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Malinowski in the World · Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone and welcome to Q&A.
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I'm Jay Nordlinger and our guest today is Tom Malinowski,
0:07
who has had a long and varied career.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: He began life in Poland.
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SPEAKER_00: He did most of his growing up in New Jersey.
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SPEAKER_00: He went to Berkeley and Oxford.
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SPEAKER_00: He worked for the State Department and in the White House.
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SPEAKER_00: He then worked for Human Rights Watch.
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SPEAKER_00: He ran for Congress, winning.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: He has lost a couple too, including last month.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: That's life in the arena.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: I think of the word Vixie.
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SPEAKER_00: This is how Richard Pipes titled his memoirs, Vixie, I Have Lived.
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Well,
0:41
Malinowski has lived too,
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and he's not done,
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and neither am I.
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Hello,
0:45
Tom.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: Hey, Jay.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Good to see you, and thank you for joining us.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: Did you ever meet Pipes?
0:55
SPEAKER_02: I don't think so.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: How do you pronounce his name in Polish?
1:00
SPEAKER_00: Pipes?
1:02
SPEAKER_02: Well, it would be probably Pipes.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: I'm guessing it wasn't spelled exactly the way.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: He later did.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: Because that's not a Polish sounding spelling,
1:15
SPEAKER_02: but there may have been like a Z at the end of it or something.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was 16, I think, in September 1939.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: And I talked with him about this.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: And he actually,
1:29
SPEAKER_00: young pipes actually saw Hitler,
1:31
SPEAKER_00: who had come to take a kind of victory lap in Warsaw,
1:34
SPEAKER_00: saw him out the window of his home.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, quite a story and quite a book.
1:41
SPEAKER_02: I grew up on those stories by my mom's and my family's.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Were you yourself born in Poland?
1:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: I was born there and spent the first six years of my life there.
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SPEAKER_00: In the capital or a different town?
1:58
SPEAKER_02: Close, in a small town near Warsaw.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: A sleepy little town, at least then.
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SPEAKER_02: Now it's a wealthy little suburb of a great European capital.
2:12
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, grew up with
2:15
SPEAKER_02: My mom,
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SPEAKER_02: my parents,
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the short version of the story is that my Polish parents were
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divorced when I was
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SPEAKER_02: like one or two years old.
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And my mom met an American guy who was a journalist,
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long time with CBS News and other things.
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And eventually he persuaded her to pack up and bring me to
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America,
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which we did in 1971.
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SPEAKER_02: And that was that.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: So as Tom, are you Tomasz?
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SPEAKER_02: The full first name is Tomasz in Polish, so with an S-Z at the end.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: That's the true Polishness.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how common a name Malinowski is,
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SPEAKER_00: but I thought to ask you,
3:05
SPEAKER_00: are you related to the anthropologist,
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SPEAKER_00: or is it a common name in Poland?
3:10
SPEAKER_02: Reasonably common name, but I am, actually.
3:12
SPEAKER_02: He was my great-great-uncle.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: I'll be darned.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, when I was in college, he was a very big deal, and we all read him.
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SPEAKER_00: Have you read him?
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SPEAKER_02: I've read a little bit.
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I read a biography of his a few years ago that came out,
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which was very interesting.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
3:35
yeah i mean he's when i was going around seeing colleges as a
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high school student i
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went to the university of chicago which had admitted me and
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found to my surprise
3:47
and delight that one of the main intro freshman classes was
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marx freud and
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malinowski i'm like hello i had no idea the only other place
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where it was that big
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SPEAKER_02: a deal that i visited is papua new guinea
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SPEAKER_00: Of course.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:03
I can't remember where the Trobriand Islands are,
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but I could look at a globe.
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And that's a bucket list trip for me that I haven't taken yet
4:12
to go to the
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SPEAKER_02: Trobriandes because,
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SPEAKER_02: I mean,
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he was pretty big in like little villages that I was walking
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through on the
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SPEAKER_02: mainland of Papua New Guinea.
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SPEAKER_02: And like, that was kind of goofy.
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SPEAKER_00: Were you treated as a kind of prince?
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:27
SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, Malinowski, we know all about that.
4:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: So I'm guessing in the Trobriance, I would have a good time.
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SPEAKER_00: And as you know,
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the University of Chicago was this receipt of anthropology in
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the United States
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SPEAKER_00: after Columbia.
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SPEAKER_00: Columbia first, I think, Franz Boas and those people, and then Chicago.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, at home in New Jersey, did you speak Polish?
4:57
My mom spoke Polish to me for maybe the first year or two after
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we came to the
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SPEAKER_02: States and remember my stepfather who raised me here was American.
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And so the language at home was basically English,
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except for her trying to keep it up.
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SPEAKER_02: And then I think by the time I was eight years old,
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SPEAKER_02: I just told her,
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SPEAKER_02: look,
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SPEAKER_02: we're American mom and I'm
5:22
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to speak English.
5:25
SPEAKER_02: And that was that.
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So I still understand it reasonably well,
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but my spoken Polish is not fluent.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, this relates to what I was wanting to ask you next.
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SPEAKER_00: And I am a little older than you, I think a couple of years.
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And I was caught up in the solidarity drama and General
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Jaruzelski and all that.
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SPEAKER_00: in 1979, 80, 81, 82, 83, in there.
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SPEAKER_00: I was in junior high and high school.
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SPEAKER_00: I wonder if you were too,
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SPEAKER_00: or whether you were just so American,
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SPEAKER_00: you said,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: to heck with the old world,
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SPEAKER_00: you're thinking about baseball and other things.
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SPEAKER_02: I was definitely thinking about baseball,
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SPEAKER_02: but we,
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SPEAKER_02: no,
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SPEAKER_02: I was still connected to Poland in the sense that I have family there.
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SPEAKER_02: And every other summer or so, I go there.
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SPEAKER_02: And in the summer of,
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SPEAKER_02: 1981, actually.
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SPEAKER_02: I'm in high school.
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SPEAKER_02: I was in Poland.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: What month?
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Oh, summer, you said.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: Summer, beg your pardon.
6:29
SPEAKER_02: July, July, August, yeah.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: And martial law is declared in December of that year?
6:34
SPEAKER_02: December, yes.
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SPEAKER_02: It was before that.
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SPEAKER_02: So it's still the height of the Solidarity movement, having
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SPEAKER_02: swept across Poland.
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SPEAKER_02: And my,
6:42
SPEAKER_02: my,
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SPEAKER_02: my Polish father,
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my birth father was a documentary filmmaker and he was making a
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movie about the
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SPEAKER_02: Wenza.
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SPEAKER_02: So he took me up to Gdańsk and I met the great man.
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SPEAKER_02: And that was an awesome.
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To go to the shipyard to meet him and get my little Polaroid
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with him that I still
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SPEAKER_02: have autographs.
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SPEAKER_02: came home with a bunch of solidarity buttons.
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The girl I wanted to take to the prom was selling solidarity
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buttons in our high
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SPEAKER_02: school in Princeton,
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SPEAKER_02: New Jersey.
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SPEAKER_02: So I did it too, for dual reasons.
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SPEAKER_02: But that was, yeah, I was always politically connected.
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SPEAKER_02: Awareness of communism and
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what it was and why it needed to be resisted and why the United
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States of America
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SPEAKER_02: had a special role in the world.
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SPEAKER_02: That's just like a huge part of what I absorbed as a kid.
