Preet Bharara: Max Boot, thank you so much for being on the show.

Max Boot: Thanks for having me.

Preet Bharara: You know, I usually don’t begin an interview with a question about one’s sort of fashion accessories, [laughter] but I can’t help but notice that you are a fan of the fedora.

Max Boot: I am.

Preet Bharara: Explain that.

Max Boot: Well, it begins with the fact that I have a propensity to skin cancer, and so my doctor long ago advised me to wear hats. And I used to wear baseball hats, and I think I looked kind of shlumpy, frankly. And then my partner, she said to me, “No, you gotta upgrade your hat game here.” And so, she went out and got me a beautiful fedora from Barney’s, and I have been wearing fedoras ever since.

Preet Bharara: No one looks shlumpy in a baseball cap. I just want to tell you that right now. [Laughter] Do you have a collection of fedoras?

Max Boot: I look shlumpy.

Preet Bharara: No, you—no, you don’t. No, you don’t. Should I wear a fedora?

Max Boot: Give it a shot.

Preet Bharara: Okay.

Max Boot: You stand out.

Preet Bharara: I’ll think about it. So, as we sit here, it looks like the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation is going to happen. What do you think about the effect of a conversation of Brett Kavanaugh on the court, on the country, and on politics?

Max Boot: Well, I’m concerned, frankly. I mean, I was initially open to the Kavanaugh nomination. He is more conservative than I am, because I’m really a middle-of-the-road conservative, but I also thought that he was eminently qualified, and I thought that Trump had a right to appoint him. And he could have easily been appointed by any other Republican president. And so, I thought that the Senate should have confirmed him. But of course, the sexual assault case that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford put forward gave me great pause. And I had even greater pause when I saw Kavanaugh’s performance in the confirmation hearing, in the second confirmation hearing, which I thought was kind of emblematic of where the GOP is today, and that’s putting rage over reason. I thought it was a very injudicious performance. He engaged in very partisan rhetoric and conspiracy mongering He was—I thought he was abusive to Amy Klobuchar, for example. He was also evasive and deceptive, and I—you know, I doubt that anything he said meets the standard of perjury, although you would be more of an expert on that than I am. But I just thought he was not being very honest.

Preet Bharara: But do you think that it was smart tactically, because it shored up, from reports, a wavering Trump? You know, it has galvanized a lot of folks in the Republican Party, voters included. So, you know, if he had been as mild-mannered and reasonable as people are now saying that he should have been, do you think he would have had the same chance at confirmation?

Max Boot: As a matter of pure politics, I think it was effective, because it played to the constituency in the White House, and it played to where the Republican Party is right now. They don’t care to examine the facts too closely on anything, whether it’s on climate change, or the effect of tax cuts, or the Kavanaugh nomination. They have their positions, and they take a win at all costs attitude. And Kavanaugh feeds into that. But I’m afraid the impact of that is going to be to further politicize the Supreme Court, which is already way too politicized, I think. And I mean, I just don’t know how plaintiffs who are coming from the left side of the political spectrum can possibly imagine they will get a fair hearing from somebody like Kavanaugh, who revealed himself to be a very partisan Republican.

Preet Bharara: Do you have any criticism for how the Democrats, particularly in the Senate, handled the nomination?

Max Boot: Sure. I mean, I thought that Senator Feinstein should have done  more early on to investigate Dr. Ford’s allegations. And it was unfortunate that they wound up being held as long as they were and then kind of sprung at the last minute. What’s dismaying to me, as somebody who has now become a militant centrist is—

Preet Bharara: [Laughs] We’re gonna come back to that.

Max Boot: Yeah. What’s dismaying to me is how everybody is locked into the positions. You know, the fact that Democrats were gonna oppose Kavanaugh no matter what, even if he was a squeaky clean choirboy. And Republicans, it didn’t matter. Even if every allegation against him was true, they would still support him, because that’s just where the two parties are. That troubles me greatly, because it’s a very debilitating situation for our country.

Preet Bharara: So, you’ve written this book. It’s called The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right. I see what you did there. It was very clear.

Max Boot: [Laughs] Yeah.

Preet Bharara: Did you come up with that?

Max Boot: I came up with the subtitle, but I gotta give my editor credit for the title.

Preet Bharara: But the subtitle’s the best part.

Max Boot: Okay. Thank you.

Preet Bharara: Don’t tell your editor.

Max Boot: All right.

Preet Bharara: Max Boot, very big letters, your name.

Max Boot: Yeah.

Preet Bharara: Nice. [Laughs]

Max Boot: That wasn’t in my contract. That was up to the publisher, whatever they want to do.

Preet Bharara: And there’s an ailing elephant on the cover.

Max Boot: Yeah. That’s actually the coolest element, because that’s actually from a 19^th century Harpers cartoon by Thomas Nast, the great cartoonist.

Preet Bharara: Right, of course. And just to point out, on the back book jacket, there’s you in a fedora, tilted very fashionably.

