Steve Sachoff: Welcome Ambassador Norm Eisen to Weight of the World. We're very happy to have you here with us today. I'd like to start off on a personal note, if we could. You're an American, but you know Europe on an intimate level. You have spent an important part of your professional life in Europe. But you also have personal family ties to the continent. And here I'm thinking of your mother, who was born in then Czechoslovakia, and your father from Poland. I was wondering if you could just speak a bit about how these personal relations have formed your worldview today.

Norm Eisen: My parents taught me about the fragility of democracy. I wrote about it in my first book, The Last Palace, the vibrant Czechoslovak model democracy of the interwar period, the governance of Poland, not quite as democratic as Czechoslovakia was. But nevertheless, the organized government structures, both of those were destroyed with the onset of authoritarianism in the neighborhood. And so that has shaped my life of fighting for strong United States government rule of law as an attorney, as a diplomat fighting for strong alliances, the transatlantic alliance of the post-World War II era, and the anchor, really, of globally of democratic values, however imperfectly realized, always striving to do better. And that structure is under profound threat now. So my parents prepared me well for this moment.

That takes me directly then into our second point here, which is the transatlantic alliance. And as you said, it has come under unprecedented pressure during this current Trump administration. This is evident from tariff and trade policy, the war in Ukraine, at the moment threats against Greenland, which belongs to, of course, a NATO member. So I wanted to ask you what condition do you see the transatlantic alliance in at the moment?

The transatlantic alliance is under threat in a way that we have not seen since the Wilsonian internationalism that led to the League of Nations coming under isolationist pressure, including as a function of economic factors, the global depression in the interwar period. Of course, it's not as bad as the darkest days of Roosevelt trying to reboot the transatlantic alliance to meet the Nazi and the Axis threat in 1939, 1940, 1941. And then the rebuilding that started in 1942, and then the questions after World War II about what the long-term American commitment would be, the initial hesitance about the Marshall Plan, and then the Marshall Plan kicked in, and transatlanticism as a bulwark against another authoritarianism, the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Bloc.

Once that transatlanticism kicked in, let's say in the late 1940s, it has only expanded since then. This is the first contraction we've seen in all those decades. And as we'll discuss, with Donald Trump threatening hostilities against a NATO ally. Something that would be threatening, would be potentially an act of war. I don't know that we've ever seen that depth so profoundly threatened.

And following on from that then, do you think most Americans today are aware of this unprecedented situation we're in, and what it would mean, for example, if NATO ceased to exist? Or more generally, do you think they're aware that the US is increasingly no longer seen as a trusted member of the transatlantic alliance?

It’s very challenging, Steve, to untangle what we're seeing in these polls in the United States of strong repudiation of Donald Trump and his policies. There is some polling support for our alliances. I think that Americans' interests are first and foremost what's closest to home. But yes, I think the polls show there's an awareness that Donald Trump is doing some things beyond our borders that are not right and that are not good for the United States. So I would describe it as the beginning of a dawning awareness.

There are a lot of comparisons between what is happening in the U.S. now and what has happened in some, granted smaller, countries in Europe. I'm talking about this rising authoritarian tide or illiberalism, populism, for example, in Hungary and Slovakia, Russia, of course, but also in Western Europe, where you see this surging popularity of right-wing or far right parties. Do you see a connection between what's happening at all here and red flags or cross-border international cooperation going on?

I think what you're seeing is a failure. Let's not only blame others. Let's look at those of us who support the liberal rules-based, values-based international order and the structures anchored by the United States that were erected, that were first attempted following World War I, also anchored by the United States, and then were really cemented into place following World War II. It's the liberal order in the classical liberal sense, not political liberalism, because some of its staunchest advocates are what we would term conservatives, have the apotheosis of this approach was George H.W. Bush and Jim Baker, who privileged to me in later life how they managed the end of the Cold War, then that was continued by Clinton and had been, even in Trump I, was perpetuated and had until this moment been.

And we all remember, for example, that Victor Orban won. Orban was a firm adherent to those structures. I believe that George Soros, the philanthropy of Mr. Soros paid for Orban's education in England. Am I remembering that correctly? So we made mistakes and we have to learn from those mistakes and you see them in the United States. We did not address the dislocations that came with this reordering, this post-Cold War reorder. You first saw it, and I wrote a book about it, Democracy Defenders. I may have a copy handy.

My second book, I'm not selling the book. It's a scholarly book. I'm not counting on Democracy Defenders to fund my retirement. Steve, this is my Brookings book, and Democracy Defenders, my second book. And one of the themes that I chronicle in there is the end of the Cold War in then Czechoslovakia, which became the Czech Republic, and Slovakia soon. And the mistakes that very well-intentioned people, including in the US, made, like coupon privatization. Okay. We did not deal with the unwinding of the economic structure. We were poor Marxists, Steve. I'm not a Marxist for the record, but we didn't adequately focus on the economic determinants of the situation. And so we ill-managed the transition. That's why you still see some attraction in places like the eastern part of unified Germany for the AfD, the Alternative for Deutschland. 

