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"Putin Finds His Pretext." · Pod Save America

0:21
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
0:23
Speaker 1: And filling in again for Tommy today is the co-host
0:26
Speaker 1: of Pod Save the World, Ben Rhodes.
0:28
Speaker 3: Hey guys.
0:29
Speaker 1: Good to have you back.
0:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm Glad to be here.
0:31
Speaker 1: I mean, we wanted to have Ben with us today
0:33
Speaker 1: to talk about the imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, which
0:36
Speaker 1: is dominating the news cycle, as well as the Biden
0:38
Speaker 1: administration's time and energy. So we'll talk about all the
0:41
Speaker 1: political and economic implications, both globally and here at home. Later,
0:46
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0:48
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0:52
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0:57
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2:18
Speaker 5: All right.
2:18
Speaker 1: Let's get to the news. You know it's a big deal.
2:21
Speaker 1: when a Pod Save the World topic becomes the lead
2:24
Speaker 1: of a Pod Save America episode, and here we are.
2:27
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin is inching closer to a full-scale invasion of Ukraine,
2:30
Speaker 1: an act of unprovoked aggression that would have serious political
2:33
Speaker 1: and economic consequences around the world and here in the
2:35
Speaker 1: United States. On Monday night, Putin said during an extremely
2:39
Speaker 1: long and whiny speech that Russia will recognize the, quote,
2:43
Speaker 1: independence of two Ukrainian territories along its eastern border, which
2:47
Speaker 1: is being seen by much of the world as a
2:48
Speaker 1: pretext for a war, and Not a great sign for
2:51
Speaker 1: the prospects of a potential summit between Putin and President
2:54
Speaker 1: Biden that could lead to a diplomatic solution. Also not
2:57
Speaker 1: a great sign. Shortly after Putin's speech, he ordered Russian
2:59
Speaker 1: forces into those two Ukrainian territories for what he's calling a, quote,
3:03
Speaker 1: peacekeeping mission. Sure. I want to start with some basics
3:07
Speaker 1: for people who may be just tuning into this crisis. Ben,
3:10
Speaker 1: two questions for you to start. Why would Putin want
3:13
Speaker 1: to invade Ukraine and why should the U.S.
3:15
Speaker 5: Care?
3:17
Speaker 3: So I think you could divide this into three pieces, strategic, political,
3:21
Speaker 3: and historical. Strategically, you've heard a lot about NATO, right?
3:24
Speaker 3: So NATO, the US-led military alliance that gradually expanded after
3:29
Speaker 3: the Cold War to include countries like Poland and even
3:32
Speaker 3: former Soviet republics like Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, which border Russia.
3:37
Speaker 3: Russia didn't like that. Putin didn't like that. NATO in
3:40
Speaker 3: 2008 offered membership to Ukraine and Georgia. two former Soviet
3:45
Speaker 3: republics that also obviously border Russia. And Ukraine is the
3:48
Speaker 3: biggest former Soviet republic and the one with kind of
3:51
Speaker 3: the deepest ties to Russia historically. And since that offering
3:56
Speaker 3: of a NATO membership action plan, which is a step
3:57
Speaker 3: towards joining NATO in 2008, Putin has invaded and occupied
4:01
Speaker 3: two chunks of Georgia. He's invaded and occupied chunks of Ukraine,
4:05
Speaker 3: and now he's escalating there. Clearly, he's seeking to reverse
4:09
Speaker 3: what he thinks is the post-Cold War order that disadvantages Russia.
4:13
Speaker 3: Second is political. Ukraine is a democracy. Ukraine has had
4:17
Speaker 3: two popular revolutions in 2005 and then in 2013 that
4:23
Speaker 3: ousted pro-Russian leaders and set the country on a more
4:26
Speaker 3: democratic path. That's the scenario that Putin wants to prevent
4:30
Speaker 3: at home. So just as he wants a buffer between
4:33
Speaker 3: him and NATO, which is what Ukraine is, He wants
4:35
Speaker 3: a buffer between him and democracies. He wants to stamp
4:38
Speaker 3: out democracy before it can get to Russia, potentially.
4:41
Speaker 1: Democracy getting a little too close to Moscow.
4:43
Speaker 4: A little too close to comfort.
4:44
Speaker 2: A little too far from us. It's a real bummer.
4:47
Speaker 3: But the last piece here is someone who's had to
4:49
Speaker 3: engage with Vladimir Putin's psychology far more than I'd like
4:52
Speaker 3: over the years, is the history. And that's what was
4:55
Speaker 3: on display in the speech he gave today. Putin believes
4:58
Speaker 3: deeply that Russia was humiliated at the end of the
5:01
Speaker 3: Cold War, that the collapse of the Soviet Union was
5:03
Speaker 3: a catastrophe.
5:04
Speaker 4: That we rubbed his face in it with the enlargement
5:06
Speaker 4: of NATO.
5:07
Speaker 3: And he thinks that this is a part of reclaiming
5:10
Speaker 3: Russia's rightful historical place as a leader in Europe. And
5:13
Speaker 3: he thinks, frankly, that Ukraine shouldn't even really be an
5:16
Speaker 3: independent country. It has ties with Russia that go back
5:19
Speaker 3: a thousand years in his view. And so all these
5:22
Speaker 3: things are converging now for him to make this play.
5:25
Speaker 3: Why should Americans care about it? I think, one, is
5:29
Speaker 3: it the basic principle under which the whole system operates globally?
5:33
Speaker 3: is that big, powerful countries can't just redraw the borders
5:38
Speaker 3: of other smaller countries when they like to. World War
5:41
Speaker 3: II was about that. A lot of tragedy in history
5:45
Speaker 3: has come from a circumstance where leaders begin to violate
5:49
Speaker 3: those principles and they don't stop. And so one of
5:52
Speaker 3: the concerns is if there's kind of a cost-free invasion
5:55
Speaker 3: and takeover of Ukraine, where does that end? Where does
5:58
Speaker 3: that end in terms of what Putin does? Where does
6:00
Speaker 3: that end in terms of what China might do? And
6:03
Speaker 3: those are real questions. I think it's also the case that,
6:06
Speaker 3: as we've experienced in this country and you guys have
6:08
Speaker 3: talked on this podcast, Putin seems not just content in
6:11
Speaker 3: weakening Ukraine. He wants to get into Western politics and
6:15
Speaker 3: European politics and American politics. He's at the vanguard of
6:18
Speaker 3: kind of a ethno-nationalist authoritarianism that is all around us
6:23
Speaker 3: right now. And this is a part of the momentum
6:25
Speaker 3: behind that.
6:26
Speaker 2: So I hear we will describe Putin's interest around these
6:29
Speaker 2: sort of geopolitical stakes, right? The encroachment of NATO and
6:31
Speaker 2: so forth. What are the practical benefits? What are the
6:36
Speaker 2: kind of non-strategic, non-political reasons for invading Ukraine? What are
6:42
Speaker 2: the actual advantages it might afford Putin from having control
6:45
Speaker 2: of this place?
6:47
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, look, historically, Ukraine has been, you know,
6:51
Speaker 3: it was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. There are
6:54
Speaker 3: tremendous agricultural reserves there. It further solidifies his dominance of
7:00
Speaker 3: energy market of oil and gas fields and the transport
7:03
Speaker 3: of oil and gas into Europe. So it does give
7:07
Speaker 3: him some geopolitical advantages tied to things like natural resources.
7:12
Speaker 4: But at the end of the day, I think one
7:14
Speaker 4: of the things.
7:14
Speaker 3: That's been challenging for people to understand is the sanctions
7:17
Speaker 3: he's going to face are going to offset whatever certainly
7:20
Speaker 3: short-term benefit he gets from that. And that's why I
7:24
Speaker 3: raised that historical point. This is a big risk for Putin, right?
7:27
Speaker 3: I mean, this could crater his economy. This could cause
7:30
Speaker 3: unrest at home. There could be thousands of Russian casualties
7:34
Speaker 3: that could create a backlash.
7:35
Speaker 4: At home too.
7:36
Speaker 3: He's taking a significant amount of risk here for reasons
7:40
Speaker 3: that clearly go beyond the practical benefits you're talking about.
7:43
Speaker 4: And that's why I think.
7:45
Speaker 3: He believes his role in history is to restore Russia
7:49
Speaker 3: to its rightful place as a superpower. And that to
7:52
Speaker 3: him is more valuable than whatever wheat fields and oil
7:57
Speaker 3: and energy advantages he gets from this.
8:00
Speaker 1: Well, and that's not Putin's psychology at this point. He
8:03
Speaker 1: just said that in the speech. There was a lot
8:06
Speaker 1: of debate leading up to the speech about to what
8:09
Speaker 1: extent was this just about NATO expansion and Putin being
8:12
Speaker 1: concerned about NATO expansion. But then in the speech today,
8:14
Speaker 1: he's basically like, oh yeah, I'm pissed that the Soviet
8:15
Speaker 1: Union fell apart and I'm trying to reassemble it. I
8:21
Speaker 1: thought he was very explicit on the historic point during
8:24
Speaker 1: the speech. Is that right?
8:25
Speaker 4: That's right.
8:26
Speaker 1: Was there anything new or else notable in the speech
8:28
Speaker 1: on Monday night? No.
