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Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, I'm Katie Kirk and this is next question.

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Speaker 1: Michael McFall has spent his career studying what makes democracies

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Speaker 1: rise and how they fall. As many of you know,

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Speaker 1: he's a former US Ambassador to Russia and the author

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Speaker 1: of a new book called Autocrats Versus Democrats China, Russia,

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Speaker 1: America and the New Global Disorder. Mike says that under Trump,

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Speaker 1: America's retreat from global leadership has opened the door for

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Speaker 1: autocrats like Putin and she to flex their muscles and

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Speaker 1: for democracy everywhere to lose ground. He also argues the

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Speaker 1: real struggle isn't just in other countries, it's here at home.

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Speaker 1: He believes Trump has led us to a place of

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Speaker 1: legitimately debating whether our leaders still have to play by

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Speaker 1: democratic rules or if we're willing to let them act

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Speaker 1: yes like autocrats. Mike is my go to guy for

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Speaker 1: all things Russia and Ukraine. But believe me, he understands

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Speaker 1: what's happening in the entire world world better than just

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Speaker 1: about anyone I know. So here's my conversation with Mike McFall.

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Speaker 1: Michael McFall, so good to see you in person for

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Speaker 1: a change. I can't believe it welcome.

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Speaker 2: To my phone on that substack exactly.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much.

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Speaker 2: You look much better in person. You look great on

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Speaker 2: ta you look great on Instagram. But it's fun to

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Speaker 2: be with y'all.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you so wow. You've written a light

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Speaker 1: little book called Autocrats Versus Democrats China, Russia, America and

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Speaker 1: the New Global Disorder. Tell me what you wanted to

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Speaker 1: do when you set out to write this book, Mike.

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Speaker 2: Well, honestly, uh, it took me years to write. I

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Speaker 2: do have a day job. I'm a professor at Stanford

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Speaker 2: and I run a big institute there, so I didn't

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Speaker 2: have hours and hours to work on it. But the

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Speaker 2: original it changed over time. The original motivation was, we

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Speaker 2: had a debate several years ago amongst foreign policy types

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Speaker 2: about whether we've entered a new Cold War with China

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Speaker 2: and it's sidekick Russia. And I wanted, like an academic does,

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Speaker 2: I wanted to interrogate that hypothesis. And I know something

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Speaker 2: about the Cold War written about that, I know quite

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Speaker 2: a bit about Russian and America. I had to learn.

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Speaker 2: I was ambassador to Russia and I lived there many times.

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Speaker 2: I have gone to China for decades, but to write

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Speaker 2: this book. I spent big chunks of time learn it.

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Speaker 2: That's the piece I had to learn about. And my answer,

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Speaker 2: and that's why the book's so big, was are we

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Speaker 2: in a new Cold War? The answer to that is yes.

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Speaker 2: The second question, are we really in a new Cold War?

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Speaker 2: The answer to that is no, because some things are similar,

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Speaker 2: but some things are different. And I go through that analytically,

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Speaker 2: talking about similarities but also differences. And I think that's

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Speaker 2: important because if we don't understand the world we live in,

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Speaker 2: we're not going to develop the what I think are

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Speaker 2: the proper policies. So that was the first motivation. But

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Speaker 2: the second motivation, that started in the first Trump administration

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Speaker 2: and then kept going in the Biden folks, and then

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Speaker 2: when he was re elected, was even more animating. I

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Speaker 2: had a few weeks to add a few things. And

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Speaker 2: it's not just about Trump, but he really catalyzed this.

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Speaker 2: I worry that we have entered a new era of

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Speaker 2: isolationism in the United States, prominent within the Republican Party,

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Speaker 2: but it's also in the Democratic Party, and I don't

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Speaker 2: think for America's long term interest that's a good strategy.

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Speaker 2: Then there's unilateralism that's become very especially under President Trump.

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Speaker 2: Let's just do whatever we want to do. We don't

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Speaker 2: have to care about our allies, we don't have to

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Speaker 2: care about multilateral institutions or norms. And I think that's

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Speaker 2: a lot. It's a short term that works. Long term,

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Speaker 2: I don't think so. So that became another motivation, and

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Speaker 2: then the title of the book Autocrats Versus Democrats. We're

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Speaker 2: now in a period where a lot of Americans, Democrats

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Speaker 2: and Republicans and independents don't think we should be supporting

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Speaker 2: ideas in the world democracy, human rights, and I get it.

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Speaker 2: You know, we're kind of tired of being the superpower and.

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Speaker 1: The world's policeman.

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Speaker 2: We don't want to be the world's policeman. And I

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Speaker 2: say very clearly in the book we should not be

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Speaker 2: the world's policeman. Most certainly we shouldn't use military force

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Speaker 2: to promote democracy. That's we're four for seventeen on that front.

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Speaker 2: Just so you know, I've done the math. The book

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Speaker 2: starts in the eighteenth century, but don't worry, I do

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Speaker 2: the whole I do two hundred years of history, have

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Speaker 2: pages thirty pages, So I've done that work. So you

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Speaker 2: don't have to but I think that's also a long

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Speaker 2: term mistake. I think supporting ideas of freedom and democracy

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Speaker 2: have not only been the right thing to do, but

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Speaker 2: I think it's been on our strategic interests. So that piece,

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Speaker 2: in a way, is the most controversial part of the book,

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Speaker 2: but may be the most.

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Speaker 1: Important for people who are not foreign policy experts. Mike,

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Speaker 1: I wondered, if you could take the last twenty five

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Speaker 1: years and just give us a brief or on how

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Speaker 1: power has shifted and changed.

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Speaker 2: Yep, well that's a I set up the book deliberately.

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Speaker 2: I'd do nine different chapters, power ideology, and then competing

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Speaker 2: conceptions of the global order, and they all start with

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one. Because in nineteen ninety one, we were

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Speaker 2: the world's hedgemon. We are the world's superpower, no challengers.

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Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety one, the whole world seemed like they wanted

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Speaker 2: to be democratic. That's when Frank Fukuyama writes this famous

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Speaker 2: essay End of History, because it just seemed like everybody

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Speaker 2: was going to be democratic, and most of the world

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Speaker 2: was moving towards capitalism and a liberal international order. All

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Speaker 2: those words are problematic, but if you remember, you know,

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Speaker 2: you'll remember but so your listeners will remember, there was

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Speaker 2: President H. W. Bush, in response to Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait,

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Speaker 2: said that's against the rules of the game here. We

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Speaker 2: can't annex countries. And he got the whole world together

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Speaker 2: and we pushed him out. So all the chapters start

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Speaker 2: with that. Fast forward three decades later. On the power front,

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Speaker 2: two countries have risen, China most prominently, but Russia is

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Speaker 2: much more powerful today than they were thirty years ago,

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Speaker 2: and that makes it the balance of power between autocrats

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Speaker 2: and democrats different than thirty years ago. We're still ahead,

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Speaker 2: by the way, and my book addends on an optimistic note.

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Speaker 2: I think will remain ahead as long as we do

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Speaker 2: certain smart things, but the Chinese have caught up. Second

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Speaker 2: change compared to thirty years ago is there's now an

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Speaker 2: ideological struggle between autocrats and democrats. The whole world did

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Speaker 2: not become democratic, and we failed on that. I personally

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Speaker 2: feel some failure in Russia, that we did things wrong there.

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Speaker 2: Russians did most things wrong themselves, but we miss that.

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Speaker 2: But it's not just between countries, and this is important

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Speaker 2: theme in my book. The old Cold War days. Remember

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Speaker 2: of the maps, there was the red team. There was

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Speaker 2: a blue team, you know Germany, Oh, their blue team.

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Speaker 2: Angola flipped, okay, their red team. And you know it's

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Speaker 2: communists versus capitalists or free world versus dictatorship. We had

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Speaker 2: some communists here in America, right, you know, as a

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Speaker 2: kid at Stanford, we had some communists up at Berkeley, right,

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Speaker 2: and I met them, but they were pretty marginal. Today

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Speaker 2: the fight is not just between countries, it's within countries.

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Speaker 2: So within Hungary, there's a fight between autocrats and democrats,

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Speaker 2: within Italy, within France, and within the United States of America.

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Speaker 2: That's different, that's new. And then the third piece on

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Speaker 2: the global order, I would say that's where there's most breakdown.

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Speaker 2: That's why the last word of the titles disorder, because

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Speaker 2: we don't agree on the rules of the game, and

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Speaker 2: many politicians, president Trump being the most important one, don't

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Speaker 2: even think that we should play by those rules. So

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Speaker 2: he just gave a speech at the UN which is

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Speaker 2: basically like, we're wasting money, we're wasting our time here.

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Speaker 2: And I think he's wrong about that. But millions of

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Speaker 2: people in the world agree with President Trump and not me.

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Speaker 1: Well, and a lot of people agree with you too.

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Speaker 2: That's why I wrote the book. I want to convince

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Speaker 2: more people that can come in this which is going

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Speaker 2: to be a long term struggle. This book is written

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Speaker 2: for audiences for decades, not just what to do in

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Speaker 2: the Trump era. But I think, and I wrote it

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Speaker 2: mostly as an American, because I think in the long term,

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Speaker 2: we're better off being engaged in the world than not.

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Speaker 2: We're better off working with allies and multilateral organizations than not,

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Speaker 2: and we're better off promoting our ideas and values than not.

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Speaker 2: But I know that that's a debate, and so we

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Speaker 2: got to make people that like me. We got to

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Speaker 2: make better arguments, and we got to bring those arguments

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Speaker 2: not just to New York City and Washington and Palo Alto,

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Speaker 2: but to Montana and Idaho and South Carolina and Texas.

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Speaker 1: So clearly, autocracies are on the rise. And I'm curious

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Speaker 1: if you had to look back, and you do in

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Speaker 1: this book and say what happened between this idea that

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Speaker 1: was perpetuated during the first Bush administration, this idea that

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Speaker 1: democracy was rising or democracies were rising all over the world,

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Speaker 1: And in fact, by the way, George W. Bush, who

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Speaker 1: campaigned against nation building, actually big yeah, you know right.

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Speaker 1: So I guess the question is why are autocracies on

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Speaker 1: the rise, and why did this vision that was initiated

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Speaker 1: by George Herbert Walker Bush not hold.

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Speaker 2: It's a big, hard question, and that's why the book

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Speaker 2: is big and hard and hard, and you know, I

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Speaker 2: keep interrogating these hypotheses in real time because they're changing.

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Speaker 2: But I think there are three big things that happened.

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Speaker 2: One we thought and in retrospect we now know it

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Speaker 2: was wrong. But I don't want to claim that I

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Speaker 2: thought differently thirty years ago. But we had a theory

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Speaker 2: it's called modernization theory in academia. That is, China became

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Speaker 2: richer and modernized their economy, they would eventually democratize, and

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Speaker 2: so we helped them do that. We invested in China,

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Speaker 2: we brought them into the World Trade Organization, animated by

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Speaker 2: that theory. And it turned out not to be true.

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Speaker 2: They're more powerful today, they're richer today, they are not

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Speaker 2: more democratic today. Now I go through that in the book.

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Speaker 2: I don't think this is inevitable that they became more autocratic,

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Speaker 2: and I think Shijingping, as a leader, pushed them that way.

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Speaker 2: One of the themes of the book or that leaders matter.

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Speaker 2: That may sound obvious to you, but in academia that

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of our most prominent theories don't even

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Speaker 2: allow leaders in there to have a causal impact. I

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Speaker 2: radically disagree with that, but that was the first failure.

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Speaker 2: So we helped them grow stronger. Same with Russia in

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Speaker 2: a lesser extent. But I remember I wrote a piece

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Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety three our worst nightmare would be a

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Speaker 2: capitalist Russia that had recovered from the collapse of the

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Speaker 2: Soviet Union, led by a dictator. And I didn't know

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Speaker 2: it was going to be putin at the time, but

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Speaker 2: that's tragically exactly what happened. We didn't. We got that wrong. Second,

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Speaker 2: we did not do enough to support democracy in these

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Speaker 2: transition places like Russia, but not only Russia, other parts

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Speaker 2: of the post communist world. Hungary definitely do enough. On Hungary,

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Speaker 2: we should have had more conditionality for them. That was

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Speaker 2: a giant mistake. So we should have been leaning into

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Speaker 2: that more. And there's a reason why we didn't. I

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Speaker 2: want to explain that we did that after World War two.

