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Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the podcast

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Speaker 1: where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news.

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Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. If you've been following this show for

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Speaker 1: the last couple of months, you'll know that I've covered

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Speaker 1: the coronavirus pandemic from a lot of angles. But there's

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Speaker 1: one that we haven't yet reached that I've really been

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Speaker 1: trying to puzzle over, and that is the diminishing or

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Speaker 1: even almost non existent role of international organizations. Whole countries

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Speaker 1: are making headlines for imposing and lifting social restrictions, but

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Speaker 1: the who. The World Health Organization is having its funds

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Speaker 1: cut off by President Donald Trump without international leadership. The

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Speaker 1: UN is also struggling to do its job. What's the

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Speaker 1: story behind all of this? What are these organizations supposed

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Speaker 1: to be doing? Who's filling them? Here to discuss this

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Speaker 1: with me today is not er Musa Vizade Nonnor is

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Speaker 1: an extraordinary geopolitical thinker who worked extremely closely as an

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Speaker 1: advisor for many years with Secretary General Kofi a On

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Speaker 1: of United Nations. He's held leadership positions in a wide

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Speaker 1: range of global institutions around the world, and today he's

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Speaker 1: leading a Macroadvisory Partners, a firm that provides strategies to

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Speaker 1: businesses and governments around the world. Nonna, thank you very

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Speaker 1: much for joining me. I hugely appreciate it. I wanted

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Speaker 1: to start with international organizations, and they're always an alphabet

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Speaker 1: soup of acronyms, you know, from the better known like

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Speaker 1: the UN to the WHO, the World Health Organization. Then

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Speaker 1: we've got the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank. What

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Speaker 1: are they supposed to be doing right now? We all

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Speaker 1: have the sense that they're not doing exactly what they're

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Speaker 1: supposed to do, But what are they supposed to do

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Speaker 1: in the first place? Thank you, No. I think the

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Speaker 1: first thing to think about when considering the role of

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Speaker 1: these organizations today is that they were set up, most

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Speaker 1: of the ones in your alphabet soup exactly seventy five

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Speaker 1: years ago as part of a world order that was

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Speaker 1: supposed to in the aftermath of the Second World War

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Speaker 1: establish a set of rules by which countries both would cooperate,

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Speaker 1: regulate their disputes, and where there were common interests, work together.

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Speaker 1: And that's where WHO is one example in the air

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Speaker 1: of global health. The IMF is institution. In the area

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Speaker 1: of financial stability, and that was the purpose they were

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Speaker 1: set up for. So if they're supposed to coordinate our efforts,

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Speaker 1: how would they do that? In theory? Like, how would

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Speaker 1: the WHO work on paper in a situation of global pandemic?

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Speaker 1: What are they supposed to do for us? The key

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Speaker 1: role for the WHO in a pandemic or in a

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Speaker 1: crisis of a global health nature of any kind really

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Speaker 1: is to do two things. One is to provide technical

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Speaker 1: assistance emergency advice to those countries most exposed and least

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Speaker 1: able based on the strength of their own public health systems.

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Speaker 1: And then also play a broader normative rule, what are

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Speaker 1: the ways in which the world can cooperate better? Be

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Speaker 1: a catalyst for action, for alliances and for cooperation. And

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Speaker 1: you'd really think we would need to cooperate in a

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Speaker 1: pandemic because obviously the virus doesn't know borders and it's

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Speaker 1: spreading everywhere, and yet we have this incredible patchwork of

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Speaker 1: approaches all over the world. In principle, would the WHO

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Speaker 1: give advice that countries would be bound to follow or

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Speaker 1: would it just be suggestions? Sort of the way Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump is chosen not to dictate to the States, but

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Speaker 1: it's rather allowed states to make their own determinations. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think what we see in the response

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Speaker 1: of something like the WHO. Remember again, these are inter

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Speaker 1: governmental organizations with all the bureaucracy and all the rules

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Speaker 1: around cooperation collaboration that you'd expect. But if you think

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Speaker 1: about COVID nineteen, what we have seen and but COVID

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Speaker 1: found in the international system as it arrived, particularly the

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Speaker 1: case of WHO is two key features. One is that

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Speaker 1: WHO historically has been underfunded, underresourced, and over bureaucratic, as

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Speaker 1: well as having a really quite contentious relationship with global pharma.

