The Dictatorship
Trump’s foreign policy vision is coming into focus. And it’s worse than we may have imagined.
This is an adapted excerpt from the Feb. 12 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
Donald Trump’s foreign policy vision is starting to come into focus — and it is worse and more dangerous than you may have imagined. The president and his MAGA allies appear poised to rapidly undo the American-led global, democratic order.
The unraveling began Wednesday with an announcement from Trump’s secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, that America was pulling back from defending its allies.
These institutions and orders were established precisely because of the competitive, conquering aspirations of rising empires and fascist regimes.
“We must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,” Hegseth said during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels on Wednesday. “Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.”
“The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” Hegseth added. “We’re also here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.”
On Thursday, Hegseth attempted to walk some of those comments back, telling reporters that “everything is on the table” in negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.
But part of the reason this type of rhetoric is so dangerous has to do with what NATO stands for and when it was created. These institutions and orders were established after World War II precisely because of the competitive, conquering aspirations of rising empires and fascist regimes throughout the world. NATO was formed by the U.S. 76 years ago to pledge that an attack on one member was an attack on all — what is known as Article 5. It started with 12 countries and now has 32 members.
The only time Article 5 was invoked was when all the allies joined together in one fight: when they all came to the United States’ aid after Sept. 11, 2001, and pledged their troops and materiel to the war in Afghanistan. Canadians, Italians, Danes, Spaniards, Norwegians, Estonians, Latvians and more gave their lives for the U.S.’ war on terror. Because that is how alliances work. Allies are supposed to have each other’s back. At least they were before Wednesday.
Not long after Hegseth spoke, Senate Republicans voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as the next director of national intelligence. Gabbard is a policy lightweight whose greatest foreign policy achievement was visiting Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, along with his top clericwho threatened suicide bombings in the United States. (Last month, Gabbard told senators she was unaware of the cleric’s threat at the time of their meeting.) She’s also been accused of siding with Russia and President Vladimir Putin over the U.S. intelligence consensus. But all that sat just fine with every Republican in the Senate except Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who joined 47 Democrats and independents in voting against Gabbard.
At almost the same moment Gabbard was being confirmed Wednesday, Trump was getting off the phone with another international leader: Putin. Trump took to social media to break the news about what he called a “highly productive” call with Putin, writingin part:
we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine. President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, ‘COMMON SENSE.’ We both believe very strongly in it. We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations.
The glaring thing here is that the country on the receiving end of Russia’s aggression, Ukraine, did not seem to be looped in on developments relating to their future. Trump even dodged a reporter’s question on whether he considered Ukraine an “equal member” in the negotiation process.
We should be clear about what we’re watching: Trump is disassembling the U.S.-led international order to the benefit of the global authoritarians he envies and admires.
Politically, Trump has succeeded in selling isolationism to a lot of Americans. It is true that our leading role in the world has been largely a product of a bipartisan elite consensus and sometimes it feels pretty removed from democratic majorities, who tend to believe America gives out too much foreign aid and “polices” the world. Believe me, I’ve spent two decades critiquing the many shortcomings and downright cruelties of that same order. But however imperfect that order is, what Trump wants to replace it with is far, far worse.
The current international order was created by the U.S. and its allies to prevent the world from the unthinkable. When there were rising tensions between the victorious nuclear superpowers, institutions like NATO and the United Nations were formed in part to prevent the Cold War from becoming a nuclear holocaust.
But there’s another reason Trump is eager to jettison the old order in favor of an anarchic world in which strong countries do what they want. When you hear Putin’s claim that Ukrainians are really just misguided Russians, you can hear echoes of the Nazis’ claim that Austrians and Czechs were just Germans. What Trump is doing now is sending the message to everyone around the world that not only is territorial acquisition by force OK but the U.S. is interested in pursuing it: from Greenland to the Panama Canal to Canada as the 51st state to envisioning the Gaza Strip as an American-owned development project.
The emerging Trump doctrine appears to be that democracies are weak and soft and that we will side with autocracies over them. It’s disastrous. Not just for America’s place in the world but also for the cause of peace.
The emerging Trump doctrine appears to be that democracies are weak and soft and that we will side with autocracies over them.
The idea that the path to peace is to throw overboard democracies in favor of authoritarian regimes is a dangerous idea. And it’s the fundamental throughline of Trump’s worldview. He seems to hate our allies and to love our enemies, possibly because our enemies see the world as he does: transactional and ripe for the picking.
With loyal, morally flexible subordinates like Hegseth and Gabbard, Trump is essentially reorienting American politics as friendly to dictators and authoritarian regimes and fundamentally hostile to democracies. It is shaping up to be the most radical transformation of America’s role in the world since Franklin D. Roosevelt — and it will likely not end well.

Chris Hayes hosts “All In with Chris Hayes”at 8 p.m. ET Monday through Friday on BLN. He is the editor-at-large at The Nation. A former fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Hayes was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. His latest book is”A Colony in a Nation” (W. W. Norton).
Allison Detzel
contributed
.
The Dictatorship
Trump says he’ll release MRI results
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’ s doctor says the president had MRI imaging on his heart and abdomen in October as part of a preventative screening for men his age, according to a memo from the physician released by the White House on Monday.
Sean Barbabella said in a statement that Trump’s physical exam included “advanced imaging” that is “standard for an executive physical” in Trump’s age group. Barbabella concluded that the cardiovascular and abdominal imaging was “perfectly normal.”