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SPEAKER_00: Didn't we all?
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Didn't we all?
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SPEAKER_00: That is kaput apparently.
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SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, people grow up with different experiences and
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I think one of my worries about our country right now is that
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we're three or four
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generations away from the convulsions and sacrifices and dramas
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that the World War
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SPEAKER_02: II and early Cold War generation experienced.
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SPEAKER_02: It's natural.
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SPEAKER_02: Kids grow up with what's happening around them.
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SPEAKER_02: And so we're being tested as a country today,
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SPEAKER_02: I think,
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SPEAKER_02: in part because of that,
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SPEAKER_02: because of that generational loss of memory.
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SPEAKER_02: And hopefully what we're going through now will be,
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SPEAKER_02: for the next generation,
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SPEAKER_02: that kind of eye-opening,
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SPEAKER_02: ass-kicking experience that our parents and grandparents had.
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SPEAKER_02: But we're skipping ahead.
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SPEAKER_00: No, that's all right.
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SPEAKER_00: We'll zigzag.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: You grew up in Princeton, I think.
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SPEAKER_00: Did you, how to put this, did you want not to go to Princeton University?
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SPEAKER_00: Were you wanting to go away for college?
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was the last place I would have wanted to go.
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SPEAKER_00: Of course, yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: So I went to Berkeley, which was the opposite in every way.
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It was urban and diverse and surrounded by mountains and ocean
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and sunshine and
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SPEAKER_02: incredibly vibrant.
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SPEAKER_02: And I felt like that's the experience that I needed,
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SPEAKER_02: having grown up in this little preppy Ivy League town in New Jersey.
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SPEAKER_00: And what did you major in?
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SPEAKER_02: Political science and a minor in Russian, which I've mostly forgotten.
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I studied Russian just at the point when the Cold War was
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ending and the Soviet
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SPEAKER_02: Union was collapsing.
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SPEAKER_00: And then are you a Rhodes Scholar?
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SPEAKER_02: I was, yes.
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SPEAKER_00: And did you have a tutor or other teachers whose names we would know?
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SPEAKER_00: Do you have one of the famous Dons or...
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SPEAKER_00: Was that more political science there, by the way?
10:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: What do they call it there?
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SPEAKER_02: You call it politics.
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SPEAKER_02: I had, no, I had wonderful teachers.
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SPEAKER_02: I mean,
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SPEAKER_02: the Oxford system,
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you rise or fall based on the quality of the professor that you
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work with,
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SPEAKER_02: because it's a very one-on-one type of system.
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SPEAKER_02: And I had a
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amazing supervisor who was in all souls college which is if you
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know oxford the the
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kind of inner sanctum of the place and he was famous for me you
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would not have
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heard of him and then my thesis tutor you might have heard of
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him and he's still
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very active timothy garden nash oh my huh um has been the great
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chronicler i think
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SPEAKER_02: of
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SPEAKER_02: Eastern Europe and the struggles for democracy.
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SPEAKER_00: Now,
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it just occurs to me that there was a famous Polish professor
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there who taught Bill
11:01
SPEAKER_00: Clinton.
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SPEAKER_02: Pelczynski.
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SPEAKER_00: Ah.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Right.
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SPEAKER_02: He was there, but in a different college.
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SPEAKER_00: Did he also teach Radek Sikorski?
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SPEAKER_02: I think so, yes.
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I think he taught Viktor Orban,
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who went to Oxford on a Soros scholarship.
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SPEAKER_02: Victor was at my college, which was St.
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SPEAKER_02: Anthony's College for a bit, not overlapping with me.
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SPEAKER_02: I think maybe a year or two before I got there.
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SPEAKER_02: And yes, he was there on a scholarship funded by George Soros.
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SPEAKER_02: But, you know, Viktor Orban doesn't actually believe in anything.
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SPEAKER_02: So all of that makes sense as part of his ambitious rise.
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SPEAKER_00: You think that he never believed in freedom, democracy, human rights?
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, he gave great speeches.
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SPEAKER_02: He did.
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SPEAKER_02: No, he's a very talented politician.
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SPEAKER_00: I admired him tremendously.
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SPEAKER_02: So if you remember those days,
12:04
Viktor Orban is rising to prominence in Hungary as the leader
12:09
of the Fidesz party.
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And the main principle of the Fidesz party at that point was
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that you had to be
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SPEAKER_02: under 35 to belong to him.
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And the first thing I figured out about Victor Orban meeting
12:24
him briefly in Oxford
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SPEAKER_02: was that the moment he personally turned 35,
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SPEAKER_02: they would change that role.
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SPEAKER_02: And that's exactly what happened.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's a great question.
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Is he the same person he has always been or a completely
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different person?
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SPEAKER_02: I didn't know him well, so I don't want to suggest.
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I mean,
12:47
I remember sort of a young,
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handsome,
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Sterling,
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Reagan,
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Thatcher,
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Havel type guy.
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SPEAKER_00: And now we've got this.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, I have to confess this to you, Tom.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: You may think this is bad of me.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm a little surprised you became a Democrat.
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SPEAKER_00: I am a roaring Reaganite.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: And you became a Democrat, which you're allowed to do.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a free country.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder why.
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SPEAKER_00: When it was, first of all, and why it was.
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SPEAKER_02: So we've talked a little bit about my childhood, right?
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SPEAKER_02: So I'm coming from Poland.
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SPEAKER_02: And that experience...
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taught me some lessons about America that you might think would
13:47
have made me a
13:49
SPEAKER_02: Reagan person early on.
13:51
But my stepfather who took us in,
13:56
who raised me,
13:56
was also a very big influence on my life.
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SPEAKER_02: And he was a Democrat.
14:00
SPEAKER_02: He actually managed Gene McCarthy's presidential campaign in 1968.
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SPEAKER_02: I'll be darned.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: Close to McGovern in 72.
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And so the political life of the family that in effect adopted
14:15
me was very
14:16
SPEAKER_02: mainstream democratic.
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SPEAKER_02: And so I have these two influences.
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SPEAKER_02: I, I was surrounded by Democrats.
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SPEAKER_02: I was very,
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SPEAKER_02: Look, I did also, I think, make some independent judgments.
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I saw the Democratic Party as the party of civil rights and of
14:30
human rights in the
14:31
SPEAKER_02: United States.
14:32
I was an idealistic kid who wanted to right wrongs and correct
14:36
injustices and to
14:39
SPEAKER_02: fight for the people with the least in society.
14:41
SPEAKER_02: And all of those idealistic notions came to me very early.
14:45
I think they were in me and they were also a bit influenced by
14:48
the family that I was in.
14:50
But what I think distinguished me from some Democrats early on
14:55
was I also had this
14:57
SPEAKER_02: patriotism,
14:57
this sense that America did have a very special role to play in
15:02
the world,
15:02
that the kind of anti-American nonsense that you saw then and
15:07
still see on the far
15:08
left was complete nonsense and that whatever our sins and
15:15
shortcomings as a
15:16
SPEAKER_02: country,
15:16
SPEAKER_02: we were still the hope of the world.
15:19
And people living under totalitarianism of the right or the
15:24
left needed America.
15:28
And we're perfectly willing to forgive our relatively minor
15:33
inconsistencies so long
15:35
SPEAKER_02: as we try to live up to our founding ideals.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Very, very well put.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: So those two...