And then we didn't manage migration issues very well in the United States or in Europe. And that has created a crisis. I'm for a humane immigration policy, but that has to include reasonable control at the borders. We didn't handle the economic dislocations that alleviated so much poverty around the world. And again, just to look in the mirror, the kind of neoliberalism of the Clinton era and people who I've worked with for decades in American politics and in diplomacy who I admire - I think some of those Clinton economic policymakers will tell you now, we made a mistake. We didn't understand the economic impacts of what we were doing globally, in the American heartland, and Europe is suffering from that as well. So I think when I look at the transatlantic and international scene and the rise of populism, I start by looking in the mirror and asking what I and other adherents of this rules- and values-based order in post-World War II international political, legal, economic system were.

So, as an American again, familiar with Europe, I was wondering what your impression of Europeans’ approach to the Trump administration so far is? Are they doing the right things or should they be doing something else? How do you see their approach to this situation?

Tragically, Europe did not learn from history. Appeasement never works with an autocrat. What Donald Trump respects is strength. And if you look at China's escalation in response to his blandishments…Europe has a lot of power, particularly economic power. And I think the appeasement has failed. And now you're seeing Europe turn to draw a stronger line. 

What Donald Trump ultimately cares about is his popularity here at home, the perpetuation of Trumpism, this kind of narcissistic worship that he wants as a dictator. If he craters the economy, he's not going to have those things. So I think Europe made a mistake and hopefully the Greenland episode, his willingness to disregard international law and norms with Venezuela, he means it on Greenland. He's gonna take Greenland one way or another! Appeasement's not gonna work.

The question I want to make sure we get in is something we've asked all of our European guests, mainly we've been talking to Europeans so far, is about advice for Americans in this unprecedented situation, facing authoritarianism. I would like to ask you as an American, very familiar, deeply familiar with European history, what advice do you have for our fellow Americans about the concrete things they can do to push back against authoritarianism now?

I know you have a lot of expats who listen to your podcast or watch on social media. I'll give some general advice and I'll say a word to our expats. So my advice to Americans would be, first of all, be of good cheer.

We are not the first nation to confront authoritarianism and authoritarian eruptions at home. The founders and framers, if you look at the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the debates over the Constitution, almost two and a half centuries ago, they knew this moment was coming. We've had moments of tyranny before. Remember that we had Jim Crow. It's still not totally dismantled in this country. So there was, as they said of the Nazi German era, scholars say there's a dual state system. We've had an institutionalized authoritarianism in the United States for our entire history to a greater or lesser degree, and somewhat suppressed it. So as we say in our Jewish tradition,” Ein chadash tachat hashemesh,” that's from Proverbs, I believe - “There's nothing new under the sun.” That's point one.

Point two is because, in the United States we've experienced this, we've experienced, other countries have experienced, that we will get through this. One of President Obama's favorite sayings when I worked with him in the White House, my law school classmate, I owe my diplomatic and government career to the Harvard Law School admission officer in 1980, who let me in, and I guess 1988, spring 1988. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. We will get through this. Obama believed in that so strongly he had it embroidered on the carpet in the Oval Office, that saying. Lesson number, so, you know, this has happened before to us and elsewhere. We will get through it.

Lesson number three, I dare say we will get through it if we have an evidence-based commitment, some might call it belief or faith, in the values that shape the formation of democracy, of constitutional republics, all of human history, going back to the pre-classical period, the advent of the… you think our democracy is imperfect? Look at Greek democracy or Roman democracy. All of human history is in a sense this struggle to perfect the ideas of personal freedom, political freedom, economic freedom that animate this moment. So, you know, let's have faith. Let's be of good cheer.

Number four, but let's fight for it peacefully, lawfully, vigorously. That's the solution. And then the fifth and last lesson, you know, if you keep those first four in mind, it's much less scary. And the truth is for Americans, whether you're abroad or at home, you're in a much, much better position than, you know, those in Putin's Russia, Erdogan's Turkey, Orban's Hungary.

You have a lot more rights. The guardrails are holding. Now we need…guardrails are not enough. We need to break through and that would be the last thing. Six is not a good number. I should use a prime number for my advice, but we're running out of time. Number six, Benjamin Franklin famously said when asked coming out of the Constitutional Convention, what kind of government do we have? It's a republic, if you can keep it. Vote! Americans abroad vote disproportionately more often. Thank you, you wonderful Americans abroad. We also need all of us who believe in our democracy, our constitutional republic, to act like it. Yeah, I'll stop there. I could go on, but those are six thoughts for my fellow Americans.

On that note, thank you very much for your time, for all your work that you're doing, and I hope to see you back here in Prague sometime soon.

Thank you and I look forward to it.