Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Carry Lake beat Ronda Santis in
Speaker 1: a sepack straw Paul to beat Trump's running mate in
Speaker 1: whatever that means. We have a fascinating show for you today.
Speaker 1: Congressman Jim Hines explains to us why Washington, DC should
Speaker 1: make laws for itself. Then we have USA AIDS Samantha
Speaker 1: Power talking to us about the war in Ukraine as
Speaker 1: it enters year two, and a post earthquake Turkey. But
Speaker 1: first we have the Guardians Political Investigations reporter Hugo Law.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Hugo Law, Hi, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me so sepack discuss he was the Trump Show
Speaker 1: for real. I think the first few days when Trump
Speaker 1: wasn't there, it was really low key and the biggest
Speaker 1: draw was Steve Bannon and the last day was Trump.
Speaker 1: And when Trump was there, it was just Trump. I
Speaker 1: wasn't at the seatback, which you know, because what I
Speaker 1: noticed was that it seemed more sparsely attended than usual.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's right? Yeah? Look, I think the
Speaker 1: first few days when Trump wasn't there, It was very
Speaker 1: sparsely attended, even for some of the keynote speeches. For
Speaker 1: people who you think might draw big crowds in MAGA world,
Speaker 1: people like Matt Gates, people like Lie Stefanik, Nikki Haiti
Speaker 1: might compare. The auditorium was maybe at best forty percent ful.
Speaker 1: And I was watching Steve Bannon do his show live
Speaker 1: just outside the conference center. There were people in the
Speaker 1: crowd talking to themselves being like, oh, you know Matt
Speaker 1: Gates on now, do you want to go see Matt Gates?
Speaker 1: And they'll be like, now, what would want to go
Speaker 1: see Matt Gates? The real show is here? And so
Speaker 1: I think that kind of encapsulates how, you know, even
Speaker 1: the MAGA members of Congress to the Ultramaga you know,
Speaker 1: Trump supporters, to them, it's not really as interesting as
Speaker 1: someone like Steve Bannon, who they see as the real
Speaker 1: kind of maga og celebrity. You're blowing my brain here
Speaker 1: for a minute. You're saying that ce Bannon is more
Speaker 1: central to MAGA world now than Macates. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: the two chants that you heard the most during sepack
Speaker 1: was Trump, Trump, Trump, or let's take down the CCP
Speaker 1: and let's take down the CCP is the kind of
Speaker 1: jingle slash music that Bannon plays in the intro and
Speaker 1: outro to his show. I think he really is. You know,
Speaker 1: he has taken the MAGA brand further right than even
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen and through the administration. And I think
Speaker 1: the member of Congress, you know, they were talking about
Speaker 1: like policy and how like Biden was bad, and you know,
Speaker 1: the sepackack crowd, I think, you know, gives appreciation for that,
Speaker 1: and you would hear like the smattering of applause. But
Speaker 1: what they really were therefore was Trump and anything beyond that.
Speaker 1: If it wasn't Bannon a bit of a sideshow, what
Speaker 1: about Don Junior? I mean what I've read was that
Speaker 1: Don Junior and Kimberly go Foil and Marjorie Taylor Green
Speaker 1: who is a huge small dollar raiser, that all three
Speaker 1: of them could barely put together crowds. Yeah, their speeches,
Speaker 1: you know, they're roughly around twenty minutes thirty minutes long,
Speaker 1: and they could not fill the auditorium. The only person
Speaker 1: outside Trump who was able to fill the auditorium really
Speaker 1: was banned. And he probably got to want to say
Speaker 1: about sixty and I think it's just the reflection of
Speaker 1: it's Trump or nothing. I don't know how else to
Speaker 1: describe it. It's like it's become more trumpy than any
Speaker 1: other seapack before. And I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: a reaction to kind of his ultra loyal supporters being like,
Speaker 1: you know, we have to show that we're still behind
Speaker 1: Trump and you know, all this discussion about DeSantis is
Speaker 1: garbage and we need to we need to, you know,
Speaker 1: show our enthusiasm more. Or if it is just that
Speaker 1: this particular crowd that came to this particular seepack was
Speaker 1: particularly trumping. But either way, you know, none of the
Speaker 1: other members of Congress, as as Trump allied as they were,
Speaker 1: were able to generate the sort of enthusiasm and crowds
Speaker 1: that you might otherwise expect. It was really notable. It's
Speaker 1: so interesting to me because, I mean, how much of
Speaker 1: this do you think is because of the allegation surrounding
Speaker 1: match Lab, the herschel Walker staffer who is suing match
Speaker 1: Lab for eight point seven million dollars And how much
Speaker 1: of this do you think is just because Mago world
Speaker 1: is split or Trump World is split. I think it's
Speaker 1: a bit of both. I think initially, you know, in
Speaker 1: the first few days when it really was empty, because
Speaker 1: it really was empty like it was, it was surprising
Speaker 1: the extent to which people were not there. And I
Speaker 1: think originally people are like, oh, you know, this is
Speaker 1: really because match Lab and you know, people don't want
Speaker 1: to be associated seapack, especially the vendors and you know,
Speaker 1: even the far right kind of media outlets, you don't
Speaker 1: want to be associated with Seapack Box was not there
Speaker 1: this year. The headline media sponsor was Newsmax kind of
Speaker 1: sad and RAV and RSPN What's Rav, Real America's Voice
Speaker 1: which host Bannon Show, and then RSPN Right Side Broadcasting News, Yes,
Speaker 1: which I've watched before commiserations Yeah exactly, makes Fox look
Speaker 1: like yeah, look like the BBC. No, that's basically right.
Speaker 1: And I think by the time that Trump got to
Speaker 1: the stage, though, I think it had filled out. And
Speaker 1: I wonder if you know, people clearly came for Trump
Speaker 1: on that final day on Saturday as well, so maybe
Speaker 1: they put their reservations about match Lap aside and they
Speaker 1: were like, we want to see Trump speak, or it
Speaker 1: was not exactly clear. Is the is the answer for now?
Speaker 1: Even among the attendees, there was an acknowledgment that yes,
Speaker 1: you know, the allegations around match Lap are kind of
Speaker 1: not great, and you know, we don't want to be
Speaker 1: associated with that. So I listened to that speech and
Speaker 1: I thought it seemed pretty bad. But it seems like people,
Speaker 1: some people who are like more even Trump versed than me,
Speaker 1: were even more horrified like that. Some of the lines
Speaker 1: he said were like the furthest he's ever gone. Do
Speaker 1: you think that's true? And do you agree with that, Adam?
Speaker 1: What do you think? So? I have three takeaways from
Speaker 1: the speech. The first was it was really energetic at
Speaker 1: the start. You know, when he was talking about the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice and how DJ is coming after him
Speaker 1: and how Jack Smith is an animal. You know, that
Speaker 1: really fired him up. You could see that person and
Speaker 1: he kind of animated him in a way that the
Speaker 1: policy stuff he was talking about really didn't as much
Speaker 1: as he liked. Right. But you know, but like you know,
Speaker 1: this is kind of emblematic of kind of what gets
Speaker 1: him going and what really puts kind of fire and
Speaker 1: in his campaign. And it makes sense because remember in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, they decided not to have a platform, right
Speaker 1: and you know, when he's talking about the policy and like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to have you know, a baby boom,
Speaker 1: and you know I want to you know, I want
Speaker 1: to send MS that team back to All of the
Speaker 1: policy points to me were things he'd said before, you know,
Speaker 1: things like ending the Department of Education. You know, he
Speaker 1: has said all of this before. Baby boom. I have
Speaker 1: never heard him talk about a baby boom. That's straight
Speaker 1: out of Turkey. I mean, that's real authoritarian stuff right there,
Speaker 1: right that's ethno nationalism. I mean that I do think
Speaker 1: is now no fair enough. But I think if you
Speaker 1: if you take those speech as a whole, a lot
Speaker 1: of the content, you know, he had said elsewhere, whether
Speaker 1: it wasn't the gaggle that he did previously or kind
Speaker 1: of previous appearances or previous speeches, the content as a
Speaker 1: whole was not new. The thing that really animated him
Speaker 1: was the DOJ stuff. And when he was complaining about
Speaker 1: personal grievances, not only did that animate him, but because
Speaker 1: he was so energized by that, it also energize the crowd.