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Speaker 1: So that's the underlying characteristic and reputation of WHO coming

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Speaker 1: into this, even though in its leadership today and other

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Speaker 1: ways in which it's responded, I think it's been actually

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Speaker 1: surprising a lot of people. In effectiveness the other key

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Speaker 1: element here, and this is something those of us who

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Speaker 1: grew up in the UN and elsewhere continue to harp

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Speaker 1: on about, which perhaps sometimes seems like an excuse, but

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Speaker 1: it is the reality that these organizations only work if

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Speaker 1: the key actors in the world want them to work,

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Speaker 1: and want them to work as centers of collaboration. And

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Speaker 1: in this case, what we found is that the pandemic

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Speaker 1: comes to the world and finds a WHO not only underfunded,

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Speaker 1: but caught between the most important rivalry in the world today,

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Speaker 1: which is between the United States and China. And so

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Speaker 1: it's not working. What is the WHO in fact trying

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Speaker 1: to do right now that they're failing to do? Are

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Speaker 1: they just not trying because, as you say, they're caught

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Speaker 1: between China and the United States and being beaten up

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Speaker 1: to some degree by both. Well, I think what we're

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Speaker 1: seeing actually is a bit of an X ray of

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Speaker 1: the world as we find it today rather than the

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Speaker 1: world that was imagined seventy five years ago or may

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Speaker 1: have been imagined in A lot of the cooperation that

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Speaker 1: was intended around this, which is that in the vacuum

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Speaker 1: left by a WHO, which was underfunded and under mandated,

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Speaker 1: stepped in a number of global philanthropies organizations, principally the

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Speaker 1: Gates Foundation, but others as well, looking at the broader

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Speaker 1: global public health challenge and saying what can we do

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Speaker 1: as independent private sector philanthropic actors with access to capital,

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Speaker 1: reliance on science and IT bias for action and cooperation.

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Speaker 1: And so what you're seeing when you ask yourself, what

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Speaker 1: is the WHO doing today it is being asked to

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Speaker 1: play a role in some ways convening, in other ways

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Speaker 1: providing a sense of global legitimacy to these kinds of

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Speaker 1: efforts which now increasingly are catalyzed by actors which were

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Speaker 1: not imagined when these global institutions were set up. And

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Speaker 1: that is both a role that these independent private sector,

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Speaker 1: often philanthropic organizations can play because they have access to

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Speaker 1: capital and science, and also because they are not driven

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Speaker 1: by national or nationalistic agendas, much as we see so

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Speaker 1: much of the world powers operate today. This is fascinating

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Speaker 1: and I want to ask you to dive down into it.

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Speaker 1: What I hear you saying is perhaps there are no

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Speaker 1: fault of its own or just in virtue of the

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Speaker 1: way it's designed. The who hasn't been capable at this

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Speaker 1: moment of providing effective global coordination or advice that major

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Speaker 1: countries would listen to that vacuum I hear you're saying.

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Speaker 1: The words that stuck in my mind were Gates Foundation.

