Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds.
Speaker 2: And Donald Trump says the United States is a.
Speaker 1: Third world hellhole run by perverts and thugs.
Speaker 2: We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Alyssas Lodkin talks to us about her Senate run
Speaker 1: in the great state of Michigan. Then we'll talk to
Speaker 1: the Financial Times Christopher Miller about his new book, The
Speaker 1: War Came to Us. But first we have the host
Speaker 1: of the Think Like an Economist podcast, fan favorite University
Speaker 1: of Michigan, professor Justin Wolfers.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Justin Wolfers at pleasure, Molly.
Speaker 2: We started talking.
Speaker 1: We were in recession anxiety, right Republicans wanted it, Democrats
Speaker 1: were worried about it.
Speaker 2: Where are we.
Speaker 3: Now, emerging post recession anxiety. I'm not sure how we
Speaker 3: feel about it talking to our therapist.
Speaker 1: I certainly am talking to my therapist, but I only
Speaker 1: see them on Tuesdays.
Speaker 2: It's same, It's a good day for therapy.
Speaker 1: You know, there were a lot of numbers this week
Speaker 1: that told really good economic stories.
Speaker 2: So talk us through those numbers.
Speaker 3: I want to get back a step because you started
Speaker 3: with recession anxiety, because they want to make clear to
Speaker 3: your listeners the difference between anxiety and reality. Think about
Speaker 3: this as economics cognitive behavioral therapy. You're exactly right, Molly.
Speaker 3: We've gone through two years where the only word that
Speaker 3: anyone wanted to say about the economy was recession. Yet
Speaker 3: at the same time, we've created jobs at an absolutely
Speaker 3: gangbusters pace. We've pushed unemployment down to a fifty year low.
Speaker 3: You ask people if they find it easy to find work,
Speaker 3: they say yes. If they think jobs are plentiful, they
Speaker 3: say yes. If they expect wages to rise, they say yes.
Speaker 3: So what we have is, you know, maybe this is
Speaker 3: economic psychiatry instead, but schizophrenia here. Economic reality has been strong,
Speaker 3: but it's been the vibe, it's been the way we
Speaker 3: talk about it. It's been the anxiety that has been far,
Speaker 3: far weaker. With that, let me answer your question, do
Speaker 3: you want to tell me what it is?
Speaker 1: My question is talk to us about these numbers that
Speaker 1: we are getting through.
Speaker 3: I love that question because you could ask me that
Speaker 3: any week. So look, there was one part of our
Speaker 3: economic anxiety that was totally serious, totally real, and was
Speaker 3: in the numbers. That was inflation. We've all noticed it.
Speaker 3: You can't help but notice it at the grocery store
Speaker 3: that prices are rising, and they were rising at a
Speaker 3: rate that was wildly unfamiliar to many of us. A
Speaker 3: year ago, inflation was running at nine percent, and for
Speaker 3: anyone of roughly our age or younger, they had never
Speaker 3: experienced infleation like that in their adult lifetimes. Inflation last
Speaker 3: week we got the latest numbers. Months later, inflation's down
Speaker 3: to three percent. That's one a stunning reversal, and two
Speaker 3: remarkably close to normal. So normal is when inflation's two percent.
Speaker 3: And you might say, hey, I don't like it when
Speaker 3: inflat price is ris by two percent, But the truth
Speaker 3: is two percent of anything is basically barely noticeable. When
Speaker 3: inflation is two percent. Some things are getting cheaper, maybe
Speaker 3: a cell phone bill, and some things are getting more expensive,
Speaker 3: maybe construction work or the local handyman. And enough things
Speaker 3: are going up, but enough things are going down that
Speaker 3: it doesn't really change things. And so the whole goal
Speaker 3: of the FED is to get inflation low enough that
Speaker 3: you don't think about it. Well, we just spent two
Speaker 3: years thinking about it and we're on the cusp of
Speaker 3: inflation falling to levels low enough and sustainably enough that
Speaker 3: we can go back to not thinking about it again.
Speaker 1: I think the prevailing wisdom, which turned out to be wrong,
Speaker 1: so maybe it was the prevailing anxiety, was that the
Speaker 1: FED raising rates would eventually bring the American economy into
Speaker 1: a recession.
Speaker 2: Explain to us why that was wrong.
Speaker 3: Let me explain to you something even more exciting good,
Speaker 3: which is what a wonderful, amazing couple of years we've had,
Speaker 3: because we've had something that almost never happens. Over the
Speaker 3: past two years. We've created jobs, we've reduced unemployment, and
Speaker 3: we've reduced inflation, so the two biggest economic variables have
Speaker 3: both improved at the same time. That's incredibly rare. What
Speaker 3: a fantastic, fabulous, joyful moment, and seriously bask in the
Speaker 3: joy that brings.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: That relates to your question, why am I so excited
Speaker 3: about that? Because usually we think, when we're thinking about
Speaker 3: from one year to the next, you can get more
Speaker 3: of one and a bit less of the other. And
Speaker 3: so if we wanted a bit less in flam so
Speaker 3: the theory went, we would have to have higher unemployment.
Speaker 3: But wonderfully enough, we're getting lower inflation and lower employment.
Speaker 3: Is your next question, why?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: My next question is why? Why? Why? Tell me why?
Speaker 3: Justin more for us, I spend six lectures in my
Speaker 3: economics one on one class teaching how the macroeconomy works
Speaker 3: over the course of the business cycle. Let me try
Speaker 3: and get it done to two minutes, maybe.
Speaker 2: One You know me?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, So one thing that causes inflation is too
Speaker 3: much demand. People have too much money, They want to
Speaker 3: go to the store. They try and buy more stuff
Speaker 3: than the store has. So what does the store do
Speaker 3: at jacks up prices. So if that's what's driving inflation,
Speaker 3: then the only thing to do is crush the economy.
Speaker 3: So people are no longer so optimistic, so they'll stop
Speaker 3: forcing prices up. That's one theory of what was happening.
Speaker 3: You heard a lot of that theory from people like
Speaker 3: Larry Summers. Another theory is, well, another fact that can
Speaker 3: drive inflation what's going on on the supply side. And
Speaker 3: this is where we know that, for instance, global supply
Speaker 3: chains became totally disrupted during COVID. We know that when
Speaker 3: Putin invaded Ukraine, it totally messed up global energy markets.
Speaker 3: We know from just walking down the street that COVID
Speaker 3: totally disrupted all commerce on main street. I don't know
Speaker 3: about your street, but my local dray cleaner hasn't yet reopened.
Speaker 3: The tables are still kind of oddly too far apart
Speaker 3: at my local restaurant. And there's a whole lot of
Speaker 3: just getting back to normal. We all do a little
Speaker 3: bit more work from home, and there's a whole lot
Speaker 3: of getting back to normal we haven't yet done. Now,
Speaker 3: the thing about a supply shark is, let's say Putin
Speaker 3: invades Ukraine, that forces energy prices up, and that's it.
