00:00:00
This was Trump's net worth when he went
00:00:02
into office, $2.3 billion. And this is
00:00:04
his net worth now, just two years later.
00:00:07
$6.5 billion.
00:00:09
>> So, we've never had a president running
00:00:11
businesses while in office. And so,
00:00:13
decisions are being made not based on
00:00:15
what's good for Americans, but what's
00:00:17
good for his company. For example, why
00:00:19
did the Saudi government invest $2
00:00:21
billion in Jared Kushner's fund? It
00:00:23
wasn't because they just like Jared
00:00:25
Kushner. It was because Kushner is
00:00:27
Trump's son-in-law. And so my biggest
00:00:29
concern is the deterioration of American
00:00:31
democracy. I mean, it's already
00:00:33
happening. Most people think democracies
00:00:35
end with tanks in the street or somebody
00:00:37
shooting up the presidential palace, but
00:00:38
actually in the modern world, they
00:00:40
mostly end because someone who is
00:00:42
legitimately elected begins to take
00:00:44
apart the system. Trump, he has never
00:00:47
cared much one way or the other for
00:00:49
American democracy. He admires foreign
00:00:51
leaders who have no constraints. And I
00:00:53
have a goal that is to remind people of
00:00:56
why democracy is important and to pay
00:00:58
attention to the ways in which it's
00:01:00
declining so that we can fight back. So
00:01:02
we're just at the beginning of what
00:01:04
could be quite a big change.
00:01:05
>> So there's five core tactics that
00:01:07
autocratic leaders use to dismantle a
00:01:09
democracy. Could you walk me through the
00:01:10
five tactics?
00:01:11
>> So first of all,
00:01:16
>> this is super interesting to me. My team
00:01:18
given me this report to show me how many
00:01:19
of you that watch this show subscribe.
00:01:20
And some of you have told us according
00:01:22
to this that you are unsubscribed from
00:01:24
the channel randomly. So favor to ask
00:01:26
all of you please could you check right
00:01:28
now if you've hit the subscribe button
00:01:29
if you are a regular viewer of the show
00:01:30
and you like what we do here. We're
00:01:32
approaching quite a significant landmark
00:01:34
on this show in terms of a subscriber
00:01:35
number. So if there was one simple free
00:01:38
thing that you could do to help us, my
00:01:39
team, everyone here to keep this show
00:01:41
free, to keep it improving year over
00:01:44
year and week over week, it is just to
00:01:45
hit that subscribe button and to double
00:01:47
check if you've hit it. Only thing I'll
00:01:48
ever ask of you. Do we have a deal? If
00:01:50
you do it, I'll tell you what I'll do.
00:01:52
I'll make sure every single week, every
00:01:54
single month, we fight harder and harder
00:01:56
and harder and harder to bring you the
00:01:57
guests and conversations that you want
00:01:58
to hear. I've stayed true to that
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promise since the very beginning of the
00:02:01
D of Sio, and I will not let you down.
00:02:04
Please help us. Really appreciate it.
00:02:05
Let's get on with the show.
00:02:10
>> An Apple Bomb, what is it you spent the
00:02:13
last couple of decades of your life
00:02:15
doing, understanding, studying, and
00:02:16
sharing with the world? I started out as
00:02:19
somebody who was fascinated by the
00:02:20
Soviet Union. I went there when it still
00:02:23
existed as a as a student. I was lucky
00:02:26
enough to watch it fall apart. I was a
00:02:28
journalist based in Warsaw at the time
00:02:30
the Warsaw pack came to an end. Then I
00:02:33
spent
00:02:35
some years writing history books trying
00:02:37
to explain how control was maintained
00:02:40
over such a large space uh by so few
00:02:43
people. But all that time, I thought
00:02:45
that what I was doing was writing
00:02:46
stories about the distant past. I was
00:02:49
analyzing a system that didn't exist
00:02:51
anymore.
00:02:52
What's happened to me in the last decade
00:02:54
is that I've discovered that a lot of
00:02:56
what I thought was over and done and
00:02:57
belonged to some other era uh has come
00:03:00
back. Most people think democracies end
00:03:03
with a coup d'eta or, you know, tanks in
00:03:06
the street or somebody shooting up the
00:03:07
presidential palace. that actually in
00:03:10
the modern world they mostly end because
00:03:12
someone who is legitimately elected
00:03:15
begins to take apart the system and take
00:03:18
away the things that ensure free
00:03:21
elections can continue and I started
00:03:24
watching that happen in multiple
00:03:25
countries at the same time and I saw
00:03:28
this authoritarian instinct started to
00:03:31
come back and that's what I write about
00:03:33
now
00:03:34
>> are these just election cycles or is
00:03:36
there something bigger at play here
00:03:37
because you know I spend a lot time
00:03:38
reading articles from decades ago or
00:03:41
hundreds of years ago and in all times
00:03:44
in history it seems that there were
00:03:45
problems but it seems that the I don't
00:03:47
know the democratic system has a
00:03:49
remarkable way every four years of
00:03:50
clearing out what people weren't happy
00:03:52
with and putting something new in is
00:03:54
this time different to the past
00:03:56
>> what feels different to me is for the
00:03:58
first time in several established
00:04:00
democracies most notably United States
00:04:02
but not only you have political parties
00:04:04
who come to power with the explicit idea
00:04:08
that they will alter the system in order
00:04:10
to make sure that they can stay in
00:04:12
forever. The pioneer of this idea was
00:04:15
Victor Orban in Hungary. He was elected
00:04:17
legitimately with a big margin and then
00:04:20
what he did was slowly seek to capture
00:04:23
the state. So what a democracy needs in
00:04:26
order to survive, in order to maintain
00:04:28
its stability, it needs a few neutral
00:04:31
institutions. You know, it needs
00:04:33
independent courts. It needs an
00:04:35
independent electoral commission. It
00:04:37
needs independent media. In the modern
00:04:40
world, it needs a meritocratic
00:04:42
bureaucracy. So, people are hired and
00:04:44
fired to measure pollution or worry
00:04:47
about traffic and road construction who
00:04:50
aren't cousins of the ruling party. They
00:04:53
aren't somebody's friend, but they're
00:04:55
actual experts who understand how to do
00:04:56
things. So you need those things to be
00:04:59
in place in order to ensure that each
00:05:01
time there's an electoral cycle, it's a
00:05:03
fair election. And you see people who
00:05:06
are elected who who once they had power
00:05:09
decided to take those institutions
00:05:12
apart. You know, if you think about
00:05:13
democracy, it's actually a very strange
00:05:16
system, right? So you win an election
00:05:20
and in a democracy you have to preserve
00:05:22
the rules so that four years from now
00:05:26
your bitter enemies can contest you and
00:05:29
maybe beat you again. You know you lose
00:05:32
an election, you have to say okay we're
00:05:34
allowing our rivals to stay in power uh
00:05:38
but we trust that the system will remain
00:05:40
fair so four years from now we can also
00:05:43
contest them again. So it requires a
00:05:45
certain level of agreement about the
00:05:47
nature of the system and when that
00:05:50
begins to break down then you begin to
00:05:52
have imbalances and then you begin to
00:05:54
have elections that seem unfair to
00:05:56
people and then you begin to have a
00:05:57
completely different kind of national
00:05:59
conversation and we can see that has
00:06:01
happened in several places and of course
00:06:03
most notably in the United States and
00:06:06
because the United States is the largest
00:06:09
democracy because it's played the role
00:06:10
of leader of the democratic world the
00:06:13
influence uence of America on other
00:06:15
countries is pretty profound. Uh and so
00:06:17
this this idea that democracies can
00:06:20
possibly break down is suddenly um both
00:06:23
horrifying people but also interesting
00:06:25
to other people who say all right if you
00:06:27
can do it in America you can do it here.
00:06:29
>> There's a part of me that just thinks
00:06:33
that could never happen in America. And
00:06:36
that's obviously a bias that I have
00:06:37
being 33 years old and not knowing a ton
00:06:39
about history. But there's I'm sure
00:06:40
there's lots of people that think this
00:06:41
is some sort of theoretical idea, but it
00:06:44
would never happen in America because we
00:06:45
would never allow America to not be a
00:06:48
democracy. We wouldn't allow a a Russia
00:06:50
situation where you've got Putin sitting
00:06:52
in power for two decades or whatever.
00:06:54
>> Sure, but there are systems in between
00:06:56
Russia and liberal democracy. You can
00:06:59
have democracies that aren't fair. And
00:07:02
actually, I'm afraid to tell you that in
00:07:03
the United States, there is a history of
00:07:05
that. So the in the American South
00:07:07
before the civil rights movement, you
00:07:09
very often had in effect in in the
00:07:11
southern states, you had these one party
00:07:13
states where, you know, the rules were
00:07:15
pretty rigged. Everybody knew who was
00:07:17
going to win. Not everybody was allowed
00:07:19
to vote. So black people weren't allowed
00:07:21
to vote or they were it was very heavily
00:07:22
restricted. It was hard for them to
00:07:24
vote. And that existed in the United
00:07:26
States, you know, between the Civil War
00:07:27
and the and the 1960s, you had very
00:07:30
undemocratic parts of the United States.
00:07:32
And I think some of the people who are
00:07:34
in Washington right now in the Trump
00:07:37
administration are working from that
00:07:39
history and from that historical memory.
00:07:41
>> What is your biggest concern in this
00:07:43
regard?
00:07:45
>> Well, I have two concerns. Uh, one is
00:07:47
that inside the United States, the
00:07:50
deterioration of American democracy, I
00:07:53
mean, it's already happening, right? So,
00:07:54
it's already creating a class of people
00:07:57
who no longer feel they have a stake in
00:07:59
the political system and who won't vote,
00:08:02
may never vote and fe and and will be
00:08:05
outside of politics and outside of the
00:08:07
national conversation. That can lead in
00:08:08
the direction of violence that can lead
00:08:10
in in all kinds of negative directions.
00:08:12
We see the development of new kinds of
00:08:16
um paramilitary in the United States
00:08:18
that we never had before. the
00:08:20
development of ICE. We've never before
00:08:22
had a single national police force
00:08:25
wearing combat uniforms, wearing masks,
00:08:28
not subject to the normal restrictions
00:08:30
of local police forces. We also have a
00:08:32
rise in um high-end corruption. The
00:08:37
president, people around him, companies
00:08:39
close to him seem to have access to ways
00:08:42
to make money and are making money out
00:08:44
of doing politics in a way that was also
00:08:46
not possible at that scale in America
00:08:48
before. And that's sort of one whole set
00:08:49
of concerns if you want to go down one
00:08:51
of those roads.
00:08:52
>> There's this map in front of us on the
00:08:53
table. I realize some people can't see
00:08:55
because they're listening, but there's a
00:08:57
map on the table in front of us. Could
00:08:58
you just explain what this map shows and
00:09:00
why it's significant?
00:09:02
>> The map shows the level of of democracy
00:09:04
around the world. And of course, the
00:09:06
thing that's immediately notable to me
00:09:08
is that those who made the map don't
00:09:09
count the United States anymore as a
00:09:11
liberal democracy. Mhm.
00:09:13
>> So at a liberal democracy, meaning a
00:09:15
state where, as I said, the electoral
00:09:17
rules are clear, where the electoral
00:09:20
system is set up not to favor one party
00:09:21
or the next, and instead it's described
00:09:24
as an electoral democracy, which is
00:09:25
somewhat less free. You see similar
00:09:28
systems in South America. In Europe, you
00:09:30
mostly still have liberal democracies.
00:09:32
In Australia, Japan, South Korea, you
00:09:34
still have liberal democracies. And then
00:09:36
most of the rest of the world are some
00:09:38
form of autocracy. Either very closed
00:09:42
and very repressive like China or like
00:09:44
Russia or they are in a democratic gray
00:09:47
zone. So there are states that could
00:09:49
really go in either direction. I mean
00:09:50
they're still they're still open. But
00:09:52
it's true that if you'd looked at a map
00:09:54
like this a decade ago or two decades
00:09:56
ago, it would have been a lot bluer than
00:09:58
the the blue being democracy and the red
00:10:01
or reddish being autocracy. So you do
00:10:04
see a an absolute process of democratic
00:10:06
decline that's been written about um by
00:10:09
many people over the last few years. I I
00:10:11
I think I believe very much that states
00:10:14
influence one another. People follow and
00:10:16
imitate and copy their neighbors.
00:10:18
>> Do you think it's possible that in our
00:10:20
lifetimes the US might become an orth
00:10:24
orcratic
00:10:26
country?
00:10:28
So the US could become a what I think on
00:10:32
this map is described as an autocratic
00:10:34
gray zone. So you could imagine the US
00:10:36
as in effect a one party state. So a
00:10:40
state where one political party has
00:10:43
control and the other just can't win
00:10:46
national elections. you already have
00:10:49
this system of we call it gerrymandering
00:10:51
where electoral districts are being
00:10:54
written in such a way as to favor one
00:10:56
party or the another. The effect of that
00:10:58
also is that once you have people who
00:11:00
don't really have to contest elections
00:11:02
anymore, then you have corruption.
00:11:04
Because if you're going to win anyway,
00:11:06
why do you have to worry about your
00:11:07
constituents? then you have worse
00:11:09
government and worse services because if
00:11:11
you don't have to have a an electoral
00:11:14
contest then you know you can pursue
00:11:16
your own interests. You can do favors
00:11:18
for businessmen who help you in other
00:11:20
ways. And we see this decline of
00:11:22
democracy already at the state level.
00:11:23
And of course there could be a danger at
00:11:25
the national level of a fixed system
00:11:28
that made sure only one party ever wins.
00:11:32
And then you would get all these
00:11:33
pathologies that we already have at the
00:11:35
state level. We're beginning to have
00:11:36
them uh even now. And remember, we have
00:11:39
right now a president who refused to
00:11:42
accept the result of an election in 2020
00:11:45
and who staged what was intended to be
00:11:48
an electoral coup. Uh it failed. But,
00:11:52
you know, the idea that he wouldn't do
00:11:54
it again or nobody would ever dare to do
00:11:56
that or nobody would block an election,
00:11:58
I think it's pretty naive at this point.
00:12:00
I mean, it happened already. Um, and so
00:12:04
of course it can happen again.
00:12:05
>> Do you think he's going to try and get a
00:12:07
third term in office?
00:12:08
>> I don't think so because I don't think
00:12:10
he wants one.
00:12:12
>> Um, but I think it's possible that
00:12:14
people around him will try to shape and
00:12:18
affect the elections in a way that makes
00:12:21
sure that a Republican wins
00:12:23
>> or maybe his his children.
00:12:25
>> It's very possible that one of his
00:12:27
children will run for president
00:12:28
>> because there's a way to kind of control
00:12:30
power in America. You know, when they
00:12:31
they talk about MAGA, which is, I guess,
00:12:33
a collection of people now. You know,
00:12:35
you could say Jay Vance is part of MAGA
00:12:36
and the kids and Trump. So, maybe they'd
00:12:40
want to keep it within MAGA. Maybe
00:12:42
that's the
00:12:42
>> they might or they might want to want to
00:12:44
keep it within the family. I mean, look,
00:12:46
what is MAGA now? You know, what what
00:12:49
what is different about Trump's second
00:12:50
term from Trump's first term. So, one of
00:12:53
the things that happened after January
00:12:55
the 6 after the attack on the Congress
00:12:58
was that many of the people who'd been
00:13:01
around Trump, Republicans, people who do
00:13:04
foreign policy, people who do domestic
00:13:06
policy,
00:13:08
left. They said, "Right, this is too
00:13:10
much for us. You know, we're we're
00:13:11
American patriots. You know, we can't
00:13:14
support this kind of attack on our
00:13:15
political system." And they departed his
00:13:17
presence.
00:13:19
But that exactly that moment that attack
00:13:21
on the electoral system attracted other
00:13:23
people.
00:13:24
>> So for different reasons, people who
00:13:26
disliked the American political system,
00:13:28
who don't like democracy, don't like
00:13:30
liberal democracy, thought it was
00:13:32
leading America in a leftwing direction.
00:13:34
Some of them have political reasons.
00:13:35
They were attracted to Donald Trump
00:13:37
because they said, "Right, this is
00:13:38
somebody who has the nerve to try and
00:13:40
overthrow the system, and we like that."