8:29
Speaker 3: And the thing is, look, he's been saying this forever.
8:31
Speaker 3: You know, I was always struck, John, as a speechwriter.
8:34
Speaker 3: He gave a very powerful speech in 2004 after a
8:38
Speaker 3: terrorist attack in Beslan. You may remember a bunch of
8:41
Speaker 3: kids were taken hostage. The Russian security forces stormed the
8:44
Speaker 3: school where the Chechen terrorists had taken these kids hostage.
8:47
Speaker 3: Hundreds of people were killed. Horrific he gave a speech
8:51
Speaker 3: not about that terrorist attack. He gave a speech about
8:53
Speaker 3: the collapse of the Soviet Union and what a catastrophe
8:56
Speaker 3: it was. And he talked about how this used to
8:58
Speaker 3: be a great country and now we're besieged on all
9:01
Speaker 3: sides and nobody respects our borders. And he said, we
9:05
Speaker 3: were weak and the weaker beaten. And to me, that's
9:08
Speaker 3: who Vladimir Putin is. And that's what this is all about.
9:11
Speaker 1: Is there any concern that Putin's ambitions go even beyond
9:15
Speaker 1: the former Soviet states like into Eastern European countries that
9:19
Speaker 1: were never part of the Soviet Union?
9:21
Speaker 4: Well, I think you have to start with the former
9:23
Speaker 4: Soviet Union, right?
9:24
Speaker 1: Which is concerned enough.
9:25
Speaker 3: And so a country that you guys probably don't spend
9:27
Speaker 3: a lot of time thinking about, but Moldova. There's another
9:30
Speaker 3: little piece of Moldova that Russia de facto controls, and
9:33
Speaker 3: he could try to use that as a pretext to
9:35
Speaker 3: move into that former Soviet Republic. I have a lot
9:38
Speaker 3: of friends, and we had the prime minister of Estonia
9:41
Speaker 3: on Pod Save the World recently, the Baltic country's have
9:45
Speaker 3: Russian speaking populations. And they've been worried for some time
9:49
Speaker 3: that even though they're members of NATO and even though
9:50
Speaker 3: we're committed to defend them, that they could be next too.
9:54
Speaker 3: And so this is another reason for, why should Americans
9:57
Speaker 3: care about this? We don't have an obligation to go
10:00
Speaker 3: to war over Ukraine and we're not going to. Biden's
10:03
Speaker 3: made that clear. But if he feels like this is working,
10:08
Speaker 3: it could lead him to move into NATO countries like
10:10
Speaker 3: that and could bring about an actual war that involves
10:14
Speaker 3: the United States.
10:16
Speaker 1: So let's talk more about the Biden administration. What have
10:18
Speaker 1: they been trying to do about this so far? And
10:21
Speaker 1: this invasion moves forward. We're recording this on Monday night.
10:25
Speaker 1: What options do they have?
10:27
Speaker 3: So what they've been trying to do is communicate to
10:30
Speaker 3: Vladimir Putin that we see what you're doing. And that
10:34
Speaker 3: you're going to face these enormous consequences from sanctions if
10:38
Speaker 3: you do this.
10:38
Speaker 1: And he was like, cool, whatever.
10:39
Speaker 4: Exactly.
10:41
Speaker 1: Unfortunately. He's like, message delivered. I don't fucking care. Obviously.
10:46
Speaker 2: You think I didn't think that would be happening? That's
10:48
Speaker 2: part of my, I expect that completely. You do the sanctions.
10:51
Speaker 4: That's the problem, right? He knows we're not going to
10:53
Speaker 4: go to war over Ukraine. So what do we have?
10:55
Speaker 4: We have sanctions.
10:56
Speaker 3: And we've talked about cutting off through export controls certain
10:59
Speaker 3: technologies that they need for everything from their defense sector
11:03
Speaker 3: to their tech sector to their smartphones. They've talked about
11:06
Speaker 3: sanctioning Russian banks, essentially cutting them off from the global
11:08
Speaker 3: financial system so they cannot conduct transactions in dollars. They
11:12
Speaker 3: cannot access their own money. You've talked about really going
11:16
Speaker 3: after his inner circle. They have a lot of wealth
11:18
Speaker 3: in places like London and New York and just kind
11:20
Speaker 3: of taking that away from the oligarchs and cronies who
11:23
Speaker 3: surround Putin.
11:24
Speaker 2: One thing that's been very strange about that particular threat
11:27
Speaker 2: is it seems there's a bunch of Western leaders who
11:29
Speaker 2: are like, listen, we know exactly where all this illegal
11:32
Speaker 2: Russian money is in New York and all over the
11:34
Speaker 2: world and all these big cities. And if you do this,
11:37
Speaker 2: then we're going to enforce the law and stop you
11:39
Speaker 2: from doing that. Why is that not policy already? Why
11:42
Speaker 2: is it already not the policy that we stop illegal
11:46
Speaker 2: Russian money from flowing into being laundered into cities in
11:50
Speaker 2: Europe and the U.S. and around the world?
11:52
Speaker 3: If you look at like London, John. It's a big
11:55
Speaker 3: part of the economy there, right? They're paying top dollar
11:57
Speaker 3: for real estate. The guy who owns the Chelsea Football
11:59
Speaker 3: Club is a Russian oligarch. They're big donors to the
12:03
Speaker 3: conservative party, as some of my labor friends have been
12:05
Speaker 3: pointing out recently. So these are things that these are
12:09
Speaker 3: steps that would involve economic disruption and pain for Western countries, right?
12:14
Speaker 3: And look, the reality is you're right. He's completely ignored this.
12:18
Speaker 3: What the Biden team has been able to do by
12:20
Speaker 3: foreshadowing this invasion is is to kind of line up
12:23
Speaker 3: Europe behind these sanctions and kind of have what they
12:25
Speaker 3: were going to do the day after the invasion ready before.
12:27
Speaker 4: That's what it's bought them. But clearly it's.
12:30
Speaker 3: Not impacting what he's thinking. The challenge they're going to
12:33
Speaker 3: face is, okay, we impose these sanctions. That's going to
12:38
Speaker 3: bring about economic disruptions for us. So market disruptions, higher
12:43
Speaker 3: energy prices potentially. Russia can disrupt supply chains because they
12:47
Speaker 3: have a lot of raw materials that feed into supply chains.
12:49
Speaker 4: It's a big country if you look at it on
12:50
Speaker 4: the map.
12:51
Speaker 3: A lot of stuff comes out of Russia, but also
12:54
Speaker 3: cyber attacks on the United States, cyber attacks on U.S. businesses,
12:59
Speaker 3: more disinformation campaigns in our politics. They could decide, Russia,
13:05
Speaker 3: to kind of escalate the types of things that they've
13:07
Speaker 3: been doing in ways that could be really disruptive to
13:11
Speaker 3: some Americans.
13:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was going to ask, to what extent do
13:15
Speaker 1: you think we can make these sanctions surgical in hurting Russia?
13:20
Speaker 1: and not the rest of the world? Or to what
13:23
Speaker 1: extent is the Biden administration trying to figure that out?
13:25
Speaker 1: Can they? And then do we have the capabilities to
13:30
Speaker 1: stop some of these cyber attacks if we know that
13:32
Speaker 1: they're probably going to start targeting our financial sector if
13:35
Speaker 1: we target theirs?
13:37
Speaker 4: Here's the challenge.
13:38
Speaker 3: They've kind of set a bar where the strength of
13:41
Speaker 3: the sanctions is like the test of what they're doing
13:43
Speaker 3: in response, which is understandable. But if you listen to them,
13:48
Speaker 3: they're clearly not focused on surgical sanctions. Surgical sanctions would be,
13:51
Speaker 3: for instance, going after like that group of cronies around Putin. Instead,
13:56
Speaker 3: they've talked about offsetting the pain of the sanctions. So
13:59
Speaker 3: for instance, there may be significant disruptions to global energy
14:03
Speaker 3: markets because Russia is an enormous energy producer into Europe.
14:08
Speaker 3: So they've talked about, oh, can we get the Gulf countries,
14:10
Speaker 3: can we get countries like Qatar, to produce more oil
14:13
Speaker 3: and gas that they can then provide to the Europeans.
14:16
Speaker 3: That's a strategy that is not surgical. That's a strategy
14:19
Speaker 3: that acknowledges that we're pursuing sanctions that are going to
14:22
Speaker 3: be disruptive to the global economy. We're just going to
14:25
Speaker 3: try to offset those disruptions in other ways. But that's
14:29
Speaker 3: not possible entirely, right? There's going to be a hit
14:34
Speaker 3: here to the global economy. There's going to be inflationary
14:36
Speaker 3: pressure and there are going to be kind of hustling
14:39
Speaker 3: to try to offset that instead of making decisions to
14:42
Speaker 3: pursue a more surgical sanctions regime.
14:44
Speaker 1: And how do the Europeans feel about this who are
14:45
Speaker 1: already paying even higher energy prices than we are right now?
14:48
Speaker 4: Not great, John.