Speaker 1: And I think if you speak, you know, I spoke
Speaker 1: to his advisors yesterday night and this morning. They were like,
Speaker 1: you know that clearly resonated, and that's the kind of
Speaker 1: thing we're actually going to message going forward because it
Speaker 1: does boost both his supporters as well as him himself.
Speaker 1: So you didn't see authoritarian leaning there, or you just
Speaker 1: saw the standard trumpy authoritarianism. I thought it was the
Speaker 1: standard Trump authoritarism. I mean, not to discount the fact
Speaker 1: that I think they were you know, authoritarian on the
Speaker 1: turns throughout the speech, right, But this is not particularly
Speaker 1: new for Trump, and I kind of expect this from
Speaker 1: Trump now. You know, if he didn't have authoritarian on
Speaker 1: the tones, I'd be like whoa, you know, yeah, I
Speaker 1: would going on right, and this is this is a
Speaker 1: dangerous territory. Something's wrong. So you think there's sort of
Speaker 1: I am your retribution. There'll be more of that going forward. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean, look, you you speak to the campaign
Speaker 1: that like this is what worked in twenty sixteen. We
Speaker 1: talk so much about how you know, he is not
Speaker 1: the same person as he was in twenty sixteen. The
Speaker 1: country is not in the same place as the twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen having been a president who now comes with that baggage,
Speaker 1: so he can't be the underdog that he was. You know,
Speaker 1: two cycles ago, but he wants to play that playbook
Speaker 1: and he's going to do it regardless of whatever anyone
Speaker 1: tells him. And that was on display. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: it was a very bleak speech. It was how Biden's
Speaker 1: America was supposedly destroying the country. How you know you
Speaker 1: couldn't you didn't have any money to buy groceries or like,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone's incomes have been set back. And you
Speaker 1: know MS. He was back about MS thirteen. I mean,
Speaker 1: we hadn't had that for a while. Like, he's back
Speaker 1: about MS thirteen and it was really dark and then
Speaker 1: he kind of portrays himself. But I'm your savior. He
Speaker 1: does always have really dark speech. I mean remember his
Speaker 1: his inauguration speech, right, but it was right out of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: w was like this was that was some weird shit.
Speaker 1: It was straight out of the inauguration speech. You know,
Speaker 1: Ross Worthington had a role in writing the speech, but
Speaker 1: so did you know Stephen Miller, and so did Jason
Speaker 1: who you know, these two guys who are back on
Speaker 1: the campaign pretty much. So I think more of that
Speaker 1: to come, and more attacks on the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: because he has chilly found that that is a message
Speaker 1: that lands with the base, and he's been struggling to
Speaker 1: find that a little bit, and I think he actually
Speaker 1: found that over seatback. Let's just game this out for
Speaker 1: a minute. Trump continues doing this. I mean, he won
Speaker 1: the straw poll Fox News and the donors all want
Speaker 1: to Santis right, so they have their guy. So you
Speaker 1: think that it doesn't matter and Trump will just keep running. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think if you, I mean, from the campaign's perspective,
Speaker 1: they look at feedback and they think of it as
Speaker 1: a reset, right. They see this, as you know, seed
Speaker 1: pack is a good representation of the right wing aliment,
Speaker 1: of the Republican base right, and they're like, well, what
Speaker 1: do the base want? The base want to Trump? Nicki
Speaker 1: Haley gave a speech and while Nikki Hardy was taking
Speaker 1: photos with her supporters, all the other attendees, you know,
Speaker 1: came around and circled home or shot Trump Trump Trump,
Speaker 1: and Nikki Hady couldn't get a path right, Like this
Speaker 1: was a repudiation of the anti Trump sentiment. And the
Speaker 1: campaign looked at that and thought, you know, this is
Speaker 1: exactly the kind of thing we need more of. And
Speaker 1: seepack reaffirms our belief that the base actually wants Trump.
Speaker 1: And even if you know the Washington kind of lobbyists
Speaker 1: and the establishment as they like to see it, think
Speaker 1: they want the santis the campaigns like what doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: because what does the base want? The base wants Trump? Right?
Speaker 1: What other things were stand out for you that you saw?
Speaker 1: And then I'll tell you what I found horrifying. I
Speaker 1: keep connect to Bannon because you know, Bannon has not
Speaker 1: been really a topic of discussion at all since January
Speaker 1: sixth week his comments about how it's gonna be a
Speaker 1: wild day, right, it was very interesting to see how
Speaker 1: the base was kind of in tune with Bannon. They
Speaker 1: loved his speech. I mean, short of Trump, the next
Speaker 1: most frenzied speech where the crowd really went wild was
Speaker 1: for Bannon, and he did fill out return. Are you
Speaker 1: surprised that Don Junior has sort of I mean, he
Speaker 1: used to be so beloved by that crowd and now
Speaker 1: they just don't really seem to care. No, they didn't
Speaker 1: seem to care. Yeah, it was a shift. Isn't that
Speaker 1: strange to you? I don't know if it's if it's
Speaker 1: so strange, I think it's been a shift, I think,
Speaker 1: but it's I think it's a wider shift, and they'll
Speaker 1: you know, I keep coming back to the same point.
Speaker 1: I don't want to labor it. But the real takeaway
Speaker 1: from this weekend was the base kind of fell back
Speaker 1: in line behind Trump and they were like, look, you
Speaker 1: know they're all these other maga you know, personalities, whether
Speaker 1: it's mtg or Matt Gates or Bowbird or even Don Junior.
Speaker 1: But the sense I got was they saw their president
Speaker 1: under siege and they came out to support him, and
Speaker 1: that was the mentality. So if that is true, then
Speaker 1: indictments will only help him. Yeah. And you know he
Speaker 1: said in the in the in the gaggle with reporters
Speaker 1: before he did a speech, you know, he was asked
Speaker 1: by newsmaxes James Risen, you know, would you continue to
Speaker 1: run if you're indicted? And Trump very quickly said yes.
Speaker 1: And even though he didn't appreciate the question, you know,
Speaker 1: he was very confident in saying that. And you know,
Speaker 1: we had always expected that, right. It was it was
Speaker 1: not like Trump is going to be like, oh, you
Speaker 1: inded to me, You got me, that's right. You know,
Speaker 1: the campaign was just a ruse. I'm going to stop running,
Speaker 1: right He clearly saw the reception that he got, and
Speaker 1: especially when he was mentioning Jack Smith and the criminal
Speaker 1: investigations into the multiple criminal investigations into him, and how
Speaker 1: the crowd came to his defense, and he knows that
Speaker 1: if he is indicted, it will only like increase his
Speaker 1: support amongst the base, and it would probably lead to
Speaker 1: to I think other candidates being unable to match the
Speaker 1: kind of frenzy that come with the surface of trumping,
Speaker 1: Like I'm an indicted presidential candidate and Democrats are just
Speaker 1: trying to take me down. I think that's probably true.
Speaker 1: Now here's my question for you. Then explain this to me.
Speaker 1: So the base came out for Trump, but I mean,
Speaker 1: like this was only the fourth media event he's done
Speaker 1: since he declared. Right, you won't think the sort of
Speaker 1: poor showing at Sepack is proof, and again I don't either,
Speaker 1: But I want to know what you think is proof
Speaker 1: that trump Ism is on its way out. I don't
Speaker 1: think Trumpism is on its way out at all. I
Speaker 1: think going into Sepack, there was a lot of doubt
Speaker 1: as to whether Trump was on his way out. Now
Speaker 1: coming out of it. On the other endment, looking back
Speaker 1: into trump speech, I think the base is more behind
Speaker 1: Trump than they ever have been in the last few
Speaker 1: months since he's announced as candidacy. As for trump Ism,
Speaker 1: it's never really been about the policies, really, you know,
Speaker 1: it's been it has been about the characters and about
Speaker 1: Trump in particular. And so if Trump is not down,
Speaker 1: then I don't see Trumpism as being down because you can't.