00:13:42
And they're they're they're not all the
00:13:43
same. They have different views. So
00:13:45
there's a tech authoritarian group who
00:13:48
want influence over the American
00:13:49
political system because it's good for
00:13:51
their businesses and because they don't
00:13:52
get the point of democracy anyway and
00:13:54
they think they should be in charge.
00:13:56
There's a a kind of Christian
00:13:58
nationalist group who think the United
00:14:00
States should not be a secular state. It
00:14:02
should be a Christian state and they
00:14:03
want to they are interested in taking
00:14:05
over the system um with that. And and
00:14:07
then there's a traditional MAGA group
00:14:09
who think the United States should be
00:14:10
run by the people who used to run it.
00:14:12
you know, kind of white Christian people
00:14:15
of a certain kind and they want to bring
00:14:16
the United States back in that
00:14:18
direction. So, they're they're different
00:14:19
views. Um, and they don't all agree with
00:14:22
each other, but they they do agree that
00:14:24
the system requires radical change and
00:14:26
that's the difference between the first
00:14:28
and second term. So, Trump's first term,
00:14:31
I think he has never cared much one way
00:14:34
or the other for American democracy. He
00:14:36
personally sees himself as someone who
00:14:38
should be allowed to act in any way he
00:14:40
wants. He doesn't like any kind of
00:14:41
constraint. Um he admires foreign
00:14:44
leaders who have no constraints, but he
00:14:46
was one way or another constrained in in
00:14:48
in his first term by the system and now
00:14:50
he's surrounded himself by people who
00:14:52
are seeking to help him avoid those
00:14:54
constraints. And that's that's new.
00:14:56
>> I think when we have these
00:14:57
conversations, we assume that everybody
00:14:59
agrees that democracy is the better
00:15:01
path.
00:15:02
>> Sure.
00:15:02
>> And that they understand the downsides
00:15:04
of an autocracy. So there are different
00:15:06
kinds of autocracies to be clear and
00:15:08
some are some are more repressive than
00:15:10
others. The the main thing that you
00:15:13
would notice the first thing that you
00:15:14
would notice would be the absence of the
00:15:16
rule of law. Rule of law means that
00:15:20
judges and courts and the legal system
00:15:22
make decisions based on the constitution
00:15:26
or on the laws. And in an autocracy you
00:15:29
have rule by law. And that means that
00:15:32
the law is what the person in power says
00:15:34
it is.
00:15:34
>> Mhm. And so if you did a program for
00:15:37
example and someone on your program said
00:15:40
something that was offensive to the
00:15:41
leader of the country, you could be
00:15:44
arrested and you could be put on trial.
00:15:47
And instead of the court saying, "Right,
00:15:50
we we've looked at this case and
00:15:51
according to the law, we have in the law
00:15:53
it says we have freedom of speech and
00:15:54
you can do whatever you want," they
00:15:56
could somebody could could ring up from
00:15:58
the Kremlin or from the White House or
00:16:00
from, you know, whatever is the
00:16:02
leadership of your country and say, "No,
00:16:03
actually, we want this guy in jail and
00:16:05
we don't care what the courts think."
00:16:07
Um, and that's the big difference here.
00:16:09
I'll tell you a real story that happened
00:16:10
in Hungary when Hungary was going down
00:16:12
the road in the direction of a one party
00:16:14
state. You can be the CEO of a company
00:16:16
and people can come and knock on your
00:16:18
door and they can say, "We would like
00:16:20
you to sell us a majority share in your
00:16:23
company and you say, 'N no, why should I
00:16:25
let you do that? I I my company, I built
00:16:28
it. I invested in it. I don't want to
00:16:29
sell it." And then, okay, so what
00:16:32
happens the next day? Somebody breaks
00:16:33
the windows of your house. A few days
00:16:36
later, your children are harassed on the
00:16:38
way to school. People who work for you
00:16:40
start having legal problems. this or
00:16:42
that, you know, some kind of mortgage
00:16:44
issue or some, you know, and you
00:16:46
suddenly your company encounters
00:16:48
regulatory issues. There's a tax
00:16:50
inspection and one by one, the state
00:16:53
finds a way to harass you, to harass
00:16:55
your company, your workers, so that
00:16:57
eventually you say, "Okay, I give up. I
00:16:59
sell and I'm leaving the country." And
00:17:00
this happened to somebody I know. Sounds
00:17:02
like um anthropic in the United States
00:17:04
recently where an anthropic the AI
00:17:06
company refused to give the United
00:17:09
States access to its AI under certain
00:17:12
conditions and then very quickly Pete
00:17:14
Pete Hegsth did a a post I think and
00:17:16
Donald Trump did a post basically saying
00:17:18
that they were going to restrict their
00:17:20
ability to work with the government.
00:17:23
>> We aren't used to the idea that the
00:17:25
government decides which companies
00:17:27
thrive and which ones die, you know. So
00:17:30
once you have an an autocratic state
00:17:32
that can do what it wants legally, then
00:17:34
it can decide which companies succeed.
00:17:37
It can base government contracts which
00:17:39
are very important in every country not
00:17:41
on who's the best company or not on some
00:17:44
kind of blind procurement process but on
00:17:46
who's your friend you know or or who's
00:17:49
donated to your political party or who's
00:17:52
in the case of the United States who's
00:17:53
invested in your company. So one of the
00:17:55
things that we have in the United States
00:17:56
for the first time ever I think is a
00:17:59
president who is actively doing business
00:18:03
in countries and in areas that are of
00:18:06
interest to the people he's doing
00:18:08
business with. So for example the Trump
00:18:09
family does business in Saudi Arabia. It
00:18:12
has a it has a deal with a a Saudi
00:18:14
company called um Dar Alakan which is a
00:18:17
sort of development company and it that
00:18:19
company has close relations to the Saudi
00:18:21
leadership. The Saudi leadership is
00:18:25
interested in deals with the United
00:18:27
States, but I mean political arrangement
00:18:29
with the United States and the money is
00:18:31
going into the Trump family coffers in
00:18:34
order to make a better arrangement for
00:18:36
the country of Saudi Arabia. So it's a
00:18:38
way in which because we have a declining
00:18:40
democracy and because we have a
00:18:42
increasingly kleptocratic system
00:18:44
decisions are being made by the
00:18:46
president of the United States by the
00:18:47
white house not based on what's good for
00:18:49
Americans but on what's good for his
00:18:51
company and that's and that if you look
00:18:53
at Russia that's exactly how the
00:18:55
political system works there if you look
00:18:56
at China is more complicated it's a
00:18:59
bigger country it's more sophisticated
00:19:00
but even there you have again decisions
00:19:04
made not for the welfare
00:19:07
of the Chinese people, but for the
00:19:10
ruling party, for the Communist Party.
00:19:12
>> And we have two uh jars of money here.
00:19:14
This was uh Trump's net worth when he
00:19:17
went into office, $2.3 billion
00:19:20
reportedly. And this is his net worth
00:19:23
now, just 2 years later.
00:19:25
$6.5 billion. Looks like being a
00:19:28
president is a profitable job.
00:19:30
>> So that has never happened before. This
00:19:32
is completely new in American history.
00:19:35
There have been presidents who there
00:19:36
have been whiffs of corruption around
00:19:37
them. There's been, you know,
00:19:39
presidential relatives who've tried to
00:19:41
trade off the president's name. But
00:19:43
we've never had a president running
00:19:45
businesses while in office. And as I
00:19:48
said, in such a way that the people with
00:19:51
whom he's doing business are are hoping
00:19:53
to benefit politically or or or in other
00:19:56
ways. And that's that's completely brand
00:19:58
new. And if you just back to your
00:20:00
original question, which is why is
00:20:01
democracy better? Churchill was the
00:20:03
person who said that democracy is the
00:20:05
worst system of government except for
00:20:06
all the others. So it's a multi-reasons
00:20:09
why it's flawed. You know democracies
00:20:11
have require an immense amount of
00:20:14
tolerance. There's always a lot of
00:20:15
cacaphony. There's a constant flux and
00:20:18
change that that people find
00:20:20
innervating. But at the very least what
00:20:22
democracies can do is they can force
00:20:25
issues like this into the public sphere.
00:20:27
you know, you're allowed at least in a
00:20:29
democracy to question whether uh this
00:20:32
decisions are being made in on the basis
00:20:34
that they're good for everybody or
00:20:35
they're being made for the benefit of
00:20:36
the president.
00:20:37
>> I guess supporters would say, you know,
00:20:39
Trump's not running the businesses
00:20:40
himself. It's just his kids activity
00:20:43
that is generating this net worth.
00:20:47
>> Yeah. But I mean, everybody knows that
00:20:49
they're his kids and you you wouldn't do
00:20:52
it. You know, why why did the Saudi
00:20:54
government invest $2 billion in Jared
00:20:56
Kushner's fund? It wasn't because they
00:20:59
just like Jared Kushner. It was because
00:21:02
Kushner is Trump's son-in-law. And now,
00:21:04
of course, Kushner is the Trump
00:21:06
administration's negotiator in the
00:21:08
Middle East. Um, so he's negotiating
00:21:11
with his business partners. The
00:21:13
appearance of conflict of interest is
00:21:16
overwhelming. And as I said, we've never
00:21:18
had in American history or I think in
00:21:20
recent British history, we've never had
00:21:22
that kind of conflict of interest so
00:21:25
clear at that at that high a level.
00:21:27
>> Do you spend much time thinking about
00:21:29
what's going on in the Middle East, the
00:21:31
wars in Iran and what in Venezuela and
00:21:33
the bigger picture here of what's
00:21:35
happening and how this might link back
00:21:36
to what you were saying about
00:21:38
authoritarian regimes. It's all very
00:21:40
confusing. I I feel like we went through
00:21:42
a period of relative peace through the
00:21:44
Biden era and Trump obviously ran on
00:21:47
this promise that he wasn't going to
00:21:48
start new wars. Um and we seem to be
00:21:50
having a lot of wars. Russia and Ukraine
00:21:53
still raging on doesn't seem to be
00:21:54
nearer to any conclusion and now there's
00:21:56
this war in Iran that threatens to be a
00:22:00
neverending war. What is what what what
00:22:04
>> there are several things going on. One
00:22:06
of them is that in declining democracies
00:22:09
and in historically in autocracies is
00:22:12
you have leaders who conduct wars as a
00:22:16
way of consolidating their base and
00:22:18
consolidating their support. Uh and so
00:22:20
one of the things that Trump likes to do
00:22:22
is if he declares a war, I believe he
00:22:24
had a different expectation of the Iran
00:22:26
war. He's using foreign policy. He's
00:22:28
using these fighting of wars in order to
00:22:30
consolidate his support at home. So
00:22:31
that's that's a part of what's
00:22:32
happening. But some of this is nothing
00:22:34
to do with Trump. You know, we are now
00:22:36
living in a world where the historical
00:22:39
political system, um, the one that was
00:22:41
built after 1945, some people call it
00:22:43
the liberal world order, I don't really
00:22:45
like that term because it sounds kind of
00:22:47
mushy, but the the order that has
00:22:49
existed since 1945, the one that was
00:22:52
somewhat based on the UN, that was based
00:22:54
on a set of rules and treaties, that
00:22:57
order has begun to break down. And it's
00:22:59
breaking down for several reasons. one
00:23:02
we've started to discuss already which
00:23:03
is changes inside the United States and
00:23:05
the United States was an really
00:23:07
important pillar of that order but it's
00:23:09
also breaking down because the
00:23:10
autocratic powers uh Russia, China,
00:23:14
Iran, Venezuela until recently uh and
00:23:17
and others have been challenging that
00:23:20
order for a while themselves. They
00:23:22
didn't like the American dominance of
00:23:26
you know of international politics in
00:23:27
the conversation. they were competing
00:23:29
with America at a at a strategic level
00:23:32
but also in what is really a war of
00:23:34
ideas. So let's go back to autocracy and
00:23:37
democracy. You know if you are the
00:23:39
leader of Russia or you're the leader of
00:23:41
China, what is the thing that is most
00:23:43
threatening to you? And the answer is
00:23:47
the language of liberal democracy. So
00:23:49
all this stuff that we find boring and
00:23:52
we're used to and you know this idea of
00:23:54
freedom of speech and separation of
00:23:56
powers and rule of law all those things
00:23:59
that we have come to take for granted in
00:24:01
our societies are a huge challenge to
00:24:05
the political system in Russia or China.
00:24:07
You know what is Putin most afraid of?
00:24:09
He's most afraid of a street revolution
00:24:12
of the kind we had in Ukraine in 2014.
00:24:15
So when people are standing on the
00:24:16
street and they have signs saying we're
00:24:18
against corruption, you know, we want
00:24:20
democracy, we want to be in the European
00:24:21
Union, we want to be integrated with
00:24:23
Europe, he's afraid of that happening in
00:24:25
Russia because if you live in an
00:24:27
autocratic state where you don't have
00:24:29
freedom of speech, where there is no
00:24:31
justice, where the government decides
00:24:34
what all the rules are, then those ideas
00:24:37
are explosive and exciting, the same way
00:24:38
they were in the 18th century when when
00:24:40
they first appeared in the Declaration
00:24:42
of Independence. And people can be
00:24:44
motivated by them. People will go into
00:24:45
the street for them. People will risk
00:24:47
their lives for them. And the autocrats
00:24:49
know that. And so really for the past
00:24:52
decade since 2013, 2014, you see them
00:24:57
seeking to spread those ideas to promote
00:25:00
them. I mean, we all know now about
00:25:02
Russian propaganda campaigns. We know
00:25:04
what Russian disinformation looks like.
00:25:06
There's a Chinese version, too, which we
00:25:07
don't see that much in English, but it
00:25:08
appears in in other countries. We see
00:25:11
them seeking to undermine democracy,
00:25:14
trying to spread the influence of a
00:25:16
different set of ideas. So the war in
00:25:19
Ukraine is exactly that war. The
00:25:22
Russians are firstly trying to destroy
00:25:25
Ukraine as a nation. They want it to
00:25:27
disappear. This is they're they're an
00:25:28
empire. They want Ukraine to be their
00:25:30
colony. And they understood perfectly
00:25:32
well that by challenging Ukraine, by
00:25:36
invading Ukraine, they were defying this
00:25:38
liberal world order. They were defying
00:25:40
the rules of post-war Europe because in
00:25:42
post-war Europe, there was a decision
00:25:44
made after 1945. We're not going to
00:25:46
invade each other anymore. We're not
00:25:47
going to have wars. Instead, we're going
00:25:48
to decide everything by by diplomacy.
00:25:51
Borders will not be changed by force.
00:25:53
And the Russians understood that they
00:25:55
were breaking that that norm. And they
00:25:57
invaded Ukraine. They also invaded
00:25:59
Ukraine because the Ukrainians were
00:26:00
using that language, that powerful
00:26:03
democratic language that we take for
00:26:04
granted. And Putin said, "If they can do
00:26:07
it in Ukraine, then people could do it
00:26:08
in Russia. and so I need to crush this
00:26:10
Ukrainian democracy movement. And so
00:26:12
that war really is a fault line between
00:26:15
the democratic world and the autocratic
00:26:17
world. So I think what what you're
00:26:18
seeing is the breakdown of an older
00:26:21
system that was more or less organized
00:26:24
around by American rules.
00:26:27
>> Through history, which lasts longer,
00:26:29
democracy or autocracy?
00:26:32
>> Oh, autocracies.
00:26:33
>> They last longer. Well, look, if you
00:26:34
look back in history, most human
00:26:35
societies in most times have been what
00:26:38
you would we would now call autotocracy,
00:26:40
but they were whatever. They were
00:26:40
monarchies. They were led by tribal
00:26:43
leaders, by warlords. There have been
00:26:46
very, very few liberal democracies. And
00:26:48
most of them have not lasted. And I
00:26:50
should also say the people who wrote the
00:26:51
American Constitution knew that. And
00:26:54
when they wrote it, they were reading
00:26:56
the history of ancient Rome. There was a
00:26:58
Roman Republic and it fell when it was
00:27:00
taken over by Julius Caesar. So, they
00:27:01
all knew that story. They were reading
00:27:03
about the Greek democracies, Athens,
00:27:05
which also fell. And when they wrote the
00:27:08
US Constitution, they were thinking, how
00:27:10
do we make this last? What can we put in
00:27:12
it to make it last? It's a longer story
00:27:15
whether you think they were successful
00:27:16
or not. But everybody who created
00:27:18
democracies, whether it was after World
00:27:20
War II in Europe, whether it was America
00:27:21
in the 18th century, everybody
00:27:23
understood that this was a fragile
00:27:25
system. And they tried to put checks and
00:27:28
balances,
00:27:30
you know, judicial, legislative, and
00:27:31
executive power. They tried to create
00:27:34
systems that would ward off the impulse
00:27:36
towards autocracy.
