Trump's Tough Talk in Saudi Arabia, Cultural Appropriation Follies, And Protesting Mike Pence [Reason Podcast]
What happens when rhetoric is good but totally divorced from reality, whether the topic is the budget or war?
Speaking to a gathering of leaders of Middle-Eastern countries, President Donald Trump has declared that peace is only possible if "your nations drive out terrorists and extremists." In the same speech given over the weekend, Trump also called for foreign-policy realism and told the assembled leaders that he wasn't there "to lecture" them about how the govern their citizens just so long as they suppress terrorists.
Is Trump's rhetoric a shift in U.S. foreign policy or will it have no real impact on how war, diplomacy, and commerce is waged? That's one of the topics that Reason's Nick Gillespie, Matt Welch, and Robby Soave discuss in the latest Reason Podcast. Also on the docket: What is behind the jihad against "cultural appropriation," the idea that artists, writers, and individuals should never be allowed to imagine themselves as members of another racial, ethnic, or gender group? Why did Notre Dame students walk out during a commencement speech by Vice President Mike Pence—and did the peaceful protest actually signal a maturity when it comes to disagreement? Will Donald Trump's 10-year budget plan, to be released this week, be anything other than a fantasy map, or will it actually deliver on his promise to, in the words of his advisor Steve Bannon, "deconstruct the administrative state"?
Produced by Ian Keyser.
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