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The David Frum Show

What the Neocons Got Right

The David Frum Show

The Atlantic

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.62.4K Ratings

🗓️ 28 January 2026

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this week’s episode of “The David Frum Show,” David opens with his reflections on the recent shootings in Minneapolis. He argues that these killings, alongside ICE’s warrantless home searches and mistaken detentions, and the reports of deaths in custody, are not isolated abuses but signs of a rapidly deepening crisis in American democracy, one in which basic rights and due process are applied unevenly and are increasingly contested. David asks whether the country can find a way back from a dangerous moral and political impasse, as a majority of Americans recoil from these actions while a determined minority continue to defend them. Then, David is joined by the “New York Times” columnist and Atlantic contributor David Brooks. Frum and Brooks discuss the origins of the term “neoconservative,” what the neocons got right, and why they should be listened to today. Brooks describes how America’s problems long predate Trump, and why elections alone cannot fix what has been lost. Together, Frum and Brooks explore whether the country is capable of moral renewal, what rebuilding would actually require, and why recovery, if and when it comes, will be slow, difficult, and deeply personal. Finally, David ends the episode with his thoughts on “Death by Lightning,” a television series on Netflix based on the assassination of President James Garfield, and how, when watching historical dramas, we need to look back on the past with a contextual lens, one that we should bring to our present too.  Sign up for David Frum’s newsletter alert. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

To succeed in the future of work, forward thinkers use AI to deliver measurable results.

0:05.5

Workday is the AI platform for HR and finance that frees you from the mundane, so you can focus on more meaningful work.

0:12.5

Workday, moving business forever forward. Hello, and welcome to the David Fromm show. I'm David Frum, a staff writer at the Atlantic.

0:32.9

If you have listened to or watched this program before, you will notice that this present

0:37.7

opening looks and sounds a little different from usual.

0:41.1

Let me hasten to assure you that most of the show will look as normal.

0:45.7

There will be a dialogue between me and David Brooks, columnist at the New York Times and contributor

0:50.7

to the Atlantic.

0:51.8

That will look and sound normal.

0:53.7

And we will conclude with the discussion of the new four-part Netflix miniseries,

0:58.0

Death by Lightning, a dramatization based on the assassination of President Garfield.

1:02.6

That will look and sound like normal.

1:04.5

But this opening will not and does not look and sound like normal, and I have to beg your

1:09.5

pardon for that.

1:10.8

Here's my excuse.

1:12.1

I planned a family vacation in South America for the final two weeks in January.

1:17.8

I pre-recorded the dialogue and the book talk, and also the opening monologue because I thought,

1:24.3

what crazy things can possibly happen in the last two weeks of January? Well,

1:28.8

you know, as well as I, what crazy things have happened in the last two weeks of January.

1:34.1

NATO allies like France and Britain, Denmark and Norway moving troops into Greenland, an altercation

1:41.5

at Davos between the President of the United States, the Prime

1:44.3

Minister of Canada that concluded or has yielded members of the Trump Cabinet now promoting

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