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Speaker 2: Right World War two ended and our enemies we invested

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Speaker 2: tons of money in them, called the Marshall Plan in

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Speaker 2: Europe but also Japan to help them nurture markets and democracy,

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Speaker 2: and we got that right. Part of the reason we

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Speaker 2: got it right in forty five and we didn't in

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Speaker 2: ninety one is because of forty five, there was this

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Speaker 2: enemy to the east, right, the Soviet Union was out there,

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Speaker 2: and we thought, if we don't bring these folks in,

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Speaker 2: they're going to flip. They're going to be on the

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Speaker 2: Soviet side. Nineteen ninety one ninety two there wasn't that

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Speaker 2: enemy to the east, and as a result, we just

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Speaker 2: thought it's all going to happen naturally, and so we

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Speaker 2: didn't invest in that. Then. Third, we made some mistakes

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Speaker 2: at home, both in our foreign policy and domestically. I

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Speaker 2: think the invasion of Iraq. Let's start with Afghanistan and Afghanistan,

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Speaker 2: the world was behind us, NATO is behind us. They

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Speaker 2: went in with us, but then we overreached in a

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Speaker 2: rock and that led to a lot of like, are

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Speaker 2: these Americans really for the liberal international order? They're just

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Speaker 2: doing whatever they think.

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Speaker 1: And ultimately we overreached in Afghanistan too, and.

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Speaker 2: Then we overreached in Afghanistan. We stayed too long.

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Speaker 1: I mean, initially people were for it, but then it

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Speaker 1: was this interminable war, and the idea that we were

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Speaker 1: going to change Afghanistan as a nation just was a

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Speaker 1: like fools errand, wasn't it?

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Speaker 2: Yes? And Americans got tired of these wars. So that

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Speaker 2: was that piece, like, we're not really playing within the

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Speaker 2: international system. Now, different presidents did that in different ways.

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Speaker 2: I worked for President Obama. He was a big multi

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Speaker 2: lateral kind of guy. Right. We did use force in

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Speaker 2: Libya in twenty eleven, but we only did that when

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Speaker 2: we got a UN Security Council resolution to allow for that,

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Speaker 2: and I was part of that. I negotiated with the

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Speaker 2: Russians to get them to abstain. So it wasn't just

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Speaker 2: a straight line to that, but there was That was

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Speaker 2: that part of it. I think when President Trump came

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Speaker 2: back in, he you know, he just doesn't believe in

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Speaker 2: cooperation in these multilateral organizations. He just pulled out everything

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Speaker 2: in the book. I call it the Trump withdrawal doctrine, right,

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Speaker 2: pulled out of the Trans Specific Partnership, pulled out of

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Speaker 2: their run nuclear deal, pulled out of an arms controlled

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Speaker 2: treaty we had with Russia. And that I think left

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Speaker 2: people thinking, well, we're not who we say we are.

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Speaker 2: And then the last is the way we've been practicing

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Speaker 2: democracy at here at home. You can't say you're the

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Speaker 2: leader of the free world if you're not acting as

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Speaker 2: a free and democratic society at home. And so what

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Speaker 2: we used to have during the Cold War, and most

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Speaker 2: certainly in the early nineties, when everybody looked to our

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Speaker 2: system as the best system, that's no longer the case.

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Speaker 1: Hi everyone, it's Katie Couric. You know I'm always on

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Speaker 1: the go between running my media company, hosting my podcast,

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Speaker 1: quite understand you know, Yes, so you're saying that we

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Speaker 1: didn't put certain safeguards in place as our foreign policy

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Speaker 1: was evolving over recent decades. But what else happened to

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Speaker 1: turn Hungary to make them less democratic? Was it immigration issues?

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Speaker 1: I mean what were the forces at home? Because leaders matter,

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Speaker 1: of course, I think you're right, probably you guys underestimate that,

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Speaker 1: but also the people matter, yes, right, So what has

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Speaker 1: happened in the countries and even Japan I read recently

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Speaker 1: was becoming more right wing? In Italy and Hungary and

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Speaker 1: now France right And it seems like all these nations

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Speaker 1: are really kind of and the US obviously kind of

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Speaker 1: turning away from sort of traditional democratic principles, right, and

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Speaker 1: more towards autocracies. Yes, so what the hell is going on?

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Speaker 2: Well? Within the developed world, right, the developed democracies, the

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Speaker 2: old democracies, right, including our own, a couple of things

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Speaker 2: are going on. One, people aren't happy with how democracies delivering,

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Speaker 2: and part of us bringing in China into the World

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Speaker 2: Trade Organization that meant we lost a lot of jobs.

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Speaker 2: We lost a lot of manufacturing jobs. And President Trump,

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Speaker 2: who I think is a brilliant politician. I disagree with

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Speaker 2: most of his policies, but he's a really we've continued

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Speaker 2: to underestimate how good of a politician he is. He

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Speaker 2: tapped into that. He tapped into that, and he said,

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Speaker 2: you know, you lost your jobs because all these elites

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Speaker 2: billionaires saying, all these elites, but he figured that out,

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Speaker 2: and he's not the only one. You're right. It is

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Speaker 2: a transnational phenomenon. Basically in every country in Europe, to

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Speaker 2: different degrees, you have these illiberal nationalists, these populists, Victor

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Speaker 2: Orubon being the most famous, but they're almost in every country.

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Speaker 2: So that's the first thing that's happened. And then the second.

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Speaker 2: You know, the old debate was left and right right,

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Speaker 2: a debate about what the tax should be or what

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Speaker 2: the minimum wage should be, and that you know, in

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Speaker 2: the old days fifty years ago, that was democrats versus republicans,

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Speaker 2: liberals in America, social democrats in Europe. That was the

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Speaker 2: main axis of political questions. All of these populous they've

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Speaker 2: moved to another access, which is about identity politics. So

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Speaker 2: it's a two by two matrix now. And in the

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Speaker 2: identity politics, it's about your ethnicity, it's about the other

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Speaker 2: immigrants right coming in to take your jobs. And that's

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Speaker 2: how they've captured this very strange thing, like including in

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Speaker 2: my own family, by the way, Democratic Irish Catholic families

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Speaker 2: from you know, Wisconsin, that's where my dad's from. Montana,

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Speaker 2: that's where I'm from. That for decades voted for the

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Speaker 2: Democratic Party because we were the working class against the Republicans.

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Speaker 2: Who are you know, that's the rich people. Trump has

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Speaker 2: managed it by having this different access to appeal to

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Speaker 2: identity politics that say, you're getting ripped off because of

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Speaker 2: the color of your skin, and he's not the only

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Speaker 2: one that's happening in all these places. And that also

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Speaker 2: then trends with these anti democratic ideas that you know,

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Speaker 2: maybe democracy is not such a great system of government

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Speaker 2: in the long run. I'm still pretty optimistic about America.

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Speaker 2: But other you know, Hungary flipped. And what's different between

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Speaker 2: Hungary and America is they only had a few years

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Speaker 2: of democracy and it wasn't delivering, and that created this

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Speaker 2: space for a guy like Victor Orbon. Exact same story

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Speaker 2: in Russia, by the way, with Vladimir Putin, exactly the

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Speaker 2: same story. He talks in the same way about the

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Speaker 2: immigrants and the liberals and the decadent liberal West impinging

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Speaker 2: on our conservative Russian values. That's the way he talks

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Speaker 2: about the world. And that's why you see this group

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Speaker 2: of people. They interact with each other all the time.

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Speaker 2: They have their own podcasts. By the way, so info Wars,

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Speaker 2: I've never been invited to info Wars. That's a very

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Speaker 2: famous podcast here in the United States. Those guys have

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Speaker 2: on this guy, Sasha Dugan, And you've never heard of him,

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Speaker 2: But Sasha Dugan. I used to know him when I

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Speaker 2: lived in Russia. He's an illiberal, nationalist populist. He's one

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Speaker 2: of Putin's chief ideologues. And I would say he has

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Speaker 2: more ideologically in common with a guy like Steve than

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Speaker 2: I do with Steve Bannon, even though Steve Bannon and

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Speaker 2: I are both American citizens, actually do get in Bannon,

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Speaker 2: I think ideologically are closer together, and that's that's something new.

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Speaker 1: So you talked about identity politics and what's happening internally

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Speaker 1: in some of these countries. But how does that translate

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Speaker 1: to foreign policy and isolationism versus kind of being one

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Speaker 1: big global family.

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Speaker 2: Right, Well, in the three different countries that are the

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Speaker 2: center of my book different ways. So in America, it's

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Speaker 2: meant this growing isolationist tendency deeper in the Republican Party,

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Speaker 2: but pretty deep in the Democratic Party, and it just says,

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Speaker 2: you know, we did too much abroad. We got our

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Speaker 2: problems at home. I mean my mom in Montana and

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Speaker 2: I have the same argument with her, Like Ukraine, Mike,

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Speaker 2: you know, you seem so passionate about it. Why don't

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Speaker 2: you care about us? And that's not fair to my mom.

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Speaker 2: She cares about FIFA and Ukraine. But it's a legitimate

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Speaker 2: I want to be clear, it's a legitimate reaction. I

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Speaker 2: get it. We tried to do too much. We spent

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Speaker 2: too much elsewhere. People want us to spend more at home.

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Speaker 2: We're in this isolationist move for Putin, it's a little

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Speaker 2: different for Putin. He wants to break up the liberal

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Speaker 2: international order. He thinks it's been bad for Russia. By

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Speaker 2: the way he defines Russian interests very antithetical to the

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Speaker 2: way my friends in Russia do or my Russian friends

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Speaker 2: living in exile. But he thinks we'd be better off

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Speaker 2: going back to the nineteenth century, eighteenth century spheres of influence.

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Speaker 2: And then second, he has this ideological thing that he

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Speaker 2: wants to erode NATO by, you know, making ideological bridges

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Speaker 2: with these people that are against the things we were

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Speaker 2: just talking about, the Victor Urban's Maloney farage in the

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Speaker 2: UK and Trump, and at least until recently, Trump seems

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Speaker 2: to be changing his ways, but that he wants to

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Speaker 2: just break it up and that he thinks it would

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Speaker 2: be better. China's got a different game. Chixingping has one

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Speaker 2: foot in the old international system. So if President Trump

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Speaker 2: recently was here in New York, gave a speech to

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Speaker 2: the United Nations and he's basically like, I could care

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Speaker 2: less what you guys do. You know? It was like

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Speaker 2: it sounded like we were going to quit the United Nations.

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Speaker 2: Chieshing Ping's not doing that. He's got a foot in

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Speaker 2: the United Nations. They're in the peacekeeper groups and the

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Speaker 2: multilateral different pieces of the United Nations because he thinks

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Speaker 2: that helps to advance Chinese interests. And I think he's

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Speaker 2: right about that, and I think it would be a

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Speaker 2: huge mistake if we walked away from the United Nations.

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Speaker 2: But he's also and I think it's actually a playbook

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Speaker 2: from after World War Two for us. He's also creating

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Speaker 2: new groups, new clubs that China is at the center of.

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Speaker 2: He's uniting the Autocrats, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization bricks RCP.

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Speaker 2: It's a trade organization to bring together bri Belton Roade initiative.

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Speaker 2: I go through all these acronyms in the book and

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Speaker 2: we don't. Let's not go through individually. But he's creating

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Speaker 2: an alternative international order that China will anchor.

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Speaker 1: Is he going to be successful?