15:43
I think I started out with a balance of those influences and I
15:47
kind of still am that person.
15:51
I must say that you did work for a particular kind of Democrat
15:55
over and over.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: Pat Moynihan, Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright.
15:59
And you didn't work for,
16:01
I'll just pick a name out of Ron Dellums,
16:04
for example.
16:05
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
16:06
Although actually very few people would know,
16:09
I think,
16:09
who Ron Dellums is.
16:11
SPEAKER_02: He was.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm showing my era.
16:13
SPEAKER_02: He was my congressman when I was at Berkeley, right?
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Bay Area lefty.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Fervent castorite.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: African-American, very like.
16:24
passionate,
16:25
inspiring guy who ended up as the chairman of the armed
16:28
services.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Incredible.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: American democracy does.
16:32
SPEAKER_02: Did he?
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's talk for a second about Moynihan.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: George Will has said more than once on this program,
16:41
SPEAKER_00: this is an amazing statement to make,
16:43
that the greatest delight of his long life in Washington was
16:49
friendship with
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Moynihan.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
16:53
I understand that he could be irascible and diva-ish,
16:59
but also Irish charm and sparkle.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Did you see either side or both?
17:06
SPEAKER_02: Oh, sure, yeah.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: He could be a jerk, but he was brilliant, and he expected...
17:18
SPEAKER_02: a lot of the people who are working for him in a good way.
17:22
I think I see that really as my graduate school more than even
17:28
my time at Oxford,
17:30
because the deal in Senator Moynihan's office was you were
17:33
given a portfolio,
17:34
SPEAKER_02: an issue that you were supposed to work on.
17:37
And he expected you to become very quickly the number one
17:40
expert in America on that issue.
17:42
SPEAKER_02: I see.
17:44
And I like respected that,
17:46
like we should be,
17:47
we're working for this great Senator.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: We are making the laws of this country.
17:50
We should absolutely become serious people who know everything
17:55
about our given
17:56
SPEAKER_02: subject and nothing short of that should be acceptable.
18:00
SPEAKER_02: And I,
18:01
SPEAKER_02: you know,
18:02
SPEAKER_02: it's,
18:03
SPEAKER_02: I've,
18:04
SPEAKER_02: I've been a member of Congress and I can,
18:07
SPEAKER_02: you will not be surprised to hear that one there lives by that maxim.
18:13
But he did,
18:14
and I had a great time over just under two years learning from
18:19
him.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Did you, I'm thinking probably not.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: I was going to ask if you overlapped with Elliott Abrams.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: I did not.
18:26
SPEAKER_02: I know Elliott well, but we were there.
18:28
SPEAKER_02: I think he was there before me.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you something about Secretary of State Warren Christopher.
18:35
I remember him very well from the Carter years as our
18:38
negotiator with the Iranians.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: And I think,
18:43
SPEAKER_00: you know,
18:44
SPEAKER_00: it was reported somewhere in someone's memoirs,
18:46
SPEAKER_00: maybe his own,
18:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure,
18:49
that Carter thought of having Christopher as his secretary of
18:51
state in a second
18:52
SPEAKER_00: term.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: And I think Carter's phrase was, you know, a bridesmaid.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: He's been a bridesmaid a couple of times, but no longer.
19:01
When he did become secretary of state under Clinton,
19:03
this is a very blunt question.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Was he a little old for it?
19:09
SPEAKER_00: Or was he still...
19:11
SPEAKER_00: himself.
19:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know.
19:13
SPEAKER_02: I think he was very much himself.
19:15
SPEAKER_02: I think he certainly had the energy for the job.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: He was never a flashy guy.
19:25
SPEAKER_02: He was a negotiator.
19:27
SPEAKER_02: He was a lawyer.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what I remember.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: I forgot about that.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: He was interested in making policy.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: He was not as good at projecting American
19:42
SPEAKER_02: ideals, policy, vision.
19:44
SPEAKER_02: He was not as, the public aspect of the job was not his strong suit.
19:49
SPEAKER_02: And I was one of his speechwriters.
19:51
SPEAKER_02: So that was the part that I was responsible for.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: So,
19:57
but as the person sitting at the table with a foreign leader
20:02
negotiating a deal,
20:04
SPEAKER_02: he was one of the best people you could
20:09
SPEAKER_02: you could imagine, and a very good and decent man.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: Good to know.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Then comes Secretary Albright.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: I want to ask you a Polish question first.
20:20
Her teacher was at Columbia,
20:23
and you'll forgive my pronunciation,
20:25
Brzezinski.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: You'll know how to say it right.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: Did you ever meet him?
20:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I did.
20:35
SPEAKER_02: I never knew him well.
20:37
SPEAKER_02: I knew his kids much better, who were more my contemporaries.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: Mark Brzezinski, who became our ambassador to Poland, President Biden.
20:50
Of course,
20:50
I knew Madeline very well,
20:52
and we had the East Europe thing in common.
20:56
SPEAKER_02: And she was in a way the opposite of Warren Christopher.
21:01
SPEAKER_02: She saw the job of secretary of state as a public job.
21:06
She was going to be the spokeswoman for the United States and
21:09
for our values in the world.
21:12
SPEAKER_02: And I think did that marvelously.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: And she was more, you know, she was into the show of it.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:22
SPEAKER_02: which is not superficial.
21:27
SPEAKER_02: You need that.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: Had her father died long before Joseph Korbel?
21:33
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember.
21:36
SPEAKER_02: I think so, but hold me to that.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Well,
21:38
SPEAKER_00: that's a peculiar thing where Albright learned from her father,
21:44
SPEAKER_00: and so did Condoleezza Rice,
21:47
SPEAKER_00: studied with him at the University of Denver.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: So he has an interesting place in history, that one-time Czech diplomat.
21:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
21:57
SPEAKER_02: in Brzezinski,
21:58
SPEAKER_02: the elder Brzezinski and Korbel were of the same generation,
22:04
SPEAKER_02: very similar backgrounds.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, you could say that they...
22:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
22:11
SPEAKER_02: Brzezinski was also National Security Advisor,
22:13
SPEAKER_02: but they also trained a generation of Americans to understand Russia,
22:18
SPEAKER_02: to understand Eastern Europe.
22:20
SPEAKER_02: And so enormous influence there and very much for the good, in my view.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, there are many, many kinds of politicians.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: They're not all sort of Irish gregarious back slappers.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Some of them...
22:39
Our little bit,
22:40
I don't know,
22:41
what did I call Phil Graham,
22:42
the Texas senator?
22:43
SPEAKER_00: I called him a splendid cuss.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: He's sort of a cussed person.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I adore him.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: But not a warm, cuddly politician, you know.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Before you ran for office, had you long thought of running for office?
23:00
SPEAKER_02: I thought about it a bit.
23:01
You strike me as a State Department official,
23:04
frankly,
23:04
as a diplomat,
23:05
as a Secretary of State.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: And here you are shaking hands and kissing babies.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: I love that part of it.
23:11
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know I would.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: I would too.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: I've never tried it, but I know I'd like it.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: I just know I'd like it.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: And it didn't get a little late for me, but.
23:20
SPEAKER_02: That's great.
23:22
I mean,
23:22
look,
23:22
I mean,
23:23
yeah,
23:23
I did foreign policy,
23:24
but again,
23:25
I came up as a speech writer.
23:26
So I came up as somebody who learned how to communicate,
23:30
how to explain things to people.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: And that's a big part of my political career the last few years.