Speaker 3: That's the whole story. Now, energy prices are higher, but
Speaker 3: the thing is they're no longer rising, and inflation is
Speaker 3: when things prices keep rising. So the thing about a
Speaker 3: supply shark is if you just wait, it works its
Speaker 3: way through the system and it stops adding to an inflation.
Speaker 3: And in fact, with some things like global supply chains,
Speaker 3: if you just wait, global supply chains were all messed
Speaker 3: up and then they unfurled, and that actually pushes prices
Speaker 3: backed down. And so if you think inflation's driven by
Speaker 3: supply sharks, you think the best policy response is to
Speaker 3: wait and so what we've seen is waiting has proven
Speaker 3: to be a remarkably useful strategy. Now you might say, wait,
Speaker 3: where's the FED and all this? Well, the FED did
Speaker 3: jack up interest rates. But if the Fed's interest rate
Speaker 3: hikes were what was responsible for driving inflation down, it
Speaker 3: would have caused unemployment to rise and it would have
Speaker 3: caused slow economic growth.
Speaker 4: But it didn't.
Speaker 3: So really, what I think we're learning is getting back
Speaker 3: to normal, getting back to business, letting supply chains unfurl
Speaker 3: turned out to be the right strategy, and it's led
Speaker 3: to inflation falling while maintaining a pretty good economy for
Speaker 3: most people. Now, I don't want to overstate my point.
Speaker 3: This is the last footnote and then I'll get out
Speaker 3: of economics one O one mode. Did inflation rise you
Speaker 3: to supply or demand? It could be a bit of both.
Speaker 3: And so we've managed to get inflation from crisis levels
Speaker 3: down to nearly normal levels just by waiting. Maybe that
Speaker 3: was the supply shock. But getting it down from nearly
Speaker 3: normal all the way down to normal, well that might
Speaker 3: be a little bit more work. So I think we've
Speaker 3: got half the job done. It may be that the
Speaker 3: second half is going to be a little bit harder.
Speaker 2: And why would that be.
Speaker 3: Well, if all the good news of supply shocks working
Speaker 3: their way out of the system is done, that could
Speaker 3: be the case. I'm not sure. Then whatever inflation is
Speaker 3: left may well be due to too much demand. And
Speaker 3: if that's the case, the only way to get inflation
Speaker 3: down any further would be to slow demand. And that
Speaker 3: is what the Fed is trying to do. It's not
Speaker 3: trying to cause a recession. It's trying to cause what
Speaker 3: it calls a soft landing. Like, Hey, if we just
Speaker 3: get people a little bit worried so they spend a
Speaker 3: little bit less, maybe there'll be fewer queues at the supermarket,
Speaker 3: and maybe the supermarket will feel that it can't raise
Speaker 3: its prices quite as much, and that's going to be
Speaker 3: enough to lower inflation.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of optimistic we're on the way there because
Speaker 1: the numbers are coming down.
Speaker 2: That's why you're optimistic.
Speaker 3: Right now, we're back out of the economics textbook to
Speaker 3: the real world, and the numbers are coming down. We're
Speaker 3: seeing reduced inflation pretty much across the board. And then
Speaker 3: how boring do you want to get here?
Speaker 2: We can be a little more boring Oh good.
Speaker 3: That is like joy for any economist to hear it. Okay,
Speaker 3: like this is in the weeds, but it turns out
Speaker 3: to matter. So that's why I just kind of wanted
Speaker 3: to go here. What's the most important price for the
Speaker 3: cost of living? It's the price of shelter. That's the
Speaker 3: biggest part of your budget and the biggest part of mine.
Speaker 3: It turns out the way that the government measures shelter
Speaker 3: inflation as part of the CPI is it looks at
Speaker 3: all the leases in the economy, including people who signed
Speaker 3: a lease like six, eight, nine, ten, eleven months ago.
Speaker 2: So that's going to take more time to go down.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, you're a natural economist.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and natural we.
Speaker 3: Know leases were going crazy a year ago. But if
Speaker 3: we look instead just at the new lead that are
Speaker 3: being signed this month, they're not going crazy anymore. And
Speaker 3: so if that keeps up, and we expect it will,
Speaker 3: then that means that over the next year, all leases,
Speaker 3: it's not that they're going to go down, they're going
Speaker 3: to stop going up. And so therefore shelter inflation is
Speaker 3: going to dissipate rapidly and it's almost in the bank.
Speaker 3: And so the most important good in the economy we
Speaker 3: know is going to stop being as inflationary as it
Speaker 3: has been. And that's one of the reasons that economists
Speaker 3: are optimistic, where we feel pretty good about the numbers
Speaker 3: where they are, but we know that they signal better
Speaker 3: numbers are ahead.
Speaker 2: That's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: But what about, for example, like part of inflation that
Speaker 1: was good was that wages were going up. Where does
Speaker 1: that leave wages, because I mean, there's a real disconnect
Speaker 1: between wages not going up with inflation.
Speaker 3: Great question, Molly, So one way to think about this
Speaker 3: as a race between wages and prices. Look, if prices
Speaker 3: go up ten percent and your wages go up ten percent,
Speaker 3: you came out pretty much. Even if prices got ten percent,
Speaker 3: your wages go up twelve percent, you came out ahead.
Speaker 3: If prices got ten percent your wages got eight percent,
Speaker 3: you came out behind. And what we've seen over the
Speaker 3: past year and a half is that prices had run
Speaker 3: ahead of wages, and so people really were feeling a
Speaker 3: squeeze because there really was a squeeze. Now, the thing is,
Speaker 3: wages don't bump up and down quite as much as
Speaker 3: prices do, and so wages have been running at nominal wages,
Speaker 3: the amount of cash you get, had been growing at
Speaker 3: a rate of about four and a half percent for
Speaker 3: a few years, but prices went from growing at three
Speaker 3: percent all the way up to growing at nine percent,
Speaker 3: and so when they were growing faster, people were falling behind.
Speaker 3: But now we're in a situation where wages are growing
Speaker 3: at four percent and prices are growing at three percent.
Speaker 3: So now we're not just keeping up with prices, we're
Speaker 3: getting ahead. A shorter way of saying that is, for
Speaker 3: the average American, their paycheck now goes further. Yes, prices
Speaker 3: a rising at the grocery store, but so is your paycheck,
Speaker 3: and those real wages are what really matter for determining
Speaker 3: your purchasing power and how well you're doing. I want
Speaker 3: to add a really really important asterix to this. One
Speaker 3: objection is just and you're just talking about averages because
Speaker 3: that's what economists do, or macroeconomists. So if we actually
Speaker 3: look at what's happened to the wages of the most
Speaker 3: poorly paid Americans, they've risen quite dramatically in the post
Speaker 3: pandemic period, and they've risen faster than prices. And so
Speaker 3: we've actually had in this history. I think the White
Speaker 3: House just hasn't told enough. We've had a period of
Speaker 3: now close to three years in which wage gains are
Speaker 3: going to those who need it most. You might say, well,
Speaker 3: that's great, hooray. Let me put that in context. That
Speaker 3: comes after four decades in which that's basically never happened.
