Every Thursday, the Spy hosts a conversation with Al From and Craig Fuller on the most topical political news of the moment.
This week, From and Fuller discuss the political impact of President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb nuclear development sites in Iran. Al and Craig also trade thoughts on the unexpected win by Zohran Mamdani over former New York governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary election this month.
To listen to the audio podcast version, please use this link:
Transcipt
Craig, I’d like to start with you this week. A lot of things have changed since we last talked. As we all know, Donald Trump, despite a lot of pushback from experts in the field, decided that his administration was going to move forward and bombed nuclear facilities in Iran last weekend.
And it’s unclear, I think, at this point, what damage was caused, but I can’t believe this won’t be a big political win for President Trump. Would love to have your thoughts.
Craig Fuller (03:10.424)
Well, it was a decisive move. I think we’re still very much at the beginning of understanding just exactly what the result of this move will be. And I think trying to interpret too much before we have more information is probably dangerous. And it’s a trap, by the way, that President Trump immediately fell into when he quickly announced that he’d obliterated the nuclear capability of Iran.
I doubt that actually happened. I do want to start by saying that, and I listened to the full briefing this morning by the Secretary of Defense and, frankly, more importantly, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Probably the briefing by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I’ve seen the number of them, was probably the most moving and emotional briefing I’ve ever seen given. Because what he did is really paint a picture of how over
15 years, initially two people began working on how we would go about destroying a nuclear capability hidden inside a mountain. And finally they were asked to do it and it involved hundreds of people and aircraft and people who bravely risked their lives flying across the ocean, dropping bombs before they were even known to be in the airspace and then getting safely out and back home.
He described it from the beginning 15 years ago to these aircraft landing at home base and families waving flags. was an extraordinary briefing. And so we ought to pay tribute to the brave men and women who were part of that mission and part of this process. The problem is that 15 years were spent trying to figure out exactly how to put a bomb into a mountain, multiple bombs into mountains, and blow something up.
Presumably, they did that. I don’t mean in any way to dismiss the importance of that, but there is this remarkable invention called a truck. And dozens of trucks clearly hauled away nuclear material before we blew up the mountain. And so while we can and should celebrate the heroic mission, the question becomes, was this an objective worthy of our action?
And will it have long-term consequences? I honestly think that Benjamin Netanyahu planned something starting last year to take advantage of a situation in which a lot of the proxies for Iran have been destroyed or eliminated. And he realized that with his own capabilities, he could take out
the capability of Iran to defend its airspace. He could take out many of the nuclear facilities. He could take out the individuals who were involved in it. What he could not do was go into that inside that mountain and those mountains and blow up the facilities in there. I’m sensing that most of the objective of slowing down Iran was accomplished by what Israel was able to do.
But what Netanyahu was able to do, which has never been done before, is get a president to engage in a military action where no shot was fired against us, necessarily, but engage in a military action that says, we will use our weapons before we allow Iran to have any nuclear capability. That’s a pretty strong message and a pretty strong signal. And it clearly has shaken the leadership of Iran.
And led to at least a temporary ceasefire and maybe the longer term negotiation. But really, there are a lot of unanswered questions. just, I think that the political advantages, if there are any for Donald Trump, are yet to be really understood. And it’s only going to take a few things to go wrong in a region where lots of things go wrong all the time to diminish
whatever the short-term gain might be this week and next and week after. Because again, we have a lot we have to learn.
David Wheelan (07:42.683)
Al, what’s your take? Is this a defining moment for President Trump?
Alvin From (07:49.057)
I think every moment is a defining moment for President Trump. You know, I sort of thought back to something that, and Craig can tell me whether I’m right or wrong on this, but I always attributed to Ronald Reagan, which is the saying, even a broken clock is right twice a day. you know, Trump…
Craig Fuller (08:05.558)
You are correct.
Alvin From (08:11.188)
Probably did the right thing in the mission in Iran, trying to take out the nuclear facilities. But I have no idea about the seriousness or the quality of the analysis that led up to it, how the process.
I mean, everything is done on social media, is announced on social media. For him, it’s part of his reality TV show when he’s dealing with probably the most serious crisis in the world. It came out well, at least it looks like it did in the short term.
no matter how much damage really. And now he sort of proclaims on his social media platform that he has a ceasefire. since the war is over, there is a ceasefire. And that’s a good thing. the outcome to this point, as Craig said, is good.