Max Boot: Yes, indeed.

Preet Bharara: Is that—did your partner tell you to tilt the hat that way?

Max Boot: That tilt, I will take full credit for.

Preet Bharara: All right. So, I assume you wrote the book because you had something to say, and you’ve said a lot in the book. Who’s the audience for this book?

Max Boot: Well, I think anybody who’s interested in American politics and is trying to make sense of where we are in this moment with the emergence of Donald Trump and his domination of the Republican Party. I mean, this has been an incredibly period for me, and part of the reason why I wrote the book was just to try to come to terms with what’s happened, because it’s been so bizarre. I mean, you know, I’m somebody who is a lifelong conservative and a Republican. You know, I wrote for conservative publications. I was a foreign policy advisor to three Republican presidential candidates. And I never in my wildest dreams imagined that somebody like Donald Trump could become, A, the nominee of the Republican Party, and B, the President of the United States. As that’s actually come to pass, and as we’ve seen his tenure in office be as erratic, tumultuous, and scandalous as many of us had expected, he’s nevertheless kept the support of something like 90 percent of Republicans. And so, this has been earthshattering, soul-shattering for me. I mean, these are my former friends and colleagues who are now betraying everything that I thought we all believed in. And I’m just trying to come to terms with that. How did this happen? What does this mean? And I’m trying to describe my own process of how I became a conservative and an American, because I wasn’t born in this country, and how I became disenchanted with the right because of these developments of the last few years.

Preet Bharara: You were born in Russia.

Max Boot: I was.

Preet Bharara: I wonder what the President thinks of that. [Laughter] That renders your whole book suspect, does it not?

Max Boot: I’m sure it does.

Preet Bharara: It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. [Laughs]

Max Boot: I mean, his followers on Twitter are accusing me of being a Russian spy, which apparently, these Trump supporters, they all engage in like this double-think or double-talk, where if you call out the President, who supports Vladimir Putin, that makes you the Russian spy.

Preet Bharara: Right.

Max Boot: I’m still trying to scratch my head about that

Preet Bharara: Right. You’re the spy.

Max Boot: Yeah. I’m the spy.

Preet Bharara: You’re the spy.

Max Boot: Yeah. No puppet. You’re the—you’re the puppet.

Preet Bharara: [Laughs] Right. No, it’s not childish at all. There are a number of folks, some of whom have been on the show, who are lifelong conservatives, like you described yourself. Intellectuals, writers, authors, political operatives. People like Steve Schmitt, Nicole Wallace, David Frum, Bill Crystal, and others. Do you guys have a club? [Laughter] Do you go somewhere like every Thursday and just—

Max Boot: And drink heavily?

Preet Bharara: And drink [laughter]—and drink. Or are you all sort of independently doing your thing?

Max Boot: Well, we’re all pretty independently doing our thing. I mean, I don’t—frankly, I don’t even know Nicole Wallace or Steve Schmitt. I do know Bill Crystal, and I’m friends with Bill. There’s certainly no Never Trump politburo to tell us what to say or do. We’re all pretty independent actors.

Preet Bharara: Why’d you say “politburo”?

Max Boot: That there’s—

Preet Bharara: Proving the spy point.

Max Boot: There’s my Russian roots again. There you go.

Preet Bharara: Yeah. No, look, these are subtle things. I just want to point them out to everyone.

Max Boot: Can’t get anything by you.

Preet Bharara: [Laughter] That’s why it’s the world’s most successful podcast—

Max Boot: Exactly.

Preet Bharara: —Max. So, you say a lot of things about Trump in the book, and then you’ve said some things very recently as well. And one thing you wrote just in the last few days, I found very interesting. You said, “It is too early to conclude that Donald Trump is the worst president ever.” Some might disagree with you. So, you say, “It is too early to conclude that Donald Trump is the worst president ever, but it’s not too early to conclude that he is the worst person ever to be president.” Why don’t you explain what the distinction is?

Max Boot: I mean, I have a very low opinion of the Trump presidency, but I’m also a historian, and I think we need to reserve judgment until the presidency is actually over. And, you know, if you’re talking about the worst presidents in our history, the worst presidencies, I mean, it’s gonna be hard to beat, frankly, somebody like James Buchanan or Andrew Johnson. I mean, we’ve had—we’ve had a few stinkers in our history, and it may well turn out to be that Trump is in fact the worst president. But again, I think we gotta wait a few years to reach that judgment. But just in terms of who he is as a person, we know who he is as a person, and he’s not changing. He’s been the same person for more than 70 years, and it’s a horrible, horrible human being who has utter darkness where his soul ought to be. And I think every day, we see more examples of that.