23:40
I felt like I built this relationship with folks back in my
23:46
home district in New Jersey.
23:49
And part of my job was to try to explain what was happening and
23:53
to make sense of it
23:54
SPEAKER_02: with them and for them.
23:56
SPEAKER_02: And I saw it very much as a pastoral job.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Were people willing to listen?
24:07
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: Totally.
24:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean, again, I ran Trump as president in 2018.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: And so in the district where I ran,
24:21
typical suburban district that had been more or less Republican
24:24
for most of its
24:25
SPEAKER_02: existence,
24:26
SPEAKER_02: but was moving...
24:29
SPEAKER_02: in a different direction.
24:30
A lot of very educated people who were incredibly anxious and
24:35
concerned about what
24:36
SPEAKER_02: was happening in the country didn't fully understand it.
24:40
SPEAKER_02: And they wanted hope.
24:45
They wanted to believe that there was a way through political
24:48
work and organizing
24:50
SPEAKER_02: and activism that we could get out of it.
24:53
SPEAKER_02: And so I felt like a lot of my job was just like reassuring them.
25:00
that that was possible and that what was the senseless things
25:05
that were happening
25:07
SPEAKER_02: could actually be explained and that there was a way out.
25:11
And so I held tons of town halls over 140 in the four years
25:18
that I was in office.
25:21
SPEAKER_02: And I loved, loved, loved that part of the job and still do.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: Were they raucous or more sedate?
25:29
SPEAKER_02: So it was interesting.
25:31
When I first got elected in 2018,
25:33
probably my first few town halls were a bit more raucous.
25:38
I'd have hundreds of people come because there was this just
25:43
pent-up desire to have
25:49
a representative who would actually talk to you and answer your
25:53
questions.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: And I was new and people wanted to meet me.
25:58
SPEAKER_02: And at that point,
25:59
SPEAKER_02: there were more Trumpers coming to my town halls to try to stump me,
26:05
SPEAKER_02: to yell at me,
26:06
SPEAKER_02: to create a scene.
26:10
SPEAKER_02: But I would just talk to them.
26:13
SPEAKER_02: And I think over time, they lost interest as a result.
26:22
SPEAKER_02: A, I was doing it so often, right, that the novelty were off.
26:27
SPEAKER_02: Like,
26:28
SPEAKER_02: okay,
26:28
SPEAKER_02: yes,
26:28
SPEAKER_02: we can see Malinowski next week,
26:30
SPEAKER_02: but then he'll be back the following month,
26:32
SPEAKER_02: right?
26:35
SPEAKER_02: The urgency of going to a town hall diminished.
26:38
And I would just patiently answer everybody's questions in a
26:42
way that I think made
26:44
SPEAKER_02: it less interesting for people who wanted to pick a fight to keep coming.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
26:49
SPEAKER_02: And so by the end,
26:50
SPEAKER_02: I had fewer,
26:51
which actually disappointed me because I wanted to have
26:55
politically diverse
26:56
SPEAKER_02: audiences.
26:56
And we worked really hard to advertise these events and to
27:00
encourage people to come.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: But the haters got bored.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Good thing I'm not a political journalist.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: That's a joke.
27:13
But I can't remember when you were in Congress,
27:16
were the Democrats in the majority?
27:19
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
27:20
So the 2018 class,
27:22
which I was part of,
27:23
flipped the majority in the House of Representatives.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: So we had the House,
27:28
SPEAKER_02: Trump is still president,
27:29
SPEAKER_02: and Republicans still had a narrow majority in the Senate.
27:33
SPEAKER_02: And then in 2020, we won the trifecta.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: At that point, only a five-seat majority in the House.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: The narrowest margin in the Senate with Biden in the White House.
27:57
SPEAKER_02: But we were able to do a lot with that, as you recall.
28:02
SPEAKER_02: Turns out Democrats were not in disarray.
28:05
And with the same majority that Mike Johnson has had in the
28:10
House,
28:11
we were able to pass...
28:15
very consequential legislation like the CHIPS Act and the
28:18
infrastructure bill and
28:21
the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act and so
28:25
many other things.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: Tom, let's just touch on this briefly.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean, as briefly as you want.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: It must hurt like hell to lose.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I would take it very badly.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: I know myself a bit.
28:38
i would be outwardly calm and gracious and all that crap but i
28:41
would take it i must
28:42
it must sting like hell uh uh so yes i i would agree with you
28:49
jay that winning is
28:50
better than losing um or as our our mutual friend john mccain
28:58
would say look it's
28:59
fine i sleep like a baby i sleep for an hour wake up and cry
29:03
sleep for an hour wake
29:04
SPEAKER_02: up and cry
29:07
SPEAKER_00: By the way, I asked him about losing, by the way, on this program.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: And he was very frank.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: He was very frank.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: It's hard.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: And he got on with life.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: He picked himself back up as he always had.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:24
SPEAKER_02: So,
29:25
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
29:25
this last one was kind of weird because I was running in a
29:28
Democratic primary in a
29:31
SPEAKER_02: safer Democratic district.
29:33
SPEAKER_02: And we ran in a special election to fill the seat of Mikey Sherrill,
29:39
SPEAKER_02: the Democrat who has just elected our governor in New Jersey.
29:42
So it was a very quick campaign,
29:43
which is great,
29:44
like two and a half months.
29:46
And I was doing great and definitely no question on my way to
29:53
victory in this 11
29:54
candidate Democratic primary until the last couple of weeks of
29:59
the race when
30:01
SPEAKER_02: the organization known as APAC,
30:05
the kind of most hardline pro-Israel group in the United States
30:10
decided to make me
30:12
SPEAKER_02: their enemy number one,
30:14
SPEAKER_02: despite me being a fundamentally pro-Israel person.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: And we can get into the details,
30:22
but basically they threw millions of dollars into the race in
30:27
the last couple of
30:28
SPEAKER_02: weeks on
30:30
SPEAKER_02: ads that accused me of being pro-ICE and pro-Trump.
30:36
SPEAKER_02: Just breathtakingly dishonest.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: Pro-ICE?
30:40
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: For a second, I thought you said ISIS.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: Pro-ICE and pro-Trump.
30:45
I've been accused of being pro-ISIS too in the past,
30:47
but I know this time it was ICE.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Tom Malinowski, pro-ICE and pro-Trump?
30:55
SPEAKER_00: That's not the Malinowski I know.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: No, but you know me.
31:01
SPEAKER_02: The basis for this was that in 2019,
31:05
there was a vote in the House of Representatives to send
31:10
emergency money to the
31:14
SPEAKER_02: southern border to deal with what at that point,
31:17
SPEAKER_02: you may remember,
31:18
SPEAKER_02: there was a huge influx of migrants in 2019.
31:23
SPEAKER_02: The bill,
31:26
SPEAKER_02: it was hundreds of millions of dollars,
31:29
SPEAKER_02: actually no,
31:29
several billions of dollars of mostly humanitarian aid to the
31:34
Southern border
31:35
SPEAKER_02: communities that were just dealing with this mass of people.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: And within those billions,
31:40
SPEAKER_02: there was 200 million for the enforcement agencies,
31:44
SPEAKER_02: including for ICE,
31:46
SPEAKER_02: which was not at that point doing what it is doing today.