Speaker 3: So those at the bottom are doing a little better.
Speaker 2: So that's good. I mean, will that change?
Speaker 3: I hope not.
Speaker 2: If inflation stops going up, will there be more of that?
Speaker 3: Two things? What's going to happen for the typical American?
Speaker 3: My guess is is that wages fell behind prices a
Speaker 3: bit through twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two, So
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be surprised if in twenty three and twenty
Speaker 3: four wages keep rising at a pretty good clip even
Speaker 3: as prices don't rise as fast. So I expect a
Speaker 3: lot of people to get a bit of catch up.
Speaker 3: And then for those who I really care about, those
Speaker 3: at the bottom end of the income distribution, I kind
Speaker 3: of feel pretty optimistic for them. So they got really
Speaker 3: bad at over several decades of globalization and trade from
Speaker 3: China and technological change and all sorts of forces. What
Speaker 3: are the biggest forces that are going to brutalize our
Speaker 3: labor market over the next couple of decades. I know
Speaker 3: the biggest one I'm thinking about right now is AI.
Speaker 3: AI is coming for the white collar jobs, not the
Speaker 3: blue collar. The computer now can do what I do
Speaker 3: for a living. What do I do for a living?
Speaker 3: I take in a lot of information and simplify it.
Speaker 3: Turns out GPT is really good at that, and so
Speaker 3: it's my job that's on the line, not the blue
Speaker 3: collar workers. So I think the blue collar workers maybe
Speaker 3: are in for a pretty good run in the next
Speaker 3: couple of decades.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about this week has been like binomics week,
Speaker 1: and the White House has been sort of trying to
Speaker 1: explain what they did that was right on the economy.
Speaker 1: I'm always a little cynical, you know, when anyone names something,
Speaker 1: but it actually tell us why I'm wrong to be
Speaker 1: cynical at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you should absolutely name it. Let's call it mollonomics.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it'd be crazy.
Speaker 3: Look, why are they branding it. They're branding it because
Speaker 3: it looks like a pretty good product. The good product
Speaker 3: is a good economy. Why are they doing it right now? Well,
Speaker 3: the economy is doing well, inflation is finally starting to
Speaker 3: come down, and so now they're happy to tell their story.
Speaker 3: Your cynicism is, did they really do it? I think
Speaker 3: that cynicism is shared by most of the economics profession.
Speaker 3: So a simple rule of thumb is people in Washington
Speaker 3: think that people in Washington determine everything everywhere in America.
Speaker 3: People outside of Washington think people in Washington don't do much.
Speaker 3: That's useful, very hard to point to specific things that
Speaker 3: the administration has done to create the enormous macroeconomic gains,
Speaker 3: like why is unemployment low? What did Trump do to
Speaker 3: get to low unemployment? What did Biden do to gets
Speaker 3: low unemployment? Let me give one stout defense of the
Speaker 3: Biden administration. Am I allowed to swear on this show?
Speaker 1: Yes, we love it, Yes, trigger warning, Justin is going
Speaker 1: to swear, but he's going to swear in Australia.
Speaker 3: Here's the real defense of the administration. They didn't fuck
Speaker 3: it up. So that actually is really worth something. You know,
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, we got hit by a once in
Speaker 3: a lifetime public health, economic, social, political shock, and we
Speaker 3: had a White House that was artly intent on fucking
Speaker 3: it up right, and they fucked it up in ways
Speaker 3: that killed hundreds of thousands of people and probably caused
Speaker 3: marked economic harm. And so the thing I admire most
Speaker 3: about Biden is actually twenty twenty one, which was remarkably boring,
Speaker 3: which is he came to office and said, I'm going
Speaker 3: to keep you safe. I'm going to get you vaccinated,
Speaker 3: We're going to have sensible rules. And that has a
Speaker 3: massive economic impact that you may or may not see
Speaker 3: in the unemployment rate or in GDP, but you're seeing
Speaker 3: you know, look, if a couple more people around the
Speaker 3: dinner table still alive, you see it. A sense of
Speaker 3: security that people have. You see in their continued attachment
Speaker 3: to the labor force that they didn't think the only
Speaker 3: thing that was safe to do was to drop out.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, it's not often that you see
Speaker 3: a politician totally fuck it up because the economy is ingenious.
Speaker 3: It's full of smart people who want to get work
Speaker 3: done no matter what Washington does. We did see it
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, and we haven't soon it under Biden,
Speaker 3: and they want to give them credit for that. The
Speaker 3: other is a big part of Bidenomics. They keep using
Speaker 3: this term bottom up and middle out. They do care
Speaker 3: deeply about the income distribution, and so I think the
Speaker 3: fact that that lower paid workers finally get doing a
Speaker 3: bit better that may well trace itself back to some
Speaker 3: of the administration policies.
Speaker 1: Right, really interesting, justin I really appreciate you.
Speaker 2: You will come back.
Speaker 3: I'll be here for you, mate.
Speaker 2: How about.
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Alyssa Slotkin represents Michigan's seventh district. Welcome to Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Slotkin, thank you, thanks for having me. First, we
Speaker 1: need to talk about your speech that was this morning
Speaker 1: or yesterday.
Speaker 5: Let's just spout an hour ago.
Speaker 1: This is going to air Monday, and today is Thursday.
Speaker 1: Tell us about your speech. It's really an interesting and
Speaker 1: insane thing that Republicans are doing, as oppose to usual
Speaker 1: when they do insane things.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think the speech I gave was
Speaker 5: related to us about to vote on the Pentagon budget.
Speaker 5: And you know this kind of incessant obsession that my
Speaker 5: Republican colleagues have for sticking in these culture war issues
Speaker 5: into what have long been bipartisan kind of meat and
Speaker 5: potatoes issues on the Hill. And so late last night
Speaker 5: they passed a bunch of really extreme amendments through the
Speaker 5: Rules Committee. We're going to vote on them, and you
Speaker 5: know they include things like getting rid of affirmative action
Speaker 5: for our military service academies, all the officers that are
Speaker 5: going to be running the military. I mean, just really
Speaker 5: crazy things. One of the things was about again going
Speaker 5: after American service women serving on active duty and banning them,
Speaker 5: preventing them from getting any assistance, and getting to a
Speaker 5: state that has abortion services. What that means in real
Speaker 5: terms is that you know a woman who has signed
Speaker 5: up for the military, and she signed up years ago.
Speaker 5: She's on active duty, she wants to serve her country,
Speaker 5: protect her country. She has no choice on where she
Speaker 5: gets based, and she's sent to Texas, where they have
Speaker 5: a full ban on abortion, including for things like rape
Speaker 5: and incest. If she wants to get an abortion, she
Speaker 5: has to go five hundred miles away to Kansas City.