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Speaker 2: I worry. I think he's being very successful. And I

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Speaker 2: think we're asleep at the wheel. And we got to

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Speaker 2: get back to a participating in the old ones by

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Speaker 2: the way that we set up, like where are we

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Speaker 2: walking away from our clubs? But b get more creative

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Speaker 2: of creating new clubs for democracies like we did after

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Speaker 2: forty five, where we brought them together, and we're just

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Speaker 2: not doing that. We're pulling back. And I worry that.

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Speaker 2: You know that in the short term we might be okay.

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Speaker 2: But you know, I've studied the thirties and that's when

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Speaker 2: we had a lot of tariff talk. That's when we're like,

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Speaker 2: you know, what's happening over Japan invaded China? Why should

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Speaker 2: we care? I don't know where that is. Why do

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Speaker 2: I care? And then Hitler and Stalin both invaded Poland

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Speaker 2: and millions of Americans still said, and by the way,

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Speaker 2: Stalin later invaded a bunch of other countries, and so

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Speaker 2: did Hitler, and we kept saying, that's not our problem,

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Speaker 2: and that tragically in nineteen forty one it became our problem.

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Speaker 2: Had we been more engaged in the thirties, I think

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Speaker 2: we could have avoided the disaster that was World War Two.

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Speaker 2: And I just worry that if we pull back, the

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Speaker 2: Chinese and the Russians aren't pulling back, they're going to

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Speaker 2: get more aggressive, and god forbid, could pull us into

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Speaker 2: a war, an unintended war over Lithuania and Europe. If

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Speaker 2: we're pulling back, we're sending signals of weakness or Taiwan

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Speaker 2: and Asia. I don't think that's in our strategic interest.

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Speaker 1: Talk to me about sort of the China Russia relationship

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Speaker 1: for people who are not that well versed in terms

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Speaker 1: of the role that they're playing in each other's position

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Speaker 1: in the world, if you.

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Speaker 2: Will, Yeah, they're playing a big role that we got

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Speaker 2: to pay more attention to. So generally speaking, I would

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Speaker 2: say that the Autocrats are more organized today than the Democrats. Right,

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Speaker 2: we got to get our team together. We you know,

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Speaker 2: we got to start running some plays. We got to

427
00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:11,640
Speaker 2: start building the same kinds of things that they're doing.

428
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:15,159
Speaker 2: Think about the war in Ukraine. Let me rephrase that,

429
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:19,159
Speaker 2: the barbaric, horrific invasion of Ukraine that Putin launched in

430
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. He gets drones from Iran, a dictatorship,

431
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 2: he gets money and components from China, a dictatorship, and

432
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:32,879
Speaker 2: he gets soldiers. Think about that for a minute. Soldiers

433
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:36,360
Speaker 2: from North Korea, another dictatorship. So they're all helping him

434
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:38,720
Speaker 2: out to fight that war. We got to be as

435
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:41,920
Speaker 2: organized as a are. And with Russia and China, they're

436
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,880
Speaker 2: the two most powerful autocratic countries in the world. China

437
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:47,879
Speaker 2: is way more powerful in terms of capabilities. And I

438
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 2: go through all that data and summarize it all in

439
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 2: the book. Putin is more aggressive with respect to intentions,

440
00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 2: so he's weaker, but he's willing to invade countries. Sheijingping's

441
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 2: not invading countries. Sheijing things not annexing territory of his neighbors,

442
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:06,439
Speaker 2: at least not yet. That's how they're different. But they're

443
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 2: mostly united in opposition to us because they think that

444
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:16,480
Speaker 2: we're threatening their interests and threatening the legitimacy of their regimes,

445
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 2: and some people think, well, we should do a reverse Kissinger, right,

446
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:24,159
Speaker 2: Remember Kissinger went to China and he peeled them away

447
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:28,800
Speaker 2: to balance against the Soviets. I go through could we

448
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 2: do that in the book, and I just don't see

449
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 2: any opportunity for it. I think as long as Putin

450
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:36,600
Speaker 2: and she are the two leaders of those countries, they're

451
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 2: going to be closely aligned, and what we need to

452
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:42,360
Speaker 2: do is be as aligned as they are with our

453
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 2: allies in Asia and Europe.

454
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 1: Like who, I mean, who should we be working on

455
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:49,439
Speaker 1: our relationship with?

456
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:53,640
Speaker 2: Well, the president was just I've lost track. Maybe he's

457
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:56,480
Speaker 2: already left. He was just in Japan. So in Asia,

458
00:26:56,760 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 2: everything starts with Japan and South Korea about to go

459
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:04,520
Speaker 2: to South Korea, Australia, New Zealand. We got to strengthen

460
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:08,080
Speaker 2: those alliances, not tear off our friends in this kind

461
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:10,919
Speaker 2: of irrational way. You know, we got to have some

462
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:13,680
Speaker 2: cohesion to that. I just think that's a huge mistake.

463
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 2: India is another country that we're now antagonizing. They're a democracy.

464
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 2: There's a complicated country because of their relationship with the

465
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 2: Soviets and you know, the non aligned movement, But we

466
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 2: need them on our side against the autocrats in Europe

467
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:33,919
Speaker 2: and the NATO Alliance. The presidents just alienating countries for

468
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 2: no good reason, like you know, the fifty first state Canada. Really,

469
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 2: mister president.

470
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:40,440
Speaker 1: Why do you think he's doing that?

471
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 2: I don't know. I honestly don't know. But I have

472
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 2: lots of Canadian friends, including senior people in the government.

473
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:49,919
Speaker 2: They don't find it humorous. They don't think it's a

474
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 2: humorous thing. Invading Greenland another one of our allies, Denmark, Like, really,

475
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 2: we can do anything we want in Greenland that we

476
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 2: have bases there, we can get mineral from there, we

477
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 2: can do it in a cooperative way. And the president,

478
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:08,919
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes it's successful coercive diplomacy. And you know,

479
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:12,119
Speaker 2: he's done some things I think were successful, what he

480
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:15,240
Speaker 2: did in the Middle East. I applaud that. But for

481
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 2: your friends, coercion is not a long term strategy. So

482
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 2: we're strong enough that we can tell people what to do.

483
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:25,439
Speaker 2: And most countries in the world don't have enough power

484
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 2: to not do what we tell them to do, including democracies,

485
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:32,680
Speaker 2: but they don't like it. Nobody likes to be coerced

486
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 2: into doing things. You know, I grew up in Butte, Montana,

487
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 2: and there was this guy, Eddie. Butt's a really rough town,

488
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 2: that's a mining town. And I was a scrawny little

489
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 2: kid and Eddie was the bully of the neighborhood. And

490
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 2: for like three years of my life walking home from school,

491
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 2: if I ran into Eddie, I had to do it.

492
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 2: Eddie wanted, you know, give him my coat, and he'd

493
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 2: still sometimes beat me up, by the way. But did

494
00:28:55,800 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 2: I like it? So yeah, I acquiesced, you know, admitted

495
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 2: to Eddie. But eventually I got strong enough where I

496
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 2: didn't have to do that, you know. So coercion has

497
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 2: this short term kind of sugar high that you can

498
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 2: bully people, But in the long term that's not a

499
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 2: great way to have enduring friends and allies. And if

500
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 2: we're in the struggle between autocrats and democrats, which I

501
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 2: think will last for decades, we need our allies, our

502
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,960
Speaker 2: democratic allies on our side, not just in the immediate

503
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:28,520
Speaker 2: run but for the long term.

504
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 1: But how do we reach closer relationships with other democracies

505
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 1: If the president increasingly is acting like Putin or she

506
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: or other autocrats around the world. In other words, it

507
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 1: would be one thing if it was a different president yes,

508
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 1: shoring up these relationships, that's right. But you've got somebody

509
00:29:55,520 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 1: who is acting a certain way that is more consistent

510
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 1: with authoritarians. Yes, right, I mean, yeah, how do you

511
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: do that? Then?

512
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 2: So President Trump doesn't frame the world the way I do. Right,

513
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:12,719
Speaker 2: He doesn't see the world as autocrats and democrats. He

514
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 2: sees the world as strong leaders and week leaders. So

515
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 2: that would be the title of his book, Strong Leaders

516
00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 2: Versus week Leaders. And he doesn't really discriminate between autocrats

517
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 2: and democrats. Right. Sometimes he treats autocrats very favorably, and

518
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 2: you know, for a long time that's was what he

519
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 2: did with Putin. And then he loves Victor Orbon, Victor

520
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 2: Rban his buddy. Yeah, he talks about it all.

521
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 1: The time, kind of his role model.

522
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 2: He celebrates. I'm not sure he really understands what's going

523
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 2: on in Hungry, but he most certainly that's in his mindset.

524
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 2: Or Victor Urban that's a good European, you know, Macron,

525
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 2: bad European. Right, And so while you have that attitude,

526
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 2: you know, my strategy in terms of engagement, either with

527
00:30:56,320 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 2: the administration or in commenting on it, is to reduce

528
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 2: the amount of damage we do in the short run.

529
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:06,080
Speaker 2: And by the way, we've achieved some things. When I

530
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 2: was finishing this book right around the time that president

531
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 2: was won the second time, I was worried we're going

532
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 2: to withdraw from NATO. I mean, he was talking about it.

533
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 2: We haven't done that. That's an achievement. The way he

534
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:20,520
Speaker 2: talks about Putin today, he's a little more critical of Putin.

535
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 2: That's an achievement of trying to say this strategy is

536
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:29,160
Speaker 2: not working. But my book's not just written for Secretary

537
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 2: Rubio and the people around the president right now. My

538
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 2: book's written for people for decades to make the argument

539
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 2: a for the next president why this strategy is better

540
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 2: than this the one that we're currently on, and be

541
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 2: to you know, future leaders, like I hope some kid

542
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 2: in Texas. I was just at ut Arlington and I

543
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 2: was talking to a bunch of young students. You know,

544
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 2: I hope that they'll read the book and when they

545
00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 2: take over twenty years from now, they'll realize that engagements

546
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 2: better than going alone isolationist tendencies. So this is a

547
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 2: long term kind of fight about ideas within the United

548
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 2: States of America.

549
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:15,160
Speaker 1: You right, that China is not an existential threat to

550
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 1: the free world.

551
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 2: And yeah, that's controversial.

552
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 1: Yes, what everybody agrees with that, But it doesn't sound

553
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 1: like you. I mean, you position them early in our

554
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 1: conversation as I think a significant threat. Yes, So which

555
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 1: is it? Right?

556
00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 2: Great question, and it's a complicated question. And that's and

557
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 2: we need complicated diagnostics if we're going to prevail. So

558
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 2: existential threat means a threat to your existence. That's literally

559
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 2: what the word means. I looked at the data I

560
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:51,040
Speaker 2: spent years going through trying to learn about China's capabilities

561
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:53,760
Speaker 2: and tensions, and I could be wrong. I want to

562
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 2: be I want to be clear about this. You know,

563
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 2: we're all guessing about Xijingping, and and even I'm not

564
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 2: a China expert, but I know all the China experts

565
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 2: in America and in China, and they're all guessing and

566
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:07,960
Speaker 2: arguing amongst themselves. So I could be wrong. But I

567
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 2: don't see the data to support the idea that Shijingping

568
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 2: wants to destroy America. I just don't see it. I

569
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 2: think he has a different strategy. He has a more

570
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 2: He wants to preserve his dictatorship, that's his number one priority,

571
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 2: and he wants to support other autocrats around the world.

572
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 2: That's his secondary priority. But he's not seeking to foment

573
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 2: a Marxist Leninist revolution here in the United States. I

574
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 2: just don't. If he is, he's hidting it well and

575
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 2: he's not achieving many results. Right. I don't see a

576
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:43,960
Speaker 2: lot of demonstrations in America about we need more shijingping

577
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 2: thought here. By the way, that's different than the Soviets, Right,

578
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 2: the Soviets had that aspiration. I don't think he does.

579
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 1: Do they still?

580
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 2: No, No, they don't. They want America to be weaker.