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Speaker 1: There are others too, but Bill Gates has gotten a

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Speaker 1: huge amount of attention, positive and negative for what he's

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Speaker 1: been trying to do. Tell us what he and the

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Speaker 1: Gates Foundation are doing in fact, so we can try

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Speaker 1: to make sense of whether the criticisms or the praise

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Speaker 1: are warranted. So I think the first thing I would

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Speaker 1: say is when the history books are written about this

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Speaker 1: a pandemic and the crisis for the world, there will

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Speaker 1: be in amazement actually at the role of one foundation

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Speaker 1: and one man. And I think the important thing to

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Speaker 1: remember is not just that Bill Gates stepped out now,

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Speaker 1: but that he had already created institutions which had for

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Speaker 1: some time been leading the world in developing vaccine, thinking

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Speaker 1: about pandemic preparedness, thinking about immunization of children in the

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Speaker 1: poorest parts of the world, and supporting something like the

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Speaker 1: Global Fund against HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which was something

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Speaker 1: that Kofiana in fact established in the early two thousands

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Speaker 1: in response to the global HIV AI's pandemic. And there

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Speaker 1: we saw actually perhaps the last time there was enough

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Speaker 1: global cooperation and frankly enough global leadership that something like

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Speaker 1: that could be stood up in the middle of a

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Speaker 1: crisis as a global response. With the Gates Foundation has

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Speaker 1: done since, both with its support for the Global Fund,

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Speaker 1: but also with entities such as GAVI and sepages to

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Speaker 1: add to your alphabet soup is to establish and fund

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Speaker 1: and convene partnerships where they are often the largest funder,

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Speaker 1: but really are there to do something really important, which

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Speaker 1: is to say, with the WH show not being able

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Speaker 1: to play its role, with governments being either too domestically

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Speaker 1: focused or too nationalistic to cooperate, here are institutions that

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Speaker 1: have the support of a key funder who is as

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Speaker 1: I said, science based bias for action, access to capital,

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Speaker 1: and can then drawin others in working together. And I

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Speaker 1: think that's the world the pandemic also found. It found

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Speaker 1: actually in these institutions that many people had really not

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Speaker 1: heard of, at least the beginnings the foundations of the

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Speaker 1: kind of global response. And that's why when the WHO

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Speaker 1: makes it announcement of a new alliance around both diagnostics,

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Speaker 1: therapeutics and vaccines, the Gates Foundation is a very principal speaker.

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Speaker 1: All of its entities had separate speaking roles. And why

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Speaker 1: is this important? Oh, it's important because it shows you

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Speaker 1: that a private sector of philosophic enterprise essentially has co

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Speaker 1: led the global response to the pandemic. Yes, with Who,

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Speaker 1: but frankly with a couple of governments. And that's been

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Speaker 1: the core of the response. What does that look like? Concretely,

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Speaker 1: there's a press conference, lots of people are speaking, as

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Speaker 1: you say, alongside the who it's a kind of kabuki theater.

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Speaker 1: As you point out, who has speaking roles tells you

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Speaker 1: where the power lies. But I still don't get what

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Speaker 1: happens on a day to day basis. You know who's

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Speaker 1: calling the shots and how are the shots being called.

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Speaker 1: I think what's been so interesting about this crisis, and

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Speaker 1: you and I have talked about many other crises over

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Speaker 1: the years, but but so interesting about this crisis is

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Speaker 1: that it really took a handful of actors and leaders,

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Speaker 1: a lot of governments obviously scrambling initially what to do,

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Speaker 1: which measures to take, what kind of public health infrastructure

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Speaker 1: they had in place. But what we actually are talking

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Speaker 1: about in the case of the response globally, because China

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Speaker 1: has been hugely focused on its own domestic response yes

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Speaker 1: on some international behaviors. The United States remains enormously focused

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Speaker 1: on its domestic challenge. So globally the response really has

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Speaker 1: been led by President Makhall of France, Chancellor mercle of Germany,

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Speaker 1: and Bill Gates. So what happened was there were a

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Speaker 1: number of ideas, and people were circulating proposals for global

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Speaker 1: cooperation and alliances between various institutions. But really what happened

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Speaker 1: in the last two weeks was that a series of

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Speaker 1: phone calls between Marcol Gates, Christina Geogeva at the IMA,

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Speaker 1: really a handful of global leaders, a global response was

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Speaker 1: designed and then executed, and then other parts of the

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Speaker 1: global system, frankly were added afterwards, which is things like

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Speaker 1: the WHO, which had less of a role in the

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Speaker 1: design and more of role now in the fronting of it.