Preet Bharara: I don’t disagree with you, but I just wonder why that matters. You could have an awful human being—if you think Donald Trump is such a person, he’s an awful human being. But let’s say the economy hums along, we keep the peace, some other things happen that are good for America. But he’s a terrible person. And then you have another president—I’m not saying Jimmy Carter is such a person. But you might have another president—Jimmy Carter, for the sake of argument—who I think most people think is a wonderful person and lives modestly and, you know, practices his faith, and helps other people, and lives a non-ostentatious life. And a lot of people say it was a disastrous presidency. So, why all the hullabaloo, then, about the indecency of Donald Trump, if you can have a good presidency even while being a bad person?

Max Boot: Well, I think that is true. I mean, you certainly can have somebody who is far from a choirboy who makes a good president. And many of our previous presidents have been deeply imperfect, although I think none of them perhaps as imperfect as Donald Trump. But there are a lot of consequences of Donald Trump’s character failings. It’s not just personal failings that have no impact on the public. They do have a large impact on the public. I mean, when the president lies in public an average of eight times a day, according to the Washington Post, that degrades our country. That degrades our society. When the president expresses sympathy for white nationalists; when he uses horrible, racist, and xenophobic rhetoric to run down Muslims or Latino immigrants, that has an impact on our country even beyond the actions that he orders. And he does order actions like locking up the children of undocumented immigrants, or breaking the law, according to his own lawyer, Michael Cohen, by conspiring to pay off these two women with whom he had affairs, in violation of federal campaign finance law. So, I don’t think you can draw a bright line between his personal failings and his public performance. And that’s something that conservatives themselves used to believe.

Preet Bharara: Yeah.

Max Boot: I mean, given the way our political system is structured, we don’t have a king. The president is supposed to be both the political leader and the head of state, so he is also supposed to unify and unite our country, and lead all Americans. That’s something that conservatives went on at great length about when Bill Clinton was president. Bill Clinton certainly had major failings, but I would say, you know, he’s a candidate for canonization compared to Donald Trump, who is a far more deeply flawed individual. And all of a sudden, conservatives have gone silent about that, and they take the position that you described. Well, all of his personal failing don’t matter. It doesn’t matter what crackpot stuff he tweets. As long as the economy is the growing, that’s the only thing that matters. And I think other things matter as well.

Preet Bharara: Do you think if other things go sour or south, and people are not so happy with the direction of the country, do you think then that all these other failings that you’re talking about—lack of decency, character issues, etc.—will then become important?

Max Boot: Absolutely. I mean—

Preet Bharara: But why should that be?

Max Boot: Well, I mean, that’s just the reality of politics. I mean, why is it that Richard Nixon’s impeachment was made more likely by the oil shock and the recession of the early 1970s, and yet it was? I mean, there’s no direct connection, but it affects how people view the president. And right now, Trump gets some un—I would argue unearned goodwill because of the robust state of the economy. Even so, he is way below what a normal president would be with an economy growing as strongly as it is now. I mean, any other president would be well over 50 percent approval, and Trump has trouble breaking 40 percent. And I think that’s the penalty he pays for being a horrible human being who does all sorts of crazy, erratic, terrible things. But if we have a recession by 2020, as a lot of economists expect, I think at that point, he’s gonna go into free fall.

Preet Bharara: Do you think that all of your assessment of Donald Trump is rational, or is some of it visceral?

Max Boot: I think it’s largely rational, but I have to admit that some of it is visceral, just because, you know, the things that he says are so hateful and so crazy that I do react emotionally to it. I mean, I’m not Mr. Spock here. I can’t look at everything and just put it into my data bank and calculate out the correct response. I do react emotionally, and I have really since he began his presidential campaign, I would add. I mean, despite his birtherism, despite all this other stuff, I didn’t really know what to make of Donald Trump except that he was this kind of crazy guy who was this horrible self-promoter. But, you know, if he had behaved in a more rational and sane and sober fashion on the campaign trail, I might have been more open to him. But in fact, remember how he began his campaign, coming down that damn escalator at Trump Tower and attacking Mexicans as rapists and murderers. I mean, I couldn’t believe it. I was outraged.

And then a few weeks later, he said that he didn’t respect Senator McCain because he didn’t like people who were captured. I was outraged. So, I mean, part of that was emotional. Yes, I’m—I am deeply, deeply offended by the way he behaves, the kind of example he sets, the way he denigrates minorities, the way he picks on those less powerful than himself. I’m outraged by all that. At a logical level, I think he’s also very bad for the country and the world. But I do have this intense sense of outrage, and I’m outraged that there are people who are not outraged.

Preet Bharara: So, I was gonna ask you that.

Max Boot: Yeah.

Preet Bharara: That was my next question.

Max Boot: Yeah.

Preet Bharara: So, what do you make of the people who you like and respect, and you think are good faith voters and observers of politics who are not outraged? Or do you think there’s a lot of people who are, but they just suppress it for other self-interested political or economic reasons?