581
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 2: They want us to you know, they want their ideological

582
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:00,720
Speaker 2: friends to be on their side. But the idea to

583
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 2: destroy America, I don't. I don't think. I think Putin,

584
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:08,400
Speaker 2: even Putin, who is not you know, somebody I'm very

585
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 2: critical of. He's pretty critical of me too, By the way,

586
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:15,040
Speaker 2: I don't think that's in his game plan. But but

587
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:19,360
Speaker 2: before I forget, but that doesn't mean that they're not

588
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 2: a significant threat to American security and prosperity and our value.

589
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: So it's somewhere in between, somewhere between serious and existential.

590
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 2: Yes, and that that's where we got to be. I

591
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:36,960
Speaker 2: use the word Goldilocks solutions many times in this book. Uh,

592
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 2: and it's partly because I think we're just way too

593
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 2: polarized as a country and we're way too polarized in

594
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:44,840
Speaker 2: our foreign policy. So you know, the China debate is

595
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 2: either you're a hawk or a dove, and I hate

596
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:49,799
Speaker 2: both of those terms. I just I didn't like them

597
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 2: in the Soviet period. I don't like them for Russia

598
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:55,280
Speaker 2: because it just it just you have to have a

599
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 2: you have to have an assessment of the threat and

600
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:02,360
Speaker 2: then develop a strategy to advance ants our national interests.

601
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 2: And sometimes with China that means confrontation. So my book,

602
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:10,920
Speaker 2: I talk about we need to prevent war over Taiwan.

603
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 2: I think that's a really important thing for all American

604
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:18,320
Speaker 2: leaders to do, and that means spending more for their defense.

605
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:20,839
Speaker 2: And they need to spend more on their defense, and

606
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 2: China will see that as confrontational. We got to live

607
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 2: with that, and at the same time, we should be

608
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 2: cooperating more with China on issues of climate change. I

609
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:35,840
Speaker 2: just think it's crazy that this is a real threat

610
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 2: to America and by the way, an existential threat climate change.

611
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:42,640
Speaker 2: I think the President is one hundred percent wrong on this.

612
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:44,879
Speaker 2: So we're going to pull out. You know, he's got

613
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 2: these crazy ideas about how solar and wind are bad.

614
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:51,040
Speaker 2: By the way, the Chinese are investing a lot in those,

615
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 2: but we should be cooperating with them at that and

616
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:59,200
Speaker 2: I think that mix cooperation and containment is the right

617
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 2: strategy for with China.

618
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:07,000
Speaker 1: Why do both Russia and China want to get America

619
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 1: to be as polarized as possible? I mean, you know,

620
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:14,319
Speaker 1: you always hear about these Russian bots seeding discontent, and

621
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:19,319
Speaker 1: they're there China too, right, I mean, so why are

622
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: they doing that?

623
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:25,240
Speaker 2: Well, they're doing it. They're very active, putin more active,

624
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:28,759
Speaker 2: and especially in twenty sixteen. You know, there's this new

625
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 2: mythology that this is Russia hoax. And if you say

626
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 2: it a million times, Americans believe it. It was not

627
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:37,400
Speaker 2: a hoax. It was real. They stole emails from the

628
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:41,840
Speaker 2: Democratic Party and put them out to weaken Hillary Clinton.

629
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:44,840
Speaker 2: That's just a fact. And you know, if you disagree

630
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:47,120
Speaker 2: with me, be in touch. I've written a lot about it.

631
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:51,280
Speaker 2: Did it have an impact on that twenty sixteen election?

632
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 2: We haven't been able to measure that. We social scientists, right, well.

633
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: How can you really measure something like that it's very.

634
00:36:57,440 --> 00:36:59,759
Speaker 2: Difficult, and that I think we just need to be

635
00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:01,880
Speaker 2: able to say both those things at the same time.

636
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 2: But did they want to Absolutely If you read Russia today,

637
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:10,200
Speaker 2: they are seeking to divide and polarize our society every

638
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:12,480
Speaker 2: single day, and by the way, they're out there on

639
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 2: our platforms. And the reason is it's I think it's

640
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:21,040
Speaker 2: really clear, pretty straightforward. If we're fighting amongst ourselves, we're

641
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 2: not fighting them. And one of the big themes of

642
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:27,879
Speaker 2: my book, so I compare Cold War to today, right,

643
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 2: and we already talked about it similarities and differences, and

644
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:33,759
Speaker 2: they're both and I have you know, my book talk,

645
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 2: I have you know, charts of similarities and differences. We

646
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:38,760
Speaker 2: won't go through them all because it's a long list.

647
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:43,839
Speaker 2: But a big difference. We already talked about isolationism in America.

648
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:48,120
Speaker 2: But another big difference is our level of polarization inside

649
00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:51,000
Speaker 2: our country. Now. We had we had polarization in the

650
00:37:51,080 --> 00:37:53,759
Speaker 2: late sixties and early seventies. People forget that, and it

651
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:56,840
Speaker 2: was it was that was real, But this is worse

652
00:37:57,320 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 2: and that helps our enemies. And and you know, my

653
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 2: greatest threat is actually not the Chinese and the Russians,

654
00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:08,839
Speaker 2: but ourselves. If we continue down this path, we're going

655
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:13,360
Speaker 2: to weaken our economy, We're going to weaken our ability

656
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 2: to inspire people abroad, and that serves our adversaries, does

657
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:19,400
Speaker 2: not serve America.

658
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:22,600
Speaker 1: So how do we get out of this mess? According

659
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:26,399
Speaker 1: to you know the world? According to Mike McFall, Yes,

660
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 1: how do we stop this trajectory of growing autocracies all

661
00:38:33,239 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 1: over the globe, including at home, and get back to

662
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:45,799
Speaker 1: a more cooperative global order and go from disorder to order?

663
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 2: Yeah? Again, big hard question. It took me three chapters

664
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 2: to answer your question. So I have. By the way,

665
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:55,120
Speaker 2: my editor really did not like this.

666
00:38:55,239 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 1: I was going to say, can you can you write

667
00:38:57,080 --> 00:39:00,120
Speaker 1: this book Autocrats Versus Democrats? For dummy?

668
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:03,880
Speaker 2: Well, I have a great slide deck and we're going

669
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 2: to post it on your website. Okay, I can do

670
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:09,360
Speaker 2: this book in thirty five minutes. Remember that name that

671
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:13,799
Speaker 2: tune show name that. I can summarize this book in

672
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 2: thirty five minutes with a lot of great slides and

673
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:17,400
Speaker 2: great foot Well.

674
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:19,319
Speaker 1: Like you should do a Ted talk and then we can,

675
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: yeah and push that up because it's honestly, there's it's

676
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: so complicated because it's involving history and wars and various

677
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: governments all over the world. I think it's a lot

678
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 1: to put to get your arms right.

679
00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 2: It is, and that's I will send you the talk, okay,

680
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 2: But I just so you know, the first draft was

681
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:43,839
Speaker 2: twelve hundred pages long and had six thousand notes, so

682
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:46,320
Speaker 2: it took me two years to make it five hundred.

683
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 2: But I do so without apology because the world is complex,

684
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:53,400
Speaker 2: and I worry there are too many populoas in the world,

685
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 2: including in our country, that just make everything super simple

686
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:02,439
Speaker 2: Manichean black and white, you know, enemies and friends, and

687
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:04,680
Speaker 2: that I think was going to get us in trouble.

688
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 2: But to answer your big question with a few quick sentences, one,

689
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:13,480
Speaker 2: I have a chapter on mistakes during the Cold War

690
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 2: that we shouldn't repeat. We'll come back to that in

691
00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 2: a minute. But the core chapter, we did do some

692
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:21,839
Speaker 2: things right during the Cold War, and I think we

693
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:23,840
Speaker 2: need to get back to doing them, and that the

694
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:27,320
Speaker 2: list is really simple. One. Allies that was our superpower

695
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 2: during the Soviets. We need them today. We got to

696
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:32,200
Speaker 2: stop pissing off our allies. We need to strengthen them

697
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:35,640
Speaker 2: to the American economy. Why did we win the Cold

698
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 2: War ultimately, because we outperformed the Soviets, the West Germans

699
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:43,280
Speaker 2: outperformed the East Germans, the South Koreans outperformed the North Koreans.

700
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 2: We have to keep our economy strong. We're doing pretty

701
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 2: well on that. I'm not sure if it's because or

702
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:51,359
Speaker 2: in spite of Trump's policies you.

703
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 1: Worry about, and it's going to stay steady given sort

704
00:40:55,760 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 1: of the tariff situation everything else that the chickens will

705
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 1: come home to produced and hurt us economically.

706
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 2: I worry a lot about it. And three the big

707
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 2: things I worry about. One tariffs, Two immigration policy. How

708
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 2: do we win the Cold War? The best and the

709
00:41:11,239 --> 00:41:14,520
Speaker 2: brightest came from all over the world, including China and Russia,

710
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 2: to Silicon Valley and other places to help us, and

711
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:20,360
Speaker 2: we're shutting that down. And I worry. Maybe this sounds

712
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:24,360
Speaker 2: parochial as a Stanford professor, but a genius thing we

713
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:27,160
Speaker 2: did during the Cold War was we invested in research

714
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 2: and development. We created the best universities in the world,

715
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:33,440
Speaker 2: and that helped us win the Cold War. That's what

716
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:36,160
Speaker 2: the Chinese are doing now and we're not doing it.

717
00:41:36,200 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 2: In a long term. I worry a lot.

718
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:40,920
Speaker 1: About that, and immigrants in many ways for the backbone

719
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 1: or the accounty, of.

720
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 2: Course, and we will. That's a strength we have if

721
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 2: we use it properly.

722
00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:50,800
Speaker 1: Visa not just the people who are you graduate students.

723
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:55,319
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the people who were helping farmers, you know, in.

724
00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:59,400
Speaker 2: The houses in Montana. I just was talking to some

725
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:04,359
Speaker 2: contract or. These tariffs and immigration policies are hurting contractors

726
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:04,960
Speaker 2: in Montana.

727
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:07,960
Speaker 1: So that is one area you say, So keep the

728
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 1: economy strong.

729
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 2: Allies economy. Third, instead of breaking down the trade and

730
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 2: investment world in the free world like the President's doing,

731
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:19,360
Speaker 2: we need to rebuild it. Now. We made mistakes, I

732
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 2: got it. But the answer to the mistakes of the

733
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:25,480
Speaker 2: World Trade Organization is not to blow it up. It's

734
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 2: to reform it. So get back to that, especially in

735
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:32,800
Speaker 2: the free world. And then fourth, and finally, get back

736
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 2: to supporting democracy, freedom, liberty, choose your word, right. I

737
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:40,759
Speaker 2: want to do it in a nonpartisan way. That was

738
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:44,799
Speaker 2: crucial to winning the last struggle between autocrats and democrats

739
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 2: in the Cold War. And we're we're just shutting it

740
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 2: all down. So USAID, US Agency for International Development created

741
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 2: by John F. Kennedy in nineteen sixty one. It's not

742
00:42:57,120 --> 00:43:00,200
Speaker 2: an accident. That's the height of the Cold War. He

743
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 2: rightfully decided we needed to compete with the Soviets and

744
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:09,279
Speaker 2: the developing world with economic assistance. President Trump just shut

745
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:11,880
Speaker 2: it down. Let me tell you, the Chinese are not

746
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 2: shutting down their Belton Road initiative.

747
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 1: They're expanding out in Africa and all this the world.

748
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 2: We're offering nothing Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio

749
00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:26,560
Speaker 2: Free Asia. These are all, you know, government subsidized media.

750
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:28,719
Speaker 2: And there's problems with it, and I've written a hundred

751
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 2: articles about that. But shutting it down, that's not prudent reform.

752
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:37,360
Speaker 2: It make it more independent. The Chinese are not shutting

753
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 2: that down. National Endowment for Democracy. So I'm going to

754
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:43,839
Speaker 2: be republican here, right, nonpartisan. I mentioned Kennedy. Let me

755
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 2: mention Ronald Reagan. By the way, a lot of the

756
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 2: themes of this book echo a lot of Ronald Reagan.