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Speaker 1: Global pharma obviously needs to play a role. But what

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Speaker 1: was so interesting about this crisis is it really was

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Speaker 1: the personal diplomacy. The personal relationship between Maco and Marcol,

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Speaker 1: Christina Geo gave the IMF and the Gates Foundation, who

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Speaker 1: ended up being principal drivers of the global response. So

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Speaker 1: not are what you're just described is sort of astonishing

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Speaker 1: to me. You said that three people, the President of France,

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Speaker 1: the Chancellor of Germany and Bill Gates co ordinated an

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Speaker 1: international strategy on the phone with some facilitation from the

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Speaker 1: head of the IMF, and then they basically told the

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Speaker 1: WHO to appear and as you put it, front the

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Speaker 1: plan that for international coordination that they'd come up with.

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Speaker 1: How literally do you mean that? I mean literally you're

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Speaker 1: describing phone calls with Bill Gates on one side and

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Speaker 1: Emmanuel Mark call on the other, or on Glimmercal on

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Speaker 1: the other saying we think that this is the right

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Speaker 1: coordinative strategy on the basis of this plan devised by

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Speaker 1: Gates Foundation supported entities. Is that what you're describing put

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Speaker 1: it this way, There's no doubt that, of course other

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Speaker 1: governments who are involved early on the European Commission, who

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Speaker 1: in doctor Chedros has been very active daily in lots

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Speaker 1: of calls. But the question these kinds of crises is

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Speaker 1: who ends up seizing the talking stick and then holding it.

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Speaker 1: And in this case, amongst the many proposals that were

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Speaker 1: out there, the various kinds of alliances, finding the path

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Speaker 1: to have clarity to say, this is what we're going

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Speaker 1: to know on diagnostics, this is what we're going to

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Speaker 1: do on therapeutics, and this is what we're going to

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Speaker 1: do on vaccines. What kind of institutions will be the

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Speaker 1: vehicles for the focus of the global effort? And lo

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Speaker 1: and behold it is the Gates funded vehicles. Seppi gave

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Speaker 1: into a certain extent the global fund that will be

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Speaker 1: the main instruments, and having the force basically to seize

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Speaker 1: the agenda and say this is where the global consensus

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Speaker 1: will sit. That was despite dozens of leaders and dobens

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Speaker 1: of actors involved in this. At the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: it comes down to three or four people who have

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Speaker 1: enough weight to bring enough of the rest of the

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Speaker 1: And there I think what you saw being the decisive

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Speaker 1: scientists by training, with a pre existing strong relationship with

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Speaker 1: Bill Gates, and in President Macon, a leader of Europe

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Speaker 1: who always is more ambitious than both France and Europe,

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Speaker 1: and between the three of them were able to say

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Speaker 1: this is where the consensus needs to sit. Yes, we

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Speaker 1: will now make the necessary phone calls to the other lead.

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Speaker 1: But that's how this was devised. We'll be back in

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Speaker 1: just a moment. There is a form of critique of

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Speaker 1: what's happening internationally, sometimes from the left, sometimes from the right,

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Speaker 1: and they actually sound surprisingly similar at this point that says, okay,

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Speaker 1: an unelected, multi multi billionaire. Bill Gates is calling the

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Speaker 1: shots to a huge degree, is much or more than

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Speaker 1: heads of state. And he's doing this because he has

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Speaker 1: amassed all of this capital. And you say, he's in

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Speaker 1: his foundation are science based and biased for action, but

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Speaker 1: he's also aligned at a very basic level with the

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Speaker 1: international structure of capitalism. I mean, that's what he comes

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Speaker 1: out of, that's who he knows, that's his world. And

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Speaker 1: the critique is that this is not okay. And I

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Speaker 1: always sort of dismissed this by saying, oh, come on,

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Speaker 1: you know, that's not what really happening out there. And

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Speaker 1: I think I'm starting to feel like I'm a little

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Speaker 1: naive and dismissing it. I mean, it sounds like what

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Speaker 1: you're describing is actually a situation in which, in the

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Speaker 1: phase of relatively weak international organizations, a hugely successful global

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Speaker 1: capitalist is issuing strong suggestions that are then transformed into

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Speaker 1: actually being policy. I mean, am I getting that right?