I mean, you know, think about it. Iran started this war through its proxy Hamas on October 7, 2023. Since that time, it’s seen its proxy Hamas just destroyed, really. It’s seen its strongest proxy Hezbollah eliminated by the Israelis. It’s seen its ally in Syria.
collapse. The Houthi has probably been weakened as well, its other proxy. Then Israel goes in and takes out its missile launching sites and its missiles and its air defenses and does real damage to its nuclear program.
Alvin From (10:33.721)
And Donald Trump comes in and puts the cherry on the cake. so, you know, the wars over Israel won it. You know, I hope Netanyahu, who was a little excessive, very excessive in Gaza, now has a ceasefire in Gaza too, and we have peace in the region. But anybody who’s ever spent any time in the region.
Studying it knows that at least over the last 50 or 60, 70 years, peace doesn’t ever last very long. So, you know, if Donald Trump really is more serious than he appears, maybe he can, you know, maybe he can actually help have a longer peace.
In terms of the political implications, Craig knows the political implications because he had a winning war in 1991, the first Gulf War. President Bush’s approval ratings were at 90%. That gave Bill Clinton an opportunity to run because everybody else got scared. I remember sitting in Detroit at
431 morning as he was waiting for his flight back to Little Rock talking about it. we thought it was possible to put together a campaign that could beat President Bush. Nobody else thought it was possible. We didn’t decide then to do it, but as it turned out, within a year, President Bush’s approval ratings were down in the 30s instead of the 90s.
because the American people really didn’t, you know, they forgot about the war and they worried about what was going on in this country. you know, benefits, political benefits from things like the bombing are short lived and domestic politics will again come to the forefront.
Alvin From (12:57.306)
My guess is by the time of the 2026 midterm elections, this will not be a big deal.
David Wheelan (13:05.88)
Greg, I want to turn our attention to New York City. I think all of us were quite surprised that
Craig Fuller (13:07.092)
Thanks for that.
David Wheelan (13:14.206)
Andrew Como, a well-known governor of the state, even though he had gotten into himself into trouble, was polling very well in New York for some time and he was the apparent person to run for the office in November. Someone that came out of the blue skies there in Montagny won a major victory because in this case,
You had to have a certain majority to win the primary. What was your take on that event?
Craig Fuller (13:51.662)
Well, I’m anxious to hear what Al has to say about it. He is a better student of this, I’m sure, than I am. I thought that Andrew Cuomo was a bit on a foolish mission in trying to recover or resurrect himself by running for office. He left in a fair amount of disgrace around issues which clearly were not going to go away, did not go away.
And he kind of is, I mean, know physically and in so many other ways, the embodiment of the old candidate and old style. so, yes, the challenger was able to take advantage of that and emerge. And as I followed it and as I’ve read about it, I think he did what Al and I have talked about here so often, and that is
He related to people talking about issues they’re really concerned about. And they could slap labels on them. They could call him a socialist. They could say his ideas were pipe dreams and too expensive. But he talked about the burden of the cost of living in New York today. And he talked about ways to reduce that. He talked about making life better for people. So he turned out young voters.
in much larger numbers than one might suspect, motivated to vote for him. He actually captured voters with greater educational experience, and they came out and voted for him. But he seems to have found support all across the city of New York. If he wins this, he’s got a very big task ahead of him.
He is somebody familiar with the city’s government as an assembly person. So he’s not without experience. He certainly is young. But if there’s any message to me coming out of this, and I would caution that it’s hard to extrapolate too much, but it goes to the fact that successful candidates need to reach people where they’re at.
Craig Fuller (16:13.046)
and talk about the issues they’re concerned with. And these sort of resurrecting old candidates in either party may become a bigger challenge. This whole notion, the phrase that I heard over and over again, it’s time to move on. And that’s something that I think will resonate probably in campaigns across the country over the course of the next year and a half.
David Wheelan (16:37.523)
Al, is this the future blueprint for the Democratic Party?
Alvin From (16:42.884)
So it’s the future blueprint for the Democratic Party in New York City. I think it stops at the city limit edge. Mondani was a young, good candidate, as Craig said. He walked the length of Manhattan and talked to people.
