Eric and Eliot are back from the break and have lots to discuss. They note the anniversary of January 6th and the somewhat successful efforts by MAGA types to rewrite its history in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Eric talks about the world that Trump will inherit which will be much more disorderly and dangerous that what he inherited in his first term as President, including an Iran on the cusp of having a nuclear weapons capability, the largest land war in Europe since World War II with battlefield situation for Ukraine looking grim even as Russia faces catastrophic losses of men and material, and Russia and China escalating an increasingly aggressive hybrid war of sabotage in the Baltic, off Taiwan and farther afield. They discuss turbulence of politics in the democratic world and the various causes of the rise of populist nationalism which has affected not just the U.S. but democracies around the world. They discuss Elon Musk's unprecedented role as an agent of political disruption around the democratic world and its byproducts in the UK, Germany, and Canada. Finally, they reprise their discussion of the futile efforts by members of the Biden Administration to polish and shape its foreign policy legacy through interviews and speeches when the final verdict will be rendered by historians likely to be unaffected by these transparently self-interested efforts.

Eric on Conversations With Bill Kristol:
https://conversationswithbillkristol.org/conversation/eric-edelman-on-the-world-trump-inherits/

JINSA Iranian Nuclear Report:
https://jinsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Day-1-Strategy-to-Defeat-Iran-12.19-Compressed.pdf

Phillips OBrien on Biden's legacy burnishing: 
https://substack.com/home/post/p-154316690

Secretary Blinken Interview:
https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-with-lulu-garcia-navarro-of-nyts-the-interview-podcast/

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.