757
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:51,239
Speaker 2: I would never have imagined as a kid when I

758
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:55,760
Speaker 2: protested against Reagan in his embrace of the apartheid regime

759
00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:57,879
Speaker 2: in South Africa, that i'd say that. But I am

760
00:43:57,920 --> 00:44:00,719
Speaker 2: saying that it was something called the Nation Endowment for

761
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 2: Democracy when he had this idea, we should provide assistance

762
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:08,200
Speaker 2: to small deed democrats around the world, and now the

763
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:12,719
Speaker 2: president and his team they're shutting institutions like that down.

764
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:16,400
Speaker 2: So I think getting back to that those four things

765
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:19,840
Speaker 2: will be fine. But then you asked about the inside

766
00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:22,520
Speaker 2: the United States, and that's harder one because I'm not

767
00:44:22,640 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 2: I don't pretend to be an expert, but I have

768
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 2: some ideas in the book anyway, and you said if

769
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 2: McFall could bizarre, there are definitely institutional reforms for our

770
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:37,320
Speaker 2: democracy we could do to reduce polarization. Our campaign finance

771
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 2: laws are just atrocious. We need more transparency and we

772
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 2: need more equality of who can fund them. Redistricting, you know,

773
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 2: we're going through this crazy time. I'm out in California

774
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 2: and you know it's Prop fifty and I voted for

775
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 2: it for next Tuesday because we have to respond to Texas.

776
00:44:56,440 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 2: But thankfully the resolution in California says it'll just be temporary.

777
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:05,799
Speaker 2: We can't just have these places with no competition in

778
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 2: electoral districts because that means the most radical in both

779
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party and the Republican Party win. We got

780
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 2: to get rid of that. And even the electoral college.

781
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:18,239
Speaker 2: I mean, I know this is going to sound like blasphemy,

782
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:21,240
Speaker 2: but that is not a democratic institution.

783
00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if it's blasphemous. You're not the

784
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:25,360
Speaker 1: first person to say.

785
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:28,759
Speaker 2: On the case. When I'm talking about this book and

786
00:45:28,800 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 2: I mentioned that, I get a lot of flak like,

787
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 2: how dare you that's our system? Well, when that constitution

788
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:37,759
Speaker 2: is written, we also had slavery, you know. I mean,

789
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:41,720
Speaker 2: we need to update that, and doing so would reduce

790
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:46,880
Speaker 2: polarization because with the electoral college today, millions of Americans,

791
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:50,160
Speaker 2: including a lot of Republicans in California. I don't know

792
00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:52,480
Speaker 2: if people know this, but there are millions and millions

793
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:54,399
Speaker 2: of people that voted for Donald Trump in the state

794
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:57,319
Speaker 2: of California and they don't get any attention during the

795
00:45:57,320 --> 00:45:59,959
Speaker 2: election because we all know it's going to go blue.

796
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:02,920
Speaker 2: If you got rid of the electoral college and every

797
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:06,839
Speaker 2: person's vote mattered, you would have a different set of campaigning.

798
00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:09,920
Speaker 2: And the last thing I'll say, just in a note

799
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:13,319
Speaker 2: of optimism, I do think it's our elites and our

800
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:17,600
Speaker 2: media and folks that fund the campaigns that have pulled

801
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:21,200
Speaker 2: us in this polarization way. And the reason I think

802
00:46:21,239 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 2: that is I'm from Montana. I have relatives of voted

803
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:27,800
Speaker 2: for Donald Trump, my former high school debate partner. That's

804
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 2: how I got interested in Russia. He's a senator, Senator

805
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:34,200
Speaker 2: Steve Daines, he's a Republican. And I got to tell you,

806
00:46:34,239 --> 00:46:37,920
Speaker 2: when I'm chatting with my relatives and friends back home,

807
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:42,320
Speaker 2: we agree on eighty percent. You know, there are marginal

808
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:45,840
Speaker 2: things we disagree about. I just don't think most Americans

809
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:48,520
Speaker 2: are as polarized as elites. I think we're mostly purple.

810
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:52,440
Speaker 2: And one of the data points that gives me hope.

811
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:56,120
Speaker 2: I worked on Barack Obama's campaign very proudly, and then

812
00:46:56,160 --> 00:46:58,279
Speaker 2: worked for him for five years. Do you know that

813
00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:01,680
Speaker 2: he got forty seven percent of the vote in my

814
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 2: home state of Montana. Forty seven percent. M King got

815
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 2: forty nine. Now that was a while ago, but it

816
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:12,319
Speaker 2: wasn't one hundred years ago. And just let me tell

817
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 2: all your viewers and listeners. We don't have a lot

818
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 2: of black people in Montana. So that's Barack Obama used

819
00:47:18,080 --> 00:47:19,719
Speaker 2: to say that all the time. He says, there's not

820
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:21,279
Speaker 2: a lot, there's not a lot of my people there.

821
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:23,840
Speaker 2: But I'm going to win the state and He's a

822
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:26,719
Speaker 2: super competitive guy. By the way, I've played basketball with

823
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:28,759
Speaker 2: ons in one so we went over three and I

824
00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:31,759
Speaker 2: thought he was going to fire me that day. He's

825
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:34,880
Speaker 2: super competitive. He really wanted to win Montana. But I

826
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:39,120
Speaker 2: tell you that because preferences don't change that fast. That

827
00:47:39,239 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 2: was just two thousand and eight. It's not like there's

828
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:45,839
Speaker 2: been this radical change. And I do think these institutional

829
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:48,400
Speaker 2: changes could get us there, but maybe some leaders that

830
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:52,600
Speaker 2: also didn't talk in such polarizing ways. I think that

831
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 2: could help us get us to more consensus because we

832
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,920
Speaker 2: for the things I worry about, we need it. If

833
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 2: we don't get our act together domestically, we're going to

834
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:11,800
Speaker 2: have a lot of troubles on the international stage.

835
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:14,879
Speaker 1: Hi everyone, it's me Katie Couric. You know, if you've

836
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:17,680
Speaker 1: been following me on social media, you know I love

837
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:20,880
Speaker 1: to cook, or at least try, especially alongside some of

838
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 1: my favorite chefs and foodies like Benny Blanco, Jake Cohen,

839
00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:29,160
Speaker 1: Lighty Hoik, Alison Roman, and Ininagarten. So I started a

840
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:32,759
Speaker 1: free newsletter called Good Taste to share recipes, tips and

841
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 1: kitchen mustaves. Just sign up at Katiecuric dot com, slash

842
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 1: good taste. That's k A T I E C O

843
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:43,960
Speaker 1: U R I C dot com slash good Taste. I

844
00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:56,920
Speaker 1: promise your taste buds will be happy you did. I

845
00:48:56,960 --> 00:48:59,520
Speaker 1: know we wanted to leave on a hopeful note. But

846
00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 1: when you say that, I have to say, what do

847
00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 1: you envision? Because honestly, I don't see any signs that

848
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:10,880
Speaker 1: we are going to become less polarized. In fact, it

849
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:15,440
Speaker 1: feels like we're only going to get more polarized, at least,

850
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:18,600
Speaker 1: you know, if you look. I mean, we could have

851
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:22,000
Speaker 1: a longer conversation about whether it's the media. And you know,

852
00:49:22,120 --> 00:49:25,160
Speaker 1: Jonathan Heit wrote that great article about why the last

853
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:28,960
Speaker 1: ten years have been uniquely stupid and talking about extremists

854
00:49:29,000 --> 00:49:31,799
Speaker 1: having more of a voice on social media. But let's

855
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 1: say we don't become less polarized. We don't have leaders

856
00:49:35,640 --> 00:49:38,880
Speaker 1: that appeal to our better angels, right, and we have

857
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:44,160
Speaker 1: people who are sowing anger and discontent and enragement through engagement.

858
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 1: So what does that look like in ten years? Not

859
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:51,840
Speaker 1: only what you were saying about your fears about the

860
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:56,040
Speaker 1: world stage. Yeah, I mean, paint the worst case scenario

861
00:49:56,200 --> 00:49:57,600
Speaker 1: for me, Well, paint.

862
00:49:57,440 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 2: And then I'm going to come back to you this

863
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:02,080
Speaker 2: case because doing all I can to fight against it.

864
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:04,920
Speaker 2: The worst case is that we just become a you know,

865
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:07,680
Speaker 2: it's happened to many countries before, or where we become

866
00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:11,600
Speaker 2: a middle power. We're declining power, a world dominated by

867
00:50:11,600 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 2: the Chinese and the Russians, and everybody's buying their goods

868
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 2: and trading with them. We become poor as a result

869
00:50:18,080 --> 00:50:20,359
Speaker 2: of that. We most certainly will become poor if we're

870
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:24,759
Speaker 2: a island with our tariffs and a world that's run

871
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:28,000
Speaker 2: by the Chinese, we become poorer here in the United States,

872
00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:29,399
Speaker 2: There's just no doubt about that.

873
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:31,919
Speaker 1: What about making America great again?

874
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:34,719
Speaker 2: Mike, Well, those we're not doing that, and we need

875
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:36,720
Speaker 2: to get back to that. I want to make America.

876
00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 2: I think America's pretty great already, by the way, and.

877
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:42,279
Speaker 1: That that's a pretty loaded statement anyway, And you know,

878
00:50:42,600 --> 00:50:45,040
Speaker 1: hearkens back to a very different times.

879
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 2: To the nineteen thirties. That's where the American First Committee,

880
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:49,440
Speaker 2: and well, that's a good analogy, you know, you do

881
00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:55,879
Speaker 2: if you follow these isolationist policies and these divisions at home.

882
00:50:55,960 --> 00:50:59,080
Speaker 2: I mean, we had full blown Nazis, you know, in America,

883
00:50:59,239 --> 00:51:01,279
Speaker 2: millions of them. I didn't learn that as a kid

884
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:04,080
Speaker 2: in Montana. I've learned it to write this book. That

885
00:51:04,200 --> 00:51:06,239
Speaker 2: was a bad course we were on that was not

886
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:06,919
Speaker 2: going well.

887
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:08,959
Speaker 1: And now we have a lot of neo Nazis here.

888
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 2: We do, but we also have a lot of people

889
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:15,200
Speaker 2: that are not neo Nazis, and we have a lot

890
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:18,440
Speaker 2: of people that do believe in democracy versus not. The

891
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:20,960
Speaker 2: data is on my side on that here in America,

892
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 2: and it's on my side around the world. I think

893
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:28,479
Speaker 2: most people agree with Churchill. I'm paraphrasing, but he said,

894
00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 2: you know, democracy is a horrible system of government except

895
00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:34,480
Speaker 2: for all those others tried. And the data shows that

896
00:51:34,560 --> 00:51:38,000
Speaker 2: people in all over the world tend to agree with

897
00:51:38,080 --> 00:51:41,840
Speaker 2: Churchill different variations. So that makes me optimistic. But the

898
00:51:41,840 --> 00:51:47,399
Speaker 2: second thing the optimistic note that might be analytically where

899
00:51:47,440 --> 00:51:50,600
Speaker 2: we're going, right, Like as a social scientist, if I

900
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:54,239
Speaker 2: put on my political science hat and I have to

901
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:57,239
Speaker 2: look at the data that may be where we're going.