14:51
Speaker 3: If you look at the diplomacy, you know, Macron, who's
14:54
Speaker 3: up for re-election, has been the most adamant in trying
14:58
Speaker 3: to pursue a diplomatic solution, including trying to broker the
15:01
Speaker 3: summit between Putin and Biden. Scholz, the new German chancellor,
15:06
Speaker 3: literally the guy just stepped into office. This is the
15:08
Speaker 3: first thing he's dealing with. And Germany is the most
15:10
Speaker 3: dependent on Russian energy. Clearly, he didn't want this conflict.
15:14
Speaker 3: And so it's going to be a situation where Putin
15:17
Speaker 3: hopes that over time, the unity that we're all watching
15:21
Speaker 3: on display at the Munich Security Conference, something that's never
15:24
Speaker 3: been uttered on Paz of America before, that unity might
15:28
Speaker 3: fray six months, nine months, a year from now when
15:31
Speaker 3: the Russians are in Ukraine or eastern Ukraine and And
15:35
Speaker 3: the European economy and the global economy has taken this
15:37
Speaker 3: massive hit.
15:38
Speaker 4: And it's like, well, what are these sanctions really getting us?
15:40
Speaker 4: That's the scenario.
15:42
Speaker 1: Putin's counting on. Stepping back for a second, going back
15:44
Speaker 1: to the Biden administration's case, I've been struck by how
15:47
Speaker 1: much work has gone into making a case to the
15:50
Speaker 1: world that Putin's actions are nothing but unprovoked aggression, imperialism,
15:55
Speaker 1: that he's just looking for a pretext for war. Who
15:58
Speaker 1: might that have not been obvious to? What was the
16:00
Speaker 1: audience for that case? And Was it ever realistic to
16:04
Speaker 1: think that any of this would somehow deter Putin from
16:07
Speaker 1: doing what he's doing right now?
16:10
Speaker 4: I don't think so. You know, this is, you know,
16:13
Speaker 4: it's interesting.
16:14
Speaker 3: I've lived through the 2014 annexation of Crimea and initial
16:18
Speaker 3: movement of Russia into eastern Ukraine, then the 2016 election.
16:22
Speaker 3: And there were fair and I think good criticisms of like,
16:26
Speaker 3: could you guys have shared more information about what Russia
16:29
Speaker 3: was doing? And I think we could have. But I
16:32
Speaker 3: don't think it would have made any difference. I don't
16:33
Speaker 3: think Russia would have stopped hacking the DNC just because
16:36
Speaker 3: we said that we saw- Hey, they're hacking the DNC.
16:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
16:40
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, I am.
16:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, he does not give a shit.
16:43
Speaker 3: And look, Sang, you and I have talked about his
16:46
Speaker 3: central insight is that he doesn't care if he's caught
16:51
Speaker 3: lying or breaking the rules.
16:52
Speaker 1: He's a shameless thug. We just had one as president.
16:55
Speaker 1: That's what these autocrats are.
16:56
Speaker 3: He poisoned his chief opponent, right? And then threw him
16:59
Speaker 3: in prison on trumped up charges. He He doesn't care
17:02
Speaker 3: that we all pointed that out, right? And so I
17:05
Speaker 3: do think that the Biden strategy of declassifying information and
17:10
Speaker 3: essentially calling the play that Putin was running was never
17:15
Speaker 3: going to deter Putin. Again, I think what it got
17:18
Speaker 3: them was the capacity to make clear to the rest
17:21
Speaker 3: of the world, right, that Putin's the aggressor here, that
17:25
Speaker 3: whatever he tells you about whatever pretext it was, don't
17:27
Speaker 3: listen to him because this is what he's going to do.
17:29
Speaker 4: And he's gone ahead and done it.
17:31
Speaker 3: And then use that time to try to get the
17:33
Speaker 3: Europeans on board with sanctions and strengthening NATO.
17:35
Speaker 4: And the rest of it.
17:36
Speaker 3: I think what is most interesting to me about this
17:38
Speaker 3: is he's done literally exactly the things they said. It's
17:43
Speaker 3: almost like he wants us to know how little of
17:45
Speaker 3: a shit he gives about this play they've run. Because
17:48
Speaker 3: he could have come up with a different pretext. The
17:50
Speaker 3: Biden team said, oh, the pretext is going to be
17:52
Speaker 3: that he says there's ethnic cleansing of ethnic Russians in
17:55
Speaker 3: eastern Ukraine. And then he'll have to move in there
17:58
Speaker 3: and recognize these republics and move troops in. He could
18:01
Speaker 3: have been like, OK, I'll come up with a different
18:03
Speaker 3: pretext because you caught me on this pretext. The fact
18:05
Speaker 3: that he's just did what the Biden team has been
18:08
Speaker 3: saying he's going to do shows how much it's almost
18:11
Speaker 3: like he wants us to know he doesn't care.
18:12
Speaker 2: There's an aspect of what the like all the officials
18:16
Speaker 2: of the Biden administration going out and basically saying, here's
18:18
Speaker 2: what we know. We think an attack is imminent. This
18:21
Speaker 2: is what we think it's going to look like. This
18:22
Speaker 2: is going to be the cause. It does make them
18:25
Speaker 2: observers of what is unfolding. And they keep referring to
18:28
Speaker 2: the the need for, people want diplomacy, they want a
18:31
Speaker 2: diplomatic solution, but like, there's not a criticism of them.
18:35
Speaker 2: It's a strange term for the kinds of talks that
18:37
Speaker 2: are going on because it's not some long simmering intractable
18:41
Speaker 2: conflict between two sides for which there's no obvious end.
18:44
Speaker 2: This is a concerted effort by one side, by Putin himself,
18:49
Speaker 2: to kind of stage and launch an intervention against into
18:53
Speaker 2: Ukraine because he views it as being in his own interest.
18:56
Speaker 2: What were ever the best case scenarios for any kind
19:00
Speaker 2: of diplomatic outcome here?
19:03
Speaker 3: It may be the case that there were never any hopes.
19:05
Speaker 3: I guess you could say Putin put on the table, look,
19:10
Speaker 3: I want a commitment that Ukraine will never join NATO
19:13
Speaker 3: and that NATO will pull back all these forces from
19:15
Speaker 3: Eastern Europe. And the US response was, We won't ever
19:19
Speaker 3: do that, but we'll be transparent with you about how
19:22
Speaker 3: many troops we have in Eastern Europe and what our
19:23
Speaker 3: military exercises are.
19:25
Speaker 1: Which we already are, basically.
19:26
Speaker 4: Yeah.
19:26
Speaker 3: You could have said, let's have a big Helsinki, Yalta-style
19:33
Speaker 3: conversation in which we're willing to put on the table
19:36
Speaker 3: things like whether or not Ukraine is in NATO and
19:39
Speaker 3: test whether or not that would cause Putin to rethink
19:42
Speaker 3: his desire to invade, right? I'm not saying that would
19:45
Speaker 3: work necessarily because I'm not sure it would. I think
19:48
Speaker 3: Putin was going to do what he's going to do.
19:51
Speaker 3: But we were having two completely separate diplomatic conversations. The
19:55
Speaker 3: Russians are talking about these really big foundational issues around
19:58
Speaker 3: NATO and Ukraine sovereignty. We're talking about arms control, essentially.
20:03
Speaker 3: And so those two conversations never connected.
20:15
Speaker 1: Now that Putin has ordered troops into this region as
20:19
Speaker 1: a what he's calling a peacekeeping mission, doesn't seem like
20:22
Speaker 1: that's what it is.
20:22
Speaker 4: Yeah.
20:23
Speaker 1: Is the hope for a Putin Biden summit or even
20:28
Speaker 1: that's gone now, right?
20:29
Speaker 3: That's gone now. And, you know, I think the question,
20:32
Speaker 3: you know, and I'm curious, what do you think about this, John?
20:37
Speaker 3: To draw on our experience, right? We fell into this
20:39
Speaker 3: trap to some extent during the Arab Spring, where we
20:42
Speaker 3: were narrating events that were far beyond our control. And
20:44
Speaker 3: it's tough when you're in the White House. What do
20:46
Speaker 3: you do when you can't control what Putin's going to do?
20:50
Speaker 3: You can control what you do. So we can control
20:52
Speaker 3: sanctions and the reassurance and reinforcements we send to NATO
20:56
Speaker 3: countries and the offsetting of the consequences of sanctions. But
21:00
Speaker 3: I think they're going to face a significant challenge in
21:03
Speaker 3: the weeks and months to come about whether or not
21:06
Speaker 3: Biden is out there talking about this all the time,
21:07
Speaker 3: whether he's you know, going to meet with European leaders
21:10
Speaker 3: all the time about something that he fundamentally can't control,
21:13
Speaker 3: you know?
21:13
Speaker 5: Yeah.
21:14
Speaker 1: I mean, I think once you impose sanctions, I don't
21:18
Speaker 1: know what else you can do. I mean, I don't
21:21
Speaker 1: know what else you should do publicly as a U.S. president, right? Like, obviously,
21:26
Speaker 1: the State Department, the Defense Department, everyone's going to be
21:28
Speaker 1: involved in this very closely for as long as there's
21:31
Speaker 1: a conflict, right?
21:32
Speaker 5: Yeah.