Max Boot: The most disturbing reality, I think, is that a lot of Trump supporters see his hateful rhetoric and attacks on minorities not as a bug, but as a feature. That’s actually what they like about him. Now, if you talk about politicians in Washington, in a lot of cases, they don’t actually like him, but they’re just making a cynical calculation that they have to appease him and his supporters in order to win reelection. In some ways, I think the most troubling people are those, my peers, the people that I worked with and was friends with for a long time, kind of conservative intellectuals. You know, at the beginning of 2016, I didn’t know a single conservative who had anything positive to say about Donald Trump. And now, aside from a handful of us Never Trumpers, it’s hard to find any conservatives who have anything negative to say about him in public.

So, why did they make that reversal? Well, you know, one of my oldest friends, he said something to me that just rocked my world in the summer of 2016, at a time when Donald Trump was winning the nomination. And I said, “I can’t stand this guy. There’s no way I’m gonna support him. I’m gonna vote for Hillary Clinton. She is way more qualified to be president.” And he said to me, you know, “Max, your mistake is you think politics is about ideas. You don’t understand, it’s really about tribal identity. And I’m part of the Republican tribe. And I gotta go with my tribe.” That rocked me. I mean, I couldn’t believe that somebody was actually being forthright enough to say this. But I think that is a lot of what Republicans think.

Preet Bharara: Are you surprised by how many more people were tribalist in that way than you had thought?

Max Boot: Exactly, yeah.

Preet Bharara: So, some of the people that you refer to and that, you know, we’ve seen in the news were quite, quite harsh on the president until he won.

Max Boot: Right.

Preet Bharara: Right.

Max Boot: Yeah.

Preet Bharara: They include Rick Perry.

Max Boot: Right.

Preet Bharara: —who, as you have written—former Governor Rick Perry of Texas had called Trump “a cancer on conservatism.” And as you write in your typical witty fashion, “He said Trump was ‘a cancer on conservatism’ before endorsing said cancer and being rewarded with a Cabinet post. Rand Paul had called him a ‘delusional narcissist’ before endorsing said narcissist.” And then you say, “Most painful of all for me,” because you worked for Senator Marco Rubio as an advisor—

Max Boot: Right.

Preet Bharara: —“his presidential campaign went from denouncing Trump as a con artist to endorsing said con artist.” And the list goes on. Lindsey Graham, also chief among them.

Max Boot: Yeah. Who used to call Trump a kook, and now is his golf buddy.

Preet Bharara: Right. Are you angry with them?

Max Boot: Yes. I am angry and I am disillusioned, because there are a lot of people that I had respect for. I confess, I never had that much respect for Rand Paul or Rick Perry, but I did—

Preet Bharara: They listen to this podcast, so—

Max Boot: Okay.

Preet Bharara: d—they’re gonna know that now.

Max Boot: All right. Well, I’m out of the closet.

Preet Bharara: [Laughs] Okay.

Max Boot: I’ve probably said disrespectful things about them in the past. But I had more respect for somebody like Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan, or, for that matter, Rudy Giuliani, who I think was a very effective mayor in New York. And so, it’s been deeply demoralizing to me to see the way that they have really prostituted themselves before Donald Trump and have betrayed everything that they claim to stand for.

Preet Bharara: So, you have some prescriptions in your book, not just sort of a diagnosis. And you say a thing that actually is reminiscent of something that Steve Schmitt said on this show some time ago. You said that what has to happen is the demolishing of the GOP. But why? Why can’t there just be, you know, reform or tweaking of a party? This happens with the Democratic Party from time to time, the GOP from time to time. Why are people like you and some others speaking so radically about what needs to happen?

Max Boot: Because I think a lot of the problem is that it goes beyond Trump. I think in some ways, Trump is more a symptom than the cause of the Republican maladies. And having broken out of the Republican bubble has also made me reflect and look back on the history of the Republican Party and realize the extent to which there were these dark forces out there—the racism, xenophobia, nativism, protectionism, isolationism, the know nothing-ism. All these forces were out there for a long, long time, and they weren’t necessarily dominant, but they were growing in strength. And you see the milestones along the way, such as the founding of Fox News in 1996, the emergence of Sarah Palin, the Tea Party. There were a lot of these trends that were going on for years that Donald Trump has taken advantage of. So, even if Donald Trump exits the scene, which he will do sooner or later, the Republican Party’s still gonna be a very sick puppy. And I think you gotta have a major turnover. They have to—at a minimum, a lot of Republicans need to pay a very heavy price for the way that they have demonized the most powerless among us, how they have played on the worst bigotry in America in order to win and accrue power for themselves. What they are doing is so deeply immoral and so destructive to our country—unless they pay a very heavy price, they’re gonna continue doing more of it. It’s gonna get worse. So, they have to be told, no, this is not how you’re gonna get elected in America. What we need is a moderate, center right responsible party. I mean, this is probably my fantasy, but I would love to see the party remade in the image of somebody like Dwight D. Eisenhower. That’s the kind of center right party I’d like to see.

Preet Bharara: I believe he wore a fedora also.

Max Boot: That is true.

Preet Bharara: Right? See?