00:27:38
>> I don't know if you have the answer to
00:27:39
this question, but where are people
00:27:41
happier on average in a democracy or in
00:27:44
autocracy?
00:27:44
>> So, I have to tell you, I know a little
00:27:46
bit about happiness surveys, and over
00:27:48
and over and over again, the happiest
00:27:50
place in the world is Finland. Finland,
00:27:52
Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Scandinavia is
00:27:56
very happy.
00:27:57
>> The reasons for that may not be anything
00:27:59
to do with the nature of the political
00:28:01
system might have other sources, but the
00:28:03
happiness is certainly connected to
00:28:05
democracy. It's connected to stability
00:28:06
and of course connected to wealth. Just
00:28:09
looking at some research here. It says,
00:28:10
"While wealth and economic stability are
00:28:11
critical for happiness, regardless of
00:28:12
the government type, democracy provides
00:28:14
additional structural benefits like
00:28:15
participation, security, and lower
00:28:17
corruption that tend to lift a society's
00:28:20
overall life satisfaction.
00:28:22
>> Well, democracies by definition are at
00:28:25
least in theory, the state is structured
00:28:27
in a way to benefit everybody, right? At
00:28:30
least that's how it's supposed to work.
00:28:31
Mhm.
00:28:32
>> So whether it's a national health care
00:28:34
system or whether it's a system of roads
00:28:37
and railroads, you know, the state is
00:28:39
building things that are designed to
00:28:40
serve everybody in an autocracy that
00:28:43
doesn't necessarily happen. So in
00:28:44
Russia, ordinary Russians have no
00:28:46
influence on that decision. They have no
00:28:48
way of expressing their views. They
00:28:50
can't say what they think. They have no
00:28:52
ability to influence the state. They
00:28:54
can't say, "Well, actually, hey, we'd
00:28:55
like to build a hospital instead of
00:28:57
bombing another city in Ukraine." And so
00:28:59
they have very little ability to change
00:29:00
the system and that and that of course
00:29:02
creates frustration and unhappiness.
00:29:04
>> If that is true and this is why I asked
00:29:05
the question if it's better for the
00:29:07
people and at some degree I think if
00:29:10
informed people would choose it which I
00:29:13
think is and I say the word informed
00:29:14
because I I understand in a lot of these
00:29:16
countries where they don't have
00:29:17
democracy I'm now using don't have
00:29:19
democracy instead of having to say that
00:29:20
word again. They limit the access to
00:29:22
information so that people don't know
00:29:24
what they're missing out on, I guess, or
00:29:26
don't have those potentially disruptive
00:29:29
ideas. They're not exposed to them on
00:29:31
their on their phones or devices. I I
00:29:33
would think a person would choose to
00:29:35
live in a democracy if given the choice
00:29:36
and the information.
00:29:38
>> I would think so. Although
00:29:40
you know there are other you know there
00:29:43
there's a deep human need for a sense of
00:29:47
stability and security and hierarchy for
00:29:51
some people
00:29:52
>> and it's true that authoritarians seem
00:29:56
to offer that. You know in a democracy
00:29:58
you do have this constant change of
00:30:00
leaders. You know there's more demands
00:30:02
on citizens. You know you have to
00:30:03
participate if you care about your
00:30:05
country. It's not just enough to vote.
00:30:07
you need to be involved in politics in
00:30:08
some way. And autocracies, I mean, I
00:30:11
think falsely offer stability. And so
00:30:13
the the argument of the Russians and
00:30:16
Chinese governments and the argument
00:30:17
they make on in those social media
00:30:19
campaigns that they run inside the US or
00:30:21
the UK or Europe is exactly that,
00:30:23
authoritarianism, stability, safety,
00:30:26
traditional values, hierarchy. And there
00:30:28
are people for whom that's deeply
00:30:30
appealing. So I I wouldn't discount that
00:30:32
instinct. And when people like that are
00:30:34
also able to control information, when
00:30:36
they control the security services, when
00:30:38
they monopolize the use of violence,
00:30:40
they can be very hard to undo even if
00:30:43
the majority of the country wants
00:30:44
something different.
00:30:45
>> It's almost hard for me to understand
00:30:47
how the people in Russia are okay with
00:30:50
the fact that their the leader has been
00:30:52
there for several decades and isn't
00:30:54
moving.
00:30:55
But it's hard for us to understand
00:30:56
because in the UK or in America, we
00:30:58
there would be people on the streets.
00:30:59
>> It doesn't matter what they think
00:31:01
>> really. Well, because they have no way
00:31:03
of expressing what they think. There's
00:31:05
no such thing as public opinion or
00:31:08
public debate. There's no there's no
00:31:10
forum you can join where you can say
00:31:12
what you you could express your views in
00:31:14
a way that's fair. And and if you do
00:31:16
say, I think Putin should be, you know,
00:31:18
it's time for him to retire, you could
00:31:20
be arrested. And so people begin to
00:31:23
adjust what they think and they begin to
00:31:26
change their behavior because they know
00:31:28
that it's dangerous to say things. I
00:31:29
mean, this is something this is a
00:31:30
phenomenon I found in the work I did
00:31:32
years ago on the Soviet Union. The
00:31:34
propagandist said how successful we are
00:31:35
and how much hay we've grown this year
00:31:38
and how many bits of steel we've made
00:31:40
and it was always fake. And so the
00:31:42
question was always, well, did people
00:31:43
really believe that? Did people believe
00:31:45
in the system? Do they believe in the
00:31:46
propaganda? And the answer was a little
00:31:49
weird. It was convenient for them to
00:31:51
believe it. In other words, in order to
00:31:53
get on in life, you had to believe it or
00:31:55
you had to say you believed it. And at a
00:31:58
certain point, what they really thought,
00:32:00
like deep in the back of their mind,
00:32:01
didn't matter because there was no way
00:32:04
to say what you think. And that's what
00:32:07
you have in Russia. Again, now it's for
00:32:08
me very tragic because there was a
00:32:10
period in Russia in the 90s and 2000s
00:32:12
when there was open debate and people
00:32:13
were speaking freely and clearly about
00:32:16
about the state of the country. But
00:32:18
right now it's it's once again a
00:32:19
situation where
00:32:21
expressing your views is dangerous and
00:32:23
so people just don't do it and they try
00:32:25
to stay out of politics altogether. You
00:32:27
know, politics is dangerous and ugly and
00:32:29
nasty. Like just stay home. And remember
00:32:32
that this is something that's developed
00:32:33
over years. It didn't happen from one
00:32:36
day to the next. It was a decline that's
00:32:38
been happening since the year 2000.
00:32:40
>> I've heard you say that there's five
00:32:42
core tactics that autocratic leaders use
00:32:44
to dismantle a democracy. Could you walk
00:32:47
me through the five tactics and maybe
00:32:49
also link them to things that are
00:32:50
happening now in in the West which might
00:32:52
be warning signs of the dismantling of
00:32:54
one's democracy?
00:32:56
>> Well, corruption,
00:32:59
we've done that one already.
00:33:00
>> Mhm.
00:33:01
>> Corruption you have in any political
00:33:02
system, and you often have it in
00:33:04
democracies, too. But in an autocratic
00:33:06
society, you have more corruption
00:33:10
because the the legal system is
00:33:12
controlled. And so what you have for
00:33:14
example in the United States the fact
00:33:15
that Donald Trump has taken over our
00:33:18
department of justice and has installed
00:33:21
loyalists who are looking among other
00:33:23
things for example to pro prosecute his
00:33:25
enemies just because they're his
00:33:27
enemies. That means you have a check and
00:33:30
balance. So normally if there was high
00:33:32
level corruption in the White House or
00:33:34
in the administration you would have
00:33:36
people inside the Department of Justice
00:33:37
and the FBI who would investigate it.
00:33:39
But now we don't have that happening.
00:33:41
>> Is that different from the past? It's
00:33:43
different. It's different. I mean, we
00:33:44
didn't have anybody try to use the White
00:33:47
House to make money in this way before.
00:33:48
So, hard for me to say what would have
00:33:50
happened in like, I don't know, the
00:33:52
Clinton administration, but we didn't
00:33:54
have a completely politicized civil
00:33:57
service, completely politicized FBI who
00:33:59
would avoid, you know, any any kind of
00:34:02
investigation. Um, and so corruption is
00:34:05
a particular symptom of
00:34:07
authoritarianism, and it's also a tool.
00:34:09
you know, it's something that the
00:34:11
president can offer people. You get
00:34:13
along with me, you don't criticize me,
00:34:15
your business will prosper. You know,
00:34:17
you will get government contracts.
00:34:19
>> Is that what we're seeing with all these
00:34:20
big tech CEOs that seem to be going
00:34:22
frequently to the White House and saying
00:34:24
wonderful things about him and his
00:34:25
support and having dinner with him and
00:34:27
none of them speaking out? But if you
00:34:29
look at their Twitter feeds a couple
00:34:30
years ago, they were all saying the most
00:34:32
horrific things about Trump.
00:34:33
>> Yes. I mean I mean they they've
00:34:35
understood that, you know, if this is
00:34:37
going to be a an American administration
00:34:39
that you have to genulect the president,
00:34:42
you have to be sickantic to the
00:34:44
president in order to get business
00:34:46
deals, um then they'll do it. If you
00:34:48
have to donate to his White House
00:34:50
reconstruction fund, which many of them
00:34:52
have done, then you'll do it. If you
00:34:54
have to donate to his inauguration,
00:34:56
you'll you'll do it. It's a question of
00:34:58
who is supposed to be the beneficiary of
00:35:00
government regulation. It's supposed to
00:35:02
be Americans. I mean, ordinary people,
00:35:05
we're supposed to become more pro
00:35:07
prosperous. The beneficiary is not
00:35:09
supposed to be, as I said, the president
00:35:10
and his family and his entourage. And
00:35:13
that is a big shift in in in American
00:35:16
politics.
00:35:17
>> When I look back at someone like like
00:35:18
the CEO of OpenAI's statements on Trump,
00:35:20
if you go back to 2016, he said he was
00:35:22
an unprecedented threat to America and
00:35:24
called him a potential disaster for the
00:35:26
American economy. He said he was
00:35:28
irresponsible in the way dictators are
00:35:30
and compared his rhetoric to the big lie
00:35:32
tactics used by historical
00:35:33
authoritarians like Hitler. He described
00:35:35
him as erratic, abusive, and prone to
00:35:37
fits of rage. And then I see him side by
00:35:40
side at the White House saying nice
00:35:42
things about him and saying nothing
00:35:45
critical at all.
00:35:46
>> It's one of the most bizarre things
00:35:48
actually about this whole
00:35:49
administration. you know, if I were that
00:35:52
rich, like what's the point of being
00:35:54
rich unless if you can't say what you
00:35:57
think?
00:35:57
>> Mhm.
00:35:58
>> You know, I don't I don't understand the
00:36:00
value of it.
00:36:00
>> Can I hazard a guess as to why the like
00:36:02
incentive structure they're trapped in?
00:36:04
>> What's your guess?
00:36:05
>> I think that being rich for these people
00:36:07
is actually just a proxy of status. And
00:36:09
I think the thing that risks their
00:36:11
status, which is what they care about
00:36:12
more than anything else in the games
00:36:13
that they're playing, is losing to their
00:36:15
direct competition. And it's quite clear
00:36:17
to me that if someone like Sam Alman was
00:36:18
to say anything negative about Trump, it
00:36:20
would of course hurt his business, but
00:36:22
actually it would hurt something more,
00:36:23
which is his status. He would lose to
00:36:25
anthropic and XAI and Gemini. To lose in
00:36:29
your category of peers, which the all
00:36:30
these sort of tech oligarchs are in like
00:36:32
category of peers would hurt more than
00:36:34
anything. I think it would hurt more
00:36:36
than losing a gazillion dollars is just
00:36:37
like losing the the game.
00:36:39
>> Yeah. There are two things about it. One
00:36:41
is it's very shortsighted
00:36:42
>> because ultimately who will suffer if
00:36:46
there is a decline in in in the American
00:36:49
political system in the American legal
00:36:50
system? I mean it's them.
00:36:53
>> Maybe they've gotten used to paying to
00:36:54
play
00:36:55
>> in a way.
00:36:56
>> They they have but it's a it's a it's a
00:36:58
mug's game. I mean it's fine as long as
00:37:00
you're one of the people who are
00:37:01
winning, but what if what if the rules
00:37:03
change?
00:37:04
>> Oh yeah. Like like in Russia with the
00:37:05
oligarchs put
00:37:06
>> That's right. I'm sick of these
00:37:07
oligarchs. I want different oligarchs.
00:37:08
And that happened in China, too. So it's
00:37:10
a so that's one um argument against it.
00:37:12
The second argument is and I think
00:37:14
anthropic might have figured this out
00:37:15
already and some of the law firms have
00:37:17
figured it out. There's also a game to
00:37:19
be made by saying no I'm independent. We
00:37:22
have our own corporate rules. We have
00:37:23
our own legal code of ethics and we're
00:37:25
going to behave as patriotic Americans
00:37:28
and then you attract business
00:37:30
>> and they and they may be doing all of
00:37:31
it. And as I said there's a there's a
00:37:32
parallel thing that happened with US law
00:37:33
firms. there were some frivolous
00:37:35
lawsuits and they settled them and then
00:37:37
there were some who said no we won't
00:37:38
settle we won't do that and the ones who
00:37:41
didn't do it have all won you know and
00:37:43
they're all thriving I mean so there is
00:37:45
also a benefit to be gained both
00:37:48
commercially and financially and I would
00:37:50
think even in that weird world of status
00:37:53
by standing up for what you believe in
00:37:55
and by remembering the bigger picture
00:37:57
and the bigger picture is what happens
00:37:58
to the United States I mean the United
00:38:00
States is your main market it's where
00:38:01
your employees come from it's the place
00:38:03
where you're doing business and if if
00:38:05
the United States begins to suffer then
00:38:07
you suffer too and so thinking a little
00:38:09
bit like that would might help some of
00:38:10
them.
00:38:11
>> Is this just another 3 years of this
00:38:13
sort of you know unusual behavior before
00:38:15
we resume business as usual in in in our
00:38:18
democracies.
00:38:19
>> I'm I'm asked this by Europeans all the
00:38:21
time and my sense is that a lot of
00:38:23
things will not ever be quite normal
00:38:25
again either inside the US or around the
00:38:27
world. I mean, I I would advise, for
00:38:29
example, I mean, if you're doing
00:38:31
business with the US or you're a
00:38:33
security partner of the US, I would
00:38:35
strongly recommend that you have plan B.
00:38:37
You know, it's really time for NATO to
00:38:41
have a plan in case the United States
00:38:43
flakes out, to have a different security
00:38:46
option. You know, what happens to the US
00:38:48
after Trump isn't clear? First of all,
00:38:49
the next president could be JD Vance,
00:38:51
who I think is even more committed to
00:38:53
the project of making America into a one
00:38:55
party state. Or the next president could
00:38:58
be a Democrat we haven't heard of yet,
00:39:00
who decides to use the broken system in
00:39:04
order to take advantage of it in a
00:39:05
different way. I mean, I hope that won't
00:39:07
happen, but you can't count it out. I
00:39:09
mean, once the norms are broken and once
00:39:11
the laws have changed, then it can be
00:39:13
anybody can take advantage of it. I
00:39:14
mean, if if Trump can use the federal
00:39:17
bureaucracy to threaten media companies,
00:39:19
then why can't the next president? And
00:39:22
so, you know, you certain things don't
00:39:24
necessarily get fixed once they're
00:39:26
broken.