21:32
Speaker 1: But, like, look, I don't, You know, the thing that
21:37
Speaker 1: is the domestic political hack, what raised my antenna over
21:41
Speaker 1: the weekend was Kamala Harris's statement when she said, when
21:44
Speaker 1: America stands for principles and all of the things that
21:47
Speaker 1: we hold dear, it requires sometimes for us to put
21:49
Speaker 1: ourselves out there in a way that will maybe incur
21:51
Speaker 1: some cost. In this situation, that may relate to energy costs,
21:54
Speaker 1: for example. I was like, so if most Americans are
21:58
Speaker 1: not quite paying attention to this, they're going to now.
22:03
Speaker 3: Yeah.
22:03
Speaker 1: Or they're going to when energy prices go up. And
22:06
Speaker 1: you know this from our time in the White House. Like,
22:08
Speaker 1: here's the oftentimes sad reality of U.S. domestic politics. When
22:12
Speaker 1: do voters start really caring about foreign policy or conflicts
22:17
Speaker 1: that are growing in the world? Like, one, when it
22:20
Speaker 1: puts American lives or American livelihoods in jeopardy. Two, when
22:24
Speaker 1: it puts American troops in jeopardy, if they're deployed. And
22:29
Speaker 1: there's a third one, which is there's so much chaos
22:32
Speaker 1: around the world, and it seems like the U.S. government
22:35
Speaker 1: and U.S. leaders– can't do anything about it. Right. Everything
22:38
Speaker 1: just seems out of control. And I do think on
22:41
Speaker 1: this one, like, you know, Biden has said we're not
22:44
Speaker 1: deploying U.S. troops no matter what. It doesn't seem like
22:47
Speaker 1: American lives directly are in any jeopardy right now. But
22:50
Speaker 1: certainly if energy costs go up, as we're all dealing
22:53
Speaker 1: with inflation right now and there's risk to the global economy,
22:56
Speaker 1: that could really get some people nervous about the sanctions. Yeah.
23:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.
23:00
Speaker 1: Right. Depending on how tough they are and how many
23:04
Speaker 1: and to what extent they have economic consequences that affect
23:06
Speaker 1: the U.S.
23:06
Speaker 5: Yeah.
23:07
Speaker 1: And so I do wonder about that. And again, the
23:10
Speaker 1: media is covering this.
23:11
Speaker 4: Right.
23:11
Speaker 1: So whether Joe Biden wants to talk about this or not,
23:13
Speaker 1: this is like all over the news. Yeah. Now, as usual,
23:16
Speaker 1: the media covers conflict, you know, for a given amount
23:20
Speaker 1: of time before their board move on to the next story.
23:22
Speaker 1: We saw that happen in Afghanistan.
23:24
Speaker 4: Yeah.
23:25
Speaker 1: So that maybe the media will move on. But. I
23:28
Speaker 1: do wonder if the whole thing then feeds into this
23:30
Speaker 1: sense that there's chaos everywhere, not just in the United States,
23:35
Speaker 1: but all around the world. And is the U.S. and
23:38
Speaker 1: is the U.S. government and is Joe Biden sort of,
23:40
Speaker 1: as Lovett was saying, a narrator of these events rather
23:43
Speaker 1: than a shaper of these events? Not saying that I
23:45
Speaker 1: don't I don't know what Biden could do otherwise.
23:47
Speaker 4: Right.
23:47
Speaker 1: Like we were talking about this strategy. May not have
23:50
Speaker 1: been effective of telling the whole world what Vladimir Putin
23:52
Speaker 1: was doing. I still think it was good that they
23:54
Speaker 1: did it.
23:54
Speaker 4: It gave me the right thing to do. It was
23:55
Speaker 4: the right thing to.
23:55
Speaker 1: Do to make the case. Absolutely. But I'm just wondering
23:59
Speaker 1: what comes of any of this.
24:01
Speaker 2: Let me take a moment to play an isolationist, but
24:05
Speaker 2: not in the kind of right-wing Tucker Carlson. He's just
24:07
Speaker 2: worried about NATO expansion mode, but just as kind of
24:09
Speaker 2: a left-wing isolationist.
24:12
Speaker 4: Who is pained by what may be about to happen
24:14
Speaker 4: to the people.
24:15
Speaker 1: Yes.
24:15
Speaker 2: Who's not obviously feels like who doesn't want there to
24:19
Speaker 2: be war in the world, but doesn't understand what America's
24:21
Speaker 2: interest is in it. And, you know, to the point
24:24
Speaker 2: you made earlier, this is a, you know, outside of
24:26
Speaker 2: some kind of geopolitical egotism, a dangerous and risky thing
24:32
Speaker 2: to do. There'll be incredible costs to Putin and to
24:35
Speaker 2: Russia for doing this. The Russian stock market dropped precipitously
24:38
Speaker 2: when it looked like this was going to happen. There
24:39
Speaker 2: have been protests in Russia. There have been leading Russian
24:42
Speaker 2: intellectuals desperately arguing against this course of action, right? So
24:46
Speaker 2: that is clear to everyone. There's no scenario in which
24:48
Speaker 2: this works in anything other than a kind of political
24:51
Speaker 2: sense of it not being pushed back, not being beaten back, right?
24:54
Speaker 2: There's pain and cost coming to that country. We will
24:57
Speaker 2: do some form of sanctions. Why on earth would we
25:00
Speaker 2: then in the U.S. put ourselves in a position... to
25:02
Speaker 2: make gas more expensive, to make heating people's homes more expensive,
25:06
Speaker 2: to make life in America worse for the purposes of
25:08
Speaker 2: making life in Russia worse because of a conflict over
25:11
Speaker 2: a region that we weren't talking about two months ago
25:14
Speaker 2: and we won't be talking about two months from now.
25:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
25:17
Speaker 3: I do think, just from a practical standpoint, it seems
25:20
Speaker 3: like the energy sanctions are the ones where they are
25:23
Speaker 3: not putting their foot on the gas, to use the
25:26
Speaker 3: pun here.
25:26
Speaker 2: For this reason.
25:27
Speaker 1: Yeah.
25:28
Speaker 3: For that reason, but there'll still be knock-on effects from
25:30
Speaker 3: sanctioning Russian banks and trying to tank the Russian economy.
25:34
Speaker 3: Here's one way to think about this. Putin clearly knows
25:37
Speaker 3: our politics, right? That's part of why he did this timing, right?
25:41
Speaker 1: He knows- Why he meddled in the 2016 election.
25:44
Speaker 3: And if you look at the timing of this invasion,
25:47
Speaker 3: it's our midterm election year. He can see the inflationary pressure.
25:51
Speaker 3: He can see the polarization in the United States. He
25:53
Speaker 3: can see that the French president is up for reelection.
25:55
Speaker 3: He can see that Angela Merkel is gone and there's
25:57
Speaker 3: a new guy there. He can see Boris Johnson, you know,
26:00
Speaker 3: under a lot of pressure at home. All these things
26:02
Speaker 3: that we look kind of like we don't have it
26:04
Speaker 3: together to really deal with this.
26:06
Speaker 2: And we had it together just so recently and we're
26:08
Speaker 2: probably going to have it together again so soon.
26:11
Speaker 4: Here's the thing.
26:11
Speaker 3: If this is all about Ukraine, we don't have a
26:14
Speaker 3: lot of levers to pull to determine the future of
26:17
Speaker 3: Ukraine like Putin does.
26:18
Speaker 1: Right.
26:18
Speaker 3: He has an asymmetry of force here that he can
26:21
Speaker 3: bring to bear. And so you risk getting caught in
26:24
Speaker 3: the middle where you're way out there and making demands
26:26
Speaker 3: about what should happen in Ukraine that are not going
26:28
Speaker 3: to be met. So you can either pull back and
26:31
Speaker 3: essentially acknowledge reality that there's not that much we can do,
26:34
Speaker 3: but we have to impose a cost because he's violated
26:36
Speaker 3: international law and all these principles. And if he doesn't
26:39
Speaker 3: face a cost here, he could face a cost later.
26:42
Speaker 3: I guess the way you could lean into this is
26:45
Speaker 3: America generally, we're way on our back foot. Democracy is
26:49
Speaker 3: on its back foot. the concept of freedom doesn't really
26:53
Speaker 3: even mean much anymore in the discourse because it's either
26:56
Speaker 3: been expropriated by people that use it really cynically, or
27:00
Speaker 3: as we talked about last time I was here, you know,
27:02
Speaker 3: people on the left can kind of roll their eyes
27:04
Speaker 3: at what sounds like Cold War language. I guess there's
27:06
Speaker 3: an argument where leaning in to the broader contrast between
27:11
Speaker 3: the kind of world that the U.S. represents and that
27:14
Speaker 3: Joe Biden wants to see contrasted with the kind of
27:17
Speaker 3: world that Vladimir Putin represents. And by the way, So
27:20
Speaker 3: do a lot of Republicans in this country represent, right?
27:23
Speaker 3: And so you make the argument even bigger than Putin's
27:27
Speaker 3: making it, right? Like you're not arguing about Luhansk and
27:30
Speaker 3: Donetsk or Ukraine. You're arguing about democracy and freedom versus autocracy.
27:35
Speaker 3: And yes, it sounds like a Cold War frame and
27:37
Speaker 3: it is, but that's something that Americans do know intuitively, right?