Max Boot: Yes.

Preet Bharara: I know my sartorial history. So, you believe that the Republicans believe in limited government. Do you still believe in that?

Max Boot: Absolutely.

Preet Bharara: Do you believe in lower taxes?

Max Boot: Yes, as long as we’re not blowing a whole in the budget, which is the Republican tax bill did.

Preet Bharara: It seemed to me, from the litany of things that you mentioned, they more were in the category of attitude and rhetoric and treatment of people, rather than hard policy. And—

Max Boot: No, I think part of it is hard policy too, because, for example, I’m very dismayed by the fact that Republicans reject the climate science. They just reject the fact that global warming is occurring; or they have taken a very absolutist position on gun control, where they believe that anybody should have any kind of weapon, even assault weapons.

Preet Bharara: But that’s not so new. The view on guns—yes, I know it’s hardened over time. But it’s not that radically different from the ‘80s and the ‘90s, is it?

Max Boot: Yeah, you’re right. I mean, it didn’t start with Trump, but it’s been getting worse over the decades because as recently as 1994, when Congress passed the assault weapon ban, it was endorsed by Ronald Reagan. I mean, can you imagine a prominent Republican today endorsing a ban on assault weapons? So, I think that the Republican Party has been gradually losing its mind for decades. I did not speak out before when I was part of this conservative machine. I just—you know, I had some disquiet about it, but I kind of stayed in my lane, the national security lane, and now I’m kind of realizing, what a second. This is out of control.

Preet Bharara: You were like the frog in the boiling water, not realizing it was getting hotter. And then just before it got too hot for you to live, the Donald Trump frog jumped into the pot of water.

Max Boot: Yeah.

Preet Bharara: And you realized, I gotta jump out! [Laughs]

Max Boot: Yeah. I think there’s something to that metaphor, yeah.

Preet Bharara: Okay. You mentioned Ike, and sort of your dream candidate. At the beginning, you said you were a militant centrist. And I presume you use that phrase because it sounds like a contradiction.

Max Boot: Right.

Preet Bharara: But what the hell do you mean by that?

Max Boot: Well, what I mean by that is that I reject the extremes of both sides. And we’ve mainly been talking about the extremes of the Republican Party, which I think is the greatest threat that America faces right now. But I also feel that as the Republican Party is going further to the right, the Democratic Party is also going further to the left. You know, I—it’s hard for me to support their budget-busting ideas, providing federal jobs for lots of people, or free tuitions, or free medical care for all. I’m upset enough that Republicans are spending us into bankruptcy. I certainly wouldn’t want to see that bankruptcy accelerated. And so, I try to hew now pretty much to the center, which is I’m basically socially liberal, but I’m fiscally conservative. I believe in American leadership. I believe in free trade, which, by the way, is an area where both Democrats and Republicans are pretty bad right now. They’re both actually pretty protectionist. I believe in immigration. I believe in stricter gun controls.

I would say individually, these positions probably poll pretty well. But when you combine these—the set of views, there’s not really a party out there that represents that set of political preferences. I’m not unique in having these views. I think there are others who share them, but both the Republicans and Democrats are moving so far to the extremes that they’re leaving people like me behind.

Preet Bharara: Who’s your favorite Democrat?

Max Boot: Gosh, I don’t know. [Laughter]

Preet Bharara: I’m not familiar with Mr. Gosh. I mean, is there someone—and then, you’ve mentioned other people—

Max Boot: I mean, moderate Democrats. I mean, I like moderate Democrats like Tim Kane or Mark Warner, or there’s a newer generation.

Preet Bharara: You like the boring guys.

Max Boot: The sane people, yeah. I mean, there’s a—

Preet Bharara: Well, the reason I ask is because you said—you say in the book, “There needs to be somebody who can make centrism sexy.”

Max Boot: Yeah.

Preet Bharara: Seeming to concede that militant alone is not sexy.

Max Boot: Right.

Preet Bharara: But then, when you talk about the people that embody this sort of centrism, it seems by definition almost, you’re talking about folks that are not overly charismatic and that are just sort of reasonable, rational, level-headed, have their fingers on the pulse of what matters. Is there an inherent conflict and paradox there?

Max Boot: There probably is some. I mean, it’s hard to find a very sexy centrist. I mean—

Preet Bharara: Can you name one?

Max Boot: I can name one. Macron, the president of France. And I think that he actually pulled that off, and he made centrism exciting, and managed to get elected in France, breaking the power of the established political parties. I would love to see something like that happen here. Now that I am not affiliated with any political party, I’m actually part of the largest party in America, because there are more independents in America than there are Democrats or Republicans. So, I think there is hunger for an alternative. The question is, who is that alternative? The example that I use in the book is maybe somebody like a younger, slightly more charismatic Michael Bloomberg.

Preet Bharara: Slightly more charismatic? How much more charismatic?