Speaker 1: To me, at least, you can't really have one without
Speaker 1: the other. Otherwise you just get, you know, right wing authoritarianism.
Speaker 1: That's kind of how I see the Santis right. Do
Speaker 1: you think it was a mistake of DeSantis not to
Speaker 1: go at all? If you think about like what Trump
Speaker 1: would have done in that situation, he would have gone.
Speaker 1: It's a really interesting question. And I thought about this
Speaker 1: a lot over the weekend, and I think ultimately what
Speaker 1: DeSantis did was probably quite strategic. It was a very
Speaker 1: maga lineup. It was very trumpy if you think about
Speaker 1: the speakers who were there. You know, Tom Finton was
Speaker 1: there for instance, right, They were all real, really big
Speaker 1: kind of Trump supporters, and given how the crowd turned out,
Speaker 1: it was a very trumpy crowd. And I think if
Speaker 1: DeSantis had gone, not only he would he have lost
Speaker 1: the straw poll, but he would have suffered the ignomy
Speaker 1: of losing a straw poll and also being there and
Speaker 1: maybe also booed, and so you know, if you're not there,
Speaker 1: you're like, God, well, yeah, I wasn't there, So who
Speaker 1: cares if I lost the straw pole, as unscientific as
Speaker 1: it is. And so I think it was probably a
Speaker 1: pretty well calculated decision for him not to have gone.
Speaker 1: Don't you think that's the problem with all of these candidates,
Speaker 1: is like you can pretend to ignore Trump is hum
Speaker 1: or Trump, You could pretend to ignore Trump, but ultimately
Speaker 1: you need that bass if you want to win the nomination. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then that's what Trump is counting on. And I
Speaker 1: think that's why Trump came out of that speech and
Speaker 1: his advisors came out of that speech, you know, really
Speaker 1: void by the reception that he got. Because everyone knows this,
Speaker 1: including Haley and Pompeo and the Santis. They do need,
Speaker 1: you know, at least part of that bass because now
Speaker 1: you can win the nomination without it. It's like there
Speaker 1: is an underlying you know thirty percent right, that is
Speaker 1: very you know, Trump focused and Trump heavy. I just
Speaker 1: didn't think it made any difference if the Santis had
Speaker 1: done something else or gone and like she was always
Speaker 1: going to lose that straw pole he was. He's always
Speaker 1: not going to be the same as Trump. But it
Speaker 1: does seem like these candidates are sort of ignoring Trump
Speaker 1: or trying to run parallel to him. And again, I'm
Speaker 1: no fan of just Santis. I'm more just talking about
Speaker 1: the math here. The only way you possibly defeat someone
Speaker 1: like Trump is by running against him and not around him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're gonna go for the king, you know,
Speaker 1: you got to you gotta knock him over, right, Like
Speaker 1: there's no point just kind of hurting him. You really
Speaker 1: have to kind of take him out. And it's not
Speaker 1: clear that any other candidate to Santis or otherwise has
Speaker 1: figured out what that potent knockout blow is going to be.
Speaker 1: It certainly hasn't been evident. Based on what Haley was
Speaker 1: saying in her speech, she had some interesting points. You know,
Speaker 1: she talked about barn policy and how you know when
Speaker 1: she was you an ambassador, you know, she started taking
Speaker 1: away you know, eight countries that you know, we're quote
Speaker 1: unquote kind of harming the United States, and that got
Speaker 1: a good reception. But you know, anytime she made any
Speaker 1: sort of implicit to Trump, you know, the crowd was
Speaker 1: not having it. And I think all of these candidates
Speaker 1: have this problem. I'll trying to figure out how do
Speaker 1: they take out Trump in one fell suit that actually
Speaker 1: really does take him out? And I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: there is an outflet to that. Hugo Lowe, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I hope you will come back. Congressman Jim
Speaker 1: Hines represents Connecticut's fourth district. Welcome to Fast Politics. Representative
Speaker 1: Jim Mines, thanks for having me, Molly. First, let's talk
Speaker 1: about I feel like it's the breaking news that wasn't
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal, lablak piece. Sure, let's talk about that.
Speaker 1: Let's talk briefly, Please briefly about balloons, if you want
Speaker 1: to talk about it. So I've spent the last three
Speaker 1: weeks talking about balloons, and then something tells me you
Speaker 1: might want to talk a little politics, which I'm happy
Speaker 1: to do as well. Perfect, But yeah, sure, let's start
Speaker 1: with the lab leap. I'll tell you that that's a
Speaker 1: story where there is a lot less than meets the eye, right,
Speaker 1: And let me tell you this, it's pretty hard to
Speaker 1: figure out the source of a pandemic with great precision,
Speaker 1: when you have all the facts, when you can actually
Speaker 1: interview people and you know, take soil samples and whatever
Speaker 1: it is that you know people at the CDC do.
Speaker 1: We're of course struggling with the fact that we're being
Speaker 1: obfiscated from doing that by the Chinese government. And so
Speaker 1: I say all that just to say, look, there's probably
Speaker 1: always going to be some uncertainty here. So anybody who
Speaker 1: says they know exactly what happened, they are not telling
Speaker 1: you the truth what has happened. And the reason this
Speaker 1: is in the press right now is that one of
Speaker 1: seventeen elements of the intelligence community, specifically the Department of Energy,
Speaker 1: moved away from thinking it was a lab leak to
Speaker 1: thinking that it might have been a lab leak. And
Speaker 1: by the way, they think it might have been a
Speaker 1: lab leak with a low degree of confidence. So that's
Speaker 1: why I tell you that this is really a story
Speaker 1: where there's a lot less than meets the eye. Dissatisfyingly,
Speaker 1: we may never actually know the answer. And like everything
Speaker 1: else that's been politicized, like you know, the Biden administration
Speaker 1: is hiding things, and why aren't they being tougher on China.
Speaker 1: But really it's a story where it's just a lot
Speaker 1: less than meets the eye. In my mind, the interesting
Speaker 1: thing about the lab leak versus the wet market theory
Speaker 1: is that isn't the answer, like, yes, yes, make wet
Speaker 1: markets more secure and prevent this kind of thing from
Speaker 1: happening again. And also, yes, make labs more secure and
Speaker 1: prevent this kind of thing. Like I don't understand how
Speaker 1: this changes the calculus of anything. Well, exactly exactly. I
Speaker 1: was actually just talking to somebody about this yesterday. Here's
Speaker 1: where I sit up and say, holy smokes. I sit
Speaker 1: up and say, holy smokes. If you can say that
Speaker 1: this is a virus that was created by somebody, we're
Speaker 1: altered with a specific aim of killing lots of people. Now,
Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of reasons why that's a very
Speaker 1: bad idea, not least of which is you can't control
Speaker 1: who a virus kills. But that's when I sit up
Speaker 1: and say, holy smokes. You know, the truth is that
Speaker 1: lab leaks happen all the time. Is it possible that
Speaker 1: this was a ladleak? Absolutely? Would we change our approach
Speaker 1: to the Chinese other than to say Hey, you guys
Speaker 1: probably should be a little stricter around your labs. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess we could get a lot of political hey
Speaker 1: about saying look how bad they are, But yeah, fundamentally
Speaker 1: this doesn't radically change regardless of what the final determination
Speaker 1: may or may not be. And look, by the way,
Speaker 1: you could even have a you know, a case in between.
Speaker 1: What if you had a virus that the Wuhan Center
Speaker 1: for Coronavirus whatever it's called, found in the wild, brought
Speaker 1: into the lab and then at LEAs who knows, and sadly,
Speaker 1: because of the obfuscation of the Chinese government, we may
Speaker 1: never know for sure. I mean, there's sort of gotcha
Speaker 1: here from the right, is that somehow that somehow the
Speaker 1: media was trying to mislead them, And there's like a
Speaker 1: lot of supposition between low confidence of a lab of
Speaker 1: an accidental lab leak to this was part you know,
Speaker 1: like there you can sort of see the wheels turning.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've watched a lot of conservative television lately,
Speaker 1: including Seapack, so I know that the move after that
Speaker 1: is this was Anthony Fauci's lie. Right, So this story
Speaker 1: is getting a lot of airtime because it wins both
Speaker 1: the Platinum and the Goal medal of right wing anger Right.