27:40
Speaker 3: And I guess the question is, does Biden have the
27:42
Speaker 3: capacity and is it even possible in this day and
27:45
Speaker 3: age to kind of make this about a core principle
27:48
Speaker 3: that we know is not going to be resolved maybe
27:51
Speaker 3: even during the Biden, almost certainly not during the Biden presidency,
27:54
Speaker 3: but that, you know, it's time for us to stand
27:56
Speaker 3: for these things again. You know, that's for me, like,
27:59
Speaker 3: and I'm the world though here, like that's the kind
28:02
Speaker 3: of argument that I would want to make. I honestly
28:05
Speaker 3: don't know if that's politically viable in this day and age.
28:09
Speaker 1: No, I think that's the, I think that's the challenge.
28:11
Speaker 1: I mean, as much as I just talked about the
28:13
Speaker 1: gas prices as the, you know, as a domestic political hack,
28:16
Speaker 1: I also think to myself, like the, The argument about
28:18
Speaker 1: the global struggle between autocracy and democracy that Biden has
28:22
Speaker 1: referenced many times in his presidency and in his campaign
28:25
Speaker 1: is not theoretical and it's not pining for some Cold
28:29
Speaker 1: War history. It is real.
28:30
Speaker 4: It's real.
28:31
Speaker 1: It's happening all around the world and it's happening here
28:33
Speaker 1: in the United States. And we've seen it. And the
28:35
Speaker 1: consequences could potentially be devastating, not just for like. what
28:40
Speaker 1: theoretical kind of government you support, right? But like people's
28:44
Speaker 1: lives everywhere all over the world. You have a bunch
28:46
Speaker 1: of autocrats with nuclear weapons all over the world. It's
28:48
Speaker 1: fucking terrifying.
28:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true.
28:50
Speaker 1: Now, what can we do? I mean, I guess like,
28:53
Speaker 1: what is the ideal scenario if we impose tough sanctions
28:56
Speaker 1: that Putin stops at Ukraine? The sanctions take a toll
29:00
Speaker 1: on the Russian economy. He says, all right, I got Ukraine.
29:02
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm going to just chill out now because my
29:04
Speaker 1: economy's hurting pretty bad. And then we all move on.
29:07
Speaker 3: Actually, this is a great, this is the right question
29:09
Speaker 3: because look, here's the worst scenario and the best scenario.
29:13
Speaker 3: The worst scenario is left unchecked. This kind of brand
29:17
Speaker 3: of nationalism and autocracy, it always leads to bigger and bigger.
29:20
Speaker 4: Conflict, right? It leads to World War I. It leads
29:22
Speaker 4: to World War II.
29:24
Speaker 3: Things that you couldn't imagine happening can happen in five
29:27
Speaker 3: or 10 years, right? Yeah. And we can lose our
29:29
Speaker 3: democracy here or we could end up in big wars abroad,
29:31
Speaker 3: whether it's with China or Russia or both of them, right?
29:33
Speaker 3: We have to expand our imagination to these worst case scenarios.
29:37
Speaker 3: I think the best case scenario is if we can regroup.
29:40
Speaker 3: and kind of revitalize democracy globally, right? Like starting with
29:44
Speaker 3: our own team, essentially, what we used to call the
29:47
Speaker 3: free world. And we stand up and we impose these
29:50
Speaker 3: consequences on him and it weakens him at home and
29:53
Speaker 3: it exposes the kind of shallow autocrat that he is
29:57
Speaker 3: That we could be having a conversation in 10 years
29:59
Speaker 3: from now where Vladimir Putin is no longer governing Russia,
30:01
Speaker 3: not because we inflicted regime change, but because the Russian.
30:04
Speaker 4: People got rid of this guy.
30:06
Speaker 3: And suddenly the pendulum is swinging back against this autocracy nationalism.
30:10
Speaker 3: And I guess the argument you could mount is that
30:13
Speaker 3: we have to take the stand here, even if it
30:16
Speaker 3: is difficult, even if it is politically disadvantageous, because if
30:21
Speaker 3: we don't, that pendulum will never swing back.
30:24
Speaker 1: There's one more point I want to talk about here,
30:27
Speaker 1: which is about domestic political politics. There's a notable split
30:31
Speaker 1: within the Republican Party over Russia right now. Most Republican
30:34
Speaker 1: members of Congress have attacked Biden's Ukraine policy as too
30:37
Speaker 1: weak on Russia, which is something you expect from Republicans.
30:41
Speaker 1: But their bosses in the right wing media, most notably
30:44
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson, have attacked Biden for being too tough on
30:47
Speaker 1: Russia and too friendly towards Ukraine. This is a position
30:50
Speaker 1: shared by some of the more extremist Republican candidates like
30:53
Speaker 1: Eric Greitens in Missouri, J.D. Vance in Ohio. and some
30:55
Speaker 1: of the most Trumpy members of Congress, like Marjorie Taylor
30:58
Speaker 1: Greene and Josh Hawley, whose Tucker Carlson interviews have been
31:01
Speaker 1: used as propaganda on Russian state TV. What do you
31:04
Speaker 1: guys make of this split? And how do you see
31:07
Speaker 1: it shaping the politics of how the Biden administration handles
31:10
Speaker 1: this conflict?
31:13
Speaker 2: Look, we've talked about this before. The Republican Party is
31:15
Speaker 2: now traditional cons, neocons, and fasc cons. The fasc cons
31:20
Speaker 2: are very pro-Putin for a lot of reasons. Ben outlined
31:24
Speaker 2: this kind of leader of an ethno-nationalism, of an authoritarianism.
31:27
Speaker 2: I think the more traditional and even neoconservative Republicans see
31:32
Speaker 2: this as a way to attack Biden for being weak,
31:34
Speaker 2: tying it into Afghanistan. It doesn't really matter which one
31:39
Speaker 2: prevails because ultimately this will be something, if we are
31:41
Speaker 2: talking about this in the months to come, it will
31:43
Speaker 2: be because there are knock-on facts in the Biden's failures
31:50
Speaker 2: in foreign policy led to X, Y, and Z is
31:51
Speaker 2: all that will ultimately matter.
31:53
Speaker 3: One of the things that they did back in 2014,
31:54
Speaker 3: 15 is that they simultaneously, the Republicans attacked Obama for
31:59
Speaker 3: being weak, for not stopping what, you know, Putin did
32:02
Speaker 3: in Crimea. And nevermind that I don't think any of
32:04
Speaker 3: those Republicans had ever really heard of the Crimean Peninsula before.
32:09
Speaker 3: While also kind of expressing admiration for Putin, you know,
32:13
Speaker 3: like he's a stronger leader than Obama and blah, blah, blah.
32:17
Speaker 3: And so they tried to have it both ways like that.
32:18
Speaker 3: But what that kind of tells on themselves for is
32:22
Speaker 3: that the admiration that they have for Putin and even
32:25
Speaker 3: the criticism they're making Obama was not values-based.
32:28
Speaker 4: It was what they admired was someone who broke the rules.
32:32
Speaker 3: Someone who was comfortable using that power in that way.
32:35
Speaker 3: Somebody who was cynical enough to not give a shit
32:38
Speaker 3: if he was criticized. And the same way that Republicans
32:40
Speaker 3: don't want to ever look at America's excesses, because they
32:43
Speaker 3: think that's the point. They think America should be able
32:46
Speaker 3: to commit excesses in its foreign policy. And so again,
32:49
Speaker 3: I think to make the discussion bigger, to me, it
32:53
Speaker 3: exposes that the coalition of people who actually care about
32:58
Speaker 3: democratic values, liberal values, is a much smaller subset of
33:02
Speaker 3: the American political spectrum than it was most of our lives.
33:06
Speaker 3: It's basically some Democrats and maybe some of the never-Trumpers.
33:12
Speaker 4: I guess.
33:12
Speaker 3: But like, you know, that the Republicans who are criticizing
33:17
Speaker 3: him for being weak, some of them are doing that
33:20
Speaker 3: from a position that is very Putin light. You know,
33:23
Speaker 3: it's basically like he's weak because he's not acting like Putin.
33:26
Speaker 3: He's not violating norms. He's not, you know, ignoring. He's
33:29
Speaker 3: not lying with abandon. He's not doing what Trump does,
33:31
Speaker 3: you know? Yeah.
33:33
Speaker 1: No, I do think and love it to your point.
33:35
Speaker 1: No matter which side you're on, there's an easy way
33:37
Speaker 1: to you don't have to be consistent in your criticism
33:40
Speaker 1: of Joe Biden. We've seen, yeah, like we saw this
33:42
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. There were a bunch of Republicans.
33:44
Speaker 4: We're abandoning our Afghan allies.
33:45
Speaker 1: Right. We're abandoning our Afghan allies, even though there were
33:47
Speaker 1: a bunch of Republicans, including the last president who wanted
33:50
Speaker 1: to get out of there.
33:51
Speaker 3: Yeah.
33:51
Speaker 4: And didn't want to let any Afghan allies in.
33:53
Speaker 1: It didn't want to let any in the country. And,
33:55
Speaker 1: and you know how they handled all these inconsistencies and hypocrisies.