Max Boot: I mean, Mayor Bloomberg is very competent. I think he would be a great president. The problem is in campaigning for the office, does he have the pizzazz that voters want? I don’t know. I mean, a lot of people do use centrist rhetoric. The challenge is, can you actually govern in a centrist fashion? That’s the hardest thing.

Preet Bharara: But is the problem there, does it lie with the politicians, or does it lie with the people and their expectations?

Max Boot: I think that there is a constituency in America for a more centrist outcome. But I mean, you look at what happens, for example, with Republican members of Congress and the way that districts are gerrymandered. What that means is, the politicians, the people in Congress, don’t really care what most voters think. They only care about primary voters, so they’re all terrified not of the mainstream voters—they’re terrified of the most extreme partisans.

Preet Bharara: You know, until Donald Trump is gone, people have to feel their way in how to deal with him. And you have something to say about that also, which seems to be sensible—that to take Donald Trump on, you can’t be like him. And the person you used to advise, Marco Rubio, tried that briefly at the end of the 2016 campaign to terrible effect.

Max Boot: Right. You can’t get a lot of mileage by making the size of Donald Trump’s hands. That’s not the way to take him on.

Preet Bharara: But do you see why it’s tempting, if Donald Trump can mock you and abuse you, and he does well at it, that a person might think, well, maybe I can try that?

Max Boot: Right.

Preet Bharara: Is the problem that it’s a bad strategy? There’s the problem that the person who is otherwise decent begins to look completely non-genuine when they adopt the practices of a person who is not decent.

Max Boot: That’s it exactly. And I think the problem is that being a buffoon is a core part of Donald Trump’s identity. [Laughter] So, he seems genuine when he acts in buffoonish ways.

Preet Bharara: Right.

Max Boot: But people who are more sober and serious—

Preet Bharara: It’s totally believable.

Max Boot: Yeah, it’s believable. And that’s—in fact, what voters love about him is the fact that he is boorish, that he is offensive. But if you have somebody who is sane and otherwise sober, and they all of a sudden start acting in this manner, it just seems outlandish and unconvincing and beneath them. And that’s what Marco Rubio discovered.

Preet Bharara: Is that a reason why you think a lawyer who just happened upon the scene named Michael Avenatti maybe has some traction, because he is what he is?

Max Boot: Oh my goodness, I truly hope Michael Avenatti does not run for president. He is somebody who’s actually, I think, very good at giving Trump a dose of his own medicine, and he had some success with Stormy Daniels.

Preet Bharara: Are you glad that he exists for that reason?

Max Boot: I am glad, because I mean, I was skeptical of the Stormy Daniels case. I was skeptical that it would come to anything, because we all knew that Trump was this horrible lecherer and adulterer. That was not news. But it actually resulted in something very, very significant, which was the guilty plea from Michael Cohen implicating Trump in the commission of two federal crimes. That’s hugely significant, and I gotta give Avenatti credit for helping to bring that about. But, you know, he needs to go back to his law practice. We don’t need him running for president.

Preet Bharara: Right. But what’s interesting about what you said is that the way to counter Trump is not to be like him. But the candidates themselves are not the only humans who participate in the political process. So, it sounds like what you’re saying a little bit is, yeah, the candidates who are taking on Trump directly in 2020 or when they did in 2016 should be lofty and adopt, I guess, the principle that Michelle Obama said, which is, “When they go low, we go high.”

Max Boot: Right.

Preet Bharara: Do you believe, given what you just said, that it’s still useful to have some people who subscribe to a different view, like Avenatti might, which is, “When they go low, we punch them in the face?”

Max Boot: Right. No, there’s no question that if you’re gonna be in a gutter fight, it’s helpful to have a few gutter fighters. But I’m just saying that they should not be running for president. I mean, there’s a role for Michael Avenatti. It’s just not in the White House.

Preet Bharara: So, let me change the question. So, you have your lofty, high-minded politician running against the person you described as a buffoon in the form of the president. Can they have nasty street fighters who get in the mud as their campaign chairman?

Max Boot: Look, for example, at Lee Atwater and George H.W. Bush.

Preet Bharara: Was that good?

Max Boot: That’s a great question. I mean, it was certainly good politically for George H.W. Bush. I mean, was it good for the soul of the Republican Party? Was it good for the country? I have some doubts about that. I mean, I’ve been reassessing that. I mean, it was a strange paradox, where you had George H.W. Bush, who was one of the most decent, well-qualified individuals ever to be president, and then he in fact had this dirty campaign manager who was willing to do anything it took to win. And, you know, there’s an argument, I guess, for that, sadly, in the way that American politics operates.

Preet Bharara: Yeah. I’m just trying to explore the issue of how realistic it is to have a view that our politicians should be high-minded and soaring and centrist when the other side isn’t.

