The most important thing to understand about the “madman theory” of foreign policy is that it was designed by losers for losers.
The world first heard of the madman theory from a 1978 memoir by President Richard Nixon’s former chief of staff H. R. Haldeman. According to Haldeman, Nixon said: “I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war.
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On this week’s episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts on President Trump’s dangerous disregarding of Congress’s powers of war-making and peacemaking. David argues that though Republicans have enabled the president’s dark impulses, Democrats in congress also seem happy to turn a blind eye to the Trump administration’s actions in Iran.
The agent asks an Iranian: “Are you willing to work for Israel and the United States to overthrow the Khamenei theocratic regime?”
The Iranian replies: “I am willing!”
The agent says: “That’s awesome! A hundred thousand dollars!”
The Iranian looks troubled, hesitates for a moment, grits his teeth and says: “A hundred thousand it is! But I can’t come up with that much all at once—can I pay in installments?”
That joke, which I happened to come across today, sheds light on what’s happening in Iran.
During the planning for President Trump’s latest strike on Iran, Britain refused to allow the United States to launch air attacks from the U.S.-U.K. base at Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean. Only a few hours’ flying time from the Middle East, Diego Garcia offers airfields long enough for the heaviest bombers and has naval docks large enough for aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. It is British territory, left over from colonial times, but was jointly developed under a U.S.-U.K.
Last week, the polling firm Gallup announced that it would no longer survey presidential-approval ratings. This news stirred suspicions. President Trump’s numbers are declining badly, much worse than Joe Biden’s at the equivalent point in his presidency. Gallup’s most recent presidential-approval poll, in December, had Trump at 36 percent—well below the RealClearPolitics poll average of 42 percent. Trump is known for taking punitive action.
In the 1630s, King Charles I tried to tax English people without the consent of their legislature. He lost his head.
In the 2020s, Donald Trump tried to tax Americans without the consent of Congress. He just lost his case.
A tariff is a tax. The Trump tariffs imposed in and after April 2025 were projected to raise as much as $2.3 trillion over 10 years. The Constitution assigns authority over taxes, including tariffs, to Congress.
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On this week’s episode of The David Frum Show, David opens with a warning about President Trump’s escalating efforts to bend American institutions to his will.
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.
Transcript forthcoming.
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On this week’s episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts on the upcoming 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He examines the many actions President Donald Trump has taken that run counter to the ideals articulated in 1776, and considers how the Founders’ constitutional genius may ultimately be what frustrates Trump’s attempt to consolidate power.
Attend a public event in Canada and you will likely hear it open with a land acknowledgment. In the city of Vancouver, for example, the script might read:
“This place is the unceded and ancestral territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, and has been stewarded by them since time immemorial.
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On this week’s episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts on the Trump administration’s hostility toward NATO. David discusses why NATO was created, what it does, and why we should care about it. David also analyzes the United State’s global leadership role and why so many bad actors advocate for isolationism.
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On this week’s episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts on the shooting at Bondi Beach and the rise of anti-Semitic violence globally. He discusses what willing governments can do to crack down on radicals and prevent future acts of violence.
Then David is joined by Will Thomas, a professor at the Michigan Ross School of Business, to discuss Thomas’s paper “Crypto Kleptocracy.
Updated at 2:48 p.m. ET on December 14, 2025
It’s long past time to stop saying “Anti-Semitic violence has no place in our society.” Outrage upon outrage confirms that anti-Semitic violence has a large and expanding place in Western societies—that it is supported by many, that it is tolerated by many more, and that it is often appeased or even enabled by governments fearful of confronting large and militant factions within their populations.
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On this week’s episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts on the absurd Peace Prize awarded to Donald Trump by FIFA. David discusses how the invented prize reflects what FIFA understands about our president—that he’s the kind of leader who can be won over with shiny trinkets and fancy ceremonies.
On this week’s episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts on the shocking alleged corruption that has informed President Donald Trump’s actions toward Ukraine and the scandal of the recently proposed “peace plan” by the United States. He goes on to discuss how the many scandals of the Trump presidency make it hard to focus on just one, as it is quickly replaced in the news cycle by another.
