Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. Please welcome mash I guess
Speaker 1: and welcome to the show. I cannot stop the interview
Speaker 1: without commenting on your shirts. That is an interesting motif
Speaker 1: you have on there. This this actually is a shirt
Speaker 1: from the protests in Russia. What does what does that
Speaker 1: shirt mean? Putin must not wear a princess crown? Yes,
Speaker 1: Russians against Tis. It's Putin should not be a mark, right,
Speaker 1: we should have a liberal democracy that didn't work so long.
Speaker 1: Let's let's let's talk about that. Let's get straight into
Speaker 1: that idea. Putin should not be a monarch. Do you
Speaker 1: think in many ways Putin has managed to cement his
Speaker 1: power as in effect monarch of Russia. Absolutely. There are
Speaker 1: no elections. There are no elections for you know, congress
Speaker 1: of the Russian equivalent of a congress um, and there's
Speaker 1: there's a presidential election, but no one can get on
Speaker 1: the ballot without puts in his personal permission, and no
Speaker 1: one can campaign, which seems fair. I mean, he thinks
Speaker 1: he's the best person for the job. He genuinely does.
Speaker 1: He is someone who for a long time has felt
Speaker 1: though that his standing in the world has been diminished
Speaker 1: he's someone who has felt for a long time that
Speaker 1: Russia isn't where it should be in the world. Would
Speaker 1: you argue that that's all he wants from America and
Speaker 1: from from the EU and all of the powerful nations
Speaker 1: out there, You know, the kind of leader that he
Speaker 1: is basically an autocrat. Uh there, I don't think there's
Speaker 1: such a thing as all he wants. He very much
Speaker 1: wants to be taken seriously, very much wants to be
Speaker 1: treated as an equal partner by the United States. Um,
Speaker 1: but he will always want more. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: in the nature of that kind of leadership to want
Speaker 1: to expand. And it's also in the he needs to
Speaker 1: constantly sort of create the illusion of movement in order
Speaker 1: to be able to mobilize the population. It's interesting that
Speaker 1: you say the illusion of movements because you've written extensively
Speaker 1: about Vladimir Putin and understanding authoritarianism, looking at what it
Speaker 1: comes within, what it entails. When you look at Vladimir
Speaker 1: Putin and you look at Donald Trump, are they the
Speaker 1: same person? Are they similar or are the aspects of
Speaker 1: what they're doing that reminds one of the other. They're not. Actually,
Speaker 1: that's similar, right, Um, I mean emotionally, they're completely different.
Speaker 1: Trump is raw emotion and Putin is he prides himself
Speaker 1: of being so controlled, right and Trump crying watching a
Speaker 1: movie emotion Not exactly what I mean. But uh, you know,
Speaker 1: they come from different histories and everything about them is different.
Speaker 1: But there's certain things that I think are characteristic of
Speaker 1: autocrats that after twenty years of covering Putsin, I sort
Speaker 1: of trained my eyes to see that, right, Such like
Speaker 1: I have I have optics, well like for Trump and Puttin,
Speaker 1: one amazing similarity is the way they lie, right, Um,
Speaker 1: which most politicians who sometimes lie, will want you to
Speaker 1: come around to their point of view. They want to
Speaker 1: get you to believe something. These guys lie to as
Speaker 1: certain power. The more absurd what they say is the
Speaker 1: more power they have asserted. It's basically saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I will say whatever I want whenever I want to.
Speaker 1: I don't understand that is that? Then basically having the
Speaker 1: power to define reality? Is that what it is? I
Speaker 1: truly don't understand how they see that as a powerful thing,
Speaker 1: because you would assume everyone's looking at them, going but
Speaker 1: but you're lying. Well, it's two things. Actually, One is
Speaker 1: having a power to to define reality. Right. It's not
Speaker 1: I'm not just president of the country, I'm king of reality. Right.
Speaker 1: But there's it's also a bully tactic. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like the kid who's still in your lunch box and
Speaker 1: you're saying, you stole my lunch box, and he's holding it.
Speaker 1: He says, no, I didn't take your lunch box, right,
Speaker 1: And he has the power. That's interesting when you when
Speaker 1: you look at Putin and trans relationship. The media has
Speaker 1: been focusing on it. You you cannot escape it on
Speaker 1: the news in the u US. Um, do you feel
Speaker 1: that this is the right amount of attention that should
Speaker 1: be paid towards it or is there a different way
Speaker 1: to look at it? As someone who has been an
Speaker 1: expert at what the Russians want to what's happening with
Speaker 1: Russia American relations, how do you think it should be
Speaker 1: handled as a as a topic, as an idea. It's important, obviously,
Speaker 1: and and Russian interference in the election is important, but
Speaker 1: I would argue that actually what's out in the open
Speaker 1: is much more important than whatever an investigation has un
Speaker 1: earth for at least at this point. Right. Um. I mean,
Speaker 1: we saw Donald Trump say openly that he wants Russia
Speaker 1: to hack Hillary Clinton's email, right, And so I don't
Speaker 1: quite understand the excitement when nearly a year later, it
Speaker 1: turns out that Don Jr. Said in private and confidence
Speaker 1: the exact same thing his dad said in public for
Speaker 1: all the world to hear. But when when some people say, yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's different, he said it, but then he claimed
Speaker 1: that he was being sarcastic, whereas with Don Jr. It
Speaker 1: looked like this was an action these people were willing
Speaker 1: to conclude with the Russians. Right. But I think again,
Speaker 1: we knew that, right, and and I think it's important
Speaker 1: to react to what's out in the open. What's out
Speaker 1: in the open is Trump's admiration for Putin. What's out
Speaker 1: in the open and Trump's is Trump's explicit understanding that
Speaker 1: political power is what Putin does. Right. It's controlling a country.