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Speaker 1: That's sort of shocking to me. Look, I think you're

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Speaker 1: identifying something that's a genuine challenge and a genuine difficulty

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Speaker 1: about the world we find ourselves. And you know, for

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Speaker 1: those of us who grew up in places like the

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Speaker 1: UN and elsewhere in the international system, the challenge was

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Speaker 1: always that there was legitimacy but no efficacy, i e.

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Speaker 1: The institutions because they had every country of the world

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Speaker 1: as their members were broadly seen as global, legitimate, everyone

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Speaker 1: had to vote in the General Assembly, etc. Etc. But

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Speaker 1: the effectiveness was always lacking. And I think what we

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Speaker 1: have here is the opposite challenge, which is, yes, there

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Speaker 1: is effectiveness, there's ability to harness these various resources that

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Speaker 1: he has, but where does the legitimacy come from? And

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Speaker 1: how can he be held accountable at all? And I

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Speaker 1: think it's really important to pose that question and to

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Speaker 1: think about it now. The two things that I think

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Speaker 1: are important for context is the reason Bill Gates and

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Speaker 1: his foundations play the role they do today is because

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Speaker 1: of an absence of more effective, who more effective global

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Speaker 1: institutions in these areas, and so he has stepped in.

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Speaker 1: They have stepped in as funders, as supporters, as conveners

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Speaker 1: of institutions. That absolutely we would have been much better off,

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Speaker 1: so to speak, if you'd have global organizations with genuine

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Speaker 1: global legitimacy and sense of accountability running these But that's

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Speaker 1: not the world we're in and so he has stepped

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Speaker 1: into a vacuum. And I think one of the ways

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Speaker 1: that we can look at whether this ultimately is a legitimate,

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Speaker 1: an accountable solution to this global pandemic is whether something

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Speaker 1: really important is achieved, and that is whether both the

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Speaker 1: therapeutics and the vaccine are delivered as a global public

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Speaker 1: good ie produced at scale, at speed, and delivered on

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Speaker 1: an equity basis across the world at a cost that

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Speaker 1: everyone can afford. That's the meaning of a global public good.

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Speaker 1: And I think that will be the real test of

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Speaker 1: whether this solution not just was a bias for action,

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Speaker 1: bias for science, but actually got us the right outcome.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate the pragmatism of your answer, but I want

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Speaker 1: to push back. I think that when you're talking about

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Speaker 1: global governance, which is what we're talking about, legitimacy has

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Speaker 1: at least two parts. It has who picked you? And

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Speaker 1: it are you accountable to the people who picked you?

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Speaker 1: In this instance, nobody picked Bill Gates except in some

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Speaker 1: general sense that the capitalist system throws off a handful

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Speaker 1: of incredibly rich people who then can choose it to

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Speaker 1: use their money how they wish, and it's great if

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Speaker 1: they use it pro socially, so no one picked him,

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Speaker 1: so in that sense, his role can't be legitimate. And

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Speaker 1: the second component is is he accountable? And I don't

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Speaker 1: think there is a way to hold somebody accountable under

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Speaker 1: those circumstances. If let's say none of the vaccines work out,

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Speaker 1: or if they do work out but they end up

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Speaker 1: disproportionately being given to richer countries, nothing's going to happen

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Speaker 1: to Bill Gates, Makran or Merkel can be kicked out

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Speaker 1: of office. I mean, that's the fundamental difference between an

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Speaker 1: elected representative of the people and someone who just steps

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Speaker 1: up and says here I am. So I'm skeptical of

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Speaker 1: the idea that we can backload legitimacy by saying, well,

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Speaker 1: if it worked, it worked. I mean that is, you know,

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Speaker 1: not to put too fine a point on it. Always

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Speaker 1: one of the arguments for non democratic government while nothing

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Speaker 1: else is working. Democracy is a mess. Let's just have

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Speaker 1: one person in charge, so you know that to me

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Speaker 1: is a genuine concern. Democracy is not perfect. It has

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Speaker 1: all kinds of flaws, but it is usually thought to

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Speaker 1: be at least I think it is better than the alternatives.