Speaker 5: And the Defense Department had said we'd give her leave
Speaker 5: to do that, we'd help her get her a bus
Speaker 5: ticket to go do that. And these guys are willing
Speaker 5: to threaten the entire Pentagon budget to say no, not
Speaker 5: one dollar, not one helping hand in getting her even
Speaker 5: though she has no choice on where she's based. And
Speaker 5: I think the bigger story here, and the point I
Speaker 5: tried to make in my speech is we need to
Speaker 5: hear what my colleagues are telling us in the House,
Speaker 5: in the Senate, everywhere they go. They are not done
Speaker 5: just because Roe got overturned by the Supreme Court. They
Speaker 5: are not done by passing complete bans in their states
Speaker 5: like Alabama and Texas, which is where the authors of
Speaker 5: these things are. They're not done until they get a
Speaker 5: federal ban on abortion. So that even if states like
Speaker 5: Michigan vote on their ballot to ensure the right to
Speaker 5: an abortion, they're not done until they overturn that, until
Speaker 5: they get a federal ban on abortion. And this is
Speaker 5: just part and parcel of it. They're holding up the
Speaker 5: Defense Department budget. They're holding up two hundred and fifty
Speaker 5: three and fourced our generals who can't be confirmed because
Speaker 5: one senator wants his policy reverse.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that senator. His name is Tommy Tuberbell.
Speaker 1: He is from the state of Alabama, and he has
Speaker 1: been he is now. He has held this up for
Speaker 1: a long time and is actually threatening our national secure day.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, it is unprecedented for folks who may
Speaker 5: not know he has now created a gap in the
Speaker 5: command out of the Marine Corps, the chief of Staff
Speaker 5: of the Army, the Navy, the chairman of the Joint
Speaker 5: Chiefs could be held up. I mean, our senior most positioned.
Speaker 5: And for a guy who's a coach, right, that's his
Speaker 5: whole like stick is that he's a coach, Like exactly,
Speaker 5: how do you put your best foot forward if there's
Speaker 5: no coach for the team, right, if there's no three
Speaker 5: and four star general who's supposed to be leading millions
Speaker 5: of men and women. And I think what was illustrative
Speaker 5: this last week was that he made these horrible comments
Speaker 5: about white nationalism and white nationalists, and very quickly Republicans
Speaker 5: around the Senate, including his own fellow senator from Alabama,
Speaker 5: said no, no, no, that's not right. White nationalists are
Speaker 5: not just white people, and you need to clarify your comments.
Speaker 5: It should be easy to condemn white nationalism. He took
Speaker 5: back his comments, he corrected his comments. So he's vulnerable
Speaker 5: to pressure from his colleagues. So all I'm asking is
Speaker 5: that Republicans who claim to care about national security in
Speaker 5: the Senate pressure the guy. He's clearly vulnerable to pressure
Speaker 5: as he holds up our national security interest for his
Speaker 5: own culture war.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a pretty unprecedented thing. And so what's happened
Speaker 1: here is this is a sort of very standard budgetary
Speaker 1: thing that happens in Congress. And what Republicans have done,
Speaker 1: our listeners will be shocked to.
Speaker 2: Hear that Marjorie Taylor Green is involved in.
Speaker 1: This has put They put a lot of poison pills
Speaker 1: in the amendment to make it so that if Democrats
Speaker 1: vote for it, they will be voting for things defunding
Speaker 1: the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 5: You really can't script this stuff. It's unbelievable. Then, at
Speaker 5: the exact moment, President Biden and all of our NATO
Speaker 5: allies are standing up next to President Zelenski. They're welcoming
Speaker 5: in two new members of NATO, They're pushing back on
Speaker 5: Vladimir Putin and protecting democracy. You have Mack Gates putting
Speaker 5: forward a ban on all assistance to Ukraine, like all
Speaker 5: of it. So it's just and the idea that that
Speaker 5: party cares about national security at this point, and you know,
Speaker 5: the traditional view is that Republicans care about national security,
Speaker 5: they're big on defense. It's just the whole has been
Speaker 5: punched so widely through that, and I call upon I
Speaker 5: know there are people in the Republican Party who care
Speaker 5: about national security, just do something about these extreme elements
Speaker 5: and like, have your voice heard if you really care
Speaker 5: that much.
Speaker 1: So Republicans are going to find themselves in a very
Speaker 1: sticky wicket though, because this could be the road to
Speaker 1: government shut down. I mean, eventually the Senate is doing
Speaker 1: their own version of this. They're going to have to
Speaker 1: get the votes to get this passed.
Speaker 5: Right, A lot of what's going on is kind of
Speaker 5: a showdown within the Republican Party, you know, sort of
Speaker 5: the Freedom Caucus folks versus the other folks. And I
Speaker 5: can't pretend to know the ins and outs of that.
Speaker 2: A few sane Republicans, right.
Speaker 5: I would just say, we're going to learn a lot
Speaker 5: as these votes come down, because I think we've seen
Speaker 5: a number of Republicans say publicly like I'm not voting
Speaker 5: for this stuff. So it's again another very public debate.
Speaker 5: I don't know where it's going to come down, but
Speaker 5: this is what happens when you let extreme elements of
Speaker 5: your party run you right own you. And that's that's
Speaker 5: what's happening right now.
Speaker 1: It does sort of stem from this McCarthy not being
Speaker 1: able to control his caucus absolutely.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think they have a very slim majority,
Speaker 5: just four seat majority, so it makes it hard to govern.
Speaker 5: I mean, look, this is exactly the majority Democrats had
Speaker 5: in the last Congress. Though we didn't look like this, right,
Speaker 5: We didn't have this like a pitched battles going on
Speaker 5: in the hallways of Congress against our own party. You know,
Speaker 5: we had our debates, but we keep it inside the family,
Speaker 5: you know, and largely. And so when you give away
Speaker 5: your power like that and you don't stand up for more,
Speaker 5: you know, traditional values on how to run and how
Speaker 5: to govern, you have the extremists takeover. And they have
Speaker 5: lots of seats on the Rules Committee, the committee that
Speaker 5: passed all these things in the dead and night. And
Speaker 5: this is what happens.
Speaker 1: It is pretty interesting. So Democrats are in the minority,
Speaker 1: but it's a very slim minority. The Republicans are not
Speaker 1: able to you know, they're having a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1: They're really not able to pass even you know, the
Speaker 1: like messaging bills that wouldn't get passed anyway. They're stuck
Speaker 1: on those. I mean, is there an opportunity here for Democrats.
Speaker 5: Well, look, I mean whenever you just whenever any side
Speaker 5: has a four seat majority, it's an opportunity to flip
Speaker 5: that body in the next election. I mean, we need
Speaker 5: five House seats to flip in twenty twenty four, and
Speaker 5: we need to hold the seats that we have now.
Speaker 5: That is eminently doable. I mean we lost the majority
Speaker 5: just out of like New York.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, you saw that news today.