902
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:01,319
Speaker 2: Or if I was briefing a which I sometimes do,

903
00:52:01,400 --> 00:52:03,440
Speaker 2: and they say they always say give me your base

904
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:07,040
Speaker 2: case scenario where they want my analysis, I might have

905
00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:09,799
Speaker 2: to say, well, that's where we're going. But I'm not

906
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:13,640
Speaker 2: just a social scientist. I'm American, and I don't like

907
00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:16,280
Speaker 2: where we're going. And I wrote this book in part

908
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:19,920
Speaker 2: to make the case for why there's a better strategy

909
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:25,600
Speaker 2: for our national interests abroad, including reducing polarization at home

910
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:28,920
Speaker 2: that leads to a better world for my kids and

911
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:33,919
Speaker 2: hopefully grandkids, more prospers, more secure, more free world both

912
00:52:33,960 --> 00:52:37,479
Speaker 2: at home in America. I outline what those ideas are,

913
00:52:38,440 --> 00:52:39,759
Speaker 2: and then we got to get out there and fight

914
00:52:39,800 --> 00:52:42,560
Speaker 2: for them. And part of what I'm going to do

915
00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:46,279
Speaker 2: with this book is go to places where I was

916
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:49,400
Speaker 2: just at the University of South Carolina last week, right, and

917
00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:51,520
Speaker 2: not everybody in that room agrees with me, and I'm

918
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 2: glad to be in that room. I've just been to

919
00:52:54,160 --> 00:52:56,800
Speaker 2: Texas twice and I'm going back for two more stops

920
00:52:56,840 --> 00:53:03,560
Speaker 2: in Texas, going to Montana, Idaho, Ohio, Pennsylvania. I won't

921
00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:06,000
Speaker 2: go through the whole less, but I'm not going to

922
00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 2: Yale and Princeton and Harvard. I kind of know what

923
00:53:08,560 --> 00:53:12,319
Speaker 2: those debates are. And I want to tell you two things. One,

924
00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:15,920
Speaker 2: everywhere I go, the rooms are completely sold out. So

925
00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:19,839
Speaker 2: when people say Americans don't care about foreign policy, that's

926
00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:25,640
Speaker 2: not true in San Antonio or Arlington or Columbia. And

927
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:28,160
Speaker 2: I get their selection bias. Who comes to see McFall

928
00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:31,240
Speaker 2: I get it, I get it. But I get bigger

929
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:33,520
Speaker 2: crowds in those places than I do in Palo Alto

930
00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:37,680
Speaker 2: or Washington, d C. And people are not all agreeing

931
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:41,640
Speaker 2: with me, but people want to have this conversation. And

932
00:53:42,120 --> 00:53:46,239
Speaker 2: one other really surprising thing. There's this sense that all

933
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:49,400
Speaker 2: we care about is our material interests and money, and

934
00:53:49,440 --> 00:53:52,400
Speaker 2: we've got to cut foreign assistance because it's too much money.

935
00:53:52,480 --> 00:53:56,439
Speaker 2: And actually it's just a fraction. That's a narrative that's

936
00:53:56,440 --> 00:53:59,400
Speaker 2: out there. The president wants you to believe that. My

937
00:53:59,560 --> 00:54:03,800
Speaker 2: biggest applause lines, or when I say in the fight

938
00:54:04,120 --> 00:54:08,719
Speaker 2: between Putin and Zelenski, I want America to be on

939
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:11,239
Speaker 2: the side of good versus evil. And I use that

940
00:54:11,360 --> 00:54:13,560
Speaker 2: language on purpose because I think it is a fight

941
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:17,160
Speaker 2: between good and evil, and it's a fight between democracy

942
00:54:17,520 --> 00:54:21,000
Speaker 2: and autocracy, and it's a fight between imperialism and a

943
00:54:21,080 --> 00:54:24,919
Speaker 2: country that's fighting for its independence. And when I say

944
00:54:24,960 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 2: those things, that's when people stand up in a plod.

945
00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:29,960
Speaker 2: So I'm not willing to accept that we're all just

946
00:54:30,040 --> 00:54:33,480
Speaker 2: cynical people caring about ourselves. I actually think we care

947
00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:36,239
Speaker 2: about right and wrong. And if I'm wrong, I'm going

948
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:38,759
Speaker 2: to spend a lot of time proving myself wrong by

949
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:41,440
Speaker 2: talking about this book around the country.

950
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:47,080
Speaker 1: This future you and vision. Can it happen if MAGA

951
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:52,520
Speaker 1: is the leading political philosophy or at least in a

952
00:54:52,560 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 1: position of power in this country or does that have

953
00:54:55,719 --> 00:54:56,320
Speaker 1: to change?

954
00:54:56,520 --> 00:54:59,279
Speaker 2: No, it has to change. But I'm optimistic there too.

955
00:54:59,400 --> 00:55:02,440
Speaker 2: Mega is not the most They're a minority in America.

956
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:06,160
Speaker 2: Let's be clear. The data is just overwhelmingly clear their

957
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:10,480
Speaker 2: minority within the Republican Party. It's kind of fifty to

958
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:13,160
Speaker 2: fifty there. But then there's a lot of other Americans.

959
00:55:13,160 --> 00:55:15,319
Speaker 2: There's all the people in the Democratic Party, and then

960
00:55:15,320 --> 00:55:18,800
Speaker 2: there's most of America forty percent I think are independent

961
00:55:18,800 --> 00:55:21,359
Speaker 2: and don't vote. So there's a lot of people that

962
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:24,920
Speaker 2: disagree with that. But then you've got to fight for

963
00:55:24,960 --> 00:55:26,480
Speaker 2: that too. I want to be clear, this is not

964
00:55:26,520 --> 00:55:30,759
Speaker 2: going to just happen. And with respect to democracy in America,

965
00:55:31,040 --> 00:55:35,239
Speaker 2: this is the biggest challenge to our democratic institutions of

966
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:38,600
Speaker 2: my lifetime by far, and people more expert than I.

967
00:55:38,600 --> 00:55:40,839
Speaker 2: I'm not an expert on America but they would they

968
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:43,200
Speaker 2: go back to the Civil War to say this is

969
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:46,720
Speaker 2: as big as that. But I know we've talked about

970
00:55:46,719 --> 00:55:49,440
Speaker 2: some of the other countries, Victor Orubon, Vladimir Putin.

971
00:55:49,520 --> 00:55:52,480
Speaker 1: Oh, I saw the protests in Hungary over the weekend.

972
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:58,040
Speaker 2: So they're fighting, they're back. That's an amazing thing. And

973
00:55:58,239 --> 00:56:03,760
Speaker 2: the difference between early Hungary and especially Russia two big things.

974
00:56:03,800 --> 00:56:06,919
Speaker 2: So there are parallels between Trump and Putin. I wrote

975
00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:09,799
Speaker 2: that piece first in twenty seventeen, by the way, where

976
00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:13,000
Speaker 2: I just saw he's rolling back the press, he's all

977
00:56:13,040 --> 00:56:16,680
Speaker 2: the oligarchs are coming towards Trump and it was slower,

978
00:56:16,719 --> 00:56:19,560
Speaker 2: but this time around it man, it feels like early

979
00:56:19,719 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 2: Putin era. Right. Who owns the media? Right? And then

980
00:56:23,400 --> 00:56:26,399
Speaker 2: who shows up to the inauguration and then took off

981
00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:29,640
Speaker 2: Jimmy Kimmel, Right, That reminds me of There was a

982
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:33,040
Speaker 2: show called Kuklei that Putin took off because he didn't like.

983
00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:34,279
Speaker 1: Because they were making fun of.

984
00:56:34,239 --> 00:56:36,279
Speaker 2: They were making fun of him, and he took it off.

985
00:56:36,440 --> 00:56:37,520
Speaker 1: Wasn't it a puppet show?

986
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:40,319
Speaker 2: It was a puppet show. Was fantastic, fantastic, It was

987
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:43,040
Speaker 2: so funny, it was so good. They made fun of everybody,

988
00:56:43,080 --> 00:56:44,720
Speaker 2: by the way, they didn't just make fun of Putin,

989
00:56:44,760 --> 00:56:47,239
Speaker 2: but he didn't like I think it was the height

990
00:56:47,320 --> 00:56:49,840
Speaker 2: stuff that really got under his skin. He's a pretty

991
00:56:49,840 --> 00:56:53,600
Speaker 2: short man. So I see those tendencies. But I also

992
00:56:54,239 --> 00:56:57,920
Speaker 2: see protests. A lot of people dropped Disney. I was

993
00:56:57,960 --> 00:57:00,400
Speaker 2: one of them, by the way. I canceled even though

994
00:57:00,400 --> 00:57:02,799
Speaker 2: we had it. But when I figured out we did

995
00:57:03,360 --> 00:57:06,640
Speaker 2: that mattered. Then King's protests millions of people showed up.

996
00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:10,520
Speaker 2: That matters. So you know, you can see it half empty,

997
00:57:10,520 --> 00:57:16,000
Speaker 2: half full. I'm cautiously optimistic that our institutions are stronger

998
00:57:16,560 --> 00:57:21,040
Speaker 2: than the early Putin era. Right, we wouldn't be doing

999
00:57:21,040 --> 00:57:24,280
Speaker 2: this three years into the Putin era if this were

1000
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:28,840
Speaker 2: a parallel and two and we have governors, and we

1001
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:31,560
Speaker 2: have a party that could be a little stronger, in

1002
00:57:31,600 --> 00:57:35,000
Speaker 2: my view, opposition party. But we do have more independent

1003
00:57:35,040 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 2: media than the Russians. They just had one channel now

1004
00:57:38,200 --> 00:57:39,800
Speaker 2: for now, but then we got to fight for it.

1005
00:57:39,840 --> 00:57:42,600
Speaker 2: We got to fight for it. And we also have

1006
00:57:42,800 --> 00:57:45,400
Speaker 2: something that the Russians didn't have, and that they had

1007
00:57:45,640 --> 00:57:49,760
Speaker 2: just had about a decade of an experiment with democracy

1008
00:57:50,120 --> 00:57:52,600
Speaker 2: and it wasn't delivering, Just like a lot of Americans

1009
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:57,280
Speaker 2: think our democracy wasn't delivering. But we've had two hundred

1010
00:57:57,360 --> 00:58:00,880
Speaker 2: years of this. It wasn't an accident that protest was

1011
00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:04,600
Speaker 2: called no Kings because that goes back to seventeen seventy six,

1012
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:06,880
Speaker 2: not just back a few years.

1013
00:58:06,600 --> 00:58:08,960
Speaker 1: Well more almost two hundred and fifty.

1014
00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:11,360
Speaker 2: Almost two hundred and fifty years. Yeah. Actually we'll celebrate

1015
00:58:11,400 --> 00:58:15,760
Speaker 2: that next year. So I just think you just can't

1016
00:58:15,840 --> 00:58:18,760
Speaker 2: sit on your couch and cry about it. That will

1017
00:58:18,800 --> 00:58:23,320
Speaker 2: not make our country better. But I I'm cautiously optimistic

1018
00:58:23,440 --> 00:58:27,640
Speaker 2: that democracy will not collapse and that we might get

1019
00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:31,200
Speaker 2: back to some more Goldilock solutions that I write about

1020
00:58:31,240 --> 00:58:33,480
Speaker 2: as opposed to this extremism.

1021
00:58:33,960 --> 00:58:36,120
Speaker 1: I can't let you go without asking you since I

1022
00:58:36,280 --> 00:58:39,640
Speaker 1: call you all the time anytime something happens, and with

1023
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:45,680
Speaker 1: Russia and Ukraine to get your latest take on the situation. Honestly,

1024
00:58:45,720 --> 00:58:48,480
Speaker 1: it's very hard for the average person to keep up

1025
00:58:48,520 --> 00:58:52,280
Speaker 1: with is putin you know on the AUPs. Is you

1026
00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:54,800
Speaker 1: know Donald Trump trying to cozy up to him. Does

1027
00:58:54,840 --> 00:58:58,800
Speaker 1: he hate Selensky? Does he like Selensky? Is he insulting Selensky?

1028
00:58:58,880 --> 00:59:02,960
Speaker 1: Is embracing it? So what is the latest and how

1029
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:08,000
Speaker 1: do you see this getting sorted out? If it does well.

1030
00:59:07,840 --> 00:59:10,640
Speaker 2: It's understandable that it's hard to follow because it changes

1031
00:59:10,680 --> 00:59:14,360
Speaker 2: every three days. And with President Trump. You know, President

1032
00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:16,439
Speaker 2: Trump used to be consistent on Putin, right, We've talked

1033
00:59:16,440 --> 00:59:18,280
Speaker 2: about that for many years. He used to love Putin.