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Speaker 1: And this sounds like one of the alternatives. I would

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Speaker 1: say a couple of things, because I think you are

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Speaker 1: pointing to a really important demand of this. The one

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Speaker 1: thing is to say that we should continue to be

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Speaker 1: mindful and vigilant about the lack of both legitimacy and accountability.

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Speaker 1: I think the second part of my answer, and maybe

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Speaker 1: that's where my pragmatism comes from, Noah, which perhaps isn't

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Speaker 1: as democratically guided as you would think or want, is

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Speaker 1: that this is a pragmatism that comes from having spent

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Speaker 1: almost ten years of the UN in some of its

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Speaker 1: best days in the last thirty years, and some of

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Speaker 1: its worst, and looking at what actually is the consequence

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Speaker 1: of these global institutions that may have the legitimacy that

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Speaker 1: you're asking for, have some form of accountability, but I

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Speaker 1: think you can debate that, but have been so lacking

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Speaker 1: in delivering what they actually were established to do, which

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Speaker 1: is peace and security, development, poverty eradication, public health goods.

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Speaker 1: And if it is through these kinds of alliances, which

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Speaker 1: by necessity are with individuals, institutions which have not been

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Speaker 1: democratically establ published nor are democratically lad but can marshal

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Speaker 1: both resources, science and technology to what will be determined

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Speaker 1: democratically and legitimately as the global public good that we're

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Speaker 1: going after. Then I think absent evidence to the contrary

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Speaker 1: that this is the best we can do in the

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Speaker 1: world that we're in right now, we need to think

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Speaker 1: about who has the firetruck, and, without stretching the metaphor

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Speaker 1: too much, if it's the wrong guy holding the hose

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Speaker 1: for a while, at least he's the guy who had

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Speaker 1: the firetruck able to show up on time, and in time,

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Speaker 1: hopefully we'll have other trucks around him and others can

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Speaker 1: contribute to the solution so that it is not, as

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Speaker 1: you rightly point out, leverage simply to one unelectable, unaccountable

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Speaker 1: individual and the foundation the mission that he has not.

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Speaker 1: Are you mentioned that the context for everything that we've

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Speaker 1: been discussing is a global context, with the US and

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Speaker 1: China essentially fighting each other the stage only verbally, but

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Speaker 1: it's pretty significant, and it's one of the things that's

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Speaker 1: hamstringing the international organizations, even though they were a little

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Speaker 1: bit designed for the context of the Cold War, so

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Speaker 1: in theory they ought to work better than they're working out.

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Speaker 1: But that was a long time ago, we've both been obsessed.

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Speaker 1: I think it's not too strong a term with the

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Speaker 1: US China relationship for a decade. Now, how do you

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Speaker 1: see it going at this moment? So I think it's

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Speaker 1: not an exaggeration to say that the relationship is at

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Speaker 1: a critical stage with very few vectors in favor of

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Speaker 1: slowing this further free fall. You know, the crisis between

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Speaker 1: United States and China is fundamentally of a shift in

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Speaker 1: Washington from cheating China as a competitor to treating China

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Speaker 1: as an adversary and in equally nationalistic shift in Beijing

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Speaker 1: of a very different agenda for China and its role

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Speaker 1: in its power and influence in the twenty first century.