“The purpose of this imaging is preventative: to identify issues early, confirm overall health, and ensure he maintains long-term vitality and function,” the doctor wrote.
The White House released Barbabella’s memo after Trump on Sunday said he would release the results of the scan. He and the White House have said the scan was “part of his routine physical examination” but had declined until Monday to detail why Trump had an MRI during his physical in October at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center or on what part of his body.
“I think that’s quite a bit of detail,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday when announcing the memo’s release.
The Republican president said Sunday during an exchange with reporters as he traveled back to Washington from Florida that the results of the MRI were “perfect.”
“If you want to have it released, I’ll release it,” Trump said.
Trump added Sunday that he has “no idea” on what part of his body he got the MRI.
“It was just an MRI,” he said. “What part of the body? It wasn’t the brain because I took a cognitive test and I aced it.”
Doctors typically order an MRI to help with diagnosing symptoms or to monitor an ongoing health problem. So-called “preventive” cardiac and abdominal MRIs are not part of routine screening recommendations. What Trump’s doctor called an “executive physical” generally refers to adding extra, non-routine tests including MRIs to pricey and lengthy exams, not covered by insurance, that are marketed to wealthy people.
The Dictatorship
Trump commutes prison sentence for private equity executive
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump has commuted the prison sentence of former investment manager David Gentile, who was convicted of defrauding investors — the latest in a series of clemency actions Trump has taken in white-collar criminal cases.
Gentile had reported to prison on Nov. 14, just days before Trump commuted his sentence, according to a White House official who requested anonymity to provide details of the clemency action. Gentile had been the CEO and co-founder of GPB Capital, which had raised $1.6 billion in capital to acquire companies in the auto, retail, health care and housing sectors.
He had been sentenced to seven years in prison after an August 2024 conviction for his role in what the Justice Department at the time described as a scheme to defraud more than 10,000 investors by misrepresenting the performance of three private equity funds.
But the White House official said GPB Capital had disclosed to investors in 2015 that their capital might go to pay dividends to other investors, which the White House said undercut claims that the company had engaged in a “Ponzi” scheme in which new investments are used to reimburse previous investors.
The government has agreed to no restitution in the criminal case, though various civil cases are handling repayments and damages to investors.
The Dictatorship
Lawmakers voice support for congressional reviews of Trump’s military strikes on boats
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers from both parties said Sunday they support congressional reviews of U.S. military strikes against vessels suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, citing a published report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order for all crew members to be killed as part of a Sept. 2 attack.
The lawmakers said they did not know whether last week’s Washington Post report was true, and some Republicans were skeptical, but they said attacking survivors of an initial missile strike poses serious legal concerns.
“This rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.
Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, when asked about a follow-up strike aimed at people no longer able to fight, said Congress does not have information that happened. He noted that leaders of the Armed Services Committee in both the House and Senate have opened investigations.
“Obviously, if that occurred, that would be very serious and I agree that that would be an illegal act,” Turner said.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump on Sunday evening while flying back to Washington from Florida, where he celebrated Thanksgiving, confirmed that he had recently spoken with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The U.S. administration says the strikes in the Caribbean are aimed at cartels, some of which it claims are controlled by Maduro. Trump also is weighing whether to carry out strikes on the Venezuelan mainland.
Trump declined to comment on details of the call, which was first reported by The New York Times.
“I wouldn’t say it went well or badly,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, when asked about the call.
The Venezuelan communications ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the call with Trump.
Turner said there are concerns in Congress about the attacks on vessels that the Trump administration says are transporting drugs, but the allegation regarding the Sept. 2 attack “is completely outside anything that has been discussed with Congress and there is an ongoing investigation.”
The comments from lawmakers during news show appearances come as the administration escalates a campaign to combat drug trafficking into the U.S. On Saturday, Trump said the airspace “above and surrounding” Venezuela should be considered as “closed in its entirety,” an assertion that raised more questions about the U.S. pressure on Maduro. Maduro’s government accused Trump of making a ”colonial threat” and seeking to undermine the South American country’s sovereignty.
After the Post’s report, Hegseth said Friday on X that “fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland.”
“Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict—and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command,” Hegseth wrote.
Trump said on Sunday the administration “will look into” the matter but added, “I wouldn’t have wanted that — not a second strike.” The president also defended Hegseth.
“Pete said he did not order the death of those two men,” Trump said. He added, “And I believe him.”
Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and its top Democrat, Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, said in a joint statement late Friday that the committee “will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances.”
That was followed Saturday with the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, and the ranking Democratic member, Washington Rep. Adam Smith, issuing a joint statement saying the panel was committed to “providing rigorous oversight of the Department of Defense’s military operations in the Caribbean.”
“We take seriously the reports of follow-on strikes on boats alleged to be ferrying narcotics in the SOUTHCOM region and are taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question,” Rogers and Smith said, referring to U.S. Southern Command.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., asked about the Sept. 2 attack, said Hegseth deserves a chance to present his side.
“We should get to the truth. I don’t think he would be foolish enough to make this decision to say, kill everybody, kill the survivors because that’s a clear violation of the law of war,” Bacon said. “So, I’m very suspicious that he would’ve done something like that because it would go against common sense.”
Kaine and Turner appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” and Bacon was on ABC’s “This Week.”
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