00:39:26
>> On that point of global partners of the
00:39:29
US now thinking about their own defense
00:39:30
and themselves more. Is that a pattern
00:39:33
that you're seeing? just from my
00:39:35
observations of you know we're we're sat
00:39:36
here in London at the moment but my
00:39:38
observations of the UK the UK used to
00:39:40
consider ourselves to be the great
00:39:42
alliance sort of partner of America
00:39:44
>> special relationship
00:39:45
>> that we had the special relationship
00:39:46
which I never knew what it meant but I
00:39:47
always liked it seems like that's gone
00:39:49
out the window
00:39:50
>> and the UK are now speaking a lot to
00:39:52
like President Mccron in France and it
00:39:54
seems like we're having our own little
00:39:55
European meetings but around the world
00:39:57
it seems that that's happening Canada
00:39:59
don't seem to be a great ally of the US
00:40:00
anymore after they threaten to invade
00:40:02
them. What it what is happening from
00:40:05
that perspective? Are we are we becoming
00:40:06
more individualistic and breaking into
00:40:08
our own little groups because of Trump's
00:40:10
rhetoric?
00:40:11
>> What you're watching is everybody all
00:40:13
over the world hedging. Everybody is
00:40:16
looking for alternatives. So you now
00:40:18
have an EU India trade agreement which
00:40:21
nobody would have bothered to do a few
00:40:22
years ago. You have Canada
00:40:25
in initiating a security relationship
00:40:27
with the EU. you have conversations
00:40:31
inside NATO about, you know,
00:40:33
realistically if the United States
00:40:35
weren't to help us in case of a Russian
00:40:37
attack, what would we do? So that's
00:40:39
those aren't really public
00:40:40
conversations, but privately lots of
00:40:41
people are having them. Everywhere you
00:40:43
go, you see these so-called middle
00:40:45
powers. This is a term that Mark Carney
00:40:46
of Canada first started using. You know,
00:40:48
Brazil, India, the EU countries begin,
00:40:51
Japan, you see them beginning to make
00:40:54
new relationships with one another. You
00:40:56
know, if the United States flakes out
00:40:58
and we can't trade with them in a normal
00:41:00
way anymore because the president
00:41:01
changes the trading rules every 5
00:41:03
minutes, then at least we'll have a
00:41:05
decent trading relationship with
00:41:06
somebody else. I I travel a lot. I've
00:41:09
traveled a lot in the last three months
00:41:10
and everywhere I go, that's the main
00:41:11
topic of conversation. Canada was
00:41:15
completely integrated with the United
00:41:16
States. I mean, it didn't almost didn't
00:41:18
have an independent economy. And now
00:41:20
that Canadians are thinking, how do we
00:41:21
benefit from our oil and gas wealth to
00:41:23
protect our sovereignty? Who else do we
00:41:26
do deals with? Carney's been to China.
00:41:28
He's, you know, also talking to India.
00:41:29
With whom will we share potentially
00:41:32
share nuclear technology? There are
00:41:33
these conversations between France and
00:41:35
Poland and France and Germany about a
00:41:37
different kind of nuclear umbrella. It's
00:41:39
all pretty tentative, but it's it's
00:41:41
moved much faster than I would ever
00:41:43
expected. I think the breaking point for
00:41:44
a lot of people in Europe was Greenland.
00:41:48
And I don't know if people have really
00:41:50
focused on what exactly happened there,
00:41:52
but you had the president of the United
00:41:54
States saying he was going to invade
00:41:57
Denmark. All right, there we go. So, the
00:42:01
United States was saying it was going to
00:42:02
invade Greenland. So, Trump was kind of
00:42:05
hinting it in public and behind the
00:42:07
scenes there were other signs that maybe
00:42:09
they were really preparing to do it. And
00:42:10
so, what did that mean in Denmark? That
00:42:13
meant that the Danes said, "Okay, we're
00:42:17
preparing for a US invasion." And this
00:42:19
is a very, this is a country that's very
00:42:20
pro-American. Lots of big Danish
00:42:23
companies in the United States,
00:42:25
including the ones who create the the
00:42:26
weight loss drugs. Lots of Danish
00:42:29
American travel, friendship, everything,
00:42:32
security relationship going back to to
00:42:34
the Second World War. Okay, the
00:42:36
Americans are invading. What do we do?
00:42:38
Do we blow up the airports in Greenland?
00:42:42
And they did start planning that. Do we
00:42:44
plan to shoot down American planes? Are
00:42:46
we going to shoot at American soldiers?
00:42:48
You know, are they going to shoot at us?
00:42:51
And they had to suddenly imagine a real
00:42:55
war with their closest ally and how that
00:42:59
would impact them and impact trade and
00:43:01
impact NATO and so on. And not only did
00:43:03
they have to do it, their close allies
00:43:04
in Europe did it, too. So the Germans
00:43:06
were consulting with the Danes all
00:43:08
through this period. You know, what if
00:43:09
the Danes shoot down an American plane?
00:43:11
like how does that affect us? And
00:43:13
everybody went through this kind of
00:43:14
traumatic experience of imagining a US
00:43:17
invasion of a NATO ally. And then Trump
00:43:20
made a speech at Davos where he somehow
00:43:22
changed the subject and confused
00:43:24
Greenland and Iceland a few times and
00:43:26
you know and it got put off. But no one
00:43:29
has recovered. Everybody remembers that
00:43:32
moment and said, "Okay, this is a this
00:43:34
is an unstable power. They could do real
00:43:37
damage to us. they can't be relied on.
00:43:41
We need alternatives. And so really
00:43:42
since then, and that was in January,
00:43:44
since then, this is when you've seen
00:43:46
this the stuff you were talking about,
00:43:48
you know, the visits to China, the
00:43:49
visits to Canada, um the back and forth
00:43:52
with India, and you see you see
00:43:53
everybody hedging and rearranging the
00:43:56
way they think about the world.
00:43:57
>> If you're an American, is this good news
00:43:59
or bad news that the rest of the world
00:44:01
is hedging?
00:44:02
>> It's very bad news.
00:44:03
>> Why? because a lot of America's
00:44:06
prosperity in the post-war period has
00:44:08
been based on the fact that America was
00:44:11
dominant in global trade and you know we
00:44:14
make money out of our European
00:44:15
relationships. Um you know we produce
00:44:18
things that we sell all over the world
00:44:19
and actually you know we import things
00:44:21
from all over the world and that's good
00:44:22
too. You know the the root of American
00:44:24
post-war prosperity is is are these
00:44:26
relationships especially with Europe um
00:44:28
and also the root of America's security
00:44:30
dominance. I mean why are there NATO
00:44:33
bases in Europe? It's not just to
00:44:34
protect Europe. It's also because from
00:44:36
there the US can project power into the
00:44:40
Middle East. It has it can you know into
00:44:41
Africa. It has it has a sort of window
00:44:44
on the world from there. And once those
00:44:46
bases are gone then the US is suddenly
00:44:49
cut off and far away in a way that it
00:44:52
wasn't it wasn't before. And there are
00:44:53
all kinds of other risks. You know will
00:44:54
the US dollar go on being so dominant?
00:44:57
US makes money out of that. Um, will US
00:44:59
goods go on being so valued? You know,
00:45:01
in Canada, they boycott US products now.
00:45:03
And actually, this was when I was in
00:45:04
Denmark uh in February. I was shown an
00:45:08
app. You can take a picture of a thing
00:45:10
you see in the supermarket and it will
00:45:11
tell you whether it's made in the United
00:45:13
States. And if it's made in the United
00:45:14
States, you don't buy it because they
00:45:16
were so angry. Even the dominance of
00:45:19
American tech, which a lot of Europeans
00:45:21
have belatedly woken up to as a problem,
00:45:24
could be in question. So Europeans are
00:45:27
looking to do cloud storage in Europe
00:45:28
and payment systems in Europe because
00:45:31
you know maybe the US is unreliable and
00:45:33
so all all it's it's we're just at the
00:45:35
beginning of what could be quite a big
00:45:37
change and yes Americans would feel
00:45:38
that.
00:45:40
>> Coming back to this point about the war
00:45:41
in Iran you said that Trump sort of
00:45:44
misestimated what would happen here.
00:45:46
Yes. Obviously flew into Versa and took
00:45:47
Madura out of bed
00:45:49
>> and that seemed to go fairly well um
00:45:51
from what he might have been expecting.
00:45:53
Um but then he attacked Iran and this
00:45:57
war seems to know no end now.
00:45:59
>> I mean here's another feature of
00:46:01
dictatorships is that nobody questions
00:46:03
your decisions and nobody offers you
00:46:05
alternatives. So
00:46:06
>> the people around you
00:46:07
>> the people around you. So when he was
00:46:09
planning the war in Iran you from the
00:46:11
reporting that we know people did say
00:46:14
well you know Mr. President you know the
00:46:16
Iranians are not like the Venezuelans.
00:46:18
It's a it's a very embedded regime and
00:46:20
the Iranians had a plan already for what
00:46:22
would happen if their leadership was
00:46:23
killed. They just they had a sort of
00:46:25
decentralized system, you know, that
00:46:27
will kick into place. You know, they
00:46:29
have allies all over the Middle East.
00:46:30
They have these proxy groups in
00:46:31
different parts of the Middle East and
00:46:33
famously the control over the straight
00:46:34
of Hormuz possibly. And he was told
00:46:38
that, but it seems he wasn't told it in
00:46:41
a very definitive way. Like some people
00:46:43
said, well, maybe this might be the
00:46:45
case, but nobody said to him, "Mr.
00:46:47
president, this is a bad idea because
00:46:49
he's known if you said, "Mr. President,
00:46:51
this is a bad idea," he might have said,
00:46:52
"Well, get out of my sight."
00:46:54
>> Mh.
00:46:54
>> Because he's not somebody who listens to
00:46:56
other people's views or or takes them
00:46:58
into into consideration. The thing that
00:47:00
bothers me the most about Iran, I have
00:47:02
friends and I've been involved with
00:47:03
organizations that do Iranian human
00:47:05
rights. The thing that bothered me the
00:47:06
most was his utter failure even to talk
00:47:09
to or about Iranians. I mean, there it
00:47:12
is an unpopular regime. It's one of the
00:47:14
worst regimes, ugliest on the planet.
00:47:16
And yet there seems to have been no
00:47:18
communication with the you know
00:47:20
democratic opposition in Iran. No
00:47:22
communication even with Paly the son of
00:47:24
the sha the monarchists in Iran. I mean
00:47:26
there are alternative governments. There
00:47:27
are alternative people who you could
00:47:30
speak to. And he never did that because
00:47:32
his real interest isn't democracy you
00:47:35
know or making Iran into a better place.
00:47:37
His real interest was in somehow
00:47:39
dominating Iran and getting them to give
00:47:40
him a share of the oil revenues which is
00:47:42
what happened in Venezuela.
00:47:44
you know, so he he he's also not even
00:47:46
thinking the way previous Democratic
00:47:49
presidents thought. So even George W.
00:47:51
Bush also somebody who made huge
00:47:53
mistakes, you know, and so on. You never
00:47:57
heard George W. Bush say, "What I want
00:47:59
is to run Iraq and steal its oil.
00:48:03
>> They wanted to make Iraq into a
00:48:04
democracy." Okay, that you know, which
00:48:06
by the way it is now, but it's it was it
00:48:08
was a long bloody pathway. Trump doesn't
00:48:11
even think like that. He thinks my idea
00:48:14
is to do some deal with one of the
00:48:16
dictators and and move on. And actually
00:48:19
that's what's happened in Venezuela. So
00:48:20
Venezuela is still a dictatorship and
00:48:22
it's run by the same regime as before
00:48:25
just led by a different person.
00:48:27
>> And he's been quite vocal about the fact
00:48:29
that they're getting all the oil. Yes.
00:48:30
Which is it's crazy thing to hear that
00:48:32
you'd snatch up you'd snatch a world
00:48:33
leader and then the same day you talk
00:48:35
about how you've got the boats stealing
00:48:37
the country's oil. I say the word
00:48:38
stealing but taking the country's oil
00:48:40
and proudly saying it. And it's not even
00:48:41
clear what he means by that and so on,
00:48:43
but it was not the action of a of a of a
00:48:46
20th or 21st century president.
00:48:49
>> The midterms are coming up and um I was
00:48:52
reading that Trump's approval ratings
00:48:53
are at an all-time low. It's the first
00:48:54
time I've seen people that were sort of
00:48:57
devoted supporters of his like Tucker
00:48:58
Carlson coming out and saying
00:49:00
apologizing for supporting him.
00:49:02
>> So this this war in Iran seems to have
00:49:04
really backfired in a way that I don't
00:49:05
think he was he was intending. And you
00:49:07
can kind of tell by how Trump's feeling
00:49:09
because you just watch him in
00:49:10
interviews. And the line that he repeats
00:49:12
75 times is probably like in some
00:49:16
respects the exact opposite of what's
00:49:17
going on. So when I when I watched him
00:49:20
in an interview this week and he was
00:49:22
repeatedly saying obviously he says how
00:49:24
great the war is going. So that makes me
00:49:26
feel like it's not going well. Yeah. It
00:49:27
was that was the main narrative was just
00:49:28
like how well the war is going.
00:49:30
>> He keeps saying we've won, we've won,
00:49:32
it's over. One of the problems of having
00:49:33
a president who lies all the time is
00:49:35
that you, you know, you just stop
00:49:36
believing. I mean, even if the war was
00:49:37
over, you wouldn't believe it because
00:49:39
he's his his his track record is not
00:49:41
good. Um, I mean, look, I think the
00:49:43
important thing to understand about
00:49:44
Trump is that he's somebody who has no
00:49:46
strategy. He doesn't care that much
00:49:49
about what happened before he was
00:49:51
president. He doesn't know the history
00:49:53
of Iran, you know, um, he doesn't
00:49:55
understand much about the history of the
00:49:56
region, and he doesn't really care about
00:49:59
what's going to happen later. He's
00:50:01
interested in what is happening now and
00:50:04
is he winning in the current moment.
00:50:07
>> What does winning mean?
00:50:08
>> Whatever it means to him. So I'm I'm
00:50:10
winning the contest with this journalist
00:50:12
or I'm winning the argument about Iran
00:50:15
or like we're winning the war or we're
00:50:17
I'm you know the opinion polls are all
00:50:18
in my favor. So whatever is the
00:50:21
situation, he has to emerge as the
00:50:23
winner. That's his narcissistic
00:50:26
mentality. That's not very good for
00:50:28
strategic thinking because sometimes you
00:50:29
don't win immediately like you have to
00:50:31
have a plan, you know, and you have to
00:50:32
have a long-term aim and you have to
00:50:35
have a strategy on how to get there. But
00:50:37
he he doesn't think like that. If you
00:50:39
watch him if you watch him perform on
00:50:41
television,
00:50:42
whatever is the happening, he will
00:50:44
convert it into that, you know, I'm
00:50:46
winning.
00:50:49
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00:52:53
When you begin to see attempts to
00:52:56
corrupt and shape elections, this is
00:52:59
when you know your democracy is in
00:53:00
trouble. When the rules of the election
00:53:03
are challenged. when um there there
00:53:06
begin to be arguments about who can vote
00:53:08
and and attempts to make some people not
00:53:11
be allowed to vote when you try to alter
00:53:13
the result in some way. I mean any an
00:53:15
attack on elections is a classic way in
00:53:19
which democratically elected leaders
00:53:21
undermine democracy. So an example of
00:53:23
this okay Victor Orban who just lost an
00:53:25
election in Hungary after 16 years he
00:53:29
had twothirds control of in Hungary if
00:53:32
you have twothirds of the parliament
00:53:34
then you can change the constitution so
00:53:35
he continually altered the Hungarian
00:53:38
constitution in order to give himself
00:53:40
electoral advantages so changing
00:53:42
constituencies and rebalancing the way
00:53:44
votes were counted in the United States
00:53:46
I think we already talked about
00:53:47
gerrymandering um gerrymandering is
00:53:50
unbelievably anti-democratic and the
00:53:52
fact that we of a kind of gerrymandering
00:53:54
contest right now.
00:53:55
>> What's gerrymandering?
00:53:56
>> Jerrymandering is a great word actually.