Speaker 5: As a good Midwestern where who comes from a swing state,
Speaker 5: I have to say, we've been doing our part in
Speaker 5: Michigan and we need our friends in New York and California. Yeah,
Speaker 5: to win some seats or with some feats back, and
Speaker 5: but so it's eminently doable.
Speaker 1: As a New Yorker, that was enraging. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: you saw the news today. It may end up being
Speaker 1: redistricted again.
Speaker 5: I can't. I don't pretend on exanity York politics, but
Speaker 5: not good.
Speaker 1: Yes, but continue sorry, Yes, I mean it's that could
Speaker 1: be good, but who knows.
Speaker 6: Okay, Well, we have seats that President Biden won in
Speaker 6: New York and California that should be able to flip
Speaker 6: so that we can take the majority, and then you know,
Speaker 6: we need the majority to mean something, right, we need if.
Speaker 5: We have the House and the Senate and the White House,
Speaker 5: we need to legislate and pass bills. And you know,
Speaker 5: as someone who is running for the Senate, I feel
Speaker 5: pretty strongly that we need to reform the filibuster so
Speaker 5: the Senate can vote on things. The Senate isn't voting
Speaker 5: in a serious way right now because they have a
Speaker 5: slim majority. We have the filibuster in place, so thousands
Speaker 5: of bills that we passed over in the House under
Speaker 5: Democratic leadership sat on the desk of the Senate. And
Speaker 5: I just don't think the era we live in right
Speaker 5: now with the Supreme Court that we have, allows for
Speaker 5: a dormant or quiet Senate. So I'm a big proponent
Speaker 5: of philibuster reform in the Senate for sure.
Speaker 2: Tell us about your Senate race.
Speaker 5: We have our senior Senator, Senator Debbie Stabinow, who surprised
Speaker 5: the heck out of us and announced in January that
Speaker 5: she wasn't going to run again. I give her a
Speaker 5: lot of credit. I mean, it is she is going
Speaker 5: out at the top of her game. She's the chairwoman
Speaker 5: of the Ag Committee, Agriculture Committee. It's a farm bill year,
Speaker 5: huge piece of legislation in every five years. So she
Speaker 5: surprised us because she's been representing Michigan in some form
Speaker 5: or fashion for fifty years and it's still going strong.
Speaker 5: I mean, she's like, you know, energizer Bunny. I got
Speaker 5: in in February. It's an open seat. And you know,
Speaker 5: for me, I just really have come to believe that
Speaker 5: we are going through a decade of political instability in
Speaker 5: the United States of America, that we will look back
Speaker 5: on this period and say we were so polarized and
Speaker 5: so turned against each other that nothing got done. We
Speaker 5: were wobbling back and forth like a pendulum. And in
Speaker 5: that decade, as we live in the middle of it,
Speaker 5: we must do a better job of playing offense on
Speaker 5: protecting our rights and our democracy, not just defense. And
Speaker 5: that's something I want to be a part of in
Speaker 5: the Senate. I want to help push. You know, my
Speaker 5: background of strategic planning, like we need to get more
Speaker 5: strategic and more serious with our plans on how to
Speaker 5: protect ourselves, and then we need to to do other
Speaker 5: really important things, like we are becoming a country where
Speaker 5: it's harder to get into and stay in the middle
Speaker 5: class from Michigan for the country, in a multi racial,
Speaker 5: multi ethnic country, that is not good. That's not good
Speaker 5: for our security. So, you know, there's a bunch of
Speaker 5: things that I want to do in the Senate, but
Speaker 5: recognizing where we are as a country and how we
Speaker 5: get through this as a country, you need serious leadership
Speaker 5: and that's what I hope to bring in the Senate.
Speaker 1: We have so many women from Michigan on this podcast,
Speaker 1: from your governor to your Secretary of State, and so
Speaker 1: many congresswomen from Michigan who are really great. But when
Speaker 1: it came time to fill this seat, the group sort
Speaker 1: of came together. This isn't an enormous primary of different
Speaker 1: Michigan congresswomen, of which there are many who are great.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 5: Well, look at it's an open seat, and in Michigan
Speaker 5: that's a big deal. No one has claim to any nomination.
Speaker 5: Anyone who wants to run can than is running. I mean,
Speaker 5: there's definitely people who are running. And to me, you know,
Speaker 5: I really wasn't involved in politics before Donald Trump was elected,
Speaker 5: right Frankly, I was having to go brief Congress all
Speaker 5: the time. In my prior life in national security, and
Speaker 5: it was never like a club I was looking to
Speaker 5: be a part of. And then this generational event happened
Speaker 5: and Donald Trump got elected and he won in the
Speaker 5: state of Michigan, and that was the first time I
Speaker 5: ever even thought about running. To me, I don't focus
Speaker 5: on other Democrats, and I don't like fighting and all
Speaker 5: the nastiness and the circular firing squad that happens in
Speaker 5: these things. I'm focused on what i want to do
Speaker 5: affirmatively and positively, and I'm focused on keeping the seat
Speaker 5: in Democratic hands because we have a terribly slim majority
Speaker 5: in the Senate.
Speaker 2: So that's what I do.
Speaker 4: I've got to do.
Speaker 1: But I just think it's interesting that the group gets
Speaker 1: along so well, and it's sort of this one state
Speaker 1: which has such conservative I mean, you guys have the
Speaker 1: Michigan militia, also have these sort of amazing women politicians
Speaker 1: who have come out of it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but can I tell you something where I think
Speaker 5: that comes from. First of all, michigan Ers are very practical,
Speaker 5: hardworking people. Like our culture is not to obsessively talk
Speaker 5: about yourself and self congratulate, but to just get your
Speaker 5: work done, and that there's value and pride in that.
Speaker 5: But I also have to say, when you're from a
Speaker 5: swing state and you're a Democrat from a swing state,
Speaker 5: you it is not theoretical. If you do not have
Speaker 5: your you know what together, you're going to get rolled.
Speaker 5: And the example from last summer a year ago, when
Speaker 5: Roe was overturned, we were a full band state from
Speaker 5: a nineteen thirty one law. And not only did we
Speaker 5: come together every single elected official up and down the
Speaker 5: ballot at every level to push forward on Proposition three
Speaker 5: get it on our ballot, eight hundred thousand signatures in
Speaker 5: eight weeks to get it on our ballot. Right, We
Speaker 5: all talked about it, We were disciplined about it. We
Speaker 5: had a plan even before Roe was overturned, because we
Speaker 5: know in a swing state you cannot take things for granted.
Speaker 5: So Michigan Democrats, but I would also guess Minnesota Democrats,
Speaker 5: Wisconsin Democrats, folks who are who look over the cliff
Speaker 5: and know that if they do do not get their
Speaker 5: crap together, Republicans with a really scary agenda are going
Speaker 5: to take over. That makes us more pragmatic and more concrete,
Speaker 5: and that I think is a swing state or a
Speaker 5: Midwestern state trait.