33:58
Speaker 1: They didn't, they didn't, they just paper over them and said,
34:01
Speaker 1: this is a disaster and it's your fault because you
34:03
Speaker 1: were in charge.
34:04
Speaker 2: It's, and there's really is like a, The way they're
34:06
Speaker 2: doing it, right, especially like the Tucker Carlson's word, they're
34:09
Speaker 2: not just saying this is not in America's interest. They
34:11
Speaker 2: are fully absorbing Russian propaganda and talking points to make
34:15
Speaker 2: their argument. There's no like tradition. There's very little anyway,
34:20
Speaker 2: like American interest style isolationism. What is happening in Ukraine
34:25
Speaker 2: does not directly affect the United States. It is not
34:27
Speaker 2: in our interest. The best way we can serve democracy,
34:29
Speaker 2: the best way we can serve the United States is
34:30
Speaker 2: by making sure America's economy is strong, making sure we
34:33
Speaker 2: are demonstrating democracy. what democracy can do, as opposed to
34:37
Speaker 2: needing to defend it by spending and incurring these big costs.
34:41
Speaker 1: J.D. Vance got closest to that, which I thought was
34:43
Speaker 1: interesting because, you know, he basically said to some interviewer,
34:47
Speaker 1: I got to be honest with you, I don't really
34:48
Speaker 1: care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.
34:51
Speaker 1: I do care about the fact that in my community
34:52
Speaker 1: right now, the leading cause of death among 18 to
34:54
Speaker 1: 45 year olds is Mexican fentanyl that's coming from the
34:56
Speaker 1: southern border. Lovely. I'm sick of Joe Biden focusing on
34:59
Speaker 1: the border of a country I don't care about while
35:01
Speaker 1: he lets the border of his own country become a
35:02
Speaker 1: total war zone. That's one where you like, If the
35:06
Speaker 1: Republican Party had like that consistent message, it would be,
35:09
Speaker 1: of course, gross for a number of reasons, including the
35:11
Speaker 1: Mexican fentanyl stuff. But you could see that being potentially
35:15
Speaker 1: more effective politically.
35:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think what's one of the things that's kind
35:18
Speaker 3: of awkward about this whole thing is that, you know,
35:21
Speaker 3: when did it become a test of America's leadership in
35:27
Speaker 3: the world that Ukraine be in NATO? Like as recently
35:32
Speaker 3: at the end of the Cold War, I don't think
35:33
Speaker 3: anyone would have thought that that would happen.
35:35
Speaker 4: You know, you know.
35:37
Speaker 3: We you know, the Berlin Wall fell and we thought
35:40
Speaker 3: that was great. And that was the end of the story.
35:42
Speaker 3: And we kind of raised the bar on ourselves. And
35:45
Speaker 3: a lot has happened in the Bush years that we
35:47
Speaker 3: could just kind of control everything in the world. And
35:50
Speaker 3: we set like tests for ourselves that we were never
35:53
Speaker 3: going to meet. Right. The flip side of is that
35:56
Speaker 3: doesn't justify Putin invading a country.
35:58
Speaker 4: And killing a lot of people.
35:59
Speaker 5: Right.
36:00
Speaker 3: And this is, I think, what makes it so difficult
36:02
Speaker 3: for like, I think, an ordinary person at home watching
36:04
Speaker 3: this being like, on the one hand, I don't know
36:07
Speaker 3: why we're supposed to, you know, be spending all this
36:10
Speaker 3: time making sure that Ukraine can someday join NATO. But
36:13
Speaker 3: on the other hand, I don't like to live in
36:14
Speaker 3: a world where like a sovereign country of almost 50
36:17
Speaker 3: million people can just be invaded by another country.
36:19
Speaker 4: And that's the tension.
36:21
Speaker 1: And even more direct, like that autocracy can reign all
36:26
Speaker 1: over the world and potentially in my country. I want
36:28
Speaker 1: to be able to select my own leaders. Yeah. I
36:30
Speaker 1: want to be able to say what I want. I
36:31
Speaker 1: like the freedoms that we enjoy in the United States. Like,
36:34
Speaker 1: so I'm hoping that doesn't happen here. I mean, that's
36:37
Speaker 1: sort of the best case for that.
36:38
Speaker 2: And I think there's a sort of, it's also, I think,
36:40
Speaker 2: I think part of this dynamic that goes mostly unsaid,
36:42
Speaker 2: which is why do all these countries struggle? prefer to
36:45
Speaker 2: join NATO, right? The U.S. is by no means a
36:48
Speaker 2: perfect country. We've done terrible things. We've made terrible decisions.
36:51
Speaker 2: We have inflicted our will and control on other countries.
36:54
Speaker 2: But there is a reason that these countries wanted to
36:58
Speaker 2: be part of NATO versus want to be part of
37:01
Speaker 2: Russia's sphere of influence, feel threatened by Russian aggression. That
37:03
Speaker 2: is an old reality that is also underlying all of this.
37:07
Speaker 2: There is a reason that NATO expansion was seen as
37:10
Speaker 2: a safeguard for a lot of these countries.
37:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
37:15
Speaker 3: You can understand why too, because like these Baltic countries
37:17
Speaker 3: are like, we're here today because we were able to
37:19
Speaker 3: join NATO and they're not necessarily wrong about that.
37:22
Speaker 4: I think though that we have to kind of look inward, right?
37:25
Speaker 3: One thing that I think progressives can bring to this
37:28
Speaker 3: discussion is on the one hand, the United States says
37:31
Speaker 3: it wants, you know, Ukraine to be able to make
37:34
Speaker 3: choices about its future. On the other hand, we're so
37:37
Speaker 3: wedded to our brand of unregulated capitalism that we want
37:41
Speaker 3: cheap Russian energy. We want Russians to pay top dollar
37:44
Speaker 3: for those luxury apartments in Manhattan. We don't want to
37:49
Speaker 3: do the difficult work of cutting off all this dirty
37:51
Speaker 3: money that flows through our economies. And part of getting
37:55
Speaker 3: democracy in order is saying, hey, we do care about that.
37:58
Speaker 3: We're not going to let these guys, this kleptocracy that
38:01
Speaker 3: we enable. We built the financial system that facilitates Vladimir
38:04
Speaker 3: Putin's having a $ 600 billion rainy day fund because he does.
38:08
Speaker 3: He's put that much money away to weather sanctions. It's
38:11
Speaker 3: time to stop that, right? And those are steps that
38:16
Speaker 3: I think are necessary to deal with our own excesses,
38:21
Speaker 3: but also ultimately make it a lot harder for the
38:23
Speaker 3: Putins of the world to run these corrupt kleptocracies that
38:27
Speaker 3: facilitate things like invasions of Ukraine.
38:29
Speaker 1: Great segue into our next segment, which is going to
38:31
Speaker 1: be about Donald Trump. We have Leah Lippman from Strict Scrutiny,
38:36
Speaker 1: who will be talking to us after the break. All right,
38:48
Speaker 1: we spent some time today on autocrats abroad, but of
38:50
Speaker 1: course we have our own to deal with here at home.
38:53
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is dealing with some new legal troubles that
38:58
Speaker 1: even he may not be able to escape. Last week,
39:01
Speaker 1: his longtime accountants quit, saying they could no longer stand
39:03
Speaker 1: behind the last 10 years of the former president's financial statements.
39:06
Speaker 1: A judge ruled that Donald Trump, Don Jr., and Ivanka
39:10
Speaker 1: must sit for depositions in New York's civil suit against
39:13
Speaker 1: the Trump Organization. And a different judge ruled that the
39:15
Speaker 1: civil lawsuits brought against Trump by 11 members of Congress
39:18
Speaker 1: and two Capitol Police officers for his role in the
39:20
Speaker 1: January 6th attacks are allowed to go forward. Joining us
39:24
Speaker 1: to help break all this down is Leah Lippman, a
39:26
Speaker 1: University of Michigan law professor and co-host of the podcast.
39:30
Speaker 1: Strict Scrutiny, which is joining the Crooked Media family. We're
39:33
Speaker 1: very excited about it. Go listen and subscribe today. Leah,
39:37
Speaker 1: welcome back to the pod.
39:38
Speaker 5: Thanks so much for having me.
39:40
Speaker 1: So is this it? Are we finally going to get them?
39:42
Speaker 5: I think we should never underestimate the ability for a
39:45
Speaker 5: corrupt white male autocrat to evade legal responsibility. And in
39:50
Speaker 5: some ways, it is shocking that we are still seeing
39:54
Speaker 5: efforts to hold Trump accountable for his various misdeeds. So
39:58
Speaker 5: I'm not holding my breath.
40:00
Speaker 1: I think that's a good rule of thumb, although there
40:02
Speaker 1: are certainly a lot of irons in the fire this time.
40:05
Speaker 1: What was your reaction to that letter from Mazars?
40:08
Speaker 5: I think that was amazing. And what was even more
40:11
Speaker 5: amazing about it is Trump's response to the letter, because
40:17
Speaker 5: in the New York civil lawsuit where the New York
40:21
Speaker 5: attorney general is trying to depose him and his children,
40:25
Speaker 5: Trump said that Mazar's letter indicating that people could no
40:30
Speaker 5: longer rely on the misstatements was was actually proof that
40:35
Speaker 5: the New York AG's lawsuit against a Trump organization was
40:38
Speaker 5: totally moot because Mazars said they followed standard accounting practices.