00:53:58
It comes from a congressman named Jerry
00:54:00
in the early 19th century who drew a map
00:54:04
of an electoral map which looked like a
00:54:06
salamander. And a gerrymandered map in
00:54:09
in US terms is a electoral map that has
00:54:13
been altered to favor one political
00:54:15
party. you know, the city of Nashville,
00:54:16
instead of having a single Democratic
00:54:18
representative, instead of having a
00:54:19
sensible constituency around the city,
00:54:22
um, that would vote for one member of
00:54:24
Congress, has been divided into several
00:54:26
constituencies that are designed in such
00:54:28
a way that only Republicans win. And
00:54:31
once you have maps that are designed to
00:54:35
favor one party or the other, then you
00:54:37
begin to get real democratic decline.
00:54:41
>> But there are other things happening in
00:54:42
the US too. So there are fears that ICE
00:54:45
which is the paramilitary organization
00:54:48
created by the president supposedly to
00:54:51
go after immigrants that what if what if
00:54:53
ICE troops are put on the street dur on
00:54:55
election day you know would some people
00:54:57
be intimidated from voting so there are
00:54:59
fears that he will do that uh in some
00:55:02
states
00:55:03
>> there's something called voter ID he
00:55:04
talks about a lot
00:55:05
>> yes well this is also very strange so of
00:55:07
course in the US you have voter ID and
00:55:08
most people have driver's licenses um
00:55:10
they want to change the law so that
00:55:12
either have to use a passport or a birth
00:55:15
certificate. And most Americans don't
00:55:18
have passports. I think 60% don't. I I
00:55:21
don't remember the number, but it's it's
00:55:22
very low. Many people have lost or never
00:55:25
had their birth certificates. If you
00:55:27
passed a law like that, it would make it
00:55:29
much more difficult for some people to
00:55:31
vote, especially certain kinds of
00:55:32
people. So married women would have to
00:55:35
show a passport, a birth certificate,
00:55:36
and a marriage license because you'd
00:55:38
have to show that because your birth
00:55:39
certificate name is different from your
00:55:41
married name.
00:55:42
>> Okay. Yeah.
00:55:43
>> So you'd have and so many people believe
00:55:46
this is a way to get fewer women to vote
00:55:47
and women are more likely to vote
00:55:49
Democrat. It's also part of a narrative.
00:55:53
So, the administration is trying to
00:55:55
argue that lots and lots of illegal
00:55:59
immigrants are voting,
00:56:01
which is a conspiracy theory. There's no
00:56:03
evidence of it. There's no evidence of
00:56:05
really of almost any illegal immigrants
00:56:07
ever voting. And if you think about it,
00:56:08
if you were an illegal immigrant, why
00:56:10
would you want to vote?
00:56:11
>> Because it would just be a way of
00:56:13
attracting attention to yourself. But
00:56:15
they seek to establish this narrative as
00:56:17
a way of disqualifying Democratic votes.
00:56:21
They want to say that votes in Trump did
00:56:23
this during the last election. Votes in
00:56:25
cities are too high. If they need to
00:56:28
call for a voter recount, they want to
00:56:30
say that this is the explanation for why
00:56:32
they've lost. Um, and so the part of the
00:56:35
reason why they're talking about voter
00:56:36
ID is that
00:56:37
>> so just looking at some of the data, it
00:56:39
says young voters between 18 and 29,
00:56:41
roughly 24% of them lack the documents
00:56:44
that would qualify them to vote. Um, in
00:56:46
minority voters, 11% of citizens of
00:56:48
color lack these documents. um compared
00:56:50
to a smaller percentage in white
00:56:51
citizens. In lowincome America, only one
00:56:54
in five households earning under $50,000
00:56:57
has a passport. And as you said, married
00:56:59
women, 69 million women have birth
00:57:01
certificates that do not match their
00:57:03
current legal name due to marriage,
00:57:06
>> right?
00:57:06
>> So, okay.
00:57:07
>> I mean, it's it's risky because I
00:57:09
imagine lots of Republicans don't have
00:57:11
passports.
00:57:11
>> Yeah.
00:57:12
>> But I think they've calculated that it
00:57:14
would suit them better. So, they're
00:57:15
looking to shape the voting population
00:57:17
in a way that will benefit them. M
00:57:19
>> so they're looking to find ways to
00:57:21
massage the outcome.
00:57:23
>> And that's you know that that's a kind
00:57:25
of classic when you're in a country
00:57:27
which is declining democratically one of
00:57:29
the classic things that happens is the
00:57:32
ruling party seeks to alter or change
00:57:34
who is able to vote and how votes are
00:57:36
weighted as a way of altering the
00:57:38
outcome.
00:57:39
>> What's the third one?
00:57:40
>> Personnel. Well, we talked about this
00:57:42
one a little bit already.
00:57:43
>> Oh, the civil servants.
00:57:44
>> This is civil service in a modern
00:57:47
democracy. So in a 21st century
00:57:49
democracy, government does a lot of
00:57:51
things. It manages the road system. It
00:57:53
it sometimes organizes health care. It
00:57:56
organizes regulates the insurance
00:57:57
markets. It does all kinds of governance
00:58:00
pollution and all those people who do
00:58:03
those jobs. Um it's very important that
00:58:05
they be people who know how to do them.
00:58:07
So you want the person who's measuring
00:58:09
air pollution, you want that person to
00:58:10
be an expert in air pollution. Mhm.
00:58:12
>> You don't want them to be, you know, the
00:58:15
president's cousin
00:58:17
>> or the person who is regulating the
00:58:20
insurance market. You want that to be
00:58:21
someone who knows about insurance
00:58:22
markets. And you don't want it to be the
00:58:25
best friend of the vice president
00:58:28
>> in corrupt autocracies. That is who gets
00:58:31
those jobs.
00:58:32
>> Seeing this a little bit with the Fed.
00:58:33
No, he doesn't like Jerome Pal in the
00:58:35
Fed,
00:58:36
>> right? And so he's tried to undermine
00:58:37
Jerome Powell. He's sued Jerome Powell
00:58:40
or he was investigating him rather for
00:58:42
some kind of fake um financial scandal
00:58:45
and he tried to put pressure on him to
00:58:47
resign. He tried to put pressure on him
00:58:49
to change his policy. And I you know
00:58:51
honestly I don't I don't know whether
00:58:53
the person who who will come in next
00:58:55
will be will be more susceptible but
00:58:57
he's certainly been chosen because Trump
00:58:58
thinks he is. And so what Trump wants is
00:59:01
to have civil servants who are
00:59:03
historically independent and that
00:59:04
includes the chairman of the Fed. Um it
00:59:06
includes actually department of justice
00:59:08
the attorney general usually has some
00:59:09
independence. What you want is people
00:59:12
who are acting in the interests of
00:59:13
everybody and in a in a functional
00:59:15
democracy in the happy Scandinavian
00:59:17
countries then at least most of the time
00:59:20
that's what they're doing. And in a
00:59:22
corrupt democracy or in a failing
00:59:24
democracy, then you have people whose
00:59:26
interests are not everybody in the
00:59:28
country, but their interests are the
00:59:30
president, his family, his party,
00:59:34
anyway, not not American. And so that's
00:59:36
the danger of undermining the civil
00:59:38
service.
00:59:40
>> The fourth one is
00:59:42
>> information.
00:59:43
>> Okay,
00:59:44
>> all dictatorships seek to control
00:59:46
information. You know, in China, the
00:59:49
entire internet since the 1990s has been
00:59:51
constructed so that the government can
00:59:53
control it. There is no outside
00:59:56
internet. There is there's nobody who's
00:59:57
active on the Chinese internet who isn't
00:59:59
somehow known or accounted for somehow
01:00:01
by the authorities. And the internet is
01:00:03
also connected to a whole system of
01:00:06
surveillance cameras and other kinds of
01:00:07
databases so that people can be tracked
01:00:09
all through the system and all through
01:00:11
the country. People do have VPNs in
01:00:13
China and they and they do get out, but
01:00:15
the majority of people are inside the
01:00:16
that's probably the China is the most
01:00:18
extreme form of that and Russia is
01:00:20
actually now heading in that direction.
01:00:21
So Putin has now cut off Russian access
01:00:24
to most forms of Western social media,
01:00:27
you know, Instagram and there were some
01:00:29
amazing videos of really sad Russian
01:00:33
Instagram influencers who were losing
01:00:35
their audiences because of Putin's
01:00:39
Putin's changes. So he's now he's now
01:00:41
heading in that direction. But even
01:00:43
inside the United States, which is maybe
01:00:45
the loudest and most open democracy in
01:00:47
the world, you can see the Trump
01:00:49
administration seeking to shape the
01:00:51
information space in new ways. So we
01:00:54
have federal regulators who are now
01:00:57
willing to put pressure on television
01:00:59
stations if the president asks them to.
01:01:01
We have the president putting his thumb
01:01:03
on the scale of people who are acquiring
01:01:06
new media companies in order to make
01:01:08
sure that the new owners are somehow
01:01:09
friendly to him.
01:01:10
>> What about Tik Tok?
01:01:11
>> Tik Tok, CBS, uh CNN, these are all
01:01:15
media companies where the president is
01:01:17
trying to get people who are sympathetic
01:01:20
to him in charge. And this is, by the
01:01:21
way, you know, we all have this idea
01:01:23
about censorship that it's like there's
01:01:25
a guy in a room and he's crossing
01:01:26
sentences out of a newspaper article.
01:01:28
You know, that's what censorship is. But
01:01:30
actually nowadays that's not how media
01:01:32
control works. So in Orban's Hungary in
01:01:36
Erdogan's Turkey what happens is that
01:01:38
the leadership
01:01:41
encourages or helps business people or
01:01:44
groups close to them to acquire media
01:01:46
properties. So they do it through the
01:01:48
level of media ownership.
01:01:49
>> So who owns the media becomes the most
01:01:53
important question and then the person
01:01:54
who's who's in charge of the media can
01:01:56
then influence in some ways what it's
01:01:58
able to say. So it doesn't give you
01:02:00
complete control. So actually in Hungary
01:02:01
you still had a couple of very small but
01:02:05
still existing independent websites who
01:02:08
turned out to be very important but you
01:02:10
had an attempt to control for most of
01:02:12
the television was controlled either
01:02:14
directly or indirectly uh by Orban and
01:02:17
it looks to me like Trump is trying to
01:02:18
achieve something like that. There's a a
01:02:21
piece of that that also involves culture
01:02:24
and universities as well. um pressure on
01:02:27
universities so that they don't produce
01:02:30
people who are too critical. In the US,
01:02:31
you've had the Trump administration took
01:02:33
over the Kennedy Center, which is the
01:02:35
most prestigious arts venue in
01:02:38
Washington, and tried to change its
01:02:40
nature and tried to change its, you
01:02:42
know, who who was who could play there
01:02:44
and who couldn't. Um and the result is
01:02:46
actually that it's now been shut down
01:02:47
for two years. You see this on both
01:02:49
sides of the political aisle, both on
01:02:52
the Democratic side in different ways.
01:02:53
But I but I think that both parties when
01:02:55
they're in for long enough, what we're
01:02:58
allowed to say changes.
01:03:00
>> Yes. Although the mechanisms have been
01:03:02
different. I mean, I was involved in the
01:03:04
argument, you know, some years back
01:03:05
about this, you know, we I think it was
01:03:08
incorrectly called cancel culture, but
01:03:09
whatever. The the the argument that was
01:03:12
happening inside universities and some
01:03:13
press and other institutions about what
01:03:15
you could and couldn't say. And I
01:03:17
thought it was um you know that that
01:03:20
there was this peer pressure and
01:03:21
sometimes institutional pressure on
01:03:23
people and people were cancelled that
01:03:24
means they lost their jobs or they were
01:03:26
kicked out of whatever group they were
01:03:28
in because they'd said something the
01:03:30
wrong way. You know I I I argued against
01:03:32
that and wrote about it and so on. What
01:03:34
you have now is a little different. You
01:03:37
now have the president just, you know,
01:03:39
attempting to change media ownership and
01:03:43
you have you you're beginning to see
01:03:44
what happens when the administration
01:03:46
goes into university and said, "You
01:03:47
can't teach this course. You can't hire
01:03:49
that teacher." That was the deal that
01:03:51
was given to Harvard, I don't know, um,
01:03:53
you know, some months back. The reason
01:03:55
why Harvard wound up refusing to deal
01:03:57
with the Trump administration and when
01:03:58
it started to sue them was because the
01:04:00
administration was trying to actually
01:04:02
decide who would teach what courses at
01:04:04
Harvard. I don't believe there's a
01:04:05
precedent for that. But I agree with you
01:04:07
that it is an illiberal instinct to try
01:04:10
to control speech. And there's a
01:04:13
left-wing version of it and there's a
01:04:14
right-wing version of it. And the people
01:04:16
who are really in favor of free speech,
01:04:20
and they're vanishingly few, are the
01:04:22
people who are willing to call it out on
01:04:23
both sides. And one of the things you
01:04:25
often hear now from these sort of
01:04:26
so-called free speech warriors is that
01:04:30
they're perfectly happy to shout about
01:04:32
the left cancelling people or left-wing
01:04:35
rhetoric that they don't like, but then
01:04:36
they keep quiet when it comes from the
01:04:38
other side.
01:04:40
>> Yes. I was looking back through the
01:04:42
history of this happening on both sides
01:04:43
of the aisle and in Mark Zuckerberg's
01:04:45
testimony I think in front of Congress
01:04:47
he said that he was repeatedly pressured
01:04:50
um for months by the Biden Harris
01:04:52
administration to remove certain content
01:04:55
and then there's the whole Hunter Biden
01:04:56
lap laptop story where Zuckerberg
01:04:59
confirmed that Meta were asked to demote
01:05:02
a New York Post story by the FBI and
01:05:06
then there's various other stories here
01:05:07
about PE Twitter executives being
01:05:09
emailed by White House officials um and
01:05:12
being asked to change things on their
01:05:14
platform.
01:05:15
>> So there is a difference between someone
01:05:17
sending you an email and saying you know
01:05:19
look we this has been flagged by a
01:05:21
monitoring group as maybe fake or as
01:05:24
maybe Russian disinformation or as you
01:05:26
know coming from some kind of foreign
01:05:28
influence campaign and so you know it
01:05:30
would be great if you took it down or
01:05:31
demoted it and there's a difference
01:05:33
between that and taking over the company
01:05:35
in order that the president gets to
01:05:37
dictate what's on it. Nobody coerced
01:05:40
Meta into doing anything
01:05:43
or Twitter. You nobody said, you know,
01:05:46
Twitter will be will pay a fine if you
01:05:48
don't do X or Y in the context of people
01:05:51
looking for foreign influence campaigns.
01:05:54
There were conversations about what was
01:05:56
appropriate to print and what wasn't.
01:05:58
>> I think from what from what I've
01:06:00
observed, it happens on both sides, but
01:06:01
in different ways. I remember was it was
01:06:04
it Elizabeth Warren talking a lot about
01:06:06
um the section 230? M which I think
01:06:10
protects some of the big social media
01:06:11
companies from being sued for users
01:06:13
posts. And I think she would repeatedly
01:06:16
reference section 230 and other
01:06:17
democratic lawmakers as a way to get the
01:06:20
platforms to take a more aggressive
01:06:21
stance on what they called like hate
01:06:23
speech and speech and disinformation.
01:06:26
>> So section 230 essentially allows the
01:06:29
platforms to be to escape the rules that
01:06:32
newspapers for example have to abide by.