Speaker 1: The Platinum award goes to the ability to paint the
Speaker 1: Chinese as ineluctably evil. They were irresponsible, They've covered it up.
Speaker 1: That's just right wing oscar territory. The other thing it
Speaker 1: allows them to do, and here's the Gold medal and
Speaker 1: the right wing media sweep Stakes, is to criticize the
Speaker 1: US government even though there's no evidence whatsoever that the
Speaker 1: US government should be criticized. You know, they can just say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, two years ago, this bureaucrat said that, and
Speaker 1: now they're saying, you know, now the Department of Energy
Speaker 1: is saying something different. And in some ways that's what
Speaker 1: makes me most nervous, because I hear this twenty four seven,
Speaker 1: which is ever since Donald Trump decided that because federal
Speaker 1: bureaucrats are in the business they're not always successful in this,
Speaker 1: but because they're in the business of trying to use
Speaker 1: evidence based methods to keep our food supply safe, to
Speaker 1: keep our society a rule of law society. Truth is
Speaker 1: a toxin to that way of thinking, and therefore this
Speaker 1: whole deep state theory grows up. And anytime they have
Speaker 1: an opportunity, even if there's not a shred of evidence
Speaker 1: to make the claim that the government is hiding something
Speaker 1: or incompetent, or Fauci is in league with George Soros.
Speaker 1: That's just you know, catint for them. Yes, and so
Speaker 1: speaking of China, the whole idea here is the idea
Speaker 1: on the conservative side that somehow democrats like China better
Speaker 1: than Russia. As we both know, Republicans have done a
Speaker 1: lot of bonding with Russia, they like it, and various
Speaker 1: autocrats and now we're in this involved in this Ukraine.
Speaker 1: So there are certainly a lot of the sort of
Speaker 1: far right fringe that loves Russia, and they sort of
Speaker 1: they sort of are trying to imply the Democrats like China.
Speaker 1: That's going to move us to our next question about
Speaker 1: the balloons. I'm sorry, I apologize in advance for the balloons.
Speaker 1: The idea here Conservatives were furious at the balloon that
Speaker 1: Biden had not shot down the balloons sooner, even though
Speaker 1: it does seem that he was advised not to shoot
Speaker 1: down the balloon sooner. Just quickly, let's do the balloons
Speaker 1: for five minutes. Also, isn't it interesting that nobody the
Speaker 1: balloons have completely disappeared now from the consciousness. Let's talk balloons.
Speaker 1: But let's spend forty five seconds on what you just say,
Speaker 1: because it's really important. I think you're right. I do
Speaker 1: think that in some right wing circles there is this
Speaker 1: notion that, you know, the Democrats somehow like China better
Speaker 1: than they like Russia. And look, this goes back to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, right, who you know, loved Vladimir Putin, right,
Speaker 1: stood there with Vladimir Putin and said, I don't believe
Speaker 1: my own intelligence community. I believe you standing there in Rakjevic, right.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's all sorts of background reasons why
Speaker 1: the right wing likes Russia. Right. You know, Vladimir Putin
Speaker 1: is blue brutal on the LGBT population. You know, if
Speaker 1: you're Donald Trump and you you have the power to
Speaker 1: make your security services hurl your opponents from seven story windows,
Speaker 1: as seems to happen an awful lot in Russia. If
Speaker 1: you're Donald Trump sitting in marlagoh man, you wish you
Speaker 1: could do that, right, But I mean, my god, look
Speaker 1: at the history here, right. You know who the opening
Speaker 1: to China. It was Richard Nixon, Republican president who did
Speaker 1: the sort of opening to Gorbachev, you know, it was
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, you know. So my point is that the
Speaker 1: notion that we like one country more than the other,
Speaker 1: it's just sort of an absurd notion that reflects their
Speaker 1: own Trumpian views of the world. But onto balloons, great,
Speaker 1: onto balloons, yes, more importantly, onto balloons, well, equally important
Speaker 1: because the other thing I think that's really important that
Speaker 1: we talk about is this idea we really are in
Speaker 1: a situation as a country where we want neither war
Speaker 1: with Russia nor China. Yeah, that's right, and for good reason, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, these are nuclear armed powers, right, we want
Speaker 1: to go to great links to avoid war. But again
Speaker 1: we need we need to just have the very basic
Speaker 1: smarts here. Right. Russia is a country that does not
Speaker 1: matter to us a lot economically. Right. It's very uncomfortable
Speaker 1: when they stop sending their oil to Germany. Right, but
Speaker 1: it's very tiny. It's economy is smaller than California, exactly,
Speaker 1: well smaller than California. So and by the way, they
Speaker 1: are I think of them as almost sort of vandals, right,
Speaker 1: you know, they just sort of go they just do
Speaker 1: things in the world to destabilize democracies and stuff the Chinese. Look,
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of reasons to be angry at the Chinese.
Speaker 1: Their human rights record, the way they treat the Muslims
Speaker 1: in their western provinces, the way they steal our I mean,
Speaker 1: I could go on all day. There's all kinds of
Speaker 1: reasons to be angry at the Chinese as well, not
Speaker 1: least of which is they're perhaps interest invading Taiwan. But
Speaker 1: they're different, right, They own a trillion dollars of United
Speaker 1: States Treasury bonds. Right, that's a problem. There's something like
Speaker 1: six or seven hundred billion dollars. They're one of our
Speaker 1: largest trading partners. So you just need to think about
Speaker 1: them a little bit differently, right, Exactly, it's not the same.
Speaker 1: The two things are not comparable. But just the balloons quickly,
Speaker 1: I mean, these are like eleven miles up, these balloons, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The idea here on the conservative side was that somehow
Speaker 1: these balloons going over Montana, we're spying in a way.
Speaker 1: The Chinese satellites were not discussed. There's reasons why you
Speaker 1: might want balloons. Why a fancy satellite can cost you
Speaker 1: a billion dollars, right, A balloon costs you almost nothing.
Speaker 1: So you know, if you have a strategy that says
Speaker 1: we're going to float balloons over Taiwan to see what's
Speaker 1: going on, that balloon's gonna get shot down in one day.
Speaker 1: But you know what, it doesn't cost us much. There's
Speaker 1: reasons right. Satellite is also move pretty fast. Balloons moved
Speaker 1: pretty slow, so if you really want to get a
Speaker 1: good look at something, so there's a logic why you
Speaker 1: might want to have a balloon. The first balloon was
Speaker 1: absolutely a Chinese five balloon. Everybody's angry, or at least
Speaker 1: the Republicans are angry at Biden for not shooting it down,
Speaker 1: to which I would say two things. As we watched
Speaker 1: that balloon drift over the United States, Boy did we
Speaker 1: learn a lot about that balloon that we wouldn't have
Speaker 1: learned if we'd blown it out of the sky over
Speaker 1: the Pacific. Number two, they say, oh, but lots of
Speaker 1: secret Scott exposed folks under the Open Skies Treaty. You
Speaker 1: can look it up on Wikipedia. Under the Open Skies Treaty,
Speaker 1: Russian military aircraft overfly our missile fields with some regularity,
Speaker 1: and by the way, we do that with them too,
Speaker 1: and the idea is that we get a look at
Speaker 1: what they're doing to make sure they're abiding by their agreements.
Speaker 1: So it turns out we're really really good when we
Speaker 1: know that a Russian aircraft is coming, or in particular
Speaker 1: Russian aircraft or a Chinese balloon, we're really good at
Speaker 1: closing the doors and hiding the stuff that we don't
Speaker 1: want to see. So I don't think a lot of
Speaker 1: good stuff was lost to that balloon, and we got
Speaker 1: a chance to get a really good look at how
Speaker 1: it behaves, what it's made of, what its attributes are.