31:50
and so this is typical of negative of dishonest negative ads
31:54
you take something
31:55
that is technically true congressman malinowski or nordlinger
32:01
voted to fund ice at
32:04
a particular point and then you twist that into a story that
32:10
makes it seem as if
32:12
SPEAKER_02: you are
32:14
SPEAKER_02: in favor of what ICE is doing now.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: Tom, it's just such an obvious vote.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, did it pass overwhelmingly?
32:22
SPEAKER_02: It did.
32:23
Every Democrat in the New Jersey congressional delegation voted
32:26
for it,
32:26
including our members.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a no-brainer.
32:31
SPEAKER_02: Well, of course.
32:32
SPEAKER_02: And by the way,
32:33
SPEAKER_02: every Democrat,
32:35
I believe that every Democrat in the House and Senate has voted
32:38
to fund ICE at some
32:39
SPEAKER_02: point,
32:40
SPEAKER_02: because every time you vote to fund the government,
32:41
SPEAKER_02: you pass the budget.
32:43
SPEAKER_02: After whatever negotiations, there's some money in there for ICE.
32:47
SPEAKER_02: It's part of the government.
32:49
SPEAKER_02: AOC has voted to fund ICE.
32:52
So the attack could theoretically be used against even the most
32:57
progressive Democrats.
32:58
SPEAKER_02: It's incredibly cynical.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll tell you this, Tom.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: I've been done with AIPAC for a while now.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: And I'm an old Likudnik.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm an old Herutnik.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm a great admirer of Begin and Sharon.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: And I'm so done with this bullshit.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you.
33:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
33:18
SPEAKER_02: Well,
33:18
SPEAKER_02: the irony is that the,
33:20
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
33:21
SPEAKER_02: so first the reason it worked,
33:23
SPEAKER_02: because you might ask like,
33:24
SPEAKER_02: how could people believe such an unbelievable thing?
33:29
SPEAKER_02: Remember it's a democratic primary and there are 11 candidates running.
33:35
SPEAKER_02: And we all basically agree on the issues.
33:38
So if you're a voter,
33:40
you don't see a lot of distinctions amongst these candidates.
33:44
SPEAKER_02: So it doesn't take much to raise,
33:48
SPEAKER_02: if you can raise even the slightest doubt about one of those candidates,
33:52
SPEAKER_02: some voters are gonna say,
33:54
SPEAKER_02: eh,
33:56
SPEAKER_02: maybe it's not true,
33:57
SPEAKER_02: but I don't know,
33:59
SPEAKER_02: you've got 10 other options.
34:02
SPEAKER_02: that you're basically going to agree with on the issues.
34:04
SPEAKER_02: So it was enough.
34:07
SPEAKER_02: And I ended up very narrowly losing by about a percentage point,
34:11
SPEAKER_02: ironically,
34:13
SPEAKER_02: to the one candidate in the race who is explicitly anti-Zionist.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Oh, lovely.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: Great.
34:23
SPEAKER_02: So APAC...
34:25
SPEAKER_02: got a lot of justifiable criticism for that.
34:29
I don't think they're sorry at all because I think they are at
34:36
this point,
34:36
they're an organization that is funded primarily by
34:41
billionaires who are close to
34:42
SPEAKER_02: Trump.
34:44
SPEAKER_02: And of course,
34:46
SPEAKER_02: electing a left wing Democrat,
34:48
SPEAKER_02: I think,
34:48
in the long term helps them because what they want to do is
34:52
convince Jewish voters
34:54
SPEAKER_02: to move away from the Democrat.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know that I believe this comes from Lenin.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: The worse, the better.
34:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: You recall that line?
35:00
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you understand this sentiment of mine, Tom.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: I love politics in a democracy and I hate politics.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: Both.
35:11
Both.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: I was just such a,
35:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
35:14
Irving Kristol said it's such a dirty business and he was
35:19
pretty much above it.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: He was more theoretical and philosophical most of the time,
35:22
SPEAKER_00: but before we part,
35:30
SPEAKER_00: let's talk about some,
35:32
SPEAKER_00: talk about Ukraine,
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Russia a bit and Iran a bit.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: And I have a bigger question about American exceptionalism.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Now that I've mentioned it,
35:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure I believe in it anymore, Tom.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: I think we're vulnerable to the same ills as everyone else.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't see really how we're exceptional.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're suckers for populists and demagogues and I don't know.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
36:00
I haven't really asked you a question,
36:02
but just say whatever you want on the subject.
36:05
Yeah,
36:06
we've always been susceptible to the same diseases as everybody
36:10
else.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: We're human beings.
36:14
SPEAKER_02: We're human.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: We're not some extraterrestrial race.
36:21
I think every human being has a little part of their brain
36:24
that's fascist.
36:25
There have been moments in American history when we've had
36:31
irresponsible leaders
36:32
SPEAKER_02: who play to that part of our brain.
36:35
SPEAKER_02: And none of them,
36:37
SPEAKER_02: at least in our lifetimes,
36:38
SPEAKER_02: has won the presidency of the United States,
36:40
SPEAKER_02: but the potential has always been there.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: Lincoln spoke of better angels and worse angels.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
36:47
And then we invented this technology of social media that is
36:50
literally designed,
36:52
SPEAKER_02: consciously designed to bring out the worst angels of everybody's nature.
36:57
SPEAKER_02: So it's had an effect on us as it has on people all over the world.
37:01
SPEAKER_02: But so yeah,
37:02
SPEAKER_02: we're not exceptional in that way,
37:05
but we're still the only country in the world that has the
37:08
power and occasionally
37:09
SPEAKER_02: the predilection to do unselfish things for the common good.
37:14
SPEAKER_02: And we're not doing that now,
37:18
but I do believe in the law of supply and demand and the demand
37:23
is always gonna be
37:24
SPEAKER_02: there for a great power willing and able to provide those goods.
37:30
SPEAKER_02: And if we get back to a place where we're willing to supply,
37:35
SPEAKER_02: then that's what's going to happen.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: Because who else is going to do it?
37:42
And it'll probably take two presidential elections to begin to
37:46
win back the world's trust.
37:48
But that doesn't mean that we can't play something similar to
37:54
our earlier role if
37:56
SPEAKER_02: we're willing and able to do it.
37:58
know yeah um i i taught a class on morality and american
38:05
foreign policy um at a
38:07
couple of universities in the last couple of years and i always
38:11
start with the kind
38:13
SPEAKER_02: of obvious um image of a a person drowning in a lake
38:22
SPEAKER_02: you're drowning in a lake,
38:24
SPEAKER_02: you need somebody to save you,
38:25
SPEAKER_02: and somebody comes by who happens to be a really great swimmer.
38:31
SPEAKER_02: At that point, do you care if that person is imperfect?
38:37
Do you care if that person last week failed to rescue a
38:42
swimmer,
38:43
a person drowning in a lake?
38:45
SPEAKER_02: No.
38:48
you're going to say just rescue me and um and and you know
38:55
we're we're a great
38:56
swimmer we have an extraordinary capacity to do good in the
38:59
world as well as to to
39:01
break things so i think with with better leadership we will be
39:06
called upon to do
39:07
SPEAKER_02: that again and we're going to have to decide if we want to
39:14
SPEAKER_00: It would be great if this operation in Iran succeeded, wouldn't it?
39:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure what the aim is.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that regime has been a curse on the world since 1979.