01:06:34
So
01:06:35
>> so actually we do have regulations. We
01:06:38
have liable laws. We have laws about
01:06:40
terrorist content, for example. So,
01:06:42
there are laws that regulate some parts
01:06:44
of speech that we've agreed are good in
01:06:46
order to, you know, maintain peace and
01:06:48
so on. And the platforms are exempt
01:06:51
>> um because of section 230. And so, the
01:06:54
platforms have argued that we don't
01:06:56
control what's put up on our platforms
01:06:58
and we don't bear any responsibility for
01:06:59
it. I'm not sure that removing section
01:07:02
230 is the best way to deal with this,
01:07:03
but making the online world conform to
01:07:07
the same laws as the offline world seems
01:07:10
to me kind of very basic. I mean, it's
01:07:14
it seems obvious to me that child
01:07:16
pornography that's illegal if you have
01:07:18
it in your house should also be illegal
01:07:21
if it's published online. Um it seems to
01:07:24
me that um people recruiting for ISIS
01:07:28
that's illegal to do you know down the
01:07:31
street from here then it should also be
01:07:32
illegal to do online. Um and the tech
01:07:35
companies have been trying in recent
01:07:37
years in this is an argument that's
01:07:38
taking place both in Europe and the US
01:07:40
and elsewhere to get out of
01:07:42
responsibility for just for conforming
01:07:44
to the law in the countries where
01:07:45
they're active. And in one or two places
01:07:47
there have been big clashes. I was just
01:07:48
in Brazil which is one of the places
01:07:49
where that happened. um where the
01:07:52
Brazilian law said something that was
01:07:54
published on Twitter was illegal and
01:07:56
they fined the company for publishing
01:07:58
it. Twitter didn't want to pay the fine
01:08:00
and there was an argument back and forth
01:08:01
and for a while Twitter was shut down in
01:08:02
Brazil. But it does seem to me that any
01:08:05
given country whether it's Brazil or
01:08:07
Nepal or you know Ethiopia and
01:08:11
particularly democracies I should say
01:08:13
you know democracies have the right to
01:08:15
say these are our laws for example these
01:08:17
are our electoral laws we have laws on
01:08:18
election spending and if the platforms
01:08:21
violate those laws they're in breach of
01:08:23
the law you know and so election is a
01:08:26
very important one because if you're
01:08:28
spending a million dollars on Tik Tok
01:08:32
illegally
01:08:33
that can be much harder to see than it
01:08:36
would be if you were buying television
01:08:38
ads. And so finding a way to bring the
01:08:40
the social media companies into the
01:08:42
legal system seems to be completely
01:08:44
legitimate.
01:08:45
>> Mhm.
01:08:46
>> And in fact, I would even go farther
01:08:47
than that. I would say that if European
01:08:50
countries in particular don't do this,
01:08:53
then I'm not sure European countries
01:08:55
will be able to maintain their
01:08:56
sovereignty. Like will you be able to
01:08:58
run an election in Germany or England?
01:09:02
>> If
01:09:03
>> if your electoral rules can be easily
01:09:06
defied by platforms that are based in
01:09:08
the US or China,
01:09:10
>> what such electoral rules might be
01:09:12
defied by?
01:09:12
>> Well, laws about spending, laws about
01:09:14
advertising.
01:09:15
>> Yeah, fine. Everything is a trade-off,
01:09:17
right? And this is what I've learned
01:09:18
from being a podcaster and interviewing
01:09:19
so many people about so many things. So,
01:09:21
I often just think all the time with
01:09:22
every idea that I'm exposed to about
01:09:24
what the trade is. So as you were
01:09:25
speaking I was thinking about what like
01:09:27
how does this become a slippery slope or
01:09:28
what's the the the downside of this
01:09:30
trade?
01:09:32
So what do you think that
01:09:33
>> I'm sure there's a you know of course
01:09:34
there's a downside. I mean the the
01:09:36
downside is you know I don't know
01:09:37
country X has bad laws and then the
01:09:40
platforms have to conform to the bad
01:09:41
laws. Questions about speech are
01:09:43
particularly sensitive. You know what
01:09:44
one one person's terrorist speech is
01:09:47
another person's free speech right? So
01:09:49
>> but somebody has to make that decision
01:09:51
about what the rules are. And I think
01:09:52
the person who should make the decision
01:09:54
is the are the people who should make
01:09:55
the decision are the elected
01:09:56
representatives of that country.
01:09:58
>> Yeah.
01:09:58
>> And the decision should not be taken by
01:10:00
Elon Musk.
01:10:01
>> It's funny because
01:10:02
>> or Mark Zuckerberg
01:10:03
>> to some degree it sounded like what Elon
01:10:05
Musk says. I remember watching him him
01:10:07
in an interview. I can't remember who it
01:10:08
was with but he basically said exactly
01:10:10
that. He said we'll abide by the laws of
01:10:11
every country that we operate in. And
01:10:14
some and oh it was his interview with um
01:10:17
the CNN guy that used to be on CNN, Don
01:10:19
Lemon.
01:10:20
>> Mhm. and Don Lemon is pushing is saying
01:10:22
look there's hate speech on your
01:10:24
platform and then he asks him what the
01:10:26
hate speech is and I don't think he can
01:10:27
say but he Elon's response to him is we
01:10:30
abide by the laws and pushing push
01:10:33
>> there's but there's a record of them not
01:10:34
doing that but so you know so that
01:10:36
that's just disingenuous I mean it's
01:10:37
true hate speech is a you know it's a
01:10:39
longer conversation I mean what you how
01:10:41
you define it what you say it is is
01:10:43
different but some countries do have
01:10:44
hate speech Germany has them so Germany
01:10:47
decided after World War II you know to
01:10:49
ban Nazi symbols I think Germany is a
01:10:52
very very successful electoral democracy
01:10:54
and if they want to ban Nazi symbols I
01:10:56
think they should be allowed to. I mean,
01:10:57
in America that wouldn't work, you know,
01:10:59
and it was you you can't ban Nazi
01:11:01
symbols in the United States. But I
01:11:02
don't see why America should impose its
01:11:05
rules on Germany. Like, doesn't Germany
01:11:07
have sovereignty? Doesn't Germany get to
01:11:09
decide, you know, what the rules of its
01:11:11
national conversation are?
01:11:13
>> Because in the US, racism is not illegal
01:11:15
on the internet in the United States due
01:11:17
to the First Amendment,
01:11:18
>> right?
01:11:19
>> So, I could be racist on X.
01:11:22
>> Yes.
01:11:22
>> And that is fine.
01:11:23
>> And many people are. If you spend any
01:11:25
time on X, you will see it. It's very
01:11:26
hard to miss
01:11:27
>> according to the laws because it's not
01:11:29
it's not legal. But I think most people
01:11:32
a lot of people would say that the
01:11:34
platform would have an obligation to
01:11:35
take down that racism. Someone starts
01:11:38
being racist to me.
01:11:39
>> Yeah.
01:11:39
>> Me me on the internet. A lot I
01:11:41
understand why a lot of people would say
01:11:42
like okay that kind of behavior should
01:11:44
be taken down but it's within the
01:11:45
country's laws. So do you think it's f
01:11:47
like this is a bit of a I don't want to
01:11:48
be got your question but it's like do
01:11:50
you know what I mean? I guess this is
01:11:52
where the clash comes in because
01:11:53
something can feel deeply immoral but be
01:11:55
illegal.
01:11:56
>> Sure, there's a difference between
01:11:57
illegality and immortal. And some, you
01:11:59
know, historically newspapers and other
01:12:01
media have decided not to print racist
01:12:04
material because it's immoral or because
01:12:06
it's offensive. Even social media
01:12:08
platforms, I I think have a debate about
01:12:10
how much ugly stuff they want to appear
01:12:12
on their sites because if people see too
01:12:14
much of it, they'll stop going on it. I
01:12:15
mean, I, you know, reduced my usage of
01:12:17
of Twitter because there was too much
01:12:19
anti-semitism and too much racism and I
01:12:22
didn't want to watch it anymore. So, um,
01:12:23
and I think many people, others have
01:12:25
made the same decision. You know, speech
01:12:27
is a constant negotiation. You know,
01:12:29
what's acceptable, what's unacceptable,
01:12:31
and the norms do change over time. I
01:12:33
will agree to that. What the autocrats
01:12:34
try to do is something a little bit
01:12:36
different. It's not in this gray area of
01:12:38
hate speech and free speech. It's
01:12:40
controlling the system itself. you know,
01:12:43
what what are the boundaries of what
01:12:45
people can see, what platforms they have
01:12:47
access to. So, the Chinese don't really,
01:12:50
you know, what they're what they're
01:12:51
interested in is are you criticizing the
01:12:53
Chinese Communist Party?
01:12:54
>> That's the fundamental thing that
01:12:56
they're controlling for.
01:12:58
>> I was wondering, as you were speaking
01:12:59
about this earlier, if I'm in China, can
01:13:00
I just get up and go?
01:13:02
>> Can I just leave?
01:13:04
>> Where would you go? And could you get a
01:13:05
visa to go there?
01:13:07
>> Good question.
01:13:08
>> I mean, the Chinese do leave. I was I
01:13:10
just wondering if it's easy to leave
01:13:12
China if you're a citizen of China or do
01:13:14
they restrict you from going somewhere
01:13:16
else? I don't know. I'll go to Bali.
01:13:17
>> Um
01:13:18
>> could I not just go move to Bali if I
01:13:20
>> think about think about it if I mean
01:13:21
this is this was a you know this used to
01:13:23
be a problem for people in the Soviet
01:13:24
Union. I mean okay theoretically you
01:13:26
could leave you could get an exit
01:13:27
passport. I mean I'm sure there are some
01:13:29
restrictions on who's able to get
01:13:30
passports and who isn't. I mean I'm um
01:13:32
but say you were able to go. you you'd
01:13:34
need to go somewhere where you could get
01:13:36
a visa, where you could work,
01:13:39
>> where you could set up a life, where you
01:13:41
speak the language, where it's
01:13:42
reasonable to imagine you could stay
01:13:44
there for a long time. I mean,
01:13:46
immigration, I mean, especially given
01:13:48
languages and and and professional
01:13:50
qualifications. So, it is not always
01:13:52
easy. It's not always practical for
01:13:53
everybody. I mean, I have friends who
01:13:55
are still I have many friends who left
01:13:56
Russia, but I have one or two friends
01:13:57
who are still there and that's because
01:14:00
they have aging relatives or because
01:14:03
they don't speak any other languages and
01:14:05
they don't feel they'd be at home
01:14:06
anywhere else. I mean, there are there
01:14:08
are many reasons why people can't leave
01:14:11
even if they don't like their state or
01:14:12
they don't like their political system.
01:14:15
>> So, what's number five on our numbers?
01:14:18
>> Uh, you've you've used the word power.
01:14:20
>> Okay.
01:14:24
control over power ministries and the
01:14:27
use of violence. Most autocracies sooner
01:14:30
or later want to create some kind of
01:14:33
repressive system that's also physical.
01:14:35
So it's not just control of the
01:14:36
information space. There's also some
01:14:39
element of coercion. So people who don't
01:14:41
go along with the system don't get to
01:14:44
just float around. There's some way of
01:14:46
threatening them physically
01:14:48
>> like ice.
01:14:50
So, ICE is not supposed to be that. ICE
01:14:53
is supposed to be an immigration
01:14:54
enforcement
01:14:56
institution. Um, but the way it's been
01:14:59
used is well beyond the way any
01:15:03
immigration institution was used before
01:15:05
in the United States. So, look at what
01:15:08
ICE looks like. They are masked. They
01:15:12
are wearing military uniforms. They are
01:15:14
often driving unmarked cars. They drive
01:15:17
in vans. They're not driving in police
01:15:19
vans and they're not following the rules
01:15:22
of local police. They're not accountable
01:15:24
to anybody. They're not accountable to
01:15:26
the mayor, you know, or to the governor
01:15:28
of the state where they are. And that
01:15:30
gives them a kind of impunity and a kind
01:15:33
of ability to behave badly and they seem
01:15:35
to be accountable directly to the
01:15:38
Homeland Security Department and to the
01:15:39
president. And we've already seen how
01:15:42
this can affect the behavior of ICE.
01:15:44
that we saw during the during the
01:15:46
protests and the arrests and the
01:15:47
protests in Minnesota. We saw two people
01:15:49
were killed. And what was really
01:15:51
horrifying to me wasn't just that they
01:15:53
were killed. It was how the
01:15:55
administration reacted. You know, it was
01:15:58
Vance and Gnome and several other people
01:16:01
immediately said of the people who were
01:16:03
killed, they were guilty. So instead of
01:16:05
saying this is horrible,
01:16:08
>> you know that an American police force
01:16:09
killed a these were both US citizens. I
01:16:11
mean, there have been other people
01:16:12
killed, too, by the way, but these two
01:16:13
were were notable because they were US
01:16:15
citizens and they weren't immigrants.
01:16:17
Two, instead of saying two people were
01:16:19
killed, this is horrible. We need to
01:16:20
have an investigation. This must not be
01:16:22
allowed to happen again. The immediate
01:16:24
instinct was to give them impunity.
01:16:27
Like, you know, we're not going to
01:16:29
investigate this. It's not a real
01:16:32
problem. You know, the the the instinct
01:16:35
was to put them above the law. And when
01:16:37
you have a military force, and as I
01:16:39
said, especially one that's militarized
01:16:41
and looks like, you know, they they're
01:16:43
dressed like they're in Fallujah, you
01:16:45
know, when you have a military force
01:16:47
that's above the law, then it's really a
01:16:49
paramilitary. If you have a police force
01:16:51
that can harm ordinary citizens and not
01:16:53
pay any price for it and isn't
01:16:54
accountable, then you're not serving
01:16:56
Americans. You're serving the interests
01:16:58
of of the of the ruling party.
01:17:01
>> This is super interesting to me. My team
01:17:03
gave me this report to show me how many
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of you that watch this show subscribe.
01:17:06
So, favor to ask all of you. Please
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could you check right now if you've hit
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regular viewer of the show and you like
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what we do here. We're approaching quite
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a significant landmark on this show in
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terms of a subscriber number. So, if
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there was one simple free thing that you
01:17:18
could do to help us, my team, everyone
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here to keep this show free, to keep it
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improving year over year and week over
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week, it is just to hit that subscribe
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button and to double check if you've hit
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it. Only thing I'll ever ask of you. Do
01:17:29
we have a deal? Let's get on with the
01:17:31
show.
01:17:32
Do you think this is um potentially the
01:17:35
decline of the what one might call the
01:17:37
American empire? I was um I was looking
01:17:40
at how long empires tend to last and I
01:17:42
was before you came and there's this
01:17:45
2000 250 year figure which is famously
01:17:47
popularized by a British historian
01:17:48
called Sir John Gub in his essay the
01:17:51
fate of empires and the search for
01:17:53
survival after analyzing empires from
01:17:55
the I can't say that wordians
01:17:59
>> Assyrians
01:18:00
>> exactly what I said Assyrians to the
01:18:02
British um club found that despite
01:18:04
differences in technology geography
01:18:06
religion and surprisingly shared a
01:18:08
similar lifespan standard life cycle.
01:18:10
Glob argued that empires typically go
01:18:12
through a predictable sequence of stages
01:18:14
over those 250 years. The first one
01:18:17
being the age of pioneers, outburst and
01:18:19
conquest. The age of conquest which is
01:18:20
the military dominance. The age of
01:18:22
commerce which is vast wealth creation.
01:18:24
The age of affluence, comfort and a
01:18:26
shift from duty to selfishness. The age
01:18:29
of intellect focus on philosophy and
01:18:30
education over defense. The age of
01:18:32
descendence, internal division, massive
01:18:35
inequality and collapse. So if you view
01:18:37
the United States as an expansionist
01:18:40
project from its very inception, pushing
01:18:42
westward across the North American
01:18:44
continent through its power, then the
01:18:47
math says if you take it from 1776 to
01:18:49
now to 2026, it's exactly 250 years old.
01:18:53
So if you use Gub's 2000 250ear life
01:18:57
cycle model from 1776 to now, political
01:19:00
scientists argue that we are in the age
01:19:02
of descendants of the American Empire.
01:19:05
This stage is typically characterized by
01:19:07
deep internal political division, vast
01:19:08
wealth inequality, massive national
01:19:10
debt, and a cultural shift away from a
01:19:12
shared sense of civic duty. So, first of
01:19:16
all, that's a pretty accurate
01:19:17
description of what's happening in the
01:19:18
United States. However, you have just
01:19:20
touched on something that I feel very
01:19:22
strongly about, which is that I don't
01:19:24
believe in historical inevitability.
01:19:26
>> Interesting.
01:19:27
>> And I I think is very dangerous. So the
01:19:30
idea that we are on a slippery slope
01:19:34
downhill and we can't stop it because
01:19:36
that's the way history is going or
01:19:38
alternative the idea that everything is
01:19:40
fine and it will continue to be fine
01:19:42
because liberal democracy has triumphed
01:19:43
which is what we thought in the 1990s.
01:19:45
Anytime you think that something is
01:19:47
inevitable that takes away your
01:19:50
willingness to act. Yeah.
01:19:52
>> What happens tomorrow and next year is
01:19:56
completely dependent on what we do
01:19:59
today. Whether the United States
01:20:01
survives as a democracy or not depends
01:20:03
on choices Americans make, things they
01:20:05
say, the arguments they have, you know,
01:20:08
the degree of civic participation, not
01:20:11
some historical rule that some very
01:20:14
brilliant political scientist invented.
