On this week’s episode of “The David Frum Show,” The Atlantic’s David Frum discusses the menacing crises the Trump presidency is inflicting on the United States and its own movement to start 2026. David speculates that the recent lethal ICE incident in Minneapolis, Trump’s increasingly unhinged rhetoric, and the targeting of Jerome Powell indicate that MAGA world is cracking. He argues that Trump’s increasingly unpredictable and escalating actions are taking the MAGA movement, the Trump presidency, the U.S., and the rest of the world down a path of doom.
Then, David is joined by Timothy Naftali, the founding director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, to discuss perhaps Trump’s most brazen grift: his proposed presidential library in Miami. Frum and Naftali also discuss why comparisons of Trump to Nixon fall flat and how Trump’s actions in Venezuela reflect a policy of weakness.
Finally, David ends the episode with a discussion of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.
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00:00 Introduction
01:16 A Head-Spinning Week of Terrifying Crises
07:17 MAGA is Becoming More Extreme
09:38 Conversation with Tim Naftali
14:30 Trump's Presidential Library Grift
32:36 Trump's Unprecedented Corruption
35:20 Venezuela and Oil Wars
40:33 The Monroe Doctrine and American Power
49:28 The Trump Library and Legacy
52:37 Discussion of Jane Eyre