39:23
Its removal would be a blessing,
39:26
one presumes,
39:27
but I'm not sure what we're doing.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: I also think that the people doing it aren't sure what they're doing.
39:36
SPEAKER_02: No, I think early on in the war, Trump
39:40
SPEAKER_02: said something that I think was honest and revealing.
39:42
SPEAKER_02: He said, look, I just do the right thing and then good things happen.
39:48
SPEAKER_02: Just have this confidence.
39:49
SPEAKER_02: I'm just going to start this and we'll see what happens.
39:52
SPEAKER_02: It'll be good.
39:54
Just like Venezuela or,
39:55
you know,
39:56
just come off of that very weird success.
39:59
SPEAKER_02: And of course, that was not actually a war.
40:02
That was just a deal that we cut with some corrupt people in
40:05
the Venezuelan government.
40:08
and this was always going to be different this was always going
40:11
to be um vastly
40:14
more challenging and i don't think he he went into it knowing
40:20
what he was trying to
40:21
SPEAKER_02: achieve yeah um and so so here we are i think you know um
40:31
My sense of what our objectives in this war are is that at some
40:36
point Trump will
40:37
end the war and whatever has been achieved to that point will
40:42
have been the
40:43
SPEAKER_02: objective all along.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: Yes, of course.
40:45
SPEAKER_02: That's basically it.
40:47
SPEAKER_02: I don't think,
40:48
SPEAKER_02: sadly,
40:48
I don't think it's going to be democratic regime change for the
40:53
people of Iran.
40:57
Tom,
40:57
as my listeners and viewers know,
41:00
I've said this and I've asked this 100 times.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: They won't mind 101st.
41:07
Long ago,
41:07
I asked Charles Cardhammer a very big question,
41:10
kind of a painful question.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: Will Israel survive?
41:13
SPEAKER_00: And he said the survival of Israel depends on two things,
41:16
SPEAKER_00: the will of the people to survive and the support of the United States.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: And I've long thought that the same applied to Ukraine.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: There's no doubt of the Ukrainian people's determination to survive.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: They prove it every day.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: America has,
41:34
SPEAKER_00: in effect,
41:34
SPEAKER_00: withdrawn its support and leans,
41:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm being polite here,
41:39
SPEAKER_00: leans toward the Kremlin.
41:42
SPEAKER_00: I think it's more than a lean.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, our administration, our president, is very sympathetic.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: to Putin.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: And I wouldn't have thought that Ukraine could survive,
41:56
could remain a free and independent nation without the support
41:59
of the United
41:59
SPEAKER_00: States.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: Now I think it might.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure it can survive the outright hostility of the United States.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: I think they may pull this off, the saving of their country without us.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
42:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's morally shameful that it's come to this, but.
42:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
42:18
SPEAKER_02: So I think the answer may be yes,
42:20
but I don't think it would have been yes without the support of
42:23
the United States
42:25
SPEAKER_02: in the first couple of years.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no question of that.
42:28
SPEAKER_02: They could not have survived.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: I don't think,
42:30
despite the incredible courage and skill that they demonstrated
42:36
in those early
42:36
SPEAKER_02: days,
42:37
SPEAKER_02: early months,
42:38
SPEAKER_02: without the United States and what NATO collectively did,
42:42
SPEAKER_02: I don't think it would have been possible.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: And Europe hadn't ramped up.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
42:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
42:50
SPEAKER_02: And now,
42:51
SPEAKER_02: of course,
42:51
the war has evolved and changed into something unlike anything
42:55
we have seen in the
42:56
SPEAKER_02: history of warfare.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: And it turns out that Ukraine is better at fighting that kind of war.
43:02
than any country in the history of warfare because they've had
43:04
to learn how to do
43:05
it they're motivated yeah what motivates the russian soldier i
43:10
can't imagine no
43:11
just survival personal survival yes yes whereas for ukrainians
43:17
it is national
43:18
survival it is a sense of community and solidarity and and
43:23
they've also again
43:24
SPEAKER_02: they've learned how to fight that kind of war
43:27
SPEAKER_02: So they have enormous skill.
43:29
They now have a domestic defense industry that is producing the
43:37
chief weapon in
43:38
SPEAKER_02: this kind of war,
43:38
SPEAKER_02: drones,
43:40
SPEAKER_02: with higher quality and volume than any country in the world.
43:44
SPEAKER_02: And in this year of 2026,
43:50
SPEAKER_02: Ukraine has given more military aid to the United States than vice versa.
43:55
SPEAKER_02: That's the irony.
43:57
because we've given zero and they are now helping to supply us
44:04
and other countries
44:06
SPEAKER_02: in the Gulf with technology to beat back the Iranian Shahed drones.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: And that's... Do you think we'll remember to say thank you?
44:16
SPEAKER_02: We should all be saying thank you.
44:17
SPEAKER_02: Trump will not.
44:19
SPEAKER_02: I think this kills... Never.
44:23
I think one reason he has insulted Zelensky in the way he has
44:28
in the last couple of
44:29
SPEAKER_02: weeks,
44:29
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
44:29
SPEAKER_02: he's done it so many times,
44:31
SPEAKER_02: but I think in the last couple of weeks,
44:33
my guess is that he was just furious to learn that we are now
44:40
dependent on the
44:40
SPEAKER_02: Ukrainians for this technology.
44:43
SPEAKER_02: And so he's lashed out as a result of that.
44:48
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, look, this is the war that matters.
44:55
SPEAKER_02: I would love to get rid of that evil regime,
44:58
SPEAKER_02: but the stakes for the United States are not actually that high,
45:02
which is why we're not going to pay the price that would be
45:06
necessary to overthrow
45:07
SPEAKER_02: that regime.
45:08
SPEAKER_02: The stakes in Ukraine remain astronomical.
45:12
SPEAKER_02: This is the fight for the survival of the international system.
45:18
SPEAKER_02: And this is a fight where a great power invaded Europe.
45:25
And the Ukrainians have been literally putting their bodies
45:33
between us and arguably
45:36
SPEAKER_02: our most dangerous adversary in the world,
45:39
SPEAKER_02: protecting us,
45:39
SPEAKER_02: protecting our European allies,
45:42
making it so that all we have to spend is money as they spend
45:46
their lives.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: We're so lucky.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: We're so lucky.
45:49
SPEAKER_02: So...
45:51
SPEAKER_02: And another worry I have about this war is that it's helping Russia.
45:56
SPEAKER_02: It's driven up the cost of oil in a way that will enable Putin to profit.
46:01
SPEAKER_02: We've begun to lift sanctions on countries like India,
46:06
SPEAKER_02: on companies that are part of Russia's oil and gas export enterprise.
46:19
SPEAKER_02: And we're
46:21
we're seeing another massive expenditure of munitions including
46:26
um uh air defense
46:28
munitions that are in short supply in ukraine and that should
46:33
be reserved for that
46:35
um all-important conflict not to mention for the conflict that
46:38
we desperately need
46:40
SPEAKER_02: to deter between china and taiwan i was thinking tom that um
46:48
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a college town, Ann Arbor.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: You grew up in a college town, Princeton.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you,
46:54
SPEAKER_00: but I knew a lot of people who were sympathetic to the Soviet Union,
46:58
SPEAKER_00: to the Kremlin,
46:59
SPEAKER_00: a lot of people,
47:00
SPEAKER_00: and who were anti-American.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: And it seems to me it's the same today, same kind of sympathy.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: But the people I'm talking about, these leftists in Ann Arbor,
47:15
SPEAKER_00: weren't in power.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they weren't elected by the people.