Speaker 1: Right, No, no, and we're and a me and a
Speaker 1: great example as we've seen that me and Minnesota has
Speaker 1: done an incredible job with its legislature.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just think that it's hard to think
Speaker 2: of a of a.
Speaker 1: State that has passed more progressive legislation quite so quickly.
Speaker 2: Tell us when is your primary, etc.
Speaker 5: Well, in Michigan, I think a lot of Midwestern states
Speaker 5: have late primary. Ours is in August of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 5: so lots of time in the time. What people want
Speaker 5: and expect is someone who just listens and fights. It's
Speaker 5: not rocket science, it's not something you know some sort
Speaker 5: of algebraic equation. Just show up, listen, and go and
Speaker 5: do something when your people need you. As a member
Speaker 5: of Congress currently, that's what I'm going to continue to do,
Speaker 5: and that's what I hope to offer and hope to
Speaker 5: earn people's votes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fantastic, Thank you so so much.
Speaker 5: Of course, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 1: It's Mollie, and I am wildly excited that for the
Speaker 1: first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening to right.
Speaker 2: Now, is going to have merch for sale over at.
Speaker 1: Shop dot fastpoliticspod dot Com. You can now buy shirts, hats, hoodies,
Speaker 1: and toe bags with our incredible designs. We've heard your
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Speaker 2: Thanks for your support.
Speaker 1: Christopher Miller is a foreign correspondent for The Financial Times
Speaker 1: and author of the War Came to Us, Life and
Speaker 1: Death in Ukraine. Welcome to Fast Politics, Christopher Miller.
Speaker 4: Thank you glad to be back.
Speaker 2: Tell us where you are, what you're doing.
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 7: I am talking with you from Central Kiev, Ukraine, capital country.
Speaker 7: I'm inside my apartment, which I just returned to shortly
Speaker 7: before we began this chat because I was out in
Speaker 7: eastern Ukraine visiting some Ukrainian soldiers on the front line
Speaker 7: to see how the counter offensive has been going.
Speaker 2: I've lost track of sort of where we are in
Speaker 2: this war. Talk me through where we are in this war?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think you know, if you look at it
Speaker 7: in terms of maybe several phases, right, that's probably the
Speaker 7: easiest way to break it down. I would say, certainly.
Speaker 7: From February twenty fourth twenty twenty two through maybe the
Speaker 7: end of the Battle of Kiev was the first and
Speaker 7: arguably the heaviest phase of fighting, when everything was sort.
Speaker 4: Of up in the air.
Speaker 7: We didn't know, you know, whether Kiev would fall in
Speaker 7: the first days, as some predicted and I think even
Speaker 7: some Western governments had feared would happen. Obviously that didn't,
Speaker 7: and the Russians were forced out of Kiev region. That
Speaker 7: took us, you know, a little bit to the east
Speaker 7: and south of the country, to some of the battlefields
Speaker 7: that had been fought on previously for eight years prior
Speaker 7: to that, right from twenty fourteen until twenty twenty two,
Speaker 7: and Ukraine's counter offensive from late last summer through autumn,
Speaker 7: where the Ukrainians managed to route the Russians in that
Speaker 7: northeastern region of Harkiv and also in the south and
Speaker 7: recapture that big city of Hirsan, and then I would say,
Speaker 7: from basically that point until this spring, things sort of
Speaker 7: just ground on for a while. Russia tried his hand
Speaker 7: at another offensive to recapture territory lost in Ukraine's counter
Speaker 7: offensive and also to capture all of these four oblasts
Speaker 7: or what we would probably refer to in the us
Speaker 7: is as states that Vladimir Putin back in September deemed
Speaker 7: to be Russian territory and at least in a Moscow
Speaker 7: had formally annexed these territories, and that sailed this offensive.
Speaker 7: Russian offensive came in the dead of winter. They really
Speaker 7: really struggled and lost a lot of soldiers in the process,
Speaker 7: and a lot of your listeners, I'm sure will remember
Speaker 7: the Battle of Bakhmut, which was this grinding war of
Speaker 7: attrition where Russia was using the Wagner mercenaries who were
Speaker 7: being ordered across these open froz in open fields in
Speaker 7: what the Ukrainians referred to as meat waves.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: It was this.
Speaker 7: Brutal World War one, World War two trench warfare style
Speaker 7: battle that you know, ground on through through a spring.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: You know, when I was out there in December, the
Speaker 7: Ukrainian soldiers were telling me that Russian soldiers were just
Speaker 7: you know, coming at them in waves of ten twelve
Speaker 7: people and they would mow them down and then another
Speaker 7: ten to twelve would come and capture five ten meters
Speaker 7: more and they just you know, they didn't stop. Eventually,
Speaker 7: that brings us to spring, right, and you know, Russia
Speaker 7: finally got a battlefield victory of sorts, although it lost
Speaker 7: tens of thousands of soldiers in the process, and we
Speaker 7: began hearing a lot about Ukraine's much anticipated counter offensive
Speaker 7: which is underway now. It's been underway for a little
Speaker 7: over a month. We've seen a lot of Western weaponry
Speaker 7: flow into the country. It's now being used by three
Speaker 7: Western train brigades that are part of this dozen that
Speaker 7: are being used for offensive action by Ukraine on the
Speaker 7: front line. And so, you know, we're in this moment
Speaker 7: now where everybody at the Vilnia summit in NATO this
Speaker 7: week was talking about, you know, Ukraine's successes on the battlefield.
Speaker 7: It's hopes for the Ukrainian counter offensive to recapture hopefully
Speaker 7: quite a bit of Russian occupied territory. And as I said,
Speaker 7: I just returned from the front line and can tell
Speaker 7: you it's certainly moving more slowly than everyone has hoped,
Speaker 7: but they are Ukrainians that is recapturing some ground.
Speaker 4: It's just really slow and.
Speaker 7: Plodding, and it sort of reminds me of the winter
Speaker 7: of twenty fourteen or end of twenty fourteen early twenty fifteen,
Speaker 7: where there was just really grinding war, except now it's
Speaker 7: on a much much greater scale, of course, and Ukraine
Speaker 7: has a lot at stake here, and you know, hopefully
Speaker 7: what came out of a Vilnius is a sign that
Speaker 7: Ukraine's going to continue getting the support it needs to
Speaker 7: restpect its territory. But one thing is clear, it's going
Speaker 7: to be an extremely difficult fight. The Russians over the
Speaker 7: winter time and spring, as Ukpanian was preparing for this
Speaker 7: counter offensive, had a lot of time to dig in
Speaker 7: and build its defenses. They've got these extremely heavily fortified
Speaker 7: defensive lines throughout the south and the east, with minefields, trenches,
Speaker 7: you name it. So it's intense at the moment. Like
Speaker 7: I said, there's a lot of state.
Speaker 1: So you're here to promote a book which is coming
Speaker 1: out on July eighteenth.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 4: I am, Yes, July eighteenth.