Max Boot: You gotta mix it up some, but I think you gotta—with a presidential candidate in particular, he needs to—he or she needs to mix it up on the issues. But I think there are ways to engage very sharply and call Donald Trump out for the fact that he is an embarrassment to America. I mean, make that clear. Don’t just say, “I disagree with him on Issue X.” You gotta say, “He is unfit and unqualified. He sullies the office every time he enters it.” You can certainly call him out for his character and behavior. Do it in an overboard fashion. Don’t engage in his buffoonery.

Preet Bharara: The other way you put it, aside from sort of sexy centrism, is to say that what maybe someone needs is a sane Donald Trump. What does that look like?

Max Boot: Well, what I meant by that was somebody who breaks out of party orthodoxy and is willing to do things in an unconventional fashion, but is not as erratic and wild as Donald Trump is. Donald Trump came in and took over the Republican Party, even though he had very few Republican credentials, and most of his views were at odds with the views of the Republican Party. Nevertheless, through sheer charisma and force of personality, he won the Republican nomination. If there is kind of that sexy centrist out there, he or she could come in and take over the Republican Party, or take over the Democratic Party, or run as an independent, and impose his or her personality on the process in the way that Donald Trump did. But of course, you know, minus the crazy, erratic, offensive behavior that Trump engages in.

Preet Bharara: Are you a globalist?

Max Boot: Yes, proudly.

Preet Bharara: So, what is this business about being a globalist, and why the term in certain Trumpian circles is a slur?

Max Boot: Well, because Trump and his coterie are arch-nationalists. In the Trumpian vision, basically, white Christians are the only real Americans. People who were born here are the only real Americans. And it’s a very—he really espouses a very dark vision of white nationalism. And part of that is attacking so-called globalists, which I think often has nasty anti-Semitic overtones.

Preet Bharara: What’s interesting about some of this is the political power of language and the ability of some people—in this case, we’re talking about the Trump administration and his allies, like Steve Bannon and others—who have figured out a way, pretty successfully, to take what seemed like otherwise neutral words and terms and turn them into something terrible, or to invent terms and apply them to things that are sort of mundane and ordinary, and make them seem like something terrible. So, globalist? I don’t know. [Laughs] It sounds like someone who thinks it’s important to be connected to the rest of the world—

Max Boot: Right.

Preet Bharara: —and not be alone and sheltered. “Deep state” is a term that’s been made up by folks, which overstates an issue that they think is important. What do you think about the use of political language and its power, and also the danger of it?

Max Boot: Well, it’s very Orwellian. I mean, it’s like they’re reading 1985 as a how-to manual on how to manipulate speech, and therefore the manipulate thought. And Trump has been very explicit on this when he says the truth isn’t the truth. And basically, don’t believe your own lying eyes. Believe what I tell you, what the Supreme Leader says. And if what the Supreme Leader says changes, then the truth changes. I mean, it is scary. It is frightening, the way that Trump is mounting—and his allies are mounting this assault on the truth, and utilizing this kind of deceptive language is certainly part of that assault, along with just flat-out lying, which Trump does more than any other president in our history.

Preet Bharara: Does any particular party have a better vision of free speech?

Max Boot: “Parties” maybe is not the right word. I think ideologues on both the left and the right, I think, are guilty of transgressing on speech. There is a real war on free speech, driven by the far left on campuses where conservative speakers are sometimes shouted down, not allowed to speak. That’s deeply troubling to me. But I don’t think Republicans or conservatives have the high ground either, when they’re complaining about limitations on free speech on campus, and at the same time, they’re saying that NFL players ought to be fired for expressing their peaceful protest while the National Anthem was being played. That’s not upholding free speech either. So, I think there’s a lot of problems on both sides.

Preet Bharara: People talk about the shutting down of speech on campuses. That’s not what concerns me as much, maybe, because I’ve been many years removed from college. But what does bother me some is that there are a lot of people I know who are thoughtful—not just the guests who come on the show, but other people I know who are thoughtful and smart, and who have particular views about things that are going on, but they deviate a little bit from what the sort of main orthodoxy is of the day. And they will not utter those things publicly for fear of being vilified and attacked unduly. Do you have views that you don’t express for that reason?

Max Boot: I mean, I don’t think I have a lot of unexpressed views. I’m pretty free about expressing my views and taking the torrents of hate on Twitter as a result of that. But I think those flash mobs of hate on Twitter, for example, and other social media—I mean, I think it is problematic, because people tee off on some individual, and it may or may not be fair, but it just builds up into this kind of emotional firestorm that is something that is a threat to speech. It’s unfortunate if people are afraid to speak out because they think they’re gonna be vilified.

Preet Bharara: You know, what’s funny is, on Twitter, this happens on time to time. By the way, you’re a great follow on Twitter.

Max Boot: Thank you.

Preet Bharara: Is it—people should follow—

Max Boot: @MaxBoot. And I gotta add, by the way, you got—you got some serious Twitter game yourself.