47:21
SPEAKER_00: It's so bizarre.
47:24
I've had a long time to get over the shock of it,
47:27
and I should be,
47:28
but I'm not.
47:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that is the difference.
47:32
Look,
47:32
we still have crazy people on the left,
47:34
just like we have crazy people on the right.
47:36
SPEAKER_02: And in my political life in New Jersey, I made
47:41
SPEAKER_02: plenty of people who come up to me and say,
47:44
SPEAKER_02: Tom,
47:44
SPEAKER_02: I've been a Democrat all my life,
47:46
SPEAKER_02: but I can't stand these protesters and university campuses.
47:50
SPEAKER_02: I can't stand what the far left is doing.
47:52
SPEAKER_02: I don't think I can vote for a Democrat ever again.
47:55
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like,
47:57
SPEAKER_02: dude,
47:59
SPEAKER_02: those people you're talking about on the far left,
48:02
SPEAKER_02: they hate the Democratic Party.
48:04
SPEAKER_00: They do.
48:05
SPEAKER_00: They hate me.
48:07
SPEAKER_02: You may think of them,
48:08
SPEAKER_02: they're on the left,
48:08
SPEAKER_02: but like they're not like saying,
48:10
SPEAKER_02: go Nancy Pelosi,
48:12
SPEAKER_02: go Chuck Schumer,
48:13
SPEAKER_02: go Tom Talnowski.
48:15
SPEAKER_02: They want to tear us down.
48:16
Their counterparts on the right are kind of running the
48:20
Republican Party right now.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: They're in office.
48:22
SPEAKER_02: They're in office.
48:23
SPEAKER_02: They're the president of the United States.
48:25
SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, like extremism is on both sides.
48:30
But what the extremists that I'm more worried about right now
48:35
are Stephen Miller
48:35
SPEAKER_02: and Donald Trump.
48:38
SPEAKER_02: And so it is weird, but hey.
48:44
SPEAKER_00: Tom.
48:45
SPEAKER_02: It's true.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: But I don't think Trump is a believer.
48:49
SPEAKER_00: People like Stephen Miller and J.D.
48:50
SPEAKER_00: Vance know things.
48:52
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
48:52
SPEAKER_00: You know?
48:55
SPEAKER_00: I just think Trump's a world-class narcissist.
48:57
SPEAKER_00: There might be something else coming.
49:02
SPEAKER_02: You mean post-Trump?
49:03
SPEAKER_02: I do.
49:04
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
49:07
SPEAKER_02: We'll see.
49:08
SPEAKER_02: We'll see.
49:08
SPEAKER_02: I mean, J.D.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: Vance has read things.
49:12
SPEAKER_00: He knows things.
49:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: And Trump is a showman, really, who's a pure authoritarian.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: But mainly a showman, I think.
49:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
49:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
49:23
SPEAKER_02: An effective one, unfortunately.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
49:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, Tom Malinowski, I look forward to your next chapter.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
49:32
SPEAKER_00: And the chapter after that.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: The book is long.
49:38
SPEAKER_00: Any parting shot?
49:42
SPEAKER_00: Anything we've neglected?
49:43
SPEAKER_00: Anything that Bill Buckley would say?
49:46
He'd say corrections,
49:48
provocations,
49:51
agreements,
49:52
disagreements,
49:54
benedictions?
49:56
SPEAKER_02: As McCain would say at the beginning of a town hall,
50:00
SPEAKER_02: I welcome your thoughts,
50:03
SPEAKER_02: your questions,
50:03
SPEAKER_02: your bitter personal attacks.
50:09
SPEAKER_02: I use that myself routinely.
50:12
He was,
50:13
um,
50:13
I wanted to write a piece called,
50:15
um,
50:16
confessions of a latter day mechanic.
50:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, McCain often bothered me, which I told him and he laughed at.
50:24
I was really,
50:24
I was too,
50:25
I didn't,
50:26
I was to his right really,
50:27
uh,
50:28
on many things.
50:29
SPEAKER_00: And he was so friendly and he had so many democratic friends and,
50:32
SPEAKER_00: you know,
50:33
going around the country with Lieberman and Graham and Tom
50:35
Malinowski and so on.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: But, um,
50:38
SPEAKER_00: He was a real American.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: He was a genuine American type.
50:47
I don't think he could have existed anywhere else or had that
50:49
kind of life.
50:51
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I'm the biggest, pardon me, the biggest fuck up of all time.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: He said, I was terrible at the
50:59
Naval Academy and I crashed planes and I screwed up here and
51:03
there and my first
51:04
SPEAKER_00: marriage and barely escaped the fire on the forest.
51:09
SPEAKER_00: He'd go through all these things.
51:11
And it was just amazing what he had done,
51:14
misdone and survived and achieved.
51:18
SPEAKER_00: And his last 10, I just admired him greatly.
51:24
SPEAKER_00: And what a great podcast guest, by the way.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: Some of the guys,
51:27
SPEAKER_00: some,
51:28
SPEAKER_00: put it this way,
51:29
SPEAKER_00: some,
51:31
SPEAKER_00: how do I say this in a relatively non-insulting way?
51:37
SPEAKER_00: There's certain sort of mid-level people who,
51:40
SPEAKER_00: everything's meticulous and you go through their staff,
51:44
SPEAKER_00: you know,
51:44
SPEAKER_00: they want to know the questions and so on.
51:46
SPEAKER_00: It was John McCain.
51:47
SPEAKER_00: I think he was a second guest on this program.
51:49
SPEAKER_00: He was one of the most famous people in public life.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: He had been a,
51:57
SPEAKER_00: Major party presidential nominee.
51:58
I think he was then chairman of the Armed Services Committee or
52:00
whatever they call
52:01
SPEAKER_00: it in the Senate.
52:01
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember.
52:03
SPEAKER_00: And no advance, no anything.
52:07
SPEAKER_00: No, he'd call it.
52:07
SPEAKER_00: He said from a hotel room in Denver, I think he said, yeah, it's McCain.
52:12
SPEAKER_00: That's McCain.
52:13
SPEAKER_00: What do you want to know?
52:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:16
SPEAKER_00: And we talked for an hour about everything.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: It was just as if he was just so free.
52:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
52:23
SPEAKER_02: Uh,
52:23
one of my great disappointments in life was that I didn't get
52:26
to serve with him
52:29
SPEAKER_02: because he passed,
52:32
SPEAKER_02: um,
52:33
SPEAKER_02: just before I was elected.
52:35
SPEAKER_02: And yeah,
52:36
I would have been a junior Democrat in the house and he would
52:42
have been a committee
52:43
SPEAKER_02: chairman and in the Senate,
52:45
SPEAKER_00: but like just care about that,
52:47
SPEAKER_02: but to be able to go on a Codel with him to,
52:50
SPEAKER_02: to be,
52:54
to share that magic of representing people as an elected member
52:58
of the United
52:58
SPEAKER_02: States Congress,
52:59
SPEAKER_02: like that would have been...
53:03
SPEAKER_00: I saw him on those CODELs.
53:04
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't with him,
53:05
SPEAKER_00: but I saw him in Davos,
53:08
SPEAKER_00: tangling with Arianna Huffington,
53:09
SPEAKER_00: among others,
53:10
SPEAKER_00: and just loving every minute of it.
53:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
53:12
SPEAKER_02: no,
53:12
SPEAKER_02: he would take me...
53:14
He led an annual congressional delegation to the Munich
53:17
Security Conference.
53:18
SPEAKER_02: You know what that is, right?
53:19
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
53:21
Confab in Munich where all the world national security leaders
53:25
gather once a year.
53:27
SPEAKER_02: And so he led a CODEL where he would get a plane from DOD and invite some
53:34
SPEAKER_02: non-governmental people to join.
53:38
SPEAKER_02: And so I got, he invited me to come on some of those.
53:44
SPEAKER_02: And that was amazing fun.
53:47
SPEAKER_02: I organized a trip to Libya for him
53:50
SPEAKER_02: after the revolution in that country in 2011.
53:55
SPEAKER_02: And that was amazing.
54:00
SPEAKER_02: He had been a huge supporter,
54:02
SPEAKER_02: of course,
54:02
SPEAKER_02: of the Libyan revolutionaries overthrowing the Gaddafi regime.
54:06
SPEAKER_02: The moment they won,
54:07
SPEAKER_02: he asked me,
54:08
SPEAKER_02: and I was working for Human Rights Watch at that time,
54:12
SPEAKER_02: he asked me,
54:12
SPEAKER_02: okay,
54:12
SPEAKER_02: what is the new regime doing wrong?
54:14
SPEAKER_02: And how can you use me to hold them accountable?
54:20
SPEAKER_02: And so I told him,
54:22
SPEAKER_02: okay,
54:23
SPEAKER_02: well,
54:24
SPEAKER_02: they're persecuting African migrants and they're persecuting this,
54:29
there's this kind of black African minority group that lived in
54:35
Libya for many,
54:36
SPEAKER_02: many years.
54:36
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know that.
54:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
54:42
SPEAKER_02: and they were just brutally,
54:43
SPEAKER_02: brutally persecuted and they were associated by the rebels,
54:46
SPEAKER_02: by the new democratic forces with the former Gaddafi regime.
54:50
SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of them had been imprisoned.
54:53
SPEAKER_02: And John said, well, I want to go see them in prison.
55:00
So we helped set that up and the state department was
55:03
absolutely horrified.
55:04
Like he's gonna be going to this prison in some dodgy
55:08
neighborhood outside of Tripoli.
55:10
SPEAKER_02: We can't guarantee security.
55:13
SPEAKER_02: Like what the fuck?
55:15
SPEAKER_02: But he said, nope, I'm going.
55:18
And so we took him there and he went cell to cell talking to
55:24
the inmates,
55:26
dragging Marco Rubio
55:29
SPEAKER_02: and Lindsay along for the ride.
55:32
SPEAKER_02: And a couple of the prisoners complained that they had been mistreated,
55:40
SPEAKER_02: that they had been subjected to electric shock treatment.
55:43
SPEAKER_00: No doubt they had been.
55:45
SPEAKER_02: They had been.
55:45
SPEAKER_02: Just incredible memory of John taking the warden aside
55:51
just like punching him in the chest with his finger like are
55:54
you using electric
55:55
shock on these prisoners what are you doing what are you doing
56:00
um that's a man
56:02
who's been tortured for five years yeah um he also insisted on
56:08
meeting with a
56:11
SPEAKER_02: libyan politician um whose name was bel hodge who had led kind of an
56:21
islamist radical islamist faction of the antique qaddafi
56:24
movement for many many
56:25
SPEAKER_02: years and had been picked up by the cia during the war on terror and held
56:29
incommunicado in a secret prison and mistreated um and was back
56:36
in libya playing a
56:38
pretty constructive role at that point and john insisted on
56:42
seeing him and
56:43
SPEAKER_02: apologizing
56:48
SPEAKER_02: Which no one else in the US government had done.
56:53
SPEAKER_02: And he had me set that up.
56:54
SPEAKER_02: So I miss him.
56:56
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
57:03
SPEAKER_00: I think I said before we part one other time,
57:06
SPEAKER_00: but before we part,
57:07
SPEAKER_00: I sometimes use the word pantheon.
57:09
SPEAKER_00: I won't ask you for like your personal pantheon of political figures,
57:13
SPEAKER_00: past and present,
57:14
SPEAKER_00: but just a few people you especially admire apart from Ukraine.
57:21
SPEAKER_00: It could be centuries ago or in our lifetimes or whatever you like.
57:27
I mean,
57:28
someone like me says,
57:29
you know,
57:29
Lincoln Churchill,
57:30
Reagan,
57:31
blah,
57:31
blah,
57:32
blah.
57:32
SPEAKER_00: And I, you know,
57:33
SPEAKER_00: Kind of the obvious ones, I guess.
57:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, those are the obvious.
57:38
SPEAKER_02: I mean, look, we've talked about some of them.
57:40
SPEAKER_02: We talked about Pat Moynihan.
57:43
SPEAKER_02: We've talked about McCain.
57:45
When I ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2018,
57:48
I had McCain in my first TV ad.
57:52
It meant a lot to me to do that for reasons that should be
57:56
evident from what I've been saying.
57:59
SPEAKER_02: We've talked about Madeleine Albright.
58:05
SPEAKER_02: And talked about,
58:08
SPEAKER_00: I can't do your perfect pronunciation,
58:10
SPEAKER_00: but we've talked about the Wensa,
58:12
SPEAKER_02: the Wensa who,
58:14
SPEAKER_02: yeah.
58:14
SPEAKER_02: Like,
58:14
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
58:16
SPEAKER_02: of all the,
58:18
SPEAKER_02: of all the dissidents of that time,
58:21
SPEAKER_02: I think he was like,
58:23
he was the one who really knocked Keith out of communism in
58:27
Eastern Europe.
58:28
SPEAKER_02: And, and if not for Poland, I don't think Russia would have gone.
58:35
SPEAKER_02: in under Yeltsin in 91.
58:37
So I think he was arguably the most consequential figure along
58:41
with the Pope,
58:42
SPEAKER_02: Pope John Paul II in that extraordinary transformation.
58:48
and I think has been a pretty positive figure in Poland in his
58:54
retirement.
58:54
SPEAKER_02: He's still with us,
58:56
SPEAKER_02: as you know,
58:56
and has been a very strong opponent of the authoritarian
59:02
imperialism in that
59:03
SPEAKER_02: country that is still a bit of a threat.
59:07
SPEAKER_02: So I would put him very much on my list too.
59:10
SPEAKER_00: Pro-Ukraine, pro-freedom.
59:12
SPEAKER_02: Len Zelenskyy.
59:15
SPEAKER_02: who rose to the occasion.
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SPEAKER_02: Nobody saw it coming.
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SPEAKER_02: I met him just before the war began,
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and I did not come away filled with confidence in the
59:25
leadership of Ukraine.
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SPEAKER_00: There comes a time for testing.
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SPEAKER_02: Yep.
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SPEAKER_02: He's the leader of the free world right now.
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SPEAKER_00: He is.
59:37
SPEAKER_00: No question.
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SPEAKER_00: Thanks a million, Tom Malinowski.
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SPEAKER_00: I look forward to our next talk.
59:42
SPEAKER_00: So long, ladies and gentlemen.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm Jay Nordlinger, having done Q&A with Tom Malinowski.
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SPEAKER_00: Till next time.