When Jack Abramoff dominated Washington lobbying in the 1990s and early 2000s, he observed that there were two kinds of people in town: those who “get the joke” and those who don’t.
Those who got the joke understood that all of the city’s talk of ideas and principles was flimflam to conceal self-enrichment at the public’s expense. Those who didn’t—didn’t.
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On this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts on the recent gifts given to President Donald Trump by the Swiss government.
On July 18, President Donald Trump signed into law the boastfully named GENIUS Act. If the law wreaks havoc on the financial system, as seems highly likely, that name will become a grim joke: What genius thought that letting the cryptocurrency industry write its own rules would be a good idea?
The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act purports to create a regulatory framework for a type of cryptocurrency called stablecoins.
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On this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with a warning about the coming Supreme Court battle over President Donald Trump’s use of tariff powers. If the Court endorses Trump’s claim that anything he deems an emergency allows him to impose tariffs, Frum argues the United States will face a constitutional crisis unlike any before.
The shutdown of the federal government that began on October 1, now the second-longest in history, has also been called the “most bizarre” and the “weirdest.” What makes this fight so unusual is that it is simultaneously the least angry of the five major shutdowns since 1990 and also the hardest to resolve.
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On this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with an urgent warning about TikTok’s looming deal with Trump-aligned insiders—a move David calls the “biggest giveaway since the days of the railway grants.” He argues that the American media landscape has been quietly transformed, and political power has shifted from legacy outlets to algorithmic platforms loyal to the president.
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On this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with observations about the ongoing government shutdown, how it could be a strategic mistake for Republicans, and why this political standoff is best understood as a “quasi-election” about the rule of law itself.
Then Frum is joined by Lord Charles Moore, the authorized biographer of Margaret Thatcher, to mark the centenary of her birth.
Sometimes even the Trump administration acts like a normal American government. The bailout of Argentina is one of those times.
The Trump administration is proposing to lend Argentina up to $20 billion to support its currency on financial markets. The plan is unpopular with Republicans and Democrats alike. Yet at a time when much of U.S.
President Donald Trump recently ordered his attorney general to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, and tonight, the Department of Justice delivered an indictment of Comey for lying to Congress. Comey, for his part, insists on his innocence. But the charges against Comey are not just about the president’s abuse of his power for personal retribution. They represent a test of the president’s plans for the future.
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On this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum argues that President Donald Trump is making a miscalculation in his second term. Instead of consolidating power before plundering the state, Trump has reversed the sequence, imposing massive tariffs that raise prices on ordinary Americans, flaunting foreign wealth, and enriching his inner circle at public expense.
President Donald Trump is worried that Attorney General Pam Bondi is moving too slowly to prosecute his political adversaries on fake charges. Trump has good reason to be concerned. He is carrying out his project to consolidate authoritarian power against the trend of declining public support for his administration and himself. He is like a man trying to race upward on a downward-moving escalator.
Last week, I paid a $26.05 tariff on a small purchase from the United Kingdom. On August 29, a federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. government had no right to take that money. It allowed the tariff to remain in place until October, pending further litigation. But the Trump administration has lost every round of this fight to date. If it keeps losing, the question will sooner or later arise: What happens to my $26.
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On this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with reflections on the misuse of history in today’s politics. He argues that fascism, once thought to have been buried by the Second World War, has reemerged in modern forms, thriving on the endless hunt for enemies, stoking culture wars, and exploiting new technologies. And he explains why the best antidotes remain liberty, equality, and sometimes humor.
After Donald Trump left the presidency in 2021, he was indicted for retaining dozens of government documents, including some containing nuclear secrets. He was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records. His company was convicted of criminal tax fraud.
When Trump returned to the presidency this year, he sought payback by accusing others of the crimes for which he’d been indicted or convicted.
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On this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum begins with reflections on how Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown has transformed America into what he calls a “society based on fear.” Frum warns that the president’s methods risk discrediting not just immigration enforcement, but also law, police, and the very idea of democratic legitimacy.