01:20:16
And as I said, I think this has happened
01:20:17
before. I think we had this moment of
01:20:19
complacency after the fall of the Soviet
01:20:21
Union in the '90s. Americans and
01:20:24
Europeans became convinced that
01:20:27
everything was best in the best of all
01:20:28
possible worlds and we didn't have to do
01:20:31
anything in particular to maintain our
01:20:33
democracies because democracy was the
01:20:35
best system and we just won the Cold War
01:20:36
and it was all going to be fine and we
01:20:39
lost sight of the ways in which
01:20:42
democracy was beginning to slip and we
01:20:44
were beginning to lose things.
01:20:46
>> And I think it was sense of complacency
01:20:48
and above all it was a sense of
01:20:49
inevitability. It's inevitable. We've
01:20:52
won the war of ideas. the war of ideas
01:20:54
is over. And that's why we we missed the
01:20:56
rise of Russia. We missed the the
01:20:58
significance of China. And we missed a
01:21:00
lot of those things because we were so
01:21:02
sure that we were just winning.
01:21:03
>> Isn't that in and of itself a cycle?
01:21:06
>> It's a cycle. But my point is that the
01:21:07
cycles aren't predictable. I mean, you
01:21:10
can stop the cycle. You can reverse the
01:21:11
cycle. Countries can and do change their
01:21:14
trajectory. I say I've I've lived a lot
01:21:15
of my life in Poland. First went there
01:21:17
in the 1980s. My husband is Polish. So
01:21:19
on Poland is a completely different
01:21:21
country from what it was 30 years ago.
01:21:22
And it's a country that has really
01:21:24
changed itself in ways that weren't
01:21:27
necessarily predictable in 1990. And so
01:21:30
I I do think countries change. Is all of
01:21:33
this downstream
01:21:34
from something that doesn't change,
01:21:36
which is human nature. And therefore, if
01:21:38
we understand human nature as the
01:21:39
constant, then one can almost predict
01:21:41
these dare I say the word again, cycles
01:21:43
of how humans will go from there to d
01:21:47
>> human nature is a constant. But there is
01:21:49
so much accident in history and so many
01:21:52
random things happen that you can
01:21:55
sometimes predict how people will react,
01:21:57
but you can't necessarily
01:21:59
predict exactly what's coming. You know,
01:22:01
when Boris Yeltson was drunk and sick
01:22:05
and had to choose the next leader of
01:22:07
Russia, there were a number of choices
01:22:09
he had. And the person he chose was
01:22:10
Vladimir Putin, who at the time was a
01:22:12
very low ranking. I mean, he was a he
01:22:14
was a FSB. He came from the KGB and he
01:22:17
was someone they chose because they
01:22:19
thought he would be loyal to the Yeltson
01:22:21
family and he wouldn't prosecute them.
01:22:22
Nobody imagined him as a dictator or an
01:22:25
imperial leader who would be seeking to
01:22:27
reconquer the former Soviet Union. And
01:22:30
what if they'd chosen, for example,
01:22:31
Boris Nimsov, who was another leading
01:22:33
Russian politician at the time. You
01:22:34
know, I don't know that he was a perfect
01:22:36
Democrat, but he was very open-minded
01:22:37
and he would have been interested in
01:22:39
integrating Russia with Europe. Okay.
01:22:40
What if he'd become the leader of
01:22:42
Russia? We would be in a completely
01:22:43
different world. And why was there was
01:22:46
nothing inevitable about that decision.
01:22:48
There are many random completely out of
01:22:52
the blue things that happen in history.
01:22:55
You can always say there's always some
01:22:56
percentage of any population that's
01:22:59
instinctively authoritarian for example
01:23:01
and there's always some percentage of
01:23:02
any population that's instinctively
01:23:04
liberal or extinctly libertarian
01:23:06
>> because of egos and power
01:23:07
>> because of just the way people the human
01:23:08
nature have the people have different
01:23:10
but what is the balance of that group
01:23:12
how the leadership of the country
01:23:14
encourages or discourages one set of
01:23:16
values or the other you know that that
01:23:19
affects h you know who who's winning the
01:23:21
arguments um and so I I I don't believe
01:23:24
in inevitable cycles.
01:23:25
>> Have you heard of Ray Dalio talking
01:23:27
about the sort of boom and bust cycles
01:23:29
through history and when like a
01:23:30
population becomes very comfortable you
01:23:33
have this sort of inversion goes the
01:23:34
other way. Do you believe in those kinds
01:23:36
of cycles? You know, I suppose there is
01:23:38
a phenomenon whereby yes, as people
01:23:40
become comfortable, then if Frank
01:23:41
Fukiyama actually had in his famous book
01:23:43
about the end of history, he had a
01:23:44
description of well, what happens if we
01:23:47
have two, you know, if everybody becomes
01:23:48
a liberal democracy and everybody's
01:23:50
pretty prosperous, then the next thing
01:23:51
that will happen is some people will get
01:23:53
bored
01:23:54
>> and out of their boredom and out of
01:23:56
their desire for change, they'll attack
01:23:58
the system and and want to undermine it.
01:24:00
It's kind of what happened. So there's I
01:24:02
suppose there's some there's a there's
01:24:03
some human element like that you know
01:24:05
that the there will always be some part
01:24:08
of the population that feels left out or
01:24:10
feels discriminated against and and
01:24:12
wants a bigger voice or wants to run the
01:24:14
country. I mean so you can you can see
01:24:16
that I just don't think it's something
01:24:18
that scientists can predict.
01:24:20
>> Is there a link between democracies and
01:24:22
sort of rampant capitalism? So, in a
01:24:26
democracy, I don't know much about this
01:24:27
stuff, so I'm just asking the question.
01:24:28
But in a democracy, does it tend to be
01:24:30
the case that you end up with wealth
01:24:31
inequality because you let everybody,
01:24:32
you let free markets play out and then
01:24:34
you're going to have these like tech
01:24:35
oligarchs up here that have all
01:24:36
gazillions of dollars, a trillion
01:24:37
dollars, and lots of people at the
01:24:39
bottom of the rung. Whereas in I don't
01:24:40
know, in China, I guess they somewhat
01:24:42
defend. I don't know. Do they defend
01:24:43
against?
01:24:44
>> No, I would say almost the opposite. So,
01:24:46
historically, democracies have I mean,
01:24:49
there have been different phases, right?
01:24:50
So I don't want to overgeneralize but
01:24:52
certainly in the 20 second half of the
01:24:54
20th century the the democracies since
01:24:56
the second world war have tended towards
01:24:58
equality and including in the United
01:25:00
States and at their most successful and
01:25:02
prosperous moments people there was if
01:25:04
there was much less wealth equality than
01:25:07
inequality than there is now and the
01:25:09
countries we were talking about earlier
01:25:10
the happy countries those are relatively
01:25:13
equal countries and those are countries
01:25:14
with big welfare states and a lot of
01:25:17
redistribution of wealth and those are
01:25:19
countries where people feel invested in
01:25:21
the system partly because they don't
01:25:23
feel completely outclassed by a group of
01:25:25
oligarchs. If you look at the United
01:25:26
States in the 1950s, that was a period
01:25:28
of also huge social mobility when lower
01:25:32
middle class, middle- class people began
01:25:33
to get wealthier and there's this
01:25:35
enormous wave of prosperity and that's a
01:25:37
period when everybody is becoming
01:25:39
wealthier. And that was also a period
01:25:40
when you have the, you know, very
01:25:42
successful American democracy. You have
01:25:43
the civil rights movement. You have
01:25:45
democracy beginning to spread to new
01:25:47
populations or to people who'd been
01:25:48
excluded before. So you have a a
01:25:51
connection between equality and
01:25:52
democracy, wealth, even wealth equality.
01:25:55
And one of the things that gives critics
01:25:58
of the United States most anxiety now is
01:26:02
precisely what you just said, you know,
01:26:04
the emergence of tech oligarchs who have
01:26:07
so much more power than any one
01:26:09
politician and who even have the power
01:26:11
to to organize information space. How
01:26:15
long will that group of people want to
01:26:17
live in a democracy where everybody gets
01:26:19
a vote and wealth is supposed to be
01:26:20
distributed more evenly? There are some
01:26:22
members of that community who have
01:26:23
become illiberal or anti-democratic for
01:26:25
exactly that reason.
01:26:27
>> If we don't believe in inevitabilities,
01:26:29
then what is it we have to look out for
01:26:32
as those living in a democracy? We
01:26:33
talked about the five things there, but
01:26:34
are there anything is there anything
01:26:36
coming up where you're worried that as a
01:26:38
society we might overlook it or allow it
01:26:41
which results in us falling back down
01:26:44
into an autocratic society? And is there
01:26:46
anything we can do proactively now to
01:26:49
defend our democracy?
01:26:51
>> We are lucky in that we live in
01:26:52
societies where we can vote.
01:26:54
>> Mhm. Um, and so it's really important
01:26:57
that we vote, that we know who we're
01:27:00
voting for, that we vote in all
01:27:02
elections, including local ones. When
01:27:04
people become nihilistic, when they say,
01:27:07
"They're all the same. I don't care who
01:27:09
wins the election. It's not worth voting
01:27:11
because, you know, they're all corrupt."
01:27:13
This is what autocrats try to create.
01:27:16
So, what does Putin want Russians to do?
01:27:18
Does he want them to be political? No.
01:27:20
He wants them to stay out of politics.
01:27:22
You know, what do the Chinese want? they
01:27:23
want their people out of politics. And
01:27:25
so whenever you see too many people who
01:27:27
are have responded to that kind of
01:27:30
negative inspiration, that's when you
01:27:33
should worry. And I worry a lot about
01:27:35
the United States on exactly those
01:27:36
grounds. Actually, look at how the
01:27:39
leader of your country talks about the
01:27:41
press, how he or she talks about the
01:27:44
judges, the judiciary, how he or she
01:27:47
talks about the civil service. A real
01:27:50
Democrat respects those institutions and
01:27:53
wants them to stay in place precisely so
01:27:56
that democracy can remain so that at the
01:27:58
next election there will be a fair
01:28:00
election.
01:28:00
>> Do you think the the mainstream media
01:28:02
are politicized? Do you think there's
01:28:04
political bias in the mainstream media
01:28:06
like the big titles?
01:28:08
>> You know, some of them have business
01:28:09
models that are that are biased. So
01:28:11
Fox's business model is to appeal to the
01:28:14
right-leaning part of the American
01:28:15
population and to, you know, to
01:28:18
encourage them in their biases and get
01:28:19
them to watch TV. There's some media
01:28:22
that are now dependent on on
01:28:24
polarization and kind of live off it.
01:28:26
There are some who try to be neutral,
01:28:28
but you know, even neutrality is hard to
01:28:30
achieve now because a neutral
01:28:33
investigation that turns up something
01:28:35
bad about the Trump administration will
01:28:38
immediately incur the reaction on the
01:28:40
part, you know, you're biased. You we've
01:28:42
lost our our assumption that that press
01:28:45
are operating in good faith.
01:28:47
>> So, it's become much more difficult.
01:28:48
>> This is so interesting for me as a
01:28:49
podcaster who I guess now is considered
01:28:51
to be media. the like the inherent
01:28:53
incentives of media mean that like if
01:28:58
say I'm running X newspaper and I write
01:29:00
a story and I've built up a base of
01:29:02
people for whatever reason right that
01:29:04
want me to say something negative about
01:29:06
Trump I have an economic model and an
01:29:08
incentive structure that means that if I
01:29:10
write that article it's going to get 10
01:29:11
times the reach 10 times the engagement
01:29:13
10 times the subscribers if I write the
01:29:15
exact opposite article I know I'm going
01:29:17
to get so if I say Trump is amazing even
01:29:19
though I've built up a base that I think
01:29:20
a certain way the article is going to
01:29:22
get a fraction of the the reached
01:29:24
engagement subscribers. So, as a as a
01:29:26
CEO of such such a company, you're going
01:29:28
to have to hire more and more people,
01:29:29
create more and more output to receive
01:29:31
the same um rewards versus just writing
01:29:34
something bad about that particular
01:29:36
person. So, you become incentivized. But
01:29:37
then the other factor is that
01:29:39
geographically Democrats and Republicans
01:29:41
in the United States exist in certain
01:29:43
areas. So if I open my office in New
01:29:45
York or LA, most of the people I'm going
01:29:47
to be able to hire come with a certain
01:29:49
like statistically come with a certain
01:29:50
political view. So I I do wonder if
01:29:52
eventually like the fate of most media
01:29:54
organizations is they do get politically
01:29:56
captured one way or the other.
01:29:58
>> You have to fight it.
01:29:59
>> You have to fight. And as a podcaster,
01:30:01
yeah, cuz now I'm I'm part of the media.
01:30:03
I I now understand because I feel it.
01:30:07
>> So I feel that I sit here with Kamala
01:30:09
Harris, I'm attacked. I sit here with
01:30:11
Ivanka Trump, I'm attacked. I see it
01:30:13
with Michelle Obama attacked. Gavin
01:30:14
Newsome attacked.
01:30:16
And I understand there's this great
01:30:18
quote which I favored the other day. It
01:30:19
was like, "You have to join a tribe or
01:30:21
you get killed by one." Or something
01:30:22
words to that effect. And I I get it. I
01:30:24
get why some of my peers in podcasting
01:30:27
have sought defense behind a particular
01:30:30
tribe because just taking the arrows
01:30:32
from both sides is not the nicest
01:30:34
feeling in the world.
01:30:35
>> No, but
01:30:36
>> No. I mean, it's funny when you said
01:30:38
mainstream media. I don't even know who
01:30:39
that is anymore. It's not so much about
01:30:40
hearing from both sides. It's about
01:30:44
trying to establish what's true.
01:30:46
>> Yeah.
01:30:46
>> And so the job of what what you do is a
01:30:48
little bit different from what
01:30:49
journalists do. So journalists go into
01:30:51
the world and they gather information
01:30:54
and they if they're good journalists,
01:30:56
they try to figure out what actually
01:30:57
happened and then they bring it back and
01:31:00
they write it down or they make a video
01:31:01
about it and they try and make sure that
01:31:03
it's accurate, right? And so if you're
01:31:05
devoted to that project, then you you
01:31:07
seek to avoid political bias, but you
01:31:10
know, inevitably
01:31:12
you might wind up saying the president
01:31:14
is lying or the leader of the opposition
01:31:16
is lying. And then you're immediately,
01:31:18
you know, in the world of people
01:31:19
shouting at you and saying you're
01:31:21
biased.
01:31:21
>> Um, but I I do feel that it's really
01:31:23
important that this particular
01:31:25
profession of the people who go into the
01:31:27
world and try and establish reality that
01:31:30
it continues to exist.
01:31:31
>> I agree. You know,
01:31:32
>> there needs to be a business model for
01:31:33
that. I mean, for democracy to exist,
01:31:36
for an accurate and meaningful national
01:31:38
conversation to exist, we need to have
01:31:40
some people who are trying to figure out
01:31:42
what's real.
01:31:42
>> I agree. And I think those people are
01:31:44
incredibly important, which I think
01:31:45
people think podcasters won't say cuz I
01:31:46
think sometimes we're positioned as
01:31:47
being like the rebels or radicals or
01:31:49
whatever that are like doing it from
01:31:50
their kitchen. This did actually used to
01:31:52
be my kitchen. But um but I very much
01:31:54
agree. I very much agree that there are
01:31:56
incredibly
01:31:58
um rigorous truth seeeking journalists
01:32:02
out there that have this very unique
01:32:04
skill which is not one that I possess or
01:32:05
or test to possess at all that they go
01:32:08
deep for long periods of time without
01:32:10
bias in search of the truth and then
01:32:13
they deliver it to the world. And I'm
01:32:14
well aware that if we lose that, then I
01:32:16
lose so many of the things that I
01:32:18
fundamentally care about and that I've
01:32:19
built my entire life and career on,
01:32:21
especially as like a young black man in
01:32:22
business who understands that there's
01:32:24
lots of people that came before me that
01:32:26
revealed things about the way society
01:32:28
functioned that have benefited me. And
01:32:30
so that I should my way of sort of
01:32:32
paying that forward is protecting the
01:32:33
same privileges as a um as a podcaster.