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Speaker 1: So you take that underlying structural change, and then you

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Speaker 1: think of all the dimensions. Be at sports, be a business,

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Speaker 1: be a technology, be a capital, be at people, and yes,

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Speaker 1: a pandemic comes along, Well, is that going to be

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Speaker 1: an arena for cooperation? Of course it isn't. If your

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Speaker 1: basic disposition is anything that's a win for China is

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Speaker 1: a loss to us, than anything that who does that

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Speaker 1: is helpful in any way to China is a loss

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Speaker 1: for us. And that's how I think it's playing out.

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Speaker 1: I think we have to worry a lot about how

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Speaker 1: once the pandemic has passed its emergency stage, what are

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Speaker 1: we left with. I think we're left with even deeper

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Speaker 1: divisions over, yes, the response to the pandemic, but we're

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Speaker 1: also left with a mindset where, in a hundred different ways,

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Speaker 1: every day, decisions are being made to further separate the

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Speaker 1: two economies and societies rather than keep them cooperating. Lots

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Speaker 1: more for us to discuss here or not or I

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Speaker 1: hope you will come back another time to talk about

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Speaker 1: US China and what the world looks like now and

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Speaker 1: what it will look like in the aftermath of the pandemic.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thanks,

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Speaker 1: thank you. Speaking to an honor, I got a feeling

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Speaker 1: that I often get when I speak to him, namely

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Speaker 1: that there's a whole subworld of how power actually operates

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Speaker 1: that is opaque and invisible to even somebody who reads

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Speaker 1: the newspapers carefully like I do and tries to figure

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Speaker 1: out what's really going on. In Nater's picture, it's really

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Speaker 1: the struggle between the United States and China that's weakening

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Speaker 1: global institutions like the WHO, creating effectively an open space

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Speaker 1: where international leadership is supposed to be. And into that gap,

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Speaker 1: he says, have come private foundations, and in particular the

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Speaker 1: Gates Foundation, and in particular Bill Gates himself, looking alongside

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Speaker 1: elected heads of state to try to coordinate a global response.

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Speaker 1: Naer thinks that the proof is in the pudding, and

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Speaker 1: that the legitimacy and accountability of this weird structure depends

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Speaker 1: on whether, in fact we get a vaccine, we get

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Speaker 1: good global health response, and if that vaccine is made

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Speaker 1: broadly available to the world. In other words, if coordination happens,

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Speaker 1: we should just be glad that it's happening. From somewhere,

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Speaker 1: I can't help but think that it's difficult to create

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Speaker 1: any kind of legitimacy and impossible to create accountability when

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Speaker 1: a central person to these global efforts is an unelected billionaire.

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Speaker 1: Certainly we have to be pragmatic about the world in

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Speaker 1: which we live, but at the same time can also

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Speaker 1: identify the structural problems that seem to be making the

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Speaker 1: world function less well than it is designed to do.

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Speaker 1: Now that we're onto the question of what international organizations

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Speaker 1: can and cannot do in this global pandemic. We will

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Speaker 1: continue to keep our eye on the story and we

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Speaker 1: will come back to you as there are more developments

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Speaker 1: in it. Until I speak to you next time, Be careful,

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Speaker 1: be safe, and be well. Deep Background is brought to

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Speaker 1: you by Pushkin Industries. Our producer is Lydia Jane Cott,

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Speaker 1: with research help from zoo Win. Mastering is by Jason

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Speaker 1: Gambrell and Martin Gonzalez. Our showrunner is Sophie mckibbon. Our

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Speaker 1: theme music is composed by Luis GERA special thanks to

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Speaker 1: the Pushkin Brass, Malcolm Gladwell, Jacob Weissberg, and Mia Lobel.

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Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. I also write a regular column for

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Opinion, which you can find at Bloomberg dot com

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Speaker 1: slash Feldman. To discover Bloomberg's original slate of podcasts, go

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Speaker 1: to Bloomberg dot com slash Podcasts. You can follow me

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Speaker 1: on Twitter at Noah R. Feldman. This is Deep Background.