Speaker 1: It's it's governing by decree. It's basically an establishing an autocracy.
Speaker 1: There are many people who say Putin and Trump company
Speaker 1: that's similar, because Putin is oppressive of the LGBTQ community
Speaker 1: in his country. But Donald Trump has said that he
Speaker 1: would be an allied to the very same community. Right,
Speaker 1: So I actually wrote a piece I usual to write
Speaker 1: a piece a year ago UM in which I argued
Speaker 1: that that if Trump became president, he would likely reverse
Speaker 1: progress in lgbt Q rights. And it was a weird
Speaker 1: thing to do because when I was writing it, I thought, logically,
Speaker 1: I know this to be true. Emotionally I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: But I was right. Even as I wrote it, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: it's impossible, you know, It's like, it seems that we
Speaker 1: have made so much progress. There's no way it can
Speaker 1: be reversed. Plus, Trump had said, you know, he had
Speaker 1: draped himself literally in the rainbow flat um. And yet
Speaker 1: it was it was the most recent social change. It
Speaker 1: was the most uh, it was the fastest social change.
Speaker 1: But I think even more than that, And I think
Speaker 1: this is where uh what his What he did a
Speaker 1: year to the day after I wrote that article, with
Speaker 1: tweeting that transgender people weren't going to be allowed to
Speaker 1: serve in the military. What he did was something that's
Speaker 1: emotionally good, that emotionally actually goes to the heart of
Speaker 1: Trump is um, which is very anti modern. It's it's
Speaker 1: this promise of return to this imaginary past that is
Speaker 1: so simple that everybody's role is assigned at birth, and
Speaker 1: you know, you're born to be a carpenter or a farmer,
Speaker 1: and and you will live in the same border for
Speaker 1: the rest of your life. And you're a born man
Speaker 1: or woman and it can never change and nothing about
Speaker 1: you can change that. I mean, it's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: an almost mystical kind of past, but it's the kind
Speaker 1: of past that that he promised us. You know, he
Speaker 1: ran on the promise of an imaginary past. And the
Speaker 1: emotionally sort of saying to Americans, look, you're not going
Speaker 1: to have to face the possibility of inventing yourself right
Speaker 1: is very important for him. So if we have to
Speaker 1: look at Putin and Trump and their relationship as it stands, um,
Speaker 1: I believe the Senate just moved the bill forward now
Speaker 1: to the president's desk sanctions on Russia. That seems like
Speaker 1: it's going to be a major point for Trump. He's
Speaker 1: going to have to openly say yes, I am completely
Speaker 1: with the United States, or I'm going to deny this.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to veto this bill and and not
Speaker 1: support the sanctions. Do we know anything about their relationship
Speaker 1: beyond what we're told in public. Is there anything that
Speaker 1: we should be looking for as someone who is familiar
Speaker 1: with the Russians and as someone who's seeing Donald Trump
Speaker 1: at the same time. Um, So again, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that we should be looking at what's out in
Speaker 1: the right. We should really, at all costs try to
Speaker 1: avoid the kind of conspiracy thinking that a leader like Trump,
Speaker 1: who's himself a conspiracy theorist produces. Right, you want to
Speaker 1: marry it and look for the hidden secret instead of
Speaker 1: just staring at the truth. That uh, that that stars
Speaker 1: you in the face. Um. But frankly, I don't think
Speaker 1: the Putin is as interested in lifting sanctions as as
Speaker 1: he claims to be. There's a particular set of sanctions that, um,
Speaker 1: that Russians are very interested in lifting. And those are
Speaker 1: the sanctions opposed by the Magniski Act, right, Um. And
Speaker 1: that's that's when they talk about adoption, they actually talk
Speaker 1: about those sanctions. Those sanctions are important because they target
Speaker 1: people personally, they target their assets personally, and they have
Speaker 1: really felt the pain. When the country at large feels
Speaker 1: the pain, that actually is not it doesn't necessarily hurt Plutin,
Speaker 1: and in a way, it's a mobilizing tool. For him
Speaker 1: because Russia has been sort of gathered around Putin, who
Speaker 1: has said that Russia's war with America has been saying
Speaker 1: that for basically the last four or five years. So
Speaker 1: scary story and ships that you're wearing makes it lights
Speaker 1: at the same time, Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your mind. If you say this way, we'll
Speaker 1: get available at the front. If you can cree on
Speaker 1: it now. Mashal Guest and everybody, What's the Daily Show?
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