40:43
Speaker 5: And so nothing to see here. And the judge who
40:47
Speaker 5: said these depositions could go forward was like, this is Orwellian.
40:51
Speaker 5: This is alternative facts. You can't say Mazars basically hanging
40:55
Speaker 5: you out to dry, you know, exonerated you.
41:00
Speaker 1: Well, just in case people don't understand, like, What do
41:03
Speaker 1: you think caused them to not only sever ties with Trump,
41:05
Speaker 1: but to release that statement? What were they trying to
41:08
Speaker 1: do there?
41:10
Speaker 5: It's difficult to know, you know, what exactly motivated them.
41:12
Speaker 5: But they said they did so in part because of
41:14
Speaker 5: filings by the New York AG office. And I think
41:18
Speaker 5: they might be concerned about their own legal liability if
41:20
Speaker 5: they continue to kind of prop up his financial misstatements,
41:25
Speaker 5: given all of the evidence that the New York attorney
41:28
Speaker 5: general seems to have about, you know, financial misdealings.
41:31
Speaker 2: There's a little of a shock to find gambling in
41:35
Speaker 2: this casino going on from these accountants. Trump's books, come on.
41:41
Speaker 2: He's been a serial exaggerator for a very long time.
41:44
Speaker 2: They were complicit in that. So it's a little bit
41:46
Speaker 2: of covering their own asses, especially when Trump just before,
41:50
Speaker 2: I think a week or two before this came out,
41:52
Speaker 2: he said something really noticeable that we actually talked about
41:54
Speaker 2: on Positive America at the time because it was strange
41:56
Speaker 2: and it stood out when he was defending himself against
41:58
Speaker 2: these civil charges. He said, We relied on major law firms,
42:01
Speaker 2: accounting firms, and other professionals to do this work, and
42:03
Speaker 2: to the best of my knowledge, they did it well.
42:06
Speaker 2: And there was a strange aspect of him throwing that
42:08
Speaker 2: into a fucking stump speech that felt to me a
42:10
Speaker 2: little bit like one of the things they were talking to,
42:13
Speaker 2: what he was talking to his lawyers about is, I
42:17
Speaker 2: worked with licensed professionals, my lawyers, my accountants. I did
42:20
Speaker 2: as I was told. They were supposed to be following
42:22
Speaker 2: the rules there. They have certain fiduciary obligations, and that's
42:25
Speaker 2: going to be the end of that. And I imagine...
42:27
Speaker 2: That's a very terrifying prospect for an accounting firm that
42:30
Speaker 2: has been Donald Trump's proof point for the for the
42:36
Speaker 2: better part of a decade.
42:37
Speaker 5: Yeah, they might have seen that he was about to
42:39
Speaker 5: throw them under the bus along with, you know, anyone
42:41
Speaker 5: else who has ever worked for him in his life.
42:44
Speaker 1: And they were like, we're going to throw him under
42:45
Speaker 1: the bus first. I took the statement just mean like
42:48
Speaker 1: they were. Yeah, they were presented with evidence by the
42:51
Speaker 1: New York attorney general. And they were just like. hey,
42:54
Speaker 1: to the best of our knowledge, we did everything on
42:56
Speaker 1: the up and up, but I would not take anything
42:58
Speaker 1: that he says seriously anymore.
43:01
Speaker 2: This is what's so silly about that. Trump claimed, for example,
43:05
Speaker 2: that his apartment in New York was worth $ 300 million.
43:09
Speaker 2: That is something that they asserted. His own representative is
43:13
Speaker 2: now correcting that to say maybe we overstated it by
43:15
Speaker 2: $ 200 million or so. There are a lot of people
43:18
Speaker 2: that were involved in purveying the lies of Donald Trump.
43:21
Speaker 2: And it is good that the people that were directly
43:22
Speaker 2: involved are turning on him, even if they're claiming it
43:25
Speaker 2: is because, oh, they've just discovered all these.
43:29
Speaker 4: Discrepancies.
43:31
Speaker 5: I'm still waiting for Sean Spicer to correct his statement
43:33
Speaker 5: about the crowd size. And I will keep waiting.
43:36
Speaker 1: One of these days. So Trump's lawyers have suggested that
43:39
Speaker 1: they plan to advise him to exercise his Fifth Amendment
43:41
Speaker 1: right to avoid self-incrimination during his deposition. If he and
43:45
Speaker 1: his family do that, Like, can the prosecutors to what
43:48
Speaker 1: extent does this change the prosecutor's strategy in these depositions? Like,
43:52
Speaker 1: can they still get a bunch of useful information or what?
43:54
Speaker 1: What happens then?
43:55
Speaker 5: They're not going to get a bunch of useful information
43:57
Speaker 5: from the Trumps. I mean, Eric Trump has already been deposed.
44:00
Speaker 5: I think the judge in the New York case joked
44:02
Speaker 5: that he had asserted his right not to incriminate himself
44:05
Speaker 5: something like 500 times. So I don't think anyone really
44:08
Speaker 5: expects them to answer any questions. In the civil lawsuit,
44:12
Speaker 5: you know, it could be that the AG and the
44:14
Speaker 5: investigators find information another way. But it still is worth
44:19
Speaker 5: it to try to question them because, I mean, these
44:22
Speaker 5: people are not the brightest crayons in the box. Like,
44:25
Speaker 5: who knows whether they will have some impulse to start
44:28
Speaker 5: spouting off the sort of lies and garbage that they
44:30
Speaker 5: often do. And so it's probably still worth trying to
44:34
Speaker 5: depose them, even if you think they are going to,
44:36
Speaker 5: you know, assert their right not to incriminate themselves for
44:39
Speaker 5: the most part.
44:40
Speaker 1: And pleading the fifth isn't supposed to have any consequences
44:43
Speaker 1: for you in a criminal trial, but it can have
44:45
Speaker 1: consequences in a civil lawsuit, right?
44:47
Speaker 5: Yeah. So one of the arguments that Trump made as
44:51
Speaker 5: to why the AG can't depose him is he was
44:54
Speaker 5: concerned there was a risk that because he is facing
44:57
Speaker 5: both criminal charges and civil charges in the state of
45:01
Speaker 5: New York, that the state of New York would try
45:03
Speaker 5: to use the information uncovered in the civil investigation in
45:06
Speaker 5: the criminal case against him. Now, those are technically being
45:09
Speaker 5: handled by two different offices. And there are limits on
45:13
Speaker 5: the extent to which you can introduce any evidence uncovered
45:16
Speaker 5: during a civil investigation in a criminal proceeding. And in particular,
45:20
Speaker 5: if Trump says, I am asserting my right not to testify,
45:23
Speaker 5: that can't be used in his criminal trial. Although, again,
45:26
Speaker 5: there are some exceptions. And it's hard to know whether
45:29
Speaker 5: those exceptions might be implicated before the case actually unfolds.
45:34
Speaker 2: One of the things that I also I feel like
45:36
Speaker 2: people have this idea that Trump being deposed is Trump
45:40
Speaker 2: at the rally, that version of Trump being deposed. But
45:42
Speaker 2: I think people sometimes actually have even internalized to them,
45:46
Speaker 2: as much as they don't recognize it, they've internalized a
45:49
Speaker 2: belief that that performance is really Donald Trump. When if
45:51
Speaker 2: you go back and look at like, do you remember
45:53
Speaker 2: when he was deposed around the inauguration of 2017 because
45:56
Speaker 2: Jose Andres pulled out of that restaurant and it led
45:59
Speaker 2: to a deposition? I remember at the time being stunned
46:02
Speaker 2: by just how careful he can be how rigorous he
46:07
Speaker 2: can be, how thoughtful about what his lawyers have told
46:10
Speaker 2: him to say and not say during a deposition. It
46:12
Speaker 2: is a completely different person. I actually recommend people go
46:15
Speaker 2: and look at that deposition because you forget yourself just
46:20
Speaker 2: how much what we are seeing as a character and
46:22
Speaker 2: how singularly aware he is of some of the threats
46:25
Speaker 2: that he faces when he's actually under oath.
46:27
Speaker 1: Yeah.
46:27
Speaker 5: I mean, if there's one thing he cares about, it's
46:29
Speaker 5: his money. And he's not going to jeopardize that by
46:32
Speaker 5: running off his mouth during a deposition in the civil case.
46:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're playing live ammo there. Yeah. So based on
46:40
Speaker 1: the public information that's come to light about New York's
46:43
Speaker 1: civil lawsuit against Trump, how strong of a case do
46:45
Speaker 1: you think the attorney general has here?
46:47
Speaker 5: I think the attorney general probably has a very strong
46:50
Speaker 5: case against the organization for fraud. And part of why
46:53
Speaker 5: I think that is this is an office that has
46:56
Speaker 5: obtained successful settlements against the Trump Foundation. against Trump University.
47:01
Speaker 5: I mean, basically every Trump organization has engaged in some
47:04
Speaker 5: form of financial fraud. So why is this one going
47:08
Speaker 5: to be any different? The evidence certainly doesn't look any different.