1034
00:59:18,400 --> 00:59:21,520
Speaker 2: He was this guy. When they met in twenty eighteen

1035
00:59:21,600 --> 00:59:24,560
Speaker 2: at their big sum in Helsinki, Putin said, you know,

1036
00:59:24,600 --> 00:59:27,280
Speaker 2: we have these Americans we'd like to interrogate, and he

1037
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:29,320
Speaker 2: handed the list and Trump said, that's a great idea.

1038
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:32,440
Speaker 2: And I was on the list. I remember those days

1039
00:59:32,760 --> 00:59:35,680
Speaker 2: in a very personal way. You know. Lately, Trump's been

1040
00:59:35,880 --> 00:59:39,400
Speaker 2: all over the board, and I think he's finally figuring.

1041
00:59:39,040 --> 00:59:41,640
Speaker 1: Out that he can't trust Putin.

1042
00:59:41,800 --> 00:59:44,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's you know, it should have taken it shouldn't

1043
00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:46,560
Speaker 2: have taken him this long. But Putin's playing for him.

1044
00:59:46,720 --> 00:59:50,920
Speaker 2: He gave him all these concessions, and Putin overreached. He

1045
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:54,360
Speaker 2: asked for more, and I think that that upset the president.

1046
00:59:54,400 --> 00:59:58,120
Speaker 2: I'm glad about that, but then you know they're they're

1047
00:59:58,160 --> 01:00:01,600
Speaker 2: just last week there a bunch of Ukrainians in town,

1048
01:00:02,120 --> 01:00:05,000
Speaker 2: and then Zelensky came on Friday and was going, well,

1049
01:00:05,520 --> 01:00:08,520
Speaker 2: I'd heard lots of good readouts of those meetings, and

1050
01:00:08,560 --> 01:00:11,240
Speaker 2: then Putin, out of the blue calls Trump and they

1051
01:00:11,280 --> 01:00:13,360
Speaker 2: have a good call, and then he says, well, let's

1052
01:00:13,400 --> 01:00:16,520
Speaker 2: go meet in Hungary. And then the meeting with Zelensky

1053
01:00:16,600 --> 01:00:19,480
Speaker 2: turned out to be not very friendly. Right, So I

1054
01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:22,240
Speaker 2: just wish the president would have a little more consistency

1055
01:00:22,600 --> 01:00:26,200
Speaker 2: on what he's doing. But where we're at tragically is

1056
01:00:26,240 --> 01:00:29,040
Speaker 2: not that different since the last time we talked. The

1057
01:00:29,080 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 2: war continues. Putin continues to kill lots of civilians. He

1058
01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:38,880
Speaker 2: thinks that's the way he's going to exhaust that country. Incrementally,

1059
01:00:39,320 --> 01:00:44,520
Speaker 2: Russians are taking more and more Ukrainian territory incrementally, little

1060
01:00:44,520 --> 01:00:48,920
Speaker 2: bits and pieces, small villages, with killing lots of Russians

1061
01:00:48,960 --> 01:00:52,520
Speaker 2: to take him. But that's the trend line, and therefore

1062
01:00:53,040 --> 01:00:55,680
Speaker 2: if we want to end this war, we have to

1063
01:00:55,840 --> 01:00:59,240
Speaker 2: stop that forward progress. War's ended two ways, stand me

1064
01:00:59,280 --> 01:01:02,479
Speaker 2: in on the battlefield or one side wins. It's very rare.

1065
01:01:02,680 --> 01:01:06,480
Speaker 2: There are different kinds of outcomes, and I think stalemate

1066
01:01:06,960 --> 01:01:11,640
Speaker 2: is a necessary condition to get Putent to negotiate, and

1067
01:01:11,680 --> 01:01:15,080
Speaker 2: that means we need to help with more weapons and

1068
01:01:15,120 --> 01:01:18,600
Speaker 2: more sanctions for Zelenski and I'm glad that the President

1069
01:01:18,800 --> 01:01:22,200
Speaker 2: is selling weapons to our European allies to give to Ukraine.

1070
01:01:22,920 --> 01:01:24,440
Speaker 2: But I got to tell you, is that American I'm

1071
01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:27,320
Speaker 2: also embarrassed by that. You know, the President talks all

1072
01:01:27,360 --> 01:01:29,960
Speaker 2: the time about burden sharing, and I appreciate that we

1073
01:01:30,000 --> 01:01:34,480
Speaker 2: should share the burden with respect to NATO, but why

1074
01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:37,200
Speaker 2: not share the burden with respect to Ukraine. And that

1075
01:01:37,840 --> 01:01:42,120
Speaker 2: American companies are making money off of the war in

1076
01:01:42,280 --> 01:01:46,280
Speaker 2: Ukraine and we're not helping the Ukrainians, we the American taxpayers.

1077
01:01:46,840 --> 01:01:49,160
Speaker 2: I just think that's morally wrong. And I also don't

1078
01:01:49,160 --> 01:01:52,080
Speaker 2: think it's at our national interest. If we stop Putin

1079
01:01:52,160 --> 01:01:55,200
Speaker 2: in Ukraine, that means we don't have the threat of

1080
01:01:55,240 --> 01:01:58,000
Speaker 2: war in Lithuania that would drag US into a war

1081
01:01:58,040 --> 01:02:01,080
Speaker 2: because of our NATO allies. If we stop Putin and Ukraine,

1082
01:02:01,560 --> 01:02:06,200
Speaker 2: that makes Shijingping think a little harder about invading Taiwan.

1083
01:02:06,640 --> 01:02:09,120
Speaker 2: And if we stop him there, it makes the rest

1084
01:02:09,160 --> 01:02:11,440
Speaker 2: of the world lean a little bit more towards the

1085
01:02:11,440 --> 01:02:15,000
Speaker 2: democratic countries and a little away from the autocratic country.

1086
01:02:15,080 --> 01:02:18,520
Speaker 2: So I actually think the stakes could not be higher,

1087
01:02:18,720 --> 01:02:20,000
Speaker 2: and we got to get more engaged.

1088
01:02:20,200 --> 01:02:23,240
Speaker 1: So what is going to happen now he is meeting

1089
01:02:23,280 --> 01:02:27,360
Speaker 1: with Putin, right, how likely is it that the US

1090
01:02:27,440 --> 01:02:31,160
Speaker 1: will stop Putin and stop this war? And how long

1091
01:02:31,240 --> 01:02:37,520
Speaker 1: can Selenski and Ukraine hang on? Mike, Well, they're struggling.

1092
01:02:37,880 --> 01:02:39,880
Speaker 2: I just met with some warriors from Ukraine just a

1093
01:02:39,880 --> 01:02:42,880
Speaker 2: few days ago, and I'm always amazed by two things.

1094
01:02:43,800 --> 01:02:47,120
Speaker 2: Just their incredible resilience. I just met with I don't

1095
01:02:47,120 --> 01:02:49,440
Speaker 2: think she'd mind me talking about it. Somebody's been fighting

1096
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:53,520
Speaker 2: on the front line the entire war, volunteered. A woman

1097
01:02:53,880 --> 01:02:57,680
Speaker 2: when her country was invaded, became a sharpshooter, became a sniper,

1098
01:02:58,520 --> 01:03:02,600
Speaker 2: and is now working on count or intelligence more fit

1099
01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:07,680
Speaker 2: to use her capabilities. And I have the privilege of

1100
01:03:07,680 --> 01:03:12,160
Speaker 2: interacting with Ukrainians pretty much every day, sometimes here, sometimes

1101
01:03:13,280 --> 01:03:15,600
Speaker 2: over various ways of communication, and the way I would

1102
01:03:15,640 --> 01:03:20,160
Speaker 2: describe it is they're exhausted, they need more soldiers, and

1103
01:03:20,240 --> 01:03:23,480
Speaker 2: they're worried about what's going to happen to their country.

1104
01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:29,160
Speaker 2: But they also don't really have options. One of my

1105
01:03:29,280 --> 01:03:34,000
Speaker 2: Ukrainian friends very vividly said when I asked him your question,

1106
01:03:34,640 --> 01:03:36,760
Speaker 2: he said to me, Mike, I want to quote that

1107
01:03:36,960 --> 01:03:42,760
Speaker 2: grand military strategist Mike Tyson the boxer, and he said

1108
01:03:43,280 --> 01:03:46,120
Speaker 2: Mike Tyson asked, was once asked, don't you get tired

1109
01:03:46,160 --> 01:03:48,000
Speaker 2: in the twelfth or thirteenth round and you just feel

1110
01:03:48,000 --> 01:03:50,520
Speaker 2: like quitting? He said, of course, I feel like quitting.

1111
01:03:50,880 --> 01:03:54,560
Speaker 2: But I know that the consequences of quitting are much

1112
01:03:54,600 --> 01:03:58,000
Speaker 2: worse than the consequences of keep fighting. And that's the

1113
01:03:58,040 --> 01:04:01,640
Speaker 2: Ukrainian mentality. There's a myth sometimes here in America that

1114
01:04:01,680 --> 01:04:05,080
Speaker 2: I encounter that if the Ukrainians just stop fighting, Putin

1115
01:04:05,120 --> 01:04:07,840
Speaker 2: will stop fighting. No, he won't. He'll just keep killing

1116
01:04:08,040 --> 01:04:10,480
Speaker 2: Ukrainians and he'll march all the way to Kiev and

1117
01:04:10,520 --> 01:04:14,040
Speaker 2: he'll take their entire country. So they don't have a choice,

1118
01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:19,280
Speaker 2: and therefore stalemate is the answer. And I want to

1119
01:04:19,400 --> 01:04:23,680
Speaker 2: be cautiously optimistic. There's been some drone technology breakthrough. There's

1120
01:04:23,720 --> 01:04:27,880
Speaker 2: been these longer range missiles that we haven't given the Ukrainians,

1121
01:04:27,880 --> 01:04:31,000
Speaker 2: but they are developing their own that I think could

1122
01:04:31,200 --> 01:04:33,800
Speaker 2: help shift the balance of power to be more equal.

1123
01:04:34,280 --> 01:04:38,720
Speaker 2: That might create the permissive conditions for a ceasefire. But

1124
01:04:38,760 --> 01:04:41,240
Speaker 2: we're not there yet, definitely not there yet.

1125
01:04:41,520 --> 01:04:45,680
Speaker 1: Ideally. I mean, if you were advising Donald Trump prior

1126
01:04:45,720 --> 01:04:49,680
Speaker 1: to this meeting with Putin, what would you, in the

1127
01:04:49,680 --> 01:04:53,920
Speaker 1: best of all possible worlds, want him to say to

1128
01:04:54,000 --> 01:04:55,959
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin to stop this war.

1129
01:04:57,560 --> 01:05:01,200
Speaker 2: I think he needs to credibly say to Putin if

1130
01:05:01,240 --> 01:05:04,760
Speaker 2: they meet, because there's some talk that they might not

1131
01:05:04,840 --> 01:05:07,200
Speaker 2: meet right away. There's a bunch of garble about it,

1132
01:05:08,040 --> 01:05:11,480
Speaker 2: as there oftentimes is to the point. I mean, you know,

1133
01:05:11,520 --> 01:05:14,000
Speaker 2: they say the meeting's on and then they haven't. We'll see,

1134
01:05:14,000 --> 01:05:18,040
Speaker 2: they may meet somewhere else, but they'll eventually talk. The president,

1135
01:05:18,240 --> 01:05:20,680
Speaker 2: you know, he believes an engagement. I support that. By

1136
01:05:20,680 --> 01:05:22,880
Speaker 2: the way, he's got to talk to him. But he

1137
01:05:22,960 --> 01:05:26,920
Speaker 2: has to credibly commit to being with Ukraine for the

1138
01:05:26,960 --> 01:05:31,040
Speaker 2: long haul, because Putin believes. In fact, I'll say this

1139
01:05:31,040 --> 01:05:33,280
Speaker 2: as an anecdote, as I was leaving Moscow in twenty

1140
01:05:33,320 --> 01:05:36,840
Speaker 2: fourteen in the build up to the first invasion of Ukraine,

1141
01:05:37,040 --> 01:05:40,760
Speaker 2: it actually happened the day I left Moscow. That's just

1142
01:05:40,800 --> 01:05:41,520
Speaker 2: a coincidence.

