(Daily Signal)—Is America heading into a “golden age” in President Donald Trump’s second term?
That was the question put up for discussion Thursday in a Munk Debate hosted by the Aurea Foundation in Toronto. The Munk Debates have been hosted semi-annually since 2008 and feature civil discourse by the “brightest thinkers of our time.”
On one side was Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and Kellyanne Conway, who acted as a special counsel to Trump in his first term as president. On the other was New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and former senior adviser to President Barack Obama Ben Rhodes.
The debate was moderated by Canadian author Rudyard Griffiths.
“I think we have to acknowledge, whatever our views are, that the first 100 days and counting of his presidency have been some of the most consequential in American history since” President Franklin Roosevelt, Griffiths said to start the discussion.
He said that sweeping changes have been happening both nationally in the United States and globally as a result of Trump’s second term in office.
Roberts, who is the author of the book, “Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America,” began his remarks by saying that the last four years under President Joe Biden were a “dark age” in American life.
“It was a time when the government opened our southern border to chaos, but also a time when that same government shut the doors of our schools and churches,” Roberts said in his opening statement. “It was a time when bureaucrats told our children that bigots are people that somehow believe boys are boys and girls are girls as opposed to understanding biology.”
Roberts described an America in which “elites” in Washington thought they knew all the answers to the country’s problems as they ignored everyday people. This attitude was rejected, Roberts said, which is in part why America is at the dawn of a new golden age.
Trump’s election has already brought reforms to the American government that have not only been a massive reversal of how things were done before in Washington, but are already proving popular, Roberts said. He pointed to a recent poll by Rasmussen Reports showing that more people think America is on the “right track” than at any time in the 20-year history of the poll question.
In closing his remarks, Roberts joked that he was inviting the Toronto audience to join the United States as the 51st state.
President of the @Heritage Foundation @KevinRobertsTX jokes about Canada becoming America’s 51st state and is met with boos at tonight’s @munkdebate, taking place in Toronto, Canada ? pic.twitter.com/oLeGy1sl5W
— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) May 29, 2025
Klein, the New York Times columnist, pointed to what he said were the ways in which Trump and his supporters are wrong.
“They are filled with contempt for the systems that undergird the world we’ve built,” Klein said. “It’s not just that they don’t know how they work, it’s that they don’t see the parts that are working.”
What this means is that Trump and his administration are putting the things that are working at risk, he said, while pointing to how the American economy has grown dramatically since the 1990s.
“In 1990 America accounted for about two-fifths of the overall GDP of the G-7 countries, today we are about half,” Klien said.
The G-7 countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Klein noted that per person GDP in the U.S. is about 40% higher than in Europe and 60% higher than in Japan. This has happened while China’s GDP has been slipping, he continued.
Klein, who recently authored the book, “Abundance,” said that to break the global system that America built and profited from “doesn’t serve America’s interests, is not going to bring us a golden age.”
Conway, who not only advised Trump but is a pollster as well, said in her opening remarks that America is “not just rebounding, it is roaring back with confidence and clarity.” She pointed to polls which showed that “nearly three-quarters of the country” believe the United States was on the wrong track and said that it was clear that the country responded to a presidential candidate who promised a new golden age in the 2024 election.
The result was that Trump won the “popular vote” as well as all seven swing states, she said. This came with a huge upsurge in a diverse set of voters who used to be a part of the Obama coalition and “massive swings among non-college educated households.”
Rhodes, who is also the co-host of the podcast “Pod Save the World,” asked rhetorically in his opening remarks, “If this is a new golden age, why do you have to compel institutions to be a part of it?”
The former Obama adviser said he agreed with his debate opponents that the border needed to be secured, “but this system is being run on terror.”
He said that “75% of people being sent to a brutal prison in El Salvador have no criminal record” and that many came to America “legally” according to the libertarian Cato Institute.
“A society that runs on fear is not going through a golden age,” Rhodes said. He pointed to tariffs as an impediment to American growth and said that countries will look elsewhere for trade, “most likely to China.”
Rhodes said that the Trump golden age is for “the Trump family, some very wealthy people, and maybe some people that are happy to see brown people deported and white South Africans taken into America as refugees.”
Roberts said in his first opportunity to respond that the Biden era was an age of “inversion” in which the federal government “reigned supreme,” and the people responded by saying they “want their country back.” And this was the case in poll after poll from Americans of every background, the Heritage president said.
He pointed to policies that have now begun to pick up steam, like “universal school choice,” which recently passed into law in Texas.
Klein said that Trump’s policies have already been bad and that the so-called Big, Beautiful Bill making its way through Congress was “the largest wealth transfer in history” from the poor to the rich. He said that things “aren’t going well now,” and that they will get worse when Trump’s policies really kick in.
Conway said that she had optimism about a new golden age like many of the American people and said that Rhodes mentioned in 2021 that he couldn’t wait for New York Attorney General Letitia James to put Trump’s children in jail.
“That’s not the language of optimism in the golden age,” she said. “But no worry, because the elite and the effete are being undermined.”
Rhodes responded that he can’t remember many of his social media posts and thought it was bizarre to consider a presidential election the start of a golden age since they happen every four years.
The moderator brought in a debate about tariffs and whether they could be a part of a golden age.
Roberts said, “What we prefer is a reciprocal tariff system that dishonors the great violators of free trade.”
Can America have a Golden Age without tariffs?@KevinRobertsTX, President of the @Heritage Foundation responds at tonight’s @munkdebate:
“What we prefer is a reciprocal tariff system that dishonors the great violators of free trade.” pic.twitter.com/zvhgbPwjWX
— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) May 30, 2025
Klein said that Trump continually “borrows from the future,” and that tariffs are an example of that because the U.S. is using force and leverage against friendly countries less likely to do business in the future.
Rhodes spoke about tariffs and the issue of fentanyl.
“There is not a fentanyl problem on the northern border of the United States,” he said while comparing the amount of fentanyl that crossed the border to the size of a “backpack.”
It only takes 2 milligrams of fentanyl—the equivalent of four grains of salt—to kill you. 1 gram of could potentially kill 500 people.
Yet Ben Rhodes, host of Pod Save the World, says that “there is not a fentanyl problem on the nothern border of the United States,” during… pic.twitter.com/RDU5Dzp1yi
— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) May 30, 2025
On the issue of national defense, the debate opponents found some common ground. Klein said that Trump was “right” that European nations don’t spend nearly enough on national defense.
WOW. @nytimes‘s Ezra Klein admits that “Donald Trump is right that Europe needs to spend more on defense.” ? pic.twitter.com/7Ac5ltfWnY
— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) May 30, 2025
He said that if Trump calling out European nations to do more on defense got them to act with a little more “vigor” again, that would be good for Europe and possibly the U.S.
Roberts said that Trump is upending the status quo, including on defense.
.@KevinRobertsTX: Trump’s Gold Age Means the ‘Upending of the Status Quo’
“ Last fiscal year, the United States spent 3.4% of its GDP on Defense Canada spent something under 1.4%. Your prime Minister, maybe because he wants to make the president happy, but I’m just an American.… pic.twitter.com/33YnYKBSi7
— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) May 30, 2025
“Last fiscal year, the United States spent 3.4% of its GDP on defense. Canada spent something under 1.4%,” he said. “Your prime minister, maybe because he wants to make the president happy, but I’m just an American, I’m assuming maybe he means it as well. If we’re gonna pick on Trump, maybe we’ll pick on Mark Carney. He said Canada needs to get to 2%.”
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