47:11
Speaker 5: So based on that kind of pattern, as well as
47:14
Speaker 5: the accounting firm abandoning him and other statements by the
47:17
Speaker 5: attorney general, my guess is there's financial fraud going on
47:20
Speaker 5: at the organization. And it's only a matter of time
47:23
Speaker 5: before we know some additional details about its scope.
47:27
Speaker 1: On the January 6th lawsuit, how big of a deal
47:31
Speaker 1: is the ruling that these civil claims are allowed to
47:33
Speaker 1: go forward?
47:34
Speaker 5: It's a big deal because it allows the plaintiffs to
47:37
Speaker 5: get to the next stage in the litigation. And what
47:40
Speaker 5: happens after this initial stage, which is just saying you
47:44
Speaker 5: laid out a plausible ground for your case to proceed,
47:49
Speaker 5: is the plaintiffs are entitled to what's called discovery, where
47:52
Speaker 5: they basically... get to collect evidence from the other side. Here,
47:56
Speaker 5: the defendant being Donald Trump and other people involved in
48:00
Speaker 5: the lawsuit. So they have the chance to basically ask
48:03
Speaker 5: for any communications between Donald Trump and some of the
48:06
Speaker 5: other defendants or people who were involved in inciting the
48:10
Speaker 5: riot at the Capitol. And so they have the chance
48:13
Speaker 5: to basically collect evidence that could really tell us some
48:18
Speaker 5: more additional details about what happened on January 6th.
48:21
Speaker 2: Were you surprised at all by how explicit the ruling
48:26
Speaker 2: was and just sort of laying out what a potential,
48:29
Speaker 2: laying out the reasons for letting this go through, that
48:32
Speaker 2: it was such an explicit kind of description of what
48:37
Speaker 2: these crimes look like to this judge? On the one hand,
48:40
Speaker 2: I've seen analysts say, oh, this is just a step
48:43
Speaker 2: that allows this case to go forward. On the other hand,
48:45
Speaker 2: it was like a pretty extraordinary document, wasn't it?
48:48
Speaker 5: It was an extraordinary document, but I think the opinion
48:52
Speaker 5: itself kind of described why it was discussing all of
48:55
Speaker 5: this in such great detail. That is, it understood how
48:58
Speaker 5: significant it was to basically say, you can sue the
49:02
Speaker 5: former president for inciting a riot that was designed to
49:06
Speaker 5: basically prevent federal officials from performing their duties. I mean,
49:09
Speaker 5: the former president was sued under a law that is
49:12
Speaker 5: known as the KKK Act, a law that was passed
49:15
Speaker 5: during Reconstruction in order to prevent basically Ku Klux Klan style,
49:20
Speaker 5: mob violence that was intimidating federal officials from doing their jobs.
49:24
Speaker 5: And so the judge, in saying this lawsuit could proceed,
49:27
Speaker 5: you know, at least against the former president for some claims,
49:30
Speaker 5: basically said, like, I understand this is a big deal,
49:33
Speaker 5: but what happened on January 6th was unprecedented, and so
49:36
Speaker 5: I'm going to lay out, you know, everything that led
49:38
Speaker 5: me to this conclusion.
49:40
Speaker 1: Based on that law, how difficult do you think it
49:42
Speaker 1: will be to prove that Trump was liable for January 6th?
49:47
Speaker 5: It's difficult to know how difficult it might be because
49:50
Speaker 5: there just aren't that many cases that rely on the
49:53
Speaker 5: KKK Act and say, here's what it takes to establish
49:57
Speaker 5: a civil conspiracy. to intimidate or threaten federal officials from
50:01
Speaker 5: doing their jobs. So it's a little bit difficult to
50:04
Speaker 5: compare this set of facts to other sets of facts
50:07
Speaker 5: that have led to liability or sets of facts that
50:09
Speaker 5: have not. I think the facts that the judge laid
50:12
Speaker 5: out in the complaint are quite compelling. As Judge Mehta,
50:18
Speaker 5: who was the district judge that said this lawsuit could proceed,
50:21
Speaker 5: said in the opinion, all of the allegations and the
50:24
Speaker 5: communications between the former president and the Oath Keepers and
50:27
Speaker 5: the Proud Boys have kind of a call and response
50:31
Speaker 5: style to them where the president would say something, they
50:33
Speaker 5: would say something in response, basically indicating they were in
50:36
Speaker 5: communication and coordination with what is happening. And that is
50:40
Speaker 5: the very essence of a civil conspiracy. It's kind of
50:43
Speaker 5: rare that you would have the different defendants communicating over
50:46
Speaker 5: social media and publicly as the conspiracy is unfolding. So
50:51
Speaker 5: in some level, the evidence here is quite strong because
50:53
Speaker 5: they're doing it all out in the open.
50:55
Speaker 2: One thing that was interesting about which I think actually
50:58
Speaker 2: relates to some of these questions about whether Trump himself
51:00
Speaker 2: will face legal jeopardy. It was interesting the way the
51:05
Speaker 2: judge took at face value that these were acts of incitement,
51:10
Speaker 2: even when there was some bit of deniability, right? Even
51:12
Speaker 2: when they were a little bit oblique. Like, were you
51:13
Speaker 2: surprised by that?
51:15
Speaker 1: No.
51:16
Speaker 5: So I think Judge Mehta specifically noted in one statement
51:21
Speaker 5: that Trump made at the rally, he said something about
51:23
Speaker 5: like patriotically and peacefully going to the Capitol. And the
51:27
Speaker 5: judge basically said, look, if you read that statement or
51:31
Speaker 5: you heard that statement against a backdrop of months of
51:34
Speaker 5: stop the steal rallies, of months of the president's asking
51:39
Speaker 5: people to take back their country, asking people to fight
51:42
Speaker 5: for their country, telling them to go to the Capitol.
51:45
Speaker 5: It's clear what he meant. You know, Judge Mehta is
51:49
Speaker 5: actually a former public defender. So he has a bunch
51:52
Speaker 5: of experience in criminal cases and he knows how to read,
51:56
Speaker 5: you know, a whole set of communications between people engaged
51:59
Speaker 5: in unlawful activities. So I think he kind of cut
52:03
Speaker 5: through the BS and sought.
52:06
Speaker 1: For what it was. Last question. Trump's also facing legal
52:10
Speaker 1: trouble in Georgia, where a judge granted the Fulton County
52:13
Speaker 1: District Attorney's request for a special grand jury to investigate
52:15
Speaker 1: Trump's attempts to overturn the election in that state. What's
52:18
Speaker 1: the significance of the grand jury and what's your overall
52:22
Speaker 1: take on that case?
52:23
Speaker 5: So the grand jury is going to be investigating whether
52:26
Speaker 5: Trump's request for Secretary of State Raffensperger to find those
52:32
Speaker 5: extra 11,000 votes, you know, violated Georgia law. It's significant because,
52:37
Speaker 5: you know, it is another indication that the president has
52:40
Speaker 5: done yet something else that exposes him to potential criminal liability.
52:45
Speaker 5: But in some ways, what is more significant to me
52:48
Speaker 5: is the former president's reaction to that announcement. So after
52:52
Speaker 5: it became public that the DA was convening this grand jury,
52:57
Speaker 5: the president held a rally and he accused the prosecutors
53:01
Speaker 5: of all being racist and vicious, horrible people, and told
53:06
Speaker 5: his supporters that they should form the organization greatest protests
53:10
Speaker 5: we've ever seen, if the prosecutors do something wrong or illegal.
53:14
Speaker 5: And in some ways, he's doing the same thing that
53:17
Speaker 5: he did in the lead-up to January 6th. And he's
53:21
Speaker 5: doing it against these other prosecutors to such a point
53:25
Speaker 5: that the DA actually asked the local FBI office... to
53:29
Speaker 5: conduct a security assessment of all of the various state
53:33
Speaker 5: buildings and state officers and see whether they were at
53:36
Speaker 5: risk of violence for doing their jobs. And that to
53:40
Speaker 5: me is in some ways the most troubling thing that
53:43
Speaker 5: he's not stopping what he did that caused January 6th.
53:49
Speaker 5: And so in some ways his response to the impaneling
53:54
Speaker 5: of the grand jury is the most concerning thing to me.
53:58
Speaker 1: Leah Lippman, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone,
54:01
Speaker 1: go listen to Strict Scrutiny.
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Speaker 2: Subscribe.
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Speaker 1: It's a fantastic podcast. We're excited for you guys to
54:06
Speaker 1: be joining Cricket. We're very excited. Thanks to Leah Lippman.
54:15
Speaker 1: Thanks to Ben Rhodes for a wonderful President's Day episode.
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Speaker 2: Happy President's Day, however you celebrate.
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Speaker 1: You're listening to this on Tuesday or later now. I
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Speaker 1: hope you had a great President's Day. We recorded this
54:25
Speaker 1: on President's Day, so it's in our head.
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Speaker 2: Hope you had a nice time.
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Speaker 1: We'll talk to you on Thursday. Pod Save America is
54:33
Speaker 1: a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
54:37
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producer is
54:40
Speaker 1: Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's
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Speaker 1: mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our
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Speaker 1: sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer,
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Speaker 1: Madison Holman, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
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Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and
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Speaker 1: Amelia Montooth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
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Speaker 1: slash crookedmedia.