Speaker 1: So I think the President did the right thing. His
Speaker 1: military commanders advised him not to shoot it down because
Speaker 1: of the risk of people on the ground. And again
Speaker 1: back to the Republicans, if the President has shot it
Speaker 1: down over Montana, they would be blowing him up for
Speaker 1: ignoring the advice of his military commander. So exactly, so,
Speaker 1: I want to know, we were talking about the Chinese balloons,
Speaker 1: talking about China, talking about how do you work in
Speaker 1: the new McCarthy Congress. Let's go well, so in my
Speaker 1: own little world of the Intelligence Committee, we're working pretty well.
Speaker 1: My Republican chairman, Mike Turner is a serious national security guy.
Speaker 1: I see him making a real effort to be bipartisan.
Speaker 1: He did not like the way the Intelligence Committee was
Speaker 1: in the last couple of years when it so politicized.
Speaker 1: So he's making a good effort. Bigger picture, Republicans aren't
Speaker 1: going to really pass anything. Certainly are not going to
Speaker 1: pass anything that became law. And I want you and
Speaker 1: everybody else to look at what they're doing and think
Speaker 1: what we did two years, right, we control the place.
Speaker 1: Two years we capped drug prices insulin thirty five dollars.
Speaker 1: We made the biggest investment in our infrastructure since the
Speaker 1: Eisenhower era. We made the biggest investment in addressing climate
Speaker 1: change ever. You know, we did a bipartisan gun safety think.
Speaker 1: I could go on. I could talk for the next
Speaker 1: ten minutes about the things that we did that will,
Speaker 1: over time make a life better for the American people.
Speaker 1: And you know what we've seen out of a Republican Congress.
Speaker 1: They kicked ill on Omar off the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Speaker 1: Yesterday we got this weird plan to reduce inflation by
Speaker 1: making the president determine how inflationary and executive order is.
Speaker 1: It's just bananas, right, and because I have a fundamental
Speaker 1: faith in the intelligence of the American people. At the
Speaker 1: end of two years under McCarthy, they're going to say,
Speaker 1: oh my god, what did you guys? Do you focused
Speaker 1: on Hunter Biden's la top You focused on drag story
Speaker 1: hours at library? Democrats cut the price of our prescription drugs. Man,
Speaker 1: let me run in twenty twenty four. With that as
Speaker 1: the contrast, Biden has said this much. It seems like
Speaker 1: the Republican Congress is very much helping the Democrats. Yeah. Again,
Speaker 1: there are serious issues out there. I hear them every
Speaker 1: single day in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Forget about rural Mississippi,
Speaker 1: serious issues, economic anxiety, drug prices are too high, the
Speaker 1: rent is too high. If the Republicans spend the next
Speaker 1: two years fighting culture war battles about drag story hour
Speaker 1: at some library in Orlando, they're going to get dusted
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. Right, exactly, how are you about
Speaker 1: this DC Council Joe Biden thing, because that seems like
Speaker 1: there's a call for DC statehood. Can you explain it
Speaker 1: to our listeners and just where you come down on it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So the explanation is pretty straightforward. The City of Washington,
Speaker 1: as a federal city doesn't really control its own destiny.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is that Congress can
Speaker 1: override the decisions that the mayor and the City Council
Speaker 1: of Washington make. That's just the law. I don't think
Speaker 1: it should be the law because I happen to believe
Speaker 1: in democracy and that people should govern themselves. Crazy idea,
Speaker 1: I know, but that's the fact. And so, and when
Speaker 1: two bills came before the House three weeks ago to
Speaker 1: override two different laws that the City Council and do
Speaker 1: Order were made for the city of Washington, I voted
Speaker 1: no on overriding them. I didn't even think too too
Speaker 1: hard about what those laws were because my fundamental belief
Speaker 1: is that the people of Washington should determine the laws
Speaker 1: that they live under, and that the representative from Connecticut's
Speaker 1: fourth District shouldn't override their will. Again, all the crazy,
Speaker 1: but I believe in self determination and democracy. Now the
Speaker 1: President has made a different choice. You know, he apparently
Speaker 1: is going to let this go through. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to try to explain to you why he is doing that,
Speaker 1: but I am puzzled because he supports DC statehood which
Speaker 1: presumably means he supports the people of the city of
Speaker 1: the District of Columbia controlling their own destiny. And that's
Speaker 1: not what's about to happen if he vetoes this thing.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to be consistent. Again. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: a case in which I would seek to override a
Speaker 1: law that was democratically passed by the city of Washington.
Speaker 1: But the President obviously has a different view. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: so interesting. Tell me what's on your radar for now
Speaker 1: that what's coming up. Yeah, you know, the big thing
Speaker 1: on my radar is not something that is going to
Speaker 1: make a lot of headlines. But we've got a lot
Speaker 1: of work to do to make sure that the incredible
Speaker 1: stuff that we passed in the last Congress, and I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the immense amounts of infrastructure investment that is
Speaker 1: going to you know, rebuild our bridges and provide broadband
Speaker 1: to people who don't have it. Today, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the Chips Semiconductor Bill, which is supposefully going to move
Speaker 1: a lot of the semiconductor business back to our shores.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of work to do to make
Speaker 1: sure that that those resources get deployed intelligently, without fraud,
Speaker 1: without waste, and that they get deployed quickly, right because
Speaker 1: these problems are not problems five years from now, they're
Speaker 1: problems today. So that's not sexy stuff that sort of
Speaker 1: falls into the category of oversight and implementation. But if
Speaker 1: we're going to turn a bunch of headlines into real
Speaker 1: benefit for the people that I represent, it's going to
Speaker 1: be because we really push to get that investment made
Speaker 1: intelligently and quickly. I love chips and we have had
Speaker 1: many many Inport Jesse. We've had many, many interviews about
Speaker 1: the Chips Act, including Gina Romando. It's really an important issue,
Speaker 1: the Chips Act. There is an environmental rule in the
Speaker 1: Chips Act that there's been some encouragement that the administration
Speaker 1: should sort of right right around four. Are you going
Speaker 1: to push them to follow that environmental the more standard
Speaker 1: environmental laws that we have. Yeah, yeah, So let me
Speaker 1: answer that. Not with chips, because with chips we're building factories, okay,
Speaker 1: and you're building factories. You're talking about a lot of
Speaker 1: local zoning, a lot of this, and that I will
Speaker 1: tell you that we need to do this quickly. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not good enough to have fixed this problem twenty
Speaker 1: years from now. But let me redirect your question a
Speaker 1: little bit around the infrastructure, right, because the infrastructure is
Speaker 1: in a couple of factories. The infrastructure is rebuilding our
Speaker 1: electrical our national electrical transmission system. And here's why that's
Speaker 1: an interesting topic, more interesting than it sounds on the surface. Right.
Speaker 1: You know, we are doing advanced battery technology, we're trying
Speaker 1: to transition to electric cars. You know, we're building out
Speaker 1: charging stations. In order for all of that stuff to work,
Speaker 1: we need to rebuild our electrical transmission system. Now, these
Speaker 1: are the wire You see these in certain places out
Speaker 1: west and everywhere. You see them on the horizon, massive
Speaker 1: towers carrying power, carrying wind power from Texas to you
Speaker 1: wherever it goes. And we need to rebuild that. And
Speaker 1: the problem is that if we move at the same
Speaker 1: pace that we typically move, we'll rebuild it thirty years
Speaker 1: from now, which is not fast enough to address the
Speaker 1: carbon problem in our atmosphere. So the answer to your
Speaker 1: question at the end of that long speech is yes,
Speaker 1: we absolutely need to do permitting reform that balances the
Speaker 1: need to not do stupid things environmentally with the absolute
Speaker 1: imperative that we rebuild our energy system in as rapid
Speaker 1: a pace as possible so that we don't end up
Speaker 1: with a planet that is uninhabitable. So I do support
Speaker 1: permitting reform. I know the President supports permitting reform. That's
Speaker 1: not to say a responsible permitting reform. But if we're
Speaker 1: going to change the way we still our atmosphere with
Speaker 1: carbon quickly, it's because we're going to move a lot
Speaker 1: more rapidly on the projects that we need to do
Speaker 1: to actually do that solve that problem. Jim Himes, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. Thank you, Molly. Always
Speaker 1: fun to talk. Samantha Power is the administrator of USAID.
