Euro-Atlantic Café March 2017

Euro-Atlantic Café: Unterstanding the Trump Administration


Welcoming Euro-Atlanic CaféEuro-Atlantic CaféPanelists of the Euro-Atlnatic Café

On the 9th of March 2017 CEID organized the 14th event of the Euro-Atlantic Café with the title: Understanding the Trump Administration. Panelists of the event were Mr. Daniel Lippman, Co-author of POLITICO Playbook, Mr. Christopher Malagisi, Editor in Chief at Conservative Book Club, former Director of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and Ms. Anna Smith Lacey, Vice-president for Common Sense Society of Hungary; it was moderated by Ms. Antónia Mészáros, Reporter for ATV. Main topics of the discussion were the roles of the mainstream media and its battered relationship with Donald Trump, the most important appointments and officials of the Trump administration so far, the changing State Department, the future of U.S. foreign policy and the relationship withHungary.

In the beginning of the discussion, Ms. Lacey underlined that the key to understand the Trump administration is to properly understand the media, how it reacts to Donald Trump as well as how he treats the media and grassroots conservative movements. The motivation to choose the particular panelists was based on this interest.

In his introductory speech, Mr. Lippman outlined how much new is going on in  Washington although Donald Trump has only been in power for around fifty days. For Washington it feels like a four-year presidency already. He agreed with Ms. Lacey by saying that the understanding of the media is indeed the key element to understand Trump. Historically there has never been a more battered relationship between the media and the president. His explanation for this is that after defeating Hillary Clinton in the elections, Trump needs a new enemy and treats the media as a new opposition. He also stated that the mainstream media is wrongly being referred to as liberal. The media is not leaking information, rather it is trying to do its job and reveal important facts – the same would had been done under a Clinton presidency.

Considering the future of the U.S. foreign policy, Mr. Lippman thinks that the Trump administration will be less focused on promoting democracy and human rights around the world. Regarding bilateral relations, he said that it seems that Hungary is currently not on the radar, and must prove itself to gain attention.

Mr. Malagisi joined the discussion by saying that at the start of the elections, a lot of conservative thinking people were skeptical with Donald Trump. He was an unknown person in politics, they did not know who he actually is, his alliance, his idols. Mr. Malagisi thinks that the media is rather biased towards Trump, and although he might have given reasons for that, he should be regarded as more like a symptom rather than a problem of our times. With the ongoing globalization, greater migration and international movement than ever before, many people are feeling lost, left behind, they feel that their culture is not assimilating as well as it did. The other aspect is the increasing technology. By using Twitter to his advantage and by playing on the issues mentioned before, Trump connected with people, and represented patriotism to a lot of them. He also said that the main problem with the American mainstream media was that it tried to tell people what to think. It was constantly stated that Trump will not win the elections, and now that he is the President, the media is perceived by many as a mouthpiece of Obama. Trust in the media has become very low, and Mr. Malagisi thinks that Trump is using his tweets and statements quite well as bait, getting attention, while being able to work in the background.

On the topic of foreign politics, he highlighted that to better understand the goals and attitude of Trump, one needs to look at the previous administrations record. The former reset policy between the U.S. and Russia was highly counter-productive, resulting in a worsening relationship. Now Trump wants to be more cooperative and seems to like the U.S. not being involved in military actions as much as before.

Ms. Lacey continued the argument by saying that the Foreign Ministry itself was quite anxious about the reset policy with Russia under Hillary Clinton. She also said that this policy changed during the second term of Barack Obama, which clearly shows that administrations can also learn their lessons. In the case of the Trump administration, she highlighted that besides mentioning the rhetoric, attention should be given to what is actually happening. The appointments and speeches of Rex Tillerson and General Mattis were reassuring from an Eastern-European perspective. Considering the situation of Hungary, where energy policy and energy security are the key aspects, Ms. Lacey added that Trump supports the increasing trade of liquefied gas between the U.S and Europe, which can mean higher independency from Russia for more European countries. In addition, the U.S. has recently sent one of the most significant military reinforcements to Eastern-Europe. If we take these moves into consideration, it is unlikely that the U.S. would turn more towards Russia than its allies. The frequently stated line “America first” also means that in the case of conflicts, the U.S. will not remain friendly towards Russia. To summarize, Ms. Lacey said that from the Hungarian perspective, regarding bilateral relations, a cautious optimism seems to be the right way of thinking currently.

With regards to the new appointees of the Trump administration, Mr. Lippman differentiated between two camps, which in his understanding are kind of in conflict with each other. There are the centrists, with James Mattis, Rex Tillerson, Elaine Chao, Reince Priebus, and Sean Spicer, and on the other hand, the second group is the Breibart-wing of the administration, including Steve Bannon, Steven Miller and Sebastian Gorka, who are less in numbers, but are personally closer to Trump.

Mr. Malagisi while agreeing with what Mr. Lippman said, added that the relationship between the two sides is not necessarily bad and the appointees are able work together efficiently. He also added that the current administration is seen by many as an even more conservative one than Ronald Reagans was before, with Trump being on the top as a kind of a CEO, relying on his people to implement the things he wants. According to Mr. Malagisi, the new Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson is going to be the same in this regard, he will delegate most of the tasks to his employees, rather than being personally in the forefront.

On the topic of the changing State Department, Mr. Lippman expressed the worrying thoughts in Washington, that it is has become the shell of its former self. It was a significant part of the American soft power, but lost its influence under the current administration. There seems to be a lot of debates going on among the officials about the implementations and plans of the President as well, Mr. Lipman mentioned the controversies regarding the recent travel ban as an example. According to Mr. Lipman, this can be dangerous considering the future of the department and the foreign service, and can also mean that there will be frequent changes on the position of Secretary of State. Adding to this, Ms. Lacey emphasized, that the officials who work for the State Department can discuss these issues on different insider forums, however, they should not speak publicly against the President. Mr. Malagisi highlighted that the rolling back of the state was one of the priorities of Trump, arguing that it costs a lot of resources and constitutes too much of a burden for the economy. He also mentioned that there have also been accusations about overreaching and that the State Department is abusing its power. He thinks that according to a lot of Americans, this is not necessarily bad, and with lesser involvement and a more self-oriented approach the U.S. can gain a lot as well.

More photos in the gallery:

Euro-Atlantic Café: Understanding the Trump Administration

 

The event was organized in the framework of the Euro-Atlantic Café series and it was supported by the US Embassy in Budapest and Common Sense Society. Photos taken by Wendl Péter.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher.

 

Stefanie Nestler
stefanie.nestler@ceid.hu


X