Speaker 2: The war came to us life and death in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: This is like for my own edification as much as anything,
Speaker 1: like how do you write this when the war is ongoing?
Speaker 1: And probably when you got this to the printer, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess we sort of saw that first moment where
Speaker 1: everyone thought that the Ukrainians were going to get you
Speaker 1: know that this was just going to be a short
Speaker 1: Russia you know, takeover, but it has evolved, this situation
Speaker 1: has changed so much.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, one of the most
Speaker 7: asked questions of me and in the past year among
Speaker 7: people who knew I was writing this, was, you know,
Speaker 7: how do you end a book that likely isn't going
Speaker 7: to have an ending by the time it's published. And
Speaker 7: I went into this knowing that there would very likely
Speaker 7: not be a ceasefire even let alone some kind of
Speaker 7: solution to this war. But in my case, I set
Speaker 7: out to write a book that covered not only the
Speaker 7: full scale invasion and events from February twenty fourth until
Speaker 7: now or in the future, but to take a broader
Speaker 7: look at how we got to this point and to
Speaker 7: really underscore the fact that Russia's war of aggression against
Speaker 7: Ukraine didn't start on February twenty fourth. It started in
Speaker 7: winter and spring of twenty fourteen. And so, you know,
Speaker 7: some of this book, the early early chapters in it,
Speaker 7: actually begin as far back as twenty ten, when I
Speaker 7: arrived in Ukraine and first as is a Peace Corps
Speaker 7: volunteer before getting into foreign correspondence, and I lived in
Speaker 7: the city of Bakmut, and so I knew that there
Speaker 7: would sort of be an ending to the story, because
Speaker 7: by the time I had come to the end of
Speaker 7: this book, the Battle of Bakmut was raging, and it
Speaker 7: was this was last winter, and I knew that if
Speaker 7: I found a way to, you know, leave it somewhat
Speaker 7: open ended, but to end in the city of bak
Speaker 7: Mout as this battle was raging, there would sort of
Speaker 7: be a little bit of a of a closure, or
Speaker 7: almost I guess, rather like the book would come full circle.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 7: It began in Bachmut in peacetime thirteen years ago, and
Speaker 7: it ends in Bachmut as it's being ravaged by Russian
Speaker 7: artillery and air strikes. And so, you know, for me,
Speaker 7: that was at least a good way to sort of
Speaker 7: come back to where it began and to really underscore
Speaker 7: the extreme difference. You know, this this quiet eastern Ukrainian city,
Speaker 7: you know, near the Russian border that a lot of
Speaker 7: people hadn't heard of. And I come in not knowing
Speaker 7: much and sort of bumble around and find my way
Speaker 7: and fast forward to you know now, and you return
Speaker 7: to this place that's just being pummeled, you know, everything
Speaker 7: in between is you know, my experiences and the stories
Speaker 7: of the Ukrainians I meet along the way.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a lot of reportage and.
Speaker 7: Dispatches, but you know some of it had been written
Speaker 7: well before, however, drafted rather probably not in perfect pros,
Speaker 7: but then you know, written through, and you know, certainly
Speaker 7: all of the new stuff was in the latter part
Speaker 7: of the book, collected along the way over the past year.
Speaker 7: That I guess is a general summary of it.
Speaker 2: What is life like now?
Speaker 1: I mean you were saying before that people have moved back.
Speaker 1: Russians don't seem any less interested in destroying their way
Speaker 1: of life.
Speaker 7: Oh, certainly not. No, I mean, you know, the Ukrainians
Speaker 7: know that this is an existential fight. If you look
Speaker 7: out the window in Kiev, there is a semblance of normalcy.
Speaker 7: I was just telling you before we started that it's
Speaker 7: rush hour traffic outside right now, and I'll bet you
Speaker 7: if I go to the bar across the street that
Speaker 7: it'll be full of people and the restaurants and the
Speaker 7: terraces right now, because it's a beautiful sunny summer day
Speaker 7: here are going to be full of couples and people
Speaker 7: just getting off of work. But certainly underneath the surface
Speaker 7: is a lot of anger and sadness, grief. Just overnight
Speaker 7: Russia launched yet another suicide drone attack on the capitol.
Speaker 7: And so, you know, by day people are trying to
Speaker 7: live their lives, go to work, do their shopping, pay
Speaker 7: their bills. By night they're sleeping in the corridor of
Speaker 7: their apartments or in the bomb shelter, trying to avoid
Speaker 7: being on the other end of a cruise missile, you know.
Speaker 7: And certainly on the battlefields of the east and the
Speaker 7: south of the country, war is raging. Hundreds of people
Speaker 7: are being wounded or killed every day on the front line,
Speaker 7: and so there's this real It seems especially jarring because
Speaker 7: Kiev is very much a European city. You could step
Speaker 7: into Prague or Warsaw or you know, Budapest, and then
Speaker 7: you know, drop into Kiev and you'd have that same
Speaker 7: that same vibe, except that then the air raid sirens
Speaker 7: would sound and you'd be quickly reminded that this is
Speaker 7: a country at war.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's this sort of feeling that a lot of
Speaker 1: reporting sort of it kind of makes an overture towards
Speaker 1: but is not completely clear about which is it does
Speaker 1: seem like there's a sense in which the Ukrainian fighters
Speaker 1: fight in a way that is different than the Russian fighters.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about that?
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, I think what you're referring to is
Speaker 7: probably this truth rather that you know, the Russian military
Speaker 7: really is old school, like it fights in a very
Speaker 7: old school way. To put it simply, there's still this
Speaker 7: Soviet style hierarchy where commands you know, really has to
Speaker 7: go from the field up through a chain and you know,
Speaker 7: reach a senior commander and then come all the way
Speaker 7: back down before any kind of action is or action
Speaker 7: is taken on the battlefield or decision is made. Right,
Speaker 7: and the Ukrainians, adversely, are now being Western trained, they
Speaker 7: have a lot more leeway in terms of what they're
Speaker 7: able to decide unilaterally on the battlefields. They don't necessarily
Speaker 7: need to wait for commands from Kiev to make a move.
Speaker 7: They can react more quickly. There's a lot more trust
Speaker 7: in battlefield commanders. If you look at the militaries right,
Speaker 7: Russia's was significantly larger and thought to be the second
Speaker 7: strongest in the world. They had a very specific military
Speaker 7: doctrine that has I think remained more or less the
Speaker 7: same for decades. The Ukrainians are forming theirs, and they're
Speaker 7: forming theirs while fighting, so they're figuring out what has worked.
Speaker 7: They have a lot more freedom to explore and try things.
Speaker 7: They've had to try new things and they've had to
Speaker 7: be scrappy because they are really outnumbered.
Speaker 2: But it also seems like they are more committed to
Speaker 2: the fight.