Speaker 1: Welcome too fast Politics. Samantha Power. Great to be here.
Speaker 1: We have so much to talk about. First, I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to you about what is the sort of
Speaker 1: most recent thing that you guys have been working on,
Speaker 1: which is the situation in Ukraine. Can you talk to
Speaker 1: us a little bit about It's a year and that's
Speaker 1: been a very important moment for a lot of reasons,
Speaker 1: and including in the refugee crisis. Just stepping back, it's
Speaker 1: a year since Putin gratuitously decided to inflict brutality and
Speaker 1: try to take over a sovereign member of the United Nations,
Speaker 1: and a year in which President Biden rallied the democracies
Speaker 1: of the world, but not only the democracies of the world,
Speaker 1: more than one hundred and four countries at the UN
Speaker 1: to condemn the invasion multiple times now, which I know
Speaker 1: from having been a UN ambassador is not easy because
Speaker 1: people's interests fade. The intimidation and pressure that the Russian
Speaker 1: Federation places on countries not to vote to do something
Speaker 1: that might to the outsiders seem kind of symbolic, which
Speaker 1: is vote against Russia is pretty hard for small countries
Speaker 1: to withstand, particularly those who are invulnerable parts of the world.
Speaker 1: So the coalition is held really strong. As President Biden
Speaker 1: often talks about, Putin went in thinking he would take
Speaker 1: Ukraine in a matter of days and also thought he
Speaker 1: would weaken NATO and divide the world, and it's really
Speaker 1: been quite the contrary. Basically, just about everything that Putin
Speaker 1: thought would happen has not happened, and its opposite has happened.
Speaker 1: In terms of USAID, which is the part that I
Speaker 1: get to work on every day, and I feel just
Speaker 1: really fortunate to be in this job at this time.
Speaker 1: We are touching a lot of aspects of the war,
Speaker 1: and in a way that a lot of Americans probably
Speaker 1: aren't that aware of. Can you back up for a
Speaker 1: second and explain, because I don't know that everybody knows
Speaker 1: what USAID is. So USAID is the world's premier development
Speaker 1: and humanitarian agency, and we basically do everything from respond
Speaker 1: to humanitarian emergencies, sending disaster assistance response teams like we
Speaker 1: just did in response to the earthquake in Syria and Turkey,
Speaker 1: figuring out in a sense where we spend taxpayer resources,
Speaker 1: which humanitarian organizations we give them those resources, to feeding people,
Speaker 1: providing medical care, providing mental health services to women who've
Speaker 1: suffered sexual violence, you name it. So that's all in
Speaker 1: the emergency space. And then in the so called development space,
Speaker 1: we're doing everything from vaccinating the world as we did
Speaker 1: over the course of the the last couple of years, the
Speaker 1: developing countries, I should say, particularly to investing in food
Speaker 1: security to make sure that farmers actually have access to
Speaker 1: see needs that are more drought and heat resistant, given
Speaker 1: what's the climate change that is walloping so many countries period,
Speaker 1: so many communities period, but especially those living on the
Speaker 1: margins are the hardest hit, as is so often the case.
Speaker 1: And then we do democracy support, helping countries build independent
Speaker 1: media sectors. In Ukraine well before this invasion, we help
Speaker 1: the country build up its anti corruption institutions, which of
Speaker 1: course we're not working flawlessly, but nonetheless are are part
Speaker 1: of what President Zelenski's been using to crack down on
Speaker 1: corruption allegations. Even during the war. We've helped the Ukrainians
Speaker 1: again pre war, pre this war, build something called the
Speaker 1: Ministry of Digital Transformation. They have some of the best
Speaker 1: cybersecurity in the world. That's USAID investments there, and now
Speaker 1: that the war has started, just to pivot to that,
Speaker 1: when Putin tries to take out critical energy infrastructure, it
Speaker 1: is USAID more than any other actor and more than
Speaker 1: any other country that is whooping in to provide everything
Speaker 1: from generators to boilers, to replacement pipes, to additional engineering support,
Speaker 1: to rotating power plants or mobile power plants. And so
Speaker 1: we've dedicated about four hundred billion dollars to so called
Speaker 1: winterization efforts, namely, as Putin tried to weaponize winter and
Speaker 1: in a sense freeze people into wanting to turn over
Speaker 1: territory or end the war, we try to offset that
Speaker 1: tactic and keep people warm, and we're heading towards spring here.
Speaker 1: We're not there yet. It's still bitter cold in many
Speaker 1: parts of Ukraine, but at least in a sense to
Speaker 1: buy time, so that again the Ukrainian military, which has
Speaker 1: been so brave and so fearsome really on the battlefield,
Speaker 1: you know, you would hate for something on the civilian
Speaker 1: side to be the difference between whether on the military
Speaker 1: side they were able to prevail. But if the lights
Speaker 1: were to go out on the state, if pension weren't
Speaker 1: get weren't to get paid, if health services were to
Speaker 1: shut down, and those are all things that USAID is
Speaker 1: helping support again thanks to bipartisan support from Congress. You know,
Speaker 1: that would really undermine the war effort as a whole.
Speaker 1: So while the latest military system, you know, gets the headlines,
Speaker 1: how medical institutions in Ukraine continue to function for civilians,
Speaker 1: how people manage not to freeze to death, that's all
Speaker 1: in the purview of USAID. USAID. Yes, you've been a
Speaker 1: war correspondent, You've won a Pulitzer Prize, not nothing, and
Speaker 1: you've had, you know, all of these government jobs. I'm curious,
Speaker 1: like how that informs you know, you were in Bosnia, right,
Speaker 1: which was like one of the worst wars of our lifetime.
Speaker 1: I mean, just can you explain a little bit. Now
Speaker 1: you are running an organization that serves the people that
Speaker 1: you couldn't serve when you were reporting on Bosnia, I mean,
Speaker 1: how does that inform Yeah, no, it's it's a great question.
Speaker 1: I'd say a couple of things. I mean, first, just
Speaker 1: on the specifics of having covered Bosnia as a war
Speaker 1: correspondent and now seeing Ukraine, it's chillingly familiar in many
Speaker 1: respects the use of sexual violence as a seemingly willful
Speaker 1: tactic of war. A fair amount of evidence just in
Speaker 1: the sense that everywhere Russian forces have occupied you see
Speaker 1: women who have been subjected to gang rape and imprisoned
Speaker 1: and again having had sexual torture inflicted upon them, and
Speaker 1: then the mass graves of course emerging for every territory
Speaker 1: that Ukraine takes back. That's a lot like what was
Speaker 1: happening in the form of Yugoslavia. And recall that was
Speaker 1: an anomaly at the time where it felt like an anomaly,
Speaker 1: and that the Cold War had ended, people were feeling
Speaker 1: very hopeful. So Union had collapsed. It looked like democracy
Speaker 1: was on the march. Now, I think what is so
Speaker 1: grim about today's war in Ukraine is it is a
Speaker 1: superpower bringing those same tactics, that same effort to strip
Speaker 1: a people of their identity, of their dignity, and again
Speaker 1: to just inflict horrific suffering with the population size of
Speaker 1: the Russian Federation, with the military stockpiles of the Russian Federation,
Speaker 1: you know, not not just some small makeshift Bosnian Serb army,
Speaker 1: you know, back in the day. And so when you combine,
Speaker 1: even if the Russians are performing very badly and obviously
Speaker 1: didn't think this through or plan properly, nonetheless they have
Speaker 1: a lot of firepower to bring to bear on behalf
Speaker 1: of the war crimes that they appear to be committing
Speaker 1: in the areas that they operate. So it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of it takes what I experienced up close in a
Speaker 1: small scale. I mean, it was a big scale for
Speaker 1: anybody who was suffering at the time, but it just
Speaker 1: puts it on steroids almost, And that's what's chilling. I
Speaker 1: will say, I do take some solace from my experience
Speaker 1: in that when I was a war correspond and so
Speaker 1: many of our years. In my colleagues who are still
Speaker 1: you know, around and writing, you know, had that seminal
Speaker 1: experience as well, because it was really where a lot
Speaker 1: of journalists kind of cut their teeth at that time
Speaker 1: in the nineties. But we would never have guessed that
Speaker 1: these warlords and political leaders who were inflicting such pain
Speaker 1: on civilians that they ever would have been held accountable.