01:32:36
is I mean there is a danger that we go
01:32:37
down a road in which especially as AI
01:32:40
develops and we get more and more of our
01:32:42
information online that we lose touch
01:32:44
with reality. Mhm.
01:32:46
>> You know, if if AI is only accessing
01:32:49
what's available to the, you know, to
01:32:51
the model online,
01:32:52
>> there's still a whole world out there
01:32:54
where things are happening, you know,
01:32:56
that that's not online and and the
01:32:59
making sure that we're constantly in
01:33:01
touch with what's what's reality on the
01:33:03
ground, what's really happening in
01:33:04
Ukraine, you know, what's really
01:33:06
happening in Iran, and not living on
01:33:08
just what's available to us on our
01:33:09
phones. It's really important. One of my
01:33:11
fears is that the the algorithms with AI
01:33:12
are becoming better at knowing what to
01:33:14
serve me in order to make me dwell and
01:33:16
therefore it creates more ad dollars for
01:33:18
the companies. And so I might not just
01:33:20
be living in a fake reality. I might be
01:33:21
living in a completely personalized one
01:33:23
that's completely different from your
01:33:24
own because as I went on my phone this
01:33:26
morning, one of the things the sections
01:33:28
on my phone is suggested for you. Now
01:33:30
this is obviously showing me things that
01:33:32
are based on my past viewing
01:33:35
consumption. So if I viewed this person
01:33:36
having a fight in the street, I'm
01:33:37
getting more people having fights in the
01:33:38
street. So now my perception is that
01:33:40
everyone's having fights in the street
01:33:42
and and that means it's harder to
01:33:43
connect to each other.
01:33:44
>> We are very much I mean I think this has
01:33:46
really happened already that we we live
01:33:48
in our own algorithms when you're asking
01:33:50
the more fundamental question about the
01:33:52
breakdown of democracy. I mean, there's
01:33:53
nothing more toxic to democracy than
01:33:56
polarization. Because if you live in a
01:33:58
world where the people on the other side
01:34:01
of the political divide aren't just your
01:34:02
rivals and you don't just disagree with
01:34:04
them about taxes, you know, but they are
01:34:06
your existential enemies and if they're
01:34:08
in charge, then you know, the world
01:34:10
ends, then it's very hard to have a
01:34:13
normal democratic debate or create a
01:34:15
normal, you know, have a normal
01:34:18
election.
01:34:18
>> Mhm.
01:34:21
Do you know what this is?
01:34:22
>> It looks like a very old newspaper.
01:34:24
>> Very old newspaper
01:34:26
from a long time ago.
01:34:28
And you're in it.
01:34:31
>> Gosh.
01:34:32
Oh, it's Wow. Uh, that's a um that was
01:34:37
that took a lot of research.
01:34:39
>> Yeah. What is that?
01:34:41
>> That is I don't they don't even have
01:34:43
these anymore. That was a New York Times
01:34:44
wedding announcement
01:34:46
>> from 1992. I think
01:34:47
>> 1992. married since 1992. I'm still
01:34:50
married to the person who it was
01:34:52
announced that I was marrying a Polish
01:34:54
He was then a journalist
01:34:57
>> and now he's the Polish foreign
01:34:58
minister. We got married in Washington,
01:35:01
but he was born in Poland and it's a
01:35:04
long story, but anyway,
01:35:06
>> lots of photos of you here.
01:35:09
>> Interesting. Oh, there's a nice one as
01:35:10
well. You're looking very presidential
01:35:11
there.
01:35:12
>> That was a long time ago.
01:35:13
>> And I've got another one of him and
01:35:14
Hillary Clinton.
01:35:15
>> Right.
01:35:16
Politics has been a big part of your
01:35:18
family's life in various ways.
01:35:21
>> I mean, it would be hard to deny that.
01:35:23
Yeah.
01:35:25
>> Is it stressful?
01:35:27
Cuz it's constant and it's and it's and
01:35:29
it's more polarizing than ever before
01:35:31
and it's divisive and it's it's a lot of
01:35:33
energy. Even talking about these things
01:35:34
I find to be quite um
01:35:37
energy draining.
01:35:41
>> Yes. I mean, actually, it became more
01:35:42
stressful in more recent years. I mean,
01:35:45
social media made it more stressful than
01:35:46
it used to be.
01:35:47
>> The stressful part is um living a part
01:35:50
of your life in public. We try to not
01:35:54
live all of our lives in public. This
01:35:55
has been very useful to me as a
01:35:56
journalist. Actually, you begin to
01:35:57
understand the difference between what
01:35:59
you look like in public and what your
01:36:01
reality is, you know. So, people react
01:36:04
to you in all kinds of ways depending on
01:36:06
how where they've seen you on TV or
01:36:08
where they've what stories they've read
01:36:09
about you, some of which might not be
01:36:10
true. And there's often a kind of, you
01:36:13
know, that the way you're perceived is
01:36:15
not necessarily the way you are. And so
01:36:17
I I try to keep that in mind when I meet
01:36:19
public figures, you know, that I have a
01:36:22
set of perceptions of them based on what
01:36:24
I've read about them,
01:36:25
>> which I wouldn't have if I met, I don't
01:36:26
know, somebody introduces me to the next
01:36:28
door neighbor. I wouldn't have that in
01:36:29
my head when I met them. But when you
01:36:31
meet a politician or somebody who's um
01:36:33
who's who's wellknown, you come with you
01:36:36
come with stuff. And I try when I meet
01:36:39
people to drop it as much as I can
01:36:41
>> because you've seen that at home.
01:36:42
>> Because I've seen it at home. So yes, I
01:36:45
mean we have compatible lives that are
01:36:48
somewhat different. I mean I have stayed
01:36:50
well away from Polish politics. I don't
01:36:52
play any role in it. I have a different
01:36:55
name from my husband which you know I
01:36:57
didn't change my name and that was also
01:36:59
has led us allowed us to be separate and
01:37:01
we share a lot of views but not all. Um,
01:37:06
and so we, you know, we have kind of
01:37:07
different trajectories, but as I said, I
01:37:10
find mostly knowing what it's like to be
01:37:13
a politician helps me understand them.
01:37:16
>> Have you ever thought about going into
01:37:17
politics yourself?
01:37:18
>> No.
01:37:20
>> You can't have two politicians, one
01:37:21
family.
01:37:23
>> You know, a lot of what I do is
01:37:24
journalism or it's something or
01:37:26
journalist adjacent. You know, I go in
01:37:27
and try and find things. I try and
01:37:29
explain them. I try and say what what I
01:37:32
think is happening. And the job of a
01:37:34
politician is quite different from that.
01:37:36
You know, it's to you arrive with a set
01:37:40
of views. You need to explain them to
01:37:42
people. You need to convince them. It's
01:37:44
just it's a different it's a different
01:37:45
way of thinking about approaching the
01:37:46
public. So, I'm not I'm not campaigning
01:37:49
for a for a cause.
01:37:51
>> Is there a particular outcome you're
01:37:53
seeking with the work that you do, with
01:37:54
the books that you write, and the
01:37:56
conversations you have? Is there one
01:37:57
particular outcome above all others that
01:37:59
you're aiming at?
01:38:02
There's an outcome that's general but
01:38:03
not specific. In other words, I'm not
01:38:05
trying to elect any particular person to
01:38:07
be president. I do have a goal that is
01:38:10
to remind people of why democracy is
01:38:14
important, why we need to maintain it
01:38:16
and to pay attention to the ways in
01:38:18
which it's declining so that we can
01:38:21
fight back. I mean, I have a I have a I
01:38:23
have a broad goal in that sense and
01:38:24
that's not only inside the United
01:38:26
States.
01:38:26
>> Why is this so personal to you?
01:38:30
It it's the thing I've been fascinated
01:38:32
by since I was in my 20s.
01:38:35
>> Why?
01:38:36
>> Because I think it's I saw the Soviet
01:38:39
Union when it was still the Soviet
01:38:40
Union. I was a student in Lennengrad
01:38:43
when it was still Lengrad. I felt what
01:38:45
it was like to live in a heavily
01:38:47
autocratic society even briefly. And I
01:38:51
had really spent the rest of my life
01:38:52
trying to understand what it was, how it
01:38:56
worked, why people went along with it.
01:38:59
And I've also spent a lot of time more
01:39:02
recently trying to warn people against
01:39:04
it, against going in that direction. You
01:39:07
know, it's also not the thing I thought
01:39:08
I would be doing. I changed um you know,
01:39:12
if you if you're looking at my books,
01:39:13
you know, I wrote three history books. I
01:39:15
wrote the Gulad book. I wrote a history
01:39:18
of the Ukrainian famine. I wrote a book
01:39:20
this is this is a book about how the
01:39:21
Soviet Union took over Eastern Europe.
01:39:23
How they sort of did regime change in
01:39:24
Eastern Europe after the war. You know,
01:39:25
they're about things that happened, you
01:39:27
know, in the distant past. But I had a
01:39:29
realization in about 2014 2015 that I
01:39:35
was living through a period of history
01:39:37
myself. In other words, there was a
01:39:40
historical shift happening around me and
01:39:43
I felt the need to start recording it as
01:39:45
a kind of eyewitness. And so that book
01:39:47
Twilight of Democracy was a description
01:39:50
I mean it starts with a description of a
01:39:51
party I gave and then the book is about
01:39:54
how people I knew had changed. I knew a
01:39:57
lot of people who had been very
01:39:58
radicalized. I knew lots of people on
01:40:00
the center right, you know, we were
01:40:02
anti-communists, we were, you know,
01:40:03
whatever, Thatcherites, Reganites, and I
01:40:06
saw many of them become more radical.
01:40:08
And I thought, this is a really
01:40:09
important moment of change, and so I
01:40:11
should record it as a witness. And so
01:40:13
that book is the first book that I wrote
01:40:14
in the first person about something I'd
01:40:17
seen. And that was just me being
01:40:20
affected by the world I live in. Maybe
01:40:22
it did matter that I was married to a
01:40:24
politician because some things that you
01:40:26
would have noticed in a more distant way
01:40:28
affected me personally.
01:40:29
>> Mhm.
01:40:30
>> Maybe it was
01:40:32
the particular circumstances of being
01:40:34
both American and Polish and you know
01:40:37
seeing a similar pattern of things
01:40:38
happening in both places. Either way, I
01:40:40
I felt that something important was
01:40:42
happening and I've really been motivated
01:40:43
for the last decade to explain it to
01:40:45
people and try and understand it.
01:40:47
>> In that regard, what is the most
01:40:48
important thing we haven't talked about
01:40:49
that we should have talked about? Um,
01:40:52
>> what would regime change really look
01:40:54
like
01:40:56
>> in our countries?
01:40:57
>> Oh, in the west?
01:40:58
>> Yes.
01:41:00
>> Isn't it just electing a new person?
01:41:02
>> What would it feel like to live in a
01:41:05
very different kind of society? How
01:41:07
would you feel living in a place where
01:41:09
suddenly the values shifted? They were
01:41:11
different
01:41:12
>> for better or for less.
01:41:13
>> For the, you know, the the, you know, we
01:41:15
think, for example, free speech is is a
01:41:18
value and we've been arguing about it
01:41:19
here. What does it mean? what's hate
01:41:20
speech, you know, how do we measure it
01:41:22
and so on. What if you suddenly found
01:41:24
yourself waking up one morning in a
01:41:25
society where free speech was bad,
01:41:28
>> you know, where it wasn't? You didn't
01:41:29
automatically assume that it was good.
01:41:31
We also have an assumption that there is
01:41:34
some kind of meritocracy in our
01:41:35
societies, right? That if you try hard
01:41:37
and work hard and maybe you're lucky and
01:41:39
study, then you can be successful. What
01:41:41
if you found yourself suddenly in a
01:41:43
society where that wasn't true and
01:41:45
actually the only way to get ahead was
01:41:46
to have a cousin in the ruling party?
01:41:48
Being able to imagine that and think
01:41:50
about it um is important for
01:41:53
understanding this bigger issue of
01:41:55
democratic decline like what's the
01:41:56
change of our system that we're trying
01:41:58
to avoid and what does it feel like to
01:42:00
people who experience that. So this has
01:42:02
been a subject of a lot of my books. So
01:42:05
that book Iron Curtain is about it. I've
01:42:07
written a lot about Ukraine and what
01:42:10
happened when the Russians occupied
01:42:12
eastern Ukraine. They did this thing.
01:42:15
They did regime change. They change the
01:42:17
rules of the society. I think we don't
01:42:19
reflect enough about what what are the
01:42:22
what are the deep rules of the societies
01:42:24
we live in and what we would lose if we
01:42:26
lost them.
01:42:28
Hm.
01:42:30
it seems unimaginable and it seems quite
01:42:32
far away and that is I guess a privilege
01:42:34
of having lived in a democratic society
01:42:36
for my whole life that it's almost just
01:42:38
seem like as I said like it seems like a
01:42:40
theoretical concept but you know history
01:42:45
they say it doesn't repeat but it rhymes
01:42:47
and um I guess there's you know I I
01:42:49
believe that even if we don't know the
01:42:50
time frames I do believe that there are
01:42:52
certain cycles in history that are um
01:42:55
accelerate or come about because of
01:42:57
human nature and so But I'm also well
01:42:59
aware that there are things that we can
01:43:01
do or not do that could lead us to go
01:43:04
down the uh the slope of
01:43:08
a bad a bad slope.
01:43:09
>> So then you don't believe in
01:43:10
inevitability.
01:43:11
>> Well, it's interesting. I kind of
01:43:12
believe in both, which is I think that
01:43:14
there's this fundamental human nature
01:43:15
which drives us which um causes these
01:43:17
cycles to occur. And actually, one could
01:43:19
even argue that it's inevitable that
01:43:22
eventually we miss the signs and we go
01:43:24
down the slope. But the time frames of
01:43:25
that occurring or if it occurs there we
01:43:28
still have agency and control over that.
01:43:30
Does that make sense or is that does
01:43:31
that sound like a total contradiction to
01:43:33
believe in both human nature does cause
01:43:35
these cycles but but at the same time
01:43:37
today we have a choice. We have agency
01:43:39
over whether we go in that direction.
01:43:42
>> Yeah. Hum I mean human nature is like we
01:43:44
know how it works and so it offers us
01:43:45
some warnings right. It it's you know we
01:43:48
we know what we should be trying to
01:43:49
avoid. Mhm.
01:43:51
>> As I said, if you if you focus hard on
01:43:53
what it is that you don't want to
01:43:55
happen, I mean, that's what strategy is,
01:43:57
right? And then you work backwards and
01:43:58
you think, how do I how do I make sure
01:44:00
to prevent that from happening, you
01:44:02
know? Then you you begin to get a pretty
01:44:04
clear idea of what's useful behavior in
01:44:07
the present.
01:44:08
>> We have a closing tradition and where
01:44:10
the last guest leaves a question for the
01:44:11
next guest, not knowing who they're
01:44:12
leaving it for.
01:44:15
And the question left for you,
01:44:18
what is the most challenging setback
01:44:19
you've experienced and what's the lesson
01:44:21
you want to pass on to others?
01:44:28
I suppose the most I mean the most
01:44:30
challenging things I've experienced have
01:44:32
been political shifts where I when I saw
01:44:37
radicalization I saw the rise of
01:44:40
illiberal groups and movements including
01:44:44
among people I knew close closely and
01:44:46
very well and figuring out both how to
01:44:50
cope with them and how to trying to
01:44:53
under you know shift my thinking in
01:44:54
order understand how to explain it and
01:44:57
deal with it. That was probably the most
01:44:59
important.
01:45:00
That was probably the most important.
01:45:02
>> How do you cope with them?
01:45:04
>> Someone in your life has a sort of
01:45:06
>> bad at it.
01:45:06
>> Really
01:45:07
>> interesting.
01:45:08
>> I um I mean lots of people think that um
01:45:12
you know you should be able to you know
01:45:13
be friends with everybody and talk to
01:45:15
everybody and I see that. I see some
01:45:17
people are able to do that. I find that
01:45:19
I care too much.
01:45:21
>> Interesting.
01:45:22
>> It becomes hard for me. Do you think you
01:45:24
could interview as a journalist? Do you