1143
01:05:42,760 --> 01:05:45,200
Speaker 1: Falls gone, Yeah, Mcfall's gone.

1144
01:05:45,440 --> 01:05:47,400
Speaker 2: That was just a coincidence. But I was on my

1145
01:05:47,440 --> 01:05:50,840
Speaker 2: way out and it was clear that this was brewing,

1146
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:54,040
Speaker 2: and I met, you know, Putin and I we did

1147
01:05:54,040 --> 01:05:56,160
Speaker 2: not have a good relationship, but I actually it's your

1148
01:05:56,240 --> 01:05:58,480
Speaker 2: job as an ambassador to deal with the government. I

1149
01:05:58,560 --> 01:06:00,720
Speaker 2: knew a lot of the people very close to him,

1150
01:06:00,720 --> 01:06:04,000
Speaker 2: and I had a long dinner with the first Deputy

1151
01:06:04,000 --> 01:06:06,880
Speaker 2: Prime Minister on my way out and we talked about

1152
01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:11,480
Speaker 2: this and he said, Mike, we believe we have two

1153
01:06:11,560 --> 01:06:15,000
Speaker 2: great advantages over you when it comes to Ukraine. One,

1154
01:06:15,640 --> 01:06:18,920
Speaker 2: we care more because there are neighbors there, and he

1155
01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:21,280
Speaker 2: and we had add there are Slavic brothers and sisters,

1156
01:06:21,400 --> 01:06:24,919
Speaker 2: which that's a that's wrong, but that's what they think.

1157
01:06:25,240 --> 01:06:28,160
Speaker 2: They think Ukrainians are just Russians with accents they're they're not.

1158
01:06:29,040 --> 01:06:32,400
Speaker 2: But one we care more, and two, you Americans have

1159
01:06:32,600 --> 01:06:34,040
Speaker 2: very short attention spans.

1160
01:06:34,040 --> 01:06:35,600
Speaker 1: I knew you were going to say that, and he.

1161
01:06:35,600 --> 01:06:38,080
Speaker 2: Said that was twenty fourteen, he said that to me.

1162
01:06:38,880 --> 01:06:42,080
Speaker 2: And I think Putin's banking on both those things. And

1163
01:06:42,160 --> 01:06:45,320
Speaker 2: so President Trump needs to tell him that he's wrong

1164
01:06:45,360 --> 01:06:48,320
Speaker 2: about that, that we're not going to go away, if

1165
01:06:48,360 --> 01:06:50,160
Speaker 2: we're going to be there for as long as it takes.

1166
01:06:50,760 --> 01:06:54,880
Speaker 2: And Trump, this is a great trump card he has.

1167
01:06:54,920 --> 01:06:56,680
Speaker 2: I was trying to think of a different word. This

1168
01:06:56,760 --> 01:07:01,040
Speaker 2: is a great instrument of leverage he has that he

1169
01:07:01,160 --> 01:07:04,320
Speaker 2: is not known for. Somebody with a long attention span.

1170
01:07:04,440 --> 01:07:06,840
Speaker 2: He is not known for somebody that cares about Ukraine.

1171
01:07:07,320 --> 01:07:10,720
Speaker 2: So if he says it, that has way more weight

1172
01:07:10,800 --> 01:07:13,920
Speaker 2: than you know McFall or even as a secretary Rubio,

1173
01:07:14,400 --> 01:07:18,200
Speaker 2: he has that credibility Trump does, ironically, So that's what

1174
01:07:18,240 --> 01:07:20,160
Speaker 2: he should say, and then he should back up his

1175
01:07:20,200 --> 01:07:22,560
Speaker 2: words with actions that you know. Part of the problem

1176
01:07:22,640 --> 01:07:25,000
Speaker 2: with Trump is every now and then I'll say something

1177
01:07:25,080 --> 01:07:28,200
Speaker 2: tough and he doesn't follow through sometimes and I think,

1178
01:07:28,600 --> 01:07:30,959
Speaker 2: you know, new sanctions. I just did a few new ones.

1179
01:07:31,240 --> 01:07:34,680
Speaker 2: I applaud that new sanctions and new weapons would would

1180
01:07:34,760 --> 01:07:37,480
Speaker 2: show that you're backing up your words with actions.

1181
01:07:38,920 --> 01:07:43,320
Speaker 1: Well to be continued on calling you after that treating

1182
01:07:43,560 --> 01:07:45,280
Speaker 1: if it ever happens.

1183
01:07:44,880 --> 01:07:46,480
Speaker 2: Tragically, I think this is going to go on for

1184
01:07:46,480 --> 01:07:47,680
Speaker 2: a while, so he can talk again.

1185
01:07:47,840 --> 01:07:51,200
Speaker 1: Well, the book is Autocrats Versus Democrats? How many years

1186
01:07:51,200 --> 01:07:52,640
Speaker 1: in the making, six.

1187
01:07:52,840 --> 01:07:54,840
Speaker 2: Off and on. You know, I had a day job.

1188
01:07:55,320 --> 01:07:58,200
Speaker 2: I ran a big institute and I teach at Stanford,

1189
01:07:58,240 --> 01:08:00,000
Speaker 2: so it wasn't like I was working in it full time.

1190
01:08:00,120 --> 01:08:03,240
Speaker 2: But it's been many years. The most ambitious book I've

1191
01:08:03,240 --> 01:08:06,520
Speaker 2: ever written, but it's also the most important given what

1192
01:08:06,560 --> 01:08:08,240
Speaker 2: we you and I were just talking about this is

1193
01:08:08,280 --> 01:08:11,480
Speaker 2: a fight for our future. So I do think it's

1194
01:08:11,520 --> 01:08:12,920
Speaker 2: the most important book I've ever written.

1195
01:08:13,320 --> 01:08:17,800
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for sharing your perspective, not

1196
01:08:18,000 --> 01:08:21,360
Speaker 1: just obviously talking about this book, Mike, but for your

1197
01:08:21,400 --> 01:08:25,560
Speaker 1: willingness to talk to me on a Saturday afternoon. We

1198
01:08:25,680 --> 01:08:28,280
Speaker 1: call you at the last minute and say, always a pleasure,

1199
01:08:28,320 --> 01:08:30,800
Speaker 1: can you please do a live interview with me? I

1200
01:08:31,320 --> 01:08:37,640
Speaker 1: so we all appreciate your being so accessible and available

1201
01:08:37,840 --> 01:08:43,439
Speaker 1: and instructive on all these very complex but vitally important issues.

1202
01:08:43,520 --> 01:08:45,040
Speaker 1: So great to see you.

1203
01:08:45,439 --> 01:08:47,360
Speaker 2: Well, Thank you, Thank you for having me. It's always

1204
01:08:47,400 --> 01:08:50,360
Speaker 2: fun to talk to you, and we get I appreciate

1205
01:08:50,479 --> 01:08:53,639
Speaker 2: when you say, because this book is complex, but at

1206
01:08:53,640 --> 01:08:56,240
Speaker 2: the essence, there's a few core things. You know, there's

1207
01:08:56,240 --> 01:08:59,200
Speaker 2: autocrats and democrats, and one side is better than the other.

1208
01:08:59,240 --> 01:09:01,880
Speaker 2: And I think we need to make that case to

1209
01:09:01,920 --> 01:09:04,639
Speaker 2: the American people and talk about it in plain terms,

1210
01:09:04,680 --> 01:09:10,000
Speaker 2: not just political science mumbo jumbo or foreign policy speak,

1211
01:09:10,080 --> 01:09:14,200
Speaker 2: which happens way too much in Washington or Stanford University.

1212
01:09:14,280 --> 01:09:15,600
Speaker 2: And you give me a chance to do that. I

1213
01:09:15,600 --> 01:09:16,719
Speaker 2: appreciate that. Great.

1214
01:09:16,920 --> 01:09:18,800
Speaker 1: Well, I'd love to audit your class. Do you have

1215
01:09:18,960 --> 01:09:24,440
Speaker 1: like an Introduction to US Foreign Policy from the nineteenth

1216
01:09:24,479 --> 01:09:26,920
Speaker 1: to the twenty first century, something like that.

1217
01:09:27,080 --> 01:09:30,800
Speaker 2: Teach that class from time to time. So one last thing.

1218
01:09:31,160 --> 01:09:33,600
Speaker 2: I've been teaching a seminar on this book for the

1219
01:09:33,680 --> 01:09:37,320
Speaker 2: last several years, and it's about usually about twenty two

1220
01:09:37,360 --> 01:09:42,160
Speaker 2: students and half American, half foreign a half graduate student,

1221
01:09:42,240 --> 01:09:45,360
Speaker 2: half undergraduate. And I can't tell you how much I've

1222
01:09:45,439 --> 01:09:48,080
Speaker 2: learned from them, because I've had some of the smartest

1223
01:09:48,120 --> 01:09:51,160
Speaker 2: people in the world go through some of these arguments.

1224
01:09:51,200 --> 01:09:54,240
Speaker 2: And I just shout out to Stanford students that help

1225
01:09:54,320 --> 01:09:58,160
Speaker 2: me write this book. They pay because they think they're

1226
01:09:58,240 --> 01:10:01,880
Speaker 2: learning from people like me. But I have this incredible

1227
01:10:02,240 --> 01:10:05,920
Speaker 2: uh uh just it's such a luxury that I live

1228
01:10:06,320 --> 01:10:08,760
Speaker 2: and I love Stanford and I live there and I

1229
01:10:08,800 --> 01:10:12,120
Speaker 2: support our sports teams and I'm all into Stanford, but

1230
01:10:12,200 --> 01:10:16,040
Speaker 2: mostly to interact with smart people. They think they're learning

1231
01:10:16,040 --> 01:10:17,559
Speaker 2: from me, but I learn a lot from those.

1232
01:10:17,479 --> 01:10:20,759
Speaker 1: It's like reverse mentoring. I feel the same way. And also,

1233
01:10:20,960 --> 01:10:23,680
Speaker 1: you know, they've grown up in very different environments and

1234
01:10:23,680 --> 01:10:28,720
Speaker 1: circumstances and times, and I'm sure their perspective is invaluable.

1235
01:10:28,800 --> 01:10:30,320
Speaker 1: So go Cardinal, Go Cardinal.

1236
01:10:30,520 --> 01:10:30,880
Speaker 2: Thank you.

1237
01:10:31,640 --> 01:10:38,160
Speaker 1: Thanks Mike Thanks for having me, Thanks for listening everyone.

1238
01:10:38,400 --> 01:10:41,000
Speaker 1: If you have a question for me, a subject you

1239
01:10:41,040 --> 01:10:43,280
Speaker 1: want us to cover, or you want to share your

1240
01:10:43,320 --> 01:10:47,040
Speaker 1: thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world, reach out

1241
01:10:47,439 --> 01:10:50,080
Speaker 1: send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to

1242
01:10:50,120 --> 01:10:54,000
Speaker 1: hear from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia

1243
01:10:54,040 --> 01:10:58,400
Speaker 1: and Katie Couric Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric,

1244
01:10:58,520 --> 01:11:03,200
Speaker 1: and Courtney Ltz. Supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and our

1245
01:11:03,240 --> 01:11:08,800
Speaker 1: producers are Adriana Fazio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed

1246
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1249
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Speaker 1: at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me on

1250
01:11:22,360 --> 01:11:26,480
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Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1252
01:11:31,760 --> 01:11:37,080
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. Hi everyone, it's Katie Couric.

1253
01:11:37,439 --> 01:11:39,800
Speaker 1: You know I'm always on the go between running my

1254
01:11:39,920 --> 01:11:44,320
Speaker 1: media company, hosting my podcast, and of course covering the news,

1255
01:11:44,800 --> 01:11:47,080
Speaker 1: and I know that to keep doing what I love,

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