Speaker 1: It would have been it would have been like saying,
Speaker 1: you know, my next job was going to be to
Speaker 1: be an astronaut, like it was, so it would have
Speaker 1: been so crazy. They were so filled with arrogance and confidence.
Speaker 1: And it's not to say that there are inevitable parallels
Speaker 1: between what's happening in Ukraine and what happened in Bosnia,
Speaker 1: but it is to say, you just don't know. And
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of skepticism. Oh okay, usaid, you're
Speaker 1: helping document all these war crimes. We've helped document more
Speaker 1: than thirty thousand war crime alleged work crimes so far
Speaker 1: in Ukraine. But people said, oh, yeah, but look at Putin.
Speaker 1: You know, he's there at his long table, and how
Speaker 1: is that ever going to change? And people are afraid
Speaker 1: of him? And not to say again that anybody can
Speaker 1: predict precisely what's going to happen, right, but you have
Speaker 1: this reference point of Bosnia. Yeah, it's a contingent, you know,
Speaker 1: and all you can you know, like I always say
Speaker 1: to my kids, control what you can control. All we
Speaker 1: can control at this point, as it relates on that matter,
Speaker 1: is to document, to take depositions, you know, to establish
Speaker 1: courtroom ready stockpiles of evidence. And it could be anything
Speaker 1: from a Russian who travels and then and that has happened,
Speaker 1: you know, and travels and then gets extradited to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Or it could be that the International Criminal Court ends
Speaker 1: up taking up a case because they've opened an investigation.
Speaker 1: We are building this evidence at the Human Rights Council.
Speaker 1: So again the point is simply, we know from history
Speaker 1: that life is long and unfortunately the people being having
Speaker 1: these walcomes inflicted. The pain is now. But we do
Speaker 1: have responsibility to build that record and history may turn.
Speaker 1: And just to close the loop on Bosnia, of course,
Speaker 1: these names are now you know, bit nobody's talking about
Speaker 1: these people in any board but rock Go Lottage, sloban On, Miloshevich,
Speaker 1: Rodivan carriage. They just you know, they were strutting around
Speaker 1: and they all ended up behind bars. Yeah, it strikes
Speaker 1: me that there are like a number of issues with
Speaker 1: what's happening in Ukraine and China's relationship with Russia and
Speaker 1: how you guys navigate that, you know, it is very,
Speaker 1: very challenging. China is a permanent member of the Security Council,
Speaker 1: as is the United States, as is Russia. We would
Speaker 1: expect that the People's Republic of China, which has long
Speaker 1: stressed the importance of sovereignty right as a way of
Speaker 1: keeping countries from looking into human rights conditions inside the PRC.
Speaker 1: Chinese diplomats have always talked about sovereignty and it's every
Speaker 1: state's right to do what it wants within its borders
Speaker 1: and territorial integrity and all the like. We would have
Speaker 1: expected a country that, for so many years, I should
Speaker 1: say we would have expected, we would have hoped that
Speaker 1: a country that over so many years made so much
Speaker 1: of sovereignty and territorial integrity would leap to publicly and
Speaker 1: plainly make clear that what the Russian Federation is doing,
Speaker 1: namely trying to erase a UN member state, is not
Speaker 1: only antithetical to the UN Charter, and to all international
Speaker 1: humanitarian law in terms of the way they're prosecuting that war,
Speaker 1: but completely antithetical to what the Chinese leadership have been
Speaker 1: saying four decades that, you know, what has been the
Speaker 1: core of the foreign policy message from Beijing that has
Speaker 1: not happened. Obviously, the growing relationship prior to this war
Speaker 1: between President Putin and President She their shared interest in
Speaker 1: not having human rights norms, wanting human rights norms to
Speaker 1: be weakened, hoping that they would not have traction, wanting
Speaker 1: to be able to lock up who they want within
Speaker 1: their own borders or do what they want to ethnic
Speaker 1: minorities within their borders. So they have a lot of
Speaker 1: shared interests of that nature in terms of what they
Speaker 1: want the international rules of the road to be. And
Speaker 1: as a result, I think you see Beijing again acting
Speaker 1: and talking inconsistently in many respects from their previous positions.
Speaker 1: Now that said, Molly, you know what's noteworthy is notwithstanding
Speaker 1: the closeness of that personal relationship between the two leaders,
Speaker 1: I think they referred prior to the wars this being
Speaker 1: a relationship without limits. That was the language. And yet
Speaker 1: the PARC is not standing with Russia either, So they
Speaker 1: are notably abstaining and in a sense trying to stay
Speaker 1: trying to still sort of say that they're very much
Speaker 1: in favor of sovereignty in tertial integrity, and yet also
Speaker 1: now having just put forward a peace plan. I think
Speaker 1: we are You and I are talking during a week
Speaker 1: where we in the United States and our allies have
Speaker 1: expressed concern that the PARC may take decisions now that
Speaker 1: would put them more squarely on on Russia's side in
Speaker 1: waging this war of aggression, namely, if they were to
Speaker 1: provide lethal assistance that would be moving the PRC into
Speaker 1: a much more frontally aligned position with Moscow. We have
Speaker 1: seen no indication, to be clear, that they have yet
Speaker 1: made this decision. You've seen a lot of US diplomacy
Speaker 1: and public statements to just underscore what a terrible mistake
Speaker 1: that would be. So Beijing again appears not to have
Speaker 1: taken off the table, but we haven't yet seen an
Speaker 1: indication that they're going to move forward. And that's good news.
Speaker 1: It would be better news if it was off the
Speaker 1: table entirely because it would be such a mistake. But
Speaker 1: certainly we think it's very important for the war to end,
Speaker 1: which is what Chinese officials do say they want for
Speaker 1: the costs of Russia's actions to be borne by Russian officials,
Speaker 1: by the Russian government, because the way wars end is
Speaker 1: when the costs outweigh the perceived benefits were going on.
Speaker 1: So it would not be good for the cause of
Speaker 1: peace if you know, China were to get involved on
Speaker 1: the lethal side. It would be very inconsistent with the
Speaker 1: peace plan that the PARC has just put forward. And
Speaker 1: I think an important point is that in the long term,
Speaker 1: the PARC is you know, wants to be a world leader,
Speaker 1: you know, wants very much to increase its standing in
Speaker 1: the global South. Those are the markets for Chinese goods,
Speaker 1: you know, that have really helped fuel Chinese economic development,
Speaker 1: which has been so explosive prior to the pandemic and
Speaker 1: has lifted so many Chinese citizens out of poverty. I mean,
Speaker 1: they are they are playing this longer game, you know,
Speaker 1: with an eye through the Belt and Road initiative and
Speaker 1: their building and their development assistance and their very substantial
Speaker 1: loans which unfortunately carry very high interest rates in developing countries.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless they are you know, doing all of this well. Again,
Speaker 1: more than one hundred and forty countries within the UN
Speaker 1: have condemned Russia. For Beijing to throw its lot in
Speaker 1: with Russia in this or I think would be very
Speaker 1: counterproductive in light of those larger ambitions. So I want
Speaker 1: to ask you about the earthquake and air dewan in
Speaker 1: Turkey time, thinking about there's been this rise in these
Speaker 1: authoritarian states, and Turkey now has this earthquake. I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's just a syriing event in the
Speaker 1: lives of you know, easily well over a million a
Speaker 1: million people in Syria, and I think if you take
Speaker 1: Turkey and Syria together, it's more than ten million people
Speaker 1: likely affected. About three million people have lost their homes
Speaker 1: and are imagine again it's still winter. It's extremely difficult.
