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Hey everybody, welcome to the Michael Steel podcast. Yes, it's me Michael Steel. I'm in the house tonight and we're having a lot of fun here as we see impeachment's underway and all this new evidence is popping and people around wash didn't all come out.

It's a little bit like Christmas all over again. Not really. Anyway, I'm so glad you could be a part of the conversation. Certainly you can follow me on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Tune in or wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget to do that download thing. We love it when you do that. Follow me on Twitter at Michael Steel.

And of course, you know, we always have fun there too. So this conversation today I've been looking forward to because I have mad respect for my guests. I have had the pleasure of being in rooms with him, watching him, listening to him.

And we talk about the how the party is now bereft of big thinkers on the Republican side on the conservative side. I'm here to tell you we're not we got we got some brothers in the house and you're going to hear one of them today. His name is David French. He's a senior editor at the dispatch and a con on list for a time.

He has authored many books, including a season for justice, home and away and the rise of ISIS. His next book, which we're going to get him back on to talk about, divided we fall will be released in 2020 sometime this year.

And he's also a former major in the United States Reserve Army reserves. He served in fact, if I'm not mistaken in Iraq, right David French?

Yes, welcome to the podcast, man. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. No, it's a it's a real it's a real treat and David and I were talking a little bit before we started knocking this out about he represents some interesting thoughts on a number of areas which we want to get into one having a course doing to do with the killing of a Kasmin Salamani Salamani.

The Iraqi general and then of course what's going on recently with the whole or Ukrainian thing and it's before we get into that just sort of give me a sense.

David, how you're seeing where we are right now you've got these two big huge events. Certainly the president's dealings with the Ukrainian president and all that's now come out of that leading to impeachment.

And then of course this military action. But there's so many other pieces on this very dramatic stage. How do you assess this administration, this president this time as we get ready to go into one of the most fierce political seasons in our lifetimes I think.

Right, well you I think you've got that right I think 2020 is going to make 2016 look like the golden age of civility.

I so I think on the Salamani on the striking in Salamani and the immediate I believe that the crisis with Iran and I with the emphasis on immediate right the immediate crisis with Iran has eased the long term conflict is still there and we you know we can talk about the

impact of killing Salamani on the long term crisis, but I think that immediate impact or that immediate crisis is eased for a bit.

Thankfully I think on the Ukraine situation what is happening with Ukraine is twofold one. It is it's its own discrete event. In other words it's its own it's its own thing that it describes how Trump treated a particular ally in a particular snapshot of time.

But it's also lifts it also lifts the lid on the larger Trump administration in the way Trump views foreign policy the way Trump merges his self interest with the national interest and I think there are really there are really two aspects of the Ukraine scandal one is how the if you look at the events themselves.

What was the what were the precise abuses in that circumstance that the Trump committed what were what were the abuses of power sort of looking at it.

The way you would look at an allegation of criminal activity the other one is what does it say about the nature of the administration and I think in both of those circumstances it's profoundly negative there is a profound abuse of power by Trump.

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