Eric Edelman on Trump in the Middle East—and a Dangerous World

Six months in, what has the Trump administration done with immigration and deportation—and what have we learned about where it may be headed? To discuss, we are joined, again, by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. A leading expert on immigration and Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council, Reichlin-Melnick presents an in-depth analysis of the situation that goes beyond the headlines. As he puts it: “We are seeing a pace of enforcement unlike anything we’ve really seen in decades….with [immigration] as the Trump Administration’s top priority. It has surged resources, manpower, and attention to immigration enforcement, with the goal of massively ramping up arrests, detentions, and deportations.”Reichlin-Melnick shares his perspective on the situation on the ground now—as well as how developments such as the massive increase in funding in the reconciliation bill might affect things in the months and years ahead.

What has the Supreme Court done—and not done—to check the Trump administration so far? What are the broader political and constitutional implications? What might the next months and years look like? To discuss these questions we are joined, again, by Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University, former special counsel in the Department of Defense, and co-editor of NYU Law’s Just Security blog. According to Goodman, “there are many danger signs coming from the US Supreme Court that they [are] not ready to meet the moment.” As he explains, to this point, the Supreme Court has deferred to the Trump administration on a broad range of issues, including, for example, the use of the military domestically and the militarization of ICE. Goodman also describes the increasing weaponization of the Department of Justice against political opponents. Amidst uncertainty about how the Supreme Court will respond to executive actions that ignore constitutional authorities, and in the absence of pushback by Congress, Goodman argues that civil society must step up to defend the rule of law.

Where do things stand in the war—and what will the future of Iran look like when the fighting stops?To discuss these questions, we are joined again by Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and one of the leading historians and analysts of Iran. Takeyh emphasizes that the Iranian leaders are “traumatized and stunned,” and that “the regime is facing a vast array of problems” from widespread discontent among the people to serious divisions within the elites. He explains that the extent of the apparent collaboration with Israel, including at the highest levels of the state, is itself evidence of the grave threat to the regime from within. Cautioning that much remains unknown and will be dependent on the course of the war, Takeyh reflects on possible paths forward for the regime. “I have always believed that the post Islamic Republic Iran will be substantially better than the Islamic Republic,” he explains. “But the principal challenge moving forward after this is what does a weaker Islamic Republic mean for regional security? Regimes that lose wars tend to behave in very unpredictable ways. Because what the regime will have to do is reconstitute the fear barrier that it relies on for its rule at home.”

What have we learned so far about Donald Trump’s approach to the Middle East in his second term?In this Conversation, Eric Edelman, former ambassador to Turkey and Finland and Under Secretary of Defense,shares his perspective on the president’s recent trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. He presents a tour d’horizon of the highly dynamic and complex situation in the Middle East, not only covering the Gulf States butalso Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Israel. Edelman argues Trump has not been guided by any doctrine or coherent strategyin his foreign policy: “He really believes in transactionalism as a way of life.” The upshot sofar, per Edelman, has been “a very haphazard, incoherent policy in a very dangerous world."

What have we learned about the White House in Trump's second term? How are decisions made in the most consequential areas of national security?During the past week, Trump fired National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. To discuss this and many other matters, we are joined again by John Bolton, who served as National Security Advisor in the Trump White House from 2018 to 2019. Bolton shares the perspective of an insider who understands Donald Trump—and government at a high level of granularity. He describes Waltz’s dismissal as emblematic of a White House in chaos. As he puts it: “more and more decisions will be made in the White House and fewer decisions in the cabinet in the second Trump term than in recent presidencies. That’s the clear message going ahead.” Assessing the price we pay, Bolton states: “[Trump] is burning through decades of effort to build up goodwill, trust, faith, reliance on America. Our friends all over the world are saying, 'You’ve taken leave of your senses.’"

Where do things stand a month after Trump's “Liberation Day” tariffs and the announcements that have followed?  In a thoughtful and wide-ranging Conversation, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers shares his perspective on the economic and political consequences of the tariffs—and the threats to financial markets. According to Summers, our difficulties now go beyond any individual economic policy pronouncement by the Trump administration: “The issue is becoming, in a meta sense, confidence in the United States. When people go in and out of being confident in you, that is alarming. It’s the kind of thing that in a developing country, you’d ask yourself whether they’re going to have to have an IMF program within a few months. We’re too big for an IMF program, but we're at risk of a major kind of a financial incident.” Warning that the administration already has “done a substantial amount of damage,” Summers argues that “we may work our way through this, but only if there’s very substantial alarm and very substantial reversal.”  

What are the likely effects of Trump’s tariffs, and what do they mean for the US economy?  To discuss, we are joined again by Harvard economist Jason Furman, who was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in President Obama’s second term. According to Furman, Trump’s tariffs represent an enormous "shock to the system” likely to produce both short- and long-term economic pain. Furman considers both the direct and indirect effects of Trump’s policies, including the effects of uncertainty on the economy. Finally, Kristol and Furman discuss whether Congress could push back against an economic agenda likely, in Furman’s words, to produce “many more losers than winners.” 

Where do things stand five months after Election Day?   According to veteran reporter and commentator A.B. Stoddard, Trump’s second term has been far more radical than many anticipated. As she puts it: “The more power you give [Trump], the more he’ll take. And the less pushback that he gets, the freer he is. So I think what we’ve seen in the last couple of months is that he’s been given permission and he will take it. That’s the way Trump is…. So people need to not underestimate the fact that things could be much, much worse in three months or a year.” In a wide-ranging assessment of the state of our politics, Stoddard shares her perspective on the Trump agenda, the Republican Party’s acquiescence, and the situation of the Democratic Party opposing Trump. Stoddard and Kristol also consider how opponents of Trump might chart alternative paths forward in the months and years ahead.  

Where do things stand fifty days into Trump’s second term?  According to Georgetown Law professor Steve Vladeck: “We’ve never seen such a wholesale attempt on the part of a president [to] hollow out the executive branch [and] install loyalists in all of the relevant positions of government.” Amid a blizzard of lawsuits in response to Trump’s executive actions, Vladeck analyzes whether and to what extent the courts, Congress, and other institutions might contain the Trump administration by asserting their own Constitutional prerogatives to defend the rule of law. While he notes that courts may push back on certain executive actions on First Amendment and other grounds, Vladeck argues that the courts simply were not set up to handle the kind of large-scale litigation that might follow from mass terminations in the civil service, for instance. This is a must-watch Conversation for anyone interested in understanding how the separation of powers, a bedrock of our constitutional government, is playing out in our institutions in real time. 

Where do things stand on the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine? What is the situation in European politics after the German elections? How should we think about the continued challenge of countering autocracy at home and abroad?To discuss these questions we are joined again by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum. As Applebaum explains, despite difficulties on the battlefield, Ukraine is holding up: “The [Russians] cannot win… without Trump." And she argues that the outcome of the German elections present reasons for optimism that a European "coalition of the willing" may be emerging to seriously counter the Russian threat and support Ukraine. Applebaum also shares her perspective on the first month of the Trump administration. As she puts it: “The idea that you have to take control of state institutions and you have to make them work for you personally rather than for the people…. This is something that every illiberal leader elected and unelected sooner or later thinks they need to do. [But] this is more radical than anything any [contemporary] European far-right party has ever done.”