Speaker 7: Well certainly, I mean, this is this is life and death,
Speaker 7: this is an existential fight. So you know, they are
Speaker 7: absolutely dedicated to winning this war. They know that if
Speaker 7: they don't, this could be the end of their country,
Speaker 7: the end of their culture, their language. You know, for
Speaker 7: the Russians, a lot of these soldiers, and we know
Speaker 7: from some of the interviews with captured soldiers and even
Speaker 7: statements from soldiers that have been wounded and returned to
Speaker 7: Russia that they really don't know what they're fighting for.
Speaker 7: That Putin has given so many untruthful, bizarre, contradictory reasons
Speaker 7: for launching this war, that they really don't know what
Speaker 7: they are fighting for. They're essentially, you know, just kind
Speaker 7: of operating like a machine out there. You know, somebody
Speaker 7: is giving an order and they're doing what they're told.
Speaker 7: The Ukrainians are fighting for their lives and they know
Speaker 7: that if they stop fighting that this could be the
Speaker 7: very end of Ukraine.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting talked to us a little bit about
Speaker 1: what happened with the Wagner group and how that has
Speaker 1: affected the war.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, you know, you have Guinea Progosion, the
Speaker 7: leader of Wagner, who was famously known as Putin's chef
Speaker 7: because he was a caterer at one point.
Speaker 2: Right, didn't you sell hot dogs?
Speaker 7: Yeah? Yeah, that's right. You know, he was a hot
Speaker 7: dog vendor who worked his way up after a stint
Speaker 7: in Russian prison to then serve right, well, the great
Speaker 7: Russian dream, right, and so now he's an extremely wealthy businessman.
Speaker 2: And warlord, yes who among us.
Speaker 7: Right, whose mercenary group was filled with convicts because Russia
Speaker 7: was losing so many soldiers in the first several months
Speaker 7: of blood Putin's full skill invasion last year that he
Speaker 7: went ahead and approved, you have Guinea Progosion to go
Speaker 7: recruiting at Russian prisons for prospective fighters, and those people
Speaker 7: who raised their hand and volunteered would see their sentences
Speaker 7: commuted for six months of fighting if they lived.
Speaker 2: So these are not perhaps not great guys.
Speaker 7: Right, Ukraine is fighting with some of its very best people.
Speaker 7: Russia is throwing a lot of its worst at the fight.
Speaker 2: But more likely maybe to do war crimes, etc.
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, no, Vagner is known for its brutality. I mean,
Speaker 7: these are guys that have been filmed beheading Ukrainian prisoners
Speaker 7: of war, astrating Ukrainian prisoners of war. It's really really
Speaker 7: ruesome stuff like these are the worst of the worst people.
Speaker 7: But it's interesting, you know, you asked how it affects
Speaker 7: the fight Wagner's fighters still because it's not only these convicts,
Speaker 7: it's actually, you know, some well trained and battle hardened
Speaker 7: fighters who fought in Ukraine, you know, back in the
Speaker 7: day in twenty fourteen, also in other wars in Syria
Speaker 7: in particular, they have been the only real military unit
Speaker 7: that has had success on the battlefield in terms of
Speaker 7: gaining some territory. Now, but maybe an asterisk next to
Speaker 7: that word success just because you know, they were They
Speaker 7: led the charge around the city at Bakmut in the
Speaker 7: battle there and managed to take Backmut, but it took
Speaker 7: months and months and months of you know, heavy artillery
Speaker 7: pounding the city, air support and them moving essentially block
Speaker 7: by block for ten months before they took the city.
Speaker 7: But the rush the regular Russian military hasn't had a
Speaker 7: success on the battlefield since the first days of the invasion,
Speaker 7: when they swept through the northern part of the country
Speaker 7: through Tchernobyl, Tourkiev in the south and occupied those first
Speaker 7: areas saw which they know they no longer occupied.
Speaker 4: So you know, there is this question of whether or.
Speaker 7: Not Russian military at some point, if it attempts to
Speaker 7: again go on the defensive, is going to be able
Speaker 7: to capture any more ground, or if really they're you know,
Speaker 7: now digging in and trying to settle with what they've got,
Speaker 7: Because Wagner really was the only group in the last
Speaker 7: many many months.
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess.
Speaker 7: Arguably a year probably a year that had any real
Speaker 7: success in advantage on the battlefield.
Speaker 2: Do we have a sense of what happened to Wagner.
Speaker 7: Yeah, a little bit. It's a bit of a confusing situation.
Speaker 7: There was this failed mutiny that you have Guinea progosion
Speaker 7: led on the Kremlin, and then you know, we saw
Speaker 7: this sort of like slow mark and followed it all
Speaker 7: in real time on Russian military bloggers telegram channels where
Speaker 7: apparently twenty thousand or so Wagner troops were rushing up
Speaker 7: this highway to Moscow and within even just a couple
Speaker 7: of hours from from the Kremlin before calling it off
Speaker 7: in a deal apparently that broker to buy the Belarusian
Speaker 7: leader Alexander Lukashenko. If you call this in the past
Speaker 7: several days that Putin had called progosion and about thirty
Speaker 7: Wagner commanders into the Kremlin to have a chat, and
Speaker 7: we haven't seen Progosion since then. You know, it does
Speaker 7: seem like Putin took a serious hit to his reputation
Speaker 7: as a strong man and maybe now trying to show
Speaker 7: that he, you know, still has control over the securities
Speaker 7: situation in this country and and the political situation certainly.
Speaker 7: But Vagner was forced to hand in a lot of
Speaker 7: its weaponry. It was told that it needs to relocate
Speaker 7: to Belarus, that progos It himself also needs to relocate.
Speaker 7: But he's shown up in Saint Petersburg and then in
Speaker 7: the Kremlin, as I mentioned, So it's a bit of
Speaker 7: a confusing situation. I would say there's a big question
Speaker 7: mark over Wagner right now, whether or not they have
Speaker 7: completely disbanded and won't be involved in the fight in Ukraine,
Speaker 7: or you know, if they're still going to be operating
Speaker 7: in Africa, where they always or where they also have
Speaker 7: a large footprint.
Speaker 2: So interesting. Thank you so much for coming on. I
Speaker 2: hope you'll come back.
Speaker 4: Of course, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: No moment, Jesse Cannon Mai John Fast.
Speaker 4: It's going to be really funny to watch all those
Speaker 4: rich tech pro us who give arf K Junior all
Speaker 4: that money have to now answer for his anti Semitism.
Speaker 3: What do you see it in here?
Speaker 1: As a Jew myself, I need to say, as my
Speaker 1: grandfather always said, they always come back to picking on
Speaker 1: the Jews, but really not funny.
Speaker 2: RFK finally said the choiet part.
Speaker 1: I mean he has said the choir part out a lot,
Speaker 1: a lot, but he recently said that COVID was designed
Speaker 1: not to hurt Jewish people and Chinese people as badly
Speaker 1: as it hurts everyone else.
Speaker 2: That there is zero evidence to support this.
Speaker 1: It is just completely silly ranting by a person who
Speaker 1: really really sucks.
Speaker 2: And for that OURFK Junior is our moment of Fackeray.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
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Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.