He ran against an old bad, really bad candidate who was damaged, tainted. And to be honest with you, I was not that surprised. As the selection was approaching, the polls were closing. And I was reminded of something that an old Democratic pollster sort of
named Pat Cadell, who had told me one time. I believe it was in 1976, my friend and my first boss on the Hill, Joe Tidings, who had been defeated in 1970, was running for reelection or wanting to get his seat back against Paul Sarbanes. And I got Cadell to be his poster.
And Tidings was running ahead by 20 points. It was like a mid-May primary and Tidings was up by 20 points early in the year and Cadell said he’s going to lose by 20. And he said, you know, if he’s not up by 40 points by April 1st with six weeks to go, he’s going to lose this election because what happens with a candidate like Cuomo,
They get an enormous boost at the beginning because they have high name recognition. But then people start to remember why they didn’t support him or what his problems were. And so as you get close to the election and that becomes more the focus, the other candidate rises. In this case, we had a young democratic socialist who was, you know, spoke in favor of a global infatata. I don’t think that will sell nationally.
Alvin From (19:06.052)
who swept the primary. Now, I don’t know whether there’s going to be a big contest in the general. Adams, Eric Adams, is going to run as an independent, but he too, Cuomo, is a flawed candidate, so that may not make any difference. But just to give you a sense, is this going to be the future of the Democratic Party? I don’t really think so. Think about this. Kamala Harris won New York City by 38 points.
That’s not the way the country votes. You know, he had a bunch of ideas, free rent or free universities, rent control, free transportation, government owning grocery stores, all sorts of things like that. I don’t think that’s a platform you can win on nationally. He won young voters, he won highly educated voters.
He won high-income voters. It’s sort of that more elite democratic coalition that is really powerful in democratic primaries. And remember, this is a democratic primary in a very blue and very liberal democratic place.
you know, across Manhattan and parts of Queens and parts of Brooklyn. That’s a very powerful coalition, but it isn’t reflective of the country. just one caution, because remember in 2020 when Bernie Sanders won the early primaries and everybody thought Biden was out, what stopped him? was the black vote in South Carolina. And the one group of voters that Dami didn’t win.
was black voters. So it’s a great victory for him. He probably will be the next mayor of New York. you know, sort of socialist, very liberal, left-foot leaning democratic mayors have not been successful in the country. There was an editorial in the Chicago Tribune earlier.
Alvin From (21:22.571)
or at the end of last week warning New York about what happened in Chicago where they elected a similar guy and he’s now got an approval rating of about 20 % or less, had been down as low as six. So it may be reflective of New York, it’s not reflective of the country and it’s certainly not the future of the Democratic Party. The future of the Democratic Party, as I said last week on this show.
are people like Mikey Shero, Abigail Spanberger, Alyssa Slotkin, Ram, Wes Moore, Gavin Newsom.
David Wheelan (22:02.23)
Well, we have to leave it there. Al from Craig Fuller. Thanks so much indeed. We will see you next week. And now it’s time for our bonus round and we are now calling this Hot Takes. And Craig, you’re up first.
Craig Fuller (22:06.526)
We will see.
Alvin From (22:09.282)
And that’s the perfect answer.
Craig Fuller (22:16.411)
Well, my hot take for this week focuses on the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hickseth. Because in today’s press briefing, if the chairman of the Joint Chiefs gave one of the most moving, emotional, and fact-based presentations ever, Pete Hickseth came with his enemy clearly in sight, and he attacked and attacked and attacked. And that enemy that he was focused on was the press corps.
It is a performance like no other. Contrast it to Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who enjoyed the volleying back and forth with the press. He respected the press. Hegseth shows disdain for the press. And if there’s one thing that undermines any useful relationship, it’s disdain. And the irony of all this is that what he’s most upset about are unforced heirs committed
by his own people. the biggest gripe is that a preliminary damage report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, a group within the Defense Department, was shared with people on Capitol Hill, and it leaked. Well, you know what? If you share something on Capitol Hill, it’s likely to leak, especially if it’s newsworthy. But CNN is not guilty. CNN reported it as a preliminary assessment. CNN reported it as did the New York Times.
as the first of many more to come. But it did one thing that’s crossed the line. It made Donald Trump look foolish because he said everything in Iran related to nuclear weapons had been obliterated and this cast doubt on it. so, Hegseth was set out to attack the press. I really think he should take a victory lap if that’s what he wants and go do something else because as Secretary of Defense, he’s neither a very reliable advisor
Nor is he a spokesman that’s up to the task.