Preet Bharara: Oh, well, thank you. [Laughs] Thank you very much. That doesn’t pay the bills, though, my friend. [Laughter] And what will sometimes happen is you’ll see something terrible being written and wrong, and from time to time, I will respond to it, and I’ll retweet it with sort of my objection to it or my mocking it in an effort to engage in my own right of free speech. And sometimes, I get a reaction from folks saying, when you retweet something that’s vile, even to bash it, you’re giving the vile people a greater platform. I still do it, because I think it’s important to meet arguments with arguments, but are some of those folks right?

Max Boot: It’s a difficult issue. I mean, I struggle with that myself, because like you, I get a lot of crazy tweets and emails. But I think there is some value in exposing these viewpoints and making people aware of the fact that they’re out there. I mean, for example, when I wrote a column praising President Obama, I got this horrible, hateful, racist garbage email. And I think I posted one of them. There are people who think like this, and I think it is important to alert people that there is this hate-mongering which is going on.

Preet Bharara: I agree—I agree with that. Do you follow people not only that you disagree with, but who make your blood boil?

Max Boot: A few, I guess. I mean, I certainly see a lot of tweets that make my blood boil, because whether I follow them or not, they will get retweeted, right?

Preet Bharara: They get retweeted.

Max Boot: Yeah. I think the craziest account I follow at the moment is called @realdonaldtrump. @realdonaldtrump. I mean, I—

Preet Bharara: I gotta check that one out.

Max Boot: Yeah. Well, this is actually a dilemma, right? Because when we respond to his insane tweets, are we basically giving them away to get that message across? Even though you’re criticizing him, you’re also conveying his message, right? I don’t know any way out of that dilemma.

Preet Bharara: But that takes me back a little bit to what we were talking about earlier. If these loud fringe voices that are so salacious and attention-grabbing on the far left or the far right get so much attention and cause us to talk about them, how is the sexy centrist supposed to break through?

Max Boot: Well, not with insults. I mean, I don’t think that—or by spreading crazy conspiracy theories or engaging in hate speech, which is the way that people on the extremes do it. I think you have to break through in part with solid arguments that are pithily expressed. But I also think part of it has to do with having the right outlook, the right resume, the right experience, the right personality—somebody who is appealing. I mean, you look at somebody like Dwight D. Eisenhower; he wasn’t necessarily the most charismatic or flashy individual, but he was highly competent. He gave people a sense of security. They felt like they were in good hands with this guy because he knew what he was doing. He had their best interests at heart. He wasn’t gonna do anything crazy. I think after a few years of Donald Trump, we may be ready for somebody like that again. At least, I hope so.

Preet Bharara: What’s your greatest hope for what readers should take away from your book?

Max Boot: Well, I think they should take away an appreciation of how distorted and extreme the Republican Party has become, and how twisted a lot of the ideology that so-called conservatives promote actually is, and how important it is for us to move away from the brink and move away from the extreme right as well as the extreme left, and find this kind of sane, centrist alternative, because I think the future of our country is truly at risk here.

Preet Bharara: You have chosen for an epigraph in your book a stanza from W.H. Auden’s poem “September 1, 1939”, which was occasioned by Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland. And the stanza reads, “All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie / the romantic lie in the brain of the sensual man in the street / and the lie of authority whose building grope the sky”. What’s the significance of that epigraph in your book?

Max Boot: Those lines in Auden’s poem just jumped out at me when I read them, and especially the line about the authority whose buildings grope the sky. I thought, oh my goodness, he’s talking about a guy who owns Trump Tower, and owns all these other skyscrapers, and puts his name on them. Auden, of course, was writing in 1939 when authoritarians threatened the peace of the world. He could do nothing in response except to write this poem, which was a very powerful poem, which is still read to this day. And I’m certainly not a great poet like W.H. Auden, but I’m a writer, and so I’m just trying to express in my own way and in my own book my protest against these lies and against this extremism, which I think threatens the world today.

Preet Bharara: Now can you say something positive so we don’t have to—we don’t have to end on a note of gloom and destruction?

Max Boot: Well, the positive will occur if Republicans suffer a drubbing in the November election, which I ardently hope will happen, saying that as somebody who used to be a lifelong Republican, who before I voted for Hillary Clinton had never voted for a Democrat in my life. But I think it’s imperative that Republicans are soundly defeated in November. And I take some comfort in seeing polls at least in the House of how the Democrats are likely to take over. But you can’t be overly sanguine, because of course, the polls were also showing that Donald Trump was going to lose. And so, everybody needs to make their vote count.

And I think whatever you may think about Democratic candidates, and I will disagree with a lot of what Democratic candidates say, and I disagree with a lot of what Republican candidates say, but I think just for the health of our democracy, I think it’s imperative to vote for Democrats, because you need to have checks and balances on the excess in the White House, and Republicans have shown pretty consistently, they will not stand up to this president.

Preet Bharara: Max Boot, congratulations on the book.

Max Boot: Thank you.

Preet Bharara: I hope you get a lot of people to buy it. And we’ll talk again soon.

Max Boot: Thanks so much. Great conversation. Really enjoyed it.

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