The David Frum Show

On this week’s episode of “The David Frum Show,” David opens with his reflections on the recent shootings in Minneapolis. He argues that these killings, alongside ICE’s warrantless home searches and mistaken detentions, and the reports of deaths in custody, are not isolated abuses but signs of a rapidly deepening crisis in American democracy, one in which basic rights and due process are applied unevenly and are increasingly contested. David asks whether the country can find a way back from a dangerous moral and political impasse, as a majority of Americans recoil from these actions while a determined minority continue to defend them.

Then, David is joined by the “New York Times” columnist and Atlantic contributor David Brooks. Frum and Brooks discuss the origins of the term “neoconservative,” what the neocons got right, and why they should be listened to today. Brooks describes how America’s problems long predate Trump, and why elections alone cannot fix what has been lost. Together, Frum and Brooks explore whether the country is capable of moral renewal, what rebuilding would actually require, and why recovery, if and when it comes, will be slow, difficult, and deeply personal.

Finally, David ends the episode with his thoughts on “Death by Lightning,” a television series on Netflix based on the assassination of President James Garfield, and how, when watching historical dramas, we need to look back on the past with a contextual lens, one that we should bring to our present too.

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On this week’s episode of “The David Frum Show,” The Atlantic’s David Frum examines one of the most consequential deceptions of the Trump presidency: the insistence that grocery prices are falling when Americans know from lived experience that they are not. David explains how tariffs and trade policy are deliberately driving food costs higher, why Trump keeps lying about it, and how breaking this promise strikes at the core of the fragile trust between voters and government.

Then David is joined by Fiona Hill, a former adviser to three U.S. presidents and a key witness in Trump’s first impeachment, to analyze how Vladimir Putin sees the world and why Trump remains so drawn to strongman power. Frum and Hill discuss Putin’s long game in Ukraine, Trump’s archaic and backward worldview, and how Trump’s presidency has been a gift to Putin while steadily eroding American credibility abroad.

Finally, David closes the episode with a discussion of “Among the Believers,” by V. S. Naipaul, reflecting on the Iranian Revolution and why authoritarian regimes repeatedly fail at modernity.

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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 the 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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On this week’s episode of “The David Frum Show,” The Atlantic’s David Frum discusses the American seizure of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and President Donald Trump’s deeply flawed thinking about Venezuelan oil. David argues that Trump’s worldview of exploitation and predation is likely to doom his ambitions in Venezuela rather than secure them.

David is then joined by the national-security analyst David Rothkopf to examine the U.S. military operation in Venezuela and the Trump administration’s alarming lack of a coherent plan for what comes next. Rothkopf explores what it means for a president to sideline or altogether ignore the National Security Council before launching a major military action. Together, Rothkopf and Frum speculate about possible outcomes of the Maduro operation that Trump appears not to have considered.

Finally, David closes with his thoughts on Rudyard Kipling’s “Recessional” and the poem’s warning about national boasting, overreach, and the perils of collective foolishness.

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David Frum is joined by The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum to react to the news of the American raid and capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in a special episode of The David Frum Show. 

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