David Wheelan (24:15.111)
Al, what’s yours?
Alvin From (24:17.793)
Well, my hot take this week comes from a story that I saw in the Washington Post a couple of days ago that says the Trump administration is preparing to challenge the U.S. budget laws or the Budget Reform Act by impounding money for something like 200 programs.
You know, the single most important, there are two critically important congressional prerogatives. One obviously is the power to make war, and they’ve sort of given that away a little bit with the War Powers Act. And at least since World War II, presidents have been more willing to commit our forces without going to Congress than before. so that’s a big deal.
But the second is the power of the purse. With all the attention on Iran and on this big, beautiful, disastrous bill that’s coming down the pike, and all the attention that Elon Musk got for Doge, sort of behind the scenes, Russell Voight,
head of the OMB and the architect of most of these Trump policies and project 2025 has always believed that the Congressional Budget Reform and Empowerment Control Act, which is right up on my wall to the right, the pen to it is, which we did in 1974, signed by President Nixon, he always thought that is unconstitutional.
and they’re going to try to prove it. mean, they’re basically going to try to force the issue. Probably will eventually have to be decided by the Supreme Court. But if the power of the purse is taken away from the Congress, mean, when Nixon impounded money, a bipartisan group of senators just raised holy hell, including the late Senator Bill Brock, had been Republican of the…
Alvin From (26:37.866)
party chairman, lived his later life in Annapolis, a dear friend of mine. And he, with my old boss, Senator Ed Muskie, led, and Senator Sam Irvin, the great constitutionalist, led the effort to draft this act to really safeguard congressional power of the purse. If that is destroyed, another really important pillar of our democracy will have been undermined.
David Wheelan (27:09.92)
OK, well thanks guys and we’ll see you next week. Alright.
Background
While the Spy’s public affairs mission has always been hyper-local, it has never limited us from covering national, or even international issues, that impact the communities we serve. With that in mind, we were delighted that Al From and Craig Fuller, both highly respected Washington insiders, have agreed to a new Spy video project called “The Analysis of From and Fuller” over the next year.
The Spy and our region are very lucky to have such an accomplished duo volunteer for this experiment. While one is a devoted Democrat and the other a lifetime Republican, both had long careers that sought out the middle ground of the American political spectrum.
Al From, the genius behind the Democratic Leadership Council’s moderate agenda which would eventually lead to the election of Bill Clinton, has never compromised from this middle-of-the-road philosophy. This did not go unnoticed in a party that was moving quickly to the left in the 1980s. Including progressive Howard Dean saying that From’s DLC was the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.
From’s boss, Bill Clinton, had a different perspective. He said it would be hard to think of a single American citizen who, as a private citizen, has had a more positive impact on the progress of American life in the last 25 years than Al From.”
Al now lives in Annapolis and spends his semi-retirement as a board member of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (his alma mater) and authoring New Democrats and the Return to Power. He also is an adjunct faculty member at Johns Hopkins’ Krieger School and recently agreed to serve on the Annapolis Spy’s Board of Visitors. He is the author of “New Democrats and the Return to Power.”
For Craig Fuller, his moderation in the Republican party was a rare phenomenon. With deep roots in California’s GOP culture of centralism, Fuller, starting with a long history with Ronald Reagan, leading to his appointment as Reagan’s cabinet secretary at the White House, and later as George Bush’s chief-of-staff and presidential campaign manager was known for his instincts to find the middle ground. Even more noted was his reputation of being a nice guy in Washington, a rare characteristic for a successful tenure in the White House.
Craig has called Easton his permanent home for the last eight years, where he now chairs the board of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum and is a former board member of the Academy Art Museum and Benedictine. He also serves on the Spy’s Board of Visitors and writes an e-newsletter available by clicking on DECADE SEVEN.
With their rich experience and long history of friendship, now joined by their love of the Chesapeake Bay, they have agreed through the magic of Zoom, to talk inside politics and policy with the Spy every Thursday.