Speaker 1: We saw the as we attempted to support the rescue
Speaker 1: with our search and rescue teams, just the dead of
Speaker 1: winter and the snow and the frigid conditions making that
Speaker 1: even more challenging than it always is. You know, our
Speaker 1: objective is to come in behind national authorities when they
Speaker 1: have the capacity to respond, and certainly that was true
Speaker 1: in Turkey. They're in a sensible protection FEMA equivalent did
Speaker 1: a very good job that the scope and the scale
Speaker 1: of what they were up against was woe, you know,
Speaker 1: just not something that any any agency couldn't prepare for.
Speaker 1: I think Syria syrias worse off, right, It's just so
Speaker 1: much more challenging because you have the regime, of course,
Speaker 1: which had gassed its people and inflicted on its people
Speaker 1: the equivalent of daily earthquakes by pulverizing civilian centers and
Speaker 1: apartment buildings and medical facilities throughout that war continuously for
Speaker 1: years and years and years, yeah, continuously, and so creating
Speaker 1: scenes just like that. But you know, if there had
Speaker 1: been a respite in a community and somebody might have
Speaker 1: been displaced two, three, four times from different places that
Speaker 1: ASSAD had terrorized, maybe they finally had an apartment and
Speaker 1: then if they were in it live or Aleppo, maybe
Speaker 1: that apartment in all likelihood, you know, has either been
Speaker 1: damaged or destroyed in this earthquake. So it's just compounding
Speaker 1: crisis after compounding crisis. We don't work of course with
Speaker 1: the Syrian government there slated, they're sanctioned. We are continue
Speaker 1: to hold them accountable for the atrocities in these ways.
Speaker 1: The epicenter of harm occurred actually in opposition controlled areas
Speaker 1: because there are still parts of Syria that are controlled
Speaker 1: by opposition elements. The challenge there is extremist groups, of course,
Speaker 1: have been present in many of those areas, and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of restrictions or safeguards that we have
Speaker 1: to have in place so that our resources are not
Speaker 1: going to an ISIS affiliate or to an Alkada affiliate.
Speaker 1: It's hard to find quote unquote good god, Well, no,
Speaker 1: there there are plenty haoker guys. To be clear, there
Speaker 1: are plenty of like the White Helmets famously are They're
Speaker 1: digging people out of the rubble with the most rudimentary
Speaker 1: support from much of the outside world. But you just
Speaker 1: always know that these extremists lurk and can take advantage
Speaker 1: of these circumstances, so you just have to be careful.
Speaker 1: So I think all of that to say, the response
Speaker 1: was much much slower the international response. There wasn't that
Speaker 1: same national infrastruct sure because as SAD again is not
Speaker 1: present in the worst affected areas, that scale up is happening.
Speaker 1: The United States have announced one hundred and eighty five
Speaker 1: million dollars worth of assistance so far. Most of our
Speaker 1: assistance that flows from this point is likely to go
Speaker 1: to Syria to try to compensate again for the much
Speaker 1: more rudimentary infrastructure there. But it is going to be
Speaker 1: a dark and long road to recovery, just again because
Speaker 1: of the pre existing conditions in the communities that have
Speaker 1: been afflicted. Yeah, oh no, I'm sure. Do you think
Speaker 1: that sort of Turkey might have a moment of being
Speaker 1: able to sort of dislodge airdan Well, I mean, they
Speaker 1: have their democratic elections are coming up here, and I
Speaker 1: think it's unclear how the earthquake is going to affect
Speaker 1: either the conditions. I mean a lot of people are
Speaker 1: worried about where they're going to sleep the next night,
Speaker 1: and so whether they're also thinking about voting or not,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. I'm not close enough to it.
Speaker 1: But also in general, when emergencies hit, it's very unpredictable
Speaker 1: kind of what the effect of an emergency, or the
Speaker 1: response to the emergency, or questions about decisions made prior
Speaker 1: to the emergency. He all of that comes together to
Speaker 1: inform voter opinion. So again I wouldn't comment on that,
Speaker 1: But the UN has issued a four hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: appeal for Syria, but you know that's just several months
Speaker 1: worth of resources. Would we need to needed to just
Speaker 1: even provide temporary shelter. The Turkish appeal is a billion
Speaker 1: dollars and not to have every aspect of our conversation
Speaker 1: be depressing and dark, but it is. This earthquake just
Speaker 1: lands at a time when you have almost a billion people,
Speaker 1: you know, facing very severe food insecurity, and where the
Speaker 1: knock on effects of Putin's invasion of Ukraine because Ukraine
Speaker 1: was the bread basket of the world. Forty percent of
Speaker 1: the World Food Program's food comes from Ukraine, Jesus, and
Speaker 1: so you know, for Putin to invade, take out so
Speaker 1: many of the major ports, you know, block or you
Speaker 1: reduced to a trickle the export of grain from the
Speaker 1: world's bread basket. Put On exploded ordinances and land mines
Speaker 1: all over land, even that his forces were vacating. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it is just such a horrible gratuitous compounding factor.
Speaker 1: And it was bad enough, you know, before the earthquake,
Speaker 1: and then the earthquake hit, and suddenly there's more than
Speaker 1: ten million people who are in need of some form
Speaker 1: of assistance between Turkey and Syria. So so it's a
Speaker 1: very difficult time. You ever more scarce resources and ever
Speaker 1: more demands on those resources. So if your listeners are
Speaker 1: inclined to want to help with any of these emergencies,
Speaker 1: we have at USAID on our website just a list
Speaker 1: of organizations that are vetted and our great partners of ours.
Speaker 1: So it's CIDI dot org, Cidi dot org, and whether
Speaker 1: the earthquake or the war in Ukraine, there are lots
Speaker 1: of ways to contribute. Thank you, Samantha Power, thank you
Speaker 1: Molly Jess Canon. You know, one of my least favorite
Speaker 1: things is that these Daily Wire nerds. They represent nobody,
Speaker 1: No one believes things they believe, but they get a huge,
Speaker 1: huge platform through these bots. They do really well on Facebook.
Speaker 1: They do really well on Facebook because they buy a
Speaker 1: lot of Facebook adds that they've had a lot of audience.
Speaker 1: They botted their podcasts, as we've seen people prove, and
Speaker 1: now they get to talk at seapack at what happens.
Speaker 1: Why don't we bought art? No, I'm just kidding, that's
Speaker 1: a great idea. Yes, let's bot our podcast. Michael Knowles,
Speaker 1: host of The Michael Knowles Show. Again, who the fuck
Speaker 1: is that of the Daily Wire? So, like think of
Speaker 1: Ben Shapiro, but lesser, a lesser Ben Shapiro, if that's
Speaker 1: even possible, gave a speech at Seapack which at moments
Speaker 1: sounded as he might say genocide all And here's the
Speaker 1: direct quote. The problem with transgenderism is not that it's
Speaker 1: inappropriate for children under the age of nine. He said,
Speaker 1: the problem is that it isn't true. And then he
Speaker 1: went on to sort of imply that transgender people should
Speaker 1: not exist. You got a lot of publicity off of
Speaker 1: that line and people saying that he was saying that
Speaker 1: transgender people shouldn't exist, and he got furious because he
Speaker 1: said he wasn't saying that, and decided he would sue
Speaker 1: all these outlets. But of course he was saying that.
Speaker 1: And again, this dance is the way in which people
Speaker 1: on the far right try to use the media to
Speaker 1: gin up engagement and raise money. And for that he
Speaker 1: gets a hearty moment of fuckery. Michael Knowles, the lesser
Speaker 1: Ben Shapiro, who is the lesser Tucker Carlson. That's it
Speaker 1: for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday,
Speaker 1: Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics
Speaker 1: makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what
Speaker 1: you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep
Speaker 1: the conversation going. And again thanks for listening.