters, to say nothing of other possible effects.

But Charles is basically saying, too bad, get a voter ID, we should have a voter ID.

End of story.

No?

Sure.

And a lot of people would agree with that.

And a lot of countries around the world do have national IDs that everyone has.

And it's interesting to see that traditionally has been the Republican Party that has been against this, because they've wanted a more libertarian approach and did not want to issue a national ID.

I guess what I would say, though, in this one is that something like that needs to be rolled out sufficiently in advance of an election so that you aren't disenfranchizing people, through the process and the bureaucracy that you've just noted.

It's notable that this wasn't put out, sooner then than it is right now in terms of putting together the legislation to actually enable people to go through the paperwork that they need to do to get it.

Even further, I haven't heard a good explanation yet.

If well, if we want everyone to have an idea, maybe then we should give it to everybody.

This would be a new thing.

That you're an American citizen.

Here's your ID proving that you're an American citizen.

And you know what?

You don't have to worry about paying a couple hundred bucks to get all the documents and to get the, driver's license, etc., or the passport, and to have a national ID.

But as soon as some Democrats have noted this, the Republicans don't want to do this.

They get there's been nothing to demonstrate that the Republicans really want to increase turnout and increase access, but wanted to turret.

And yet there should be a common sense solution to doing this.

If there actually was an interest in making sure people vote.

All right.

Kathy in Chile says, I'm so sick of the rationalizations and justifications of these wars that you've been talking about.

We made Iran what it is when we isolated and sanction them after they overthrew the US puppet dictator.

We made Gaza what it is by paying Israel for years of blockades and violations of international law.

We've done the same in numerous other countries.

Until Americans face the fact that their own government is the problem.

Much of the time there will not be justice and there will not be peace.

I think a lot of people around the world would agree with that.

And a lot of people would point out as well that, I mean, with when the case of Iran that the, nuclear deal that had been brokered by President Obama was not perfect, but at least put a process in place and was a basis to move things forward.

And the fact that when Trump came in the first time, that he immediately, scratched that out is why we are where we are today and why they've actually been able to continue to enrich uranium and why a lot of people would look at the deal that was made yesterday.

And this is the cease fire that's been, noted is really not a success because it doesn't address the problems that have happened since that initial enrichment deal had been agreed.

All right.

A couple more emails.

I'll try to work fast here.

Rick says, Ivan, I would like to know what Doctor Perry believes is an effective way to educate young people about democracy and the responsibilities that come with being a voter.

That's from Rick.

I mean, the short answer would be civic education in schools, etc.. Which I know has really been cut over the past decades as schools have had a lot of other different curricular subjects they need to teach, and it's just slipped off the radar screen.

I think until some of these Democratic threats, I think a lot of, school administrators and policymakers and people, you know, thought, well, why, why do we need to do this?

I mean, this is natural democracy one.

You know, the Cold War's over.

We don't need to make sure that kids know how to do this, but it's an ongoing, effort.

It's an ongoing initiative.

And so making sure that young people understand what they, what the rights and responsibilities of, participation in a democracy is key.

And this can start very young.

I mean, there's a reason that back when the United States was supporting peace building and democracy support around the world, that civic education was always a part of that.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, for years, there were efforts to integrate little by little, efforts on how a citizen education.

From very early, grades.

And you can do this with kids as young as five, six, seven, because you can look at issues of justice and fairness, and even toddlers will understand fairness and what's not fair.

And then you can sort of use that to talk about what structures in society might look like.

Ideally in this 250 year birthday would be an opportunity to turbocharge civic education.

But unfortunately, right now it does not seem like it's going to be going in that direction, but instead is going to try to again, put forward this notion that the United States, has never needed to learn from its mistakes and has nothing to learn from history or from other countries around the world.

Rick.

Thank you.

And Rafe wants to know, says, your guest says everything we've done in Iran is is wrong.

But the people of Iran do want democracy.

What should we do to support them if not what we've been doing?

I mean, that's going to be even harder now to do.

After several weeks of sustained bombing that has killed people, destroyed infrastructure and caused a lot of environmental damage.

In a normal situation, you would actually see that these negotiations would lead to more proper long term negotiations on issues of enrichment, etc., and perhaps also open up the economy so that, you would have more economic opportunity for the people in Iran, which is an extremely educated population with a long cultural history, of which they're very proud.

But again, that's a long term investment.

That's not something that can be done quickly.

And it would require that there'd be a willingness to sort of open up in this way.

And and what really worries me over the past years is that one lesson a lot of dictators are probably taking away is that North Korea was right to get their nuclear bomb.

I mean, because in a world where we're no longer talking about, nuclear disarmament, where we're no longer trying to reduce this threat collectively, one can understand why a lot of countries would like to have this deterrent, so that they can avoid being bombed themselves.

Yeah.

And with the president of the United States openly bashing Japan, South Korea, allies who rely have relied on US, would you be surprised to see South Korea pursue nuclear weapons now?

I mean, I think to be honest, I mean, across the board, I think that there's going to be more and more discussion about, military sovereignty, about different alliances of protection now that the United States is a bit of, a loose cannon right now.

And people are questioning that we have processes and procedures and the rule of law.

Should we be seeing more nuclear armed countries as a result of.

No, definitely.

And we can see this as well by the fact that some of the, often old and stale and imperfect arms agreements have been allowed to expire and haven't been replaced.

And so, no, there's definitely more of a threat right now instead of less.

20s.

You don't make any predictions in Hungary this weekend, do you, with what you expect to happen?

I don't, but it's I think it's good to see that people are energized.

I think a huge lesson learned is that you need to do this kind of rebuilding from the bottom up, really going out into communities where people are hearing it and feeling it and seeing it in their day to day lives where they've seen people leaving the communities because of the corruption in the male governance and the lack of opportunities.

And and again, if they do well, then we'll have a couple of examples of Hungary and Poland trying to sort of claw back what they had lost during the democratic decline.

It could be a huge sundae for, for that kind of movement.

Our eyes will be on that.

Doctor Valerie Perry, senior associate for the Democratization Policy Council.

As always, thank you for your expertise and for your time.

Thanks for the questions and the columns.

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