Peace President?
Cato Podcast
Cato Institute
4.6 • 949 Ratings
🗓️ 16 October 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
President Trump is taking a victory lap for brokering peace in Gaza—while simultaneously escalating the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine and launching airstrikes against suspected cartel boats. Our panel assesses Trump’s Nobel ambitions, celebrates this year’s actual Peace Prize winner, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.
Featuring Ryan Bourne, Gene Healy, Justin Logan, & Ian Vasquez
Justin Logan, "The Case for Withdrawing from the Middle East," Defense Priorities, September 2020.
Ian Vasquez, “Maria Corina Machado, Venezuelan Champion of Freedom, Wins the Nobel Peace Prize,” Cato at Liberty blog, October 10, 2025.
Ian Vasquez and Marcos Falcone, “Liberty Versus Power in Milei’s Argentina,” Free Society, October, 2025.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Israelis don't want the Palestinian Authority to run Gaza. |
| 0:03.9 | They don't want Hamas to run Gaza. |
| 0:05.7 | They don't want to run Gaza. |
| 0:07.5 | I think at some level they might like the Americans to run Gaza, but we don't want to run Gaza. |
| 0:12.0 | So who the hell is going to run Gaza? |
| 0:15.4 | Welcome to the Cato podcast. |
| 0:17.4 | I'm Gene Healy, senior VP for Policy at Cato. |
| 0:23.9 | With me, as always, is my co-host, Ryan Bourne, |
| 0:29.2 | the R. Evan Scharf Chair for the Public Understanding of Economics. Good to be with you, Gene. |
| 0:36.7 | What makes a peace president? Is there such a thing, or is it an oxymoron like congressional leadership or government efficiency? |
| 0:41.4 | At any rate, if it exists, President Trump wants to claim the title. He's in the middle of a victory |
| 0:47.0 | lap over the Gaza peace deal, which does seem like a significant achievement. Yet, he also appears poised to ramp up our proxy war |
| 0:57.2 | with nuclear-armed Russia by giving Ukraine access to long-range missiles. Meanwhile, he's launched |
| 1:05.1 | an unprecedented campaign to turn the war on drugs from metaphor into grisly reality. |
| 1:12.7 | Just yesterday, the U.S. military launched its fifth air strike since September |
| 1:17.8 | against alleged drug smugglers off the Venezuelan coast, killing six. |
| 1:24.3 | With us today to talk about all this are our friends and Cato colleagues, Justin Logan, and Ian Vasquez. |
| 1:31.3 | Justin heads up Cato's Defense and Foreign Policy Shop. |
| 1:36.3 | They make the sometimes unpopular case for restraint because, with apologies to Stephen Colbert, reality has a well-known |
| 1:46.3 | realist bias. |
| 1:48.6 | Thanks for having me. |
| 1:50.7 | And Ian Vasquez, who's got the weight of the world on his shoulders as director of Cato's |
... |
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