NewsX Senior Consulting Editor Vineet Malhotra sat down with Scot Faulkner who served as the Chief Administrative Officer for the U.S. House of Representatives and as Director of Personnel for 40th US President Ronald Raegan for a fireside chat on what the mood in South Asia is, vis a vis, the change in administration in the United States. Responding to a question on the heated discussion between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Friday, Faulkner revealed that the last time something like this happened in public eye was back in 1619 when the defenestrations happened in Prague, which eventually started the 30-year-war. Excerpts:
Q: Do you think this (Zelenskyy-Trump-Vance exchange) was the first interaction of its sort ever to happen in the Oval Office or anywhere in the world?
A: I was doing some history research before this, anticipating the question. In 1619, in Prague, the defenestration of the Holy Roman Emperors, Catholic delegation. They were thrown out of a third-floor window and it started the 30-years-war. So that seems to be the last time there was a this high profile meltdown for a diplomatic mission. So, it’s been quite a while, and that one wasn’t on CNN. It’s just absolutely stunning. My phone started blowing up last night, and I have friends on both sides of the aisle. And you can imagine one side says it’s Zelenskyy’s fault. The other side says it’s Trump’s fault. And everyone’s sort of throwing eggs and rotten tomatoes at each other.
Q: Do you think it was about time that somebody called out Zelenskyy for what’s happening?
A: Well, that’s an interesting question because what they are saying is that a deal was cut and that this was only was supposed to been sort of like a protocol meeting in preparation for the signing of the document deal with mineral rights. And then they were going to go into a press conference, and Zelenskyy decided to up the ante and sort of reopen the negotiations on the fly. Some of the people are saying that Zelenskyy was so used to working with Biden and his national security staff, which to this day, is still probably the weakest and most incompetent in the American history. And he wasn’t ready to encounter the buzzsaw of Trump. And then to, as one person put it, with Trump and Vance, there was ‘bad cop, worse cop’ (instead of bad cop, good cop). And so, Zelenskyy probably lost his cool when he shouldn’t have. But both sides sort of up the ante. And it’s sad because only two people benefit from it: Russia – because they hope that they can retain all their ill-gotten gains of territory and maybe force Ukraine to never be a NATO (member). And then China that’s sitting there saying, well, if this happens on Ukraine, maybe we ought to test our waters, literally, our waters around Taiwan. So, it was not one of the better moments for American history or world history or for in the future, Ukraine.
Q: You gave me a lot of interesting insights into what governments do and what governments emote and project in order to run efficiently. And you spoke about the 3Ts. Could you share that philosophy and that idea with our audience as well.
A: When you start to think of governance, we’re not just talking about elections and who gets elected and who represents who. We’re talking about the actual operations and mechanics of how a government operates, how it serves its citizenry. And you kind of harken back to basically Rousseau in the 18th century about the social contract that, you know, we all came here either by bus or car because we don’t build. We don’t build our own cars. So we, we voluntarily, hire a car or buy a car. So we have a transactional contract with that manufacturer. The same thing goes in government. None of us are going to sit there and build the roads that drive that car. We’re willing to, through a toll or gas tax or something, delegate to government building the roads. We delegate to government, the police and the signage on those roads. And so the social contract for government at every level: from national to federal to local, is that the citizens that it serves willingly delegate and willingly pay for certain basic services that we’re not going to do ourselves. And so transaction is a very fundamental thing because government needs to be able to make the value proposition that we can do certain things better than individuals because of collective action and economies of scale.
Then we’re into trust: the second T. We trust that government is going to do the right thing. Just like we all had a lunch break, we assume that the food we ate was not going to kill us, give us food poisoning. So there’s a certain trust level that comes with that social contract. And then finally to establish that that trust is real and is actually justified, we have transparency. Public processes should be public; public documents should be public; public meetings should be public and public decisions should be public. And you put a little asterisk for we don’t need to know the nuclear codes or some secret weapon being built or who the spies are. But overall, public things should be public. What’s happened in America and this goes back 30+ years, is that both Republicans and Democrats are to blame. Those three Ts have been destroyed, and that’s what led to last year’s election where America’s faith in government, in that social contract has completely collapsed because governments have been lying to them. And we’re finding that over the years, we basically have a government filled with aging, egotistical, greedy and corrupt people who have been lining their pockets. And this is where the DOJ’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) comes in. Peeling back the onion to see the waste, the fraud and abuse and the fact that we’re about to have the full files of the Epstein. We’re going to have the trial on PD. So we’re not only looking at corruption, we’re looking at perversion to a very sordid level. And so Americans today have little faith in government, little faith in the media that covers government, little faith in the academia that studies government and this is probably the worst crisis in governance in American history.
We had our Civil War, but that wasn’t about governance; it was about very fundamental issues on freedom and sectional competition. To this day, 77 percent of Americans are for what Musk is doing in terms of what we call draining the swamp and starting to expose all this waste. But the basics of governance that holds America together are right now in play, and we’ll see how it plays out.
About NXT Conclave:
As nations navigate complex economic landscapes, rapid technological advancements, and the urgency of sustainability, NXT Conclave 2025 served as a catalyst for action. Designed to accelerate innovation, influence global policymaking, and foster strategic collaborations, NXT will play a defining role in shaping the future of industries, economies, and societies.
More than just a summit, NXT drove tangible action. Attendees witnessed the game-changing product debuts, pioneering research presentations, and policy frameworks set to influence industries and governments worldwide. Live demonstrations of next-generation AI, quantum computing, and transformative technologies offered a glimpse into the future.
With exclusive leadership roundtables, NXT brought together the brightest minds to forge partnerships that drive sustainable growth, technological advancement, and geopolitical stability.
The inaugural NXT Conclave 2025 brought together some of the most influential global leaders, with Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi as the Chief Guest, reaffirming India’s leadership in global governance and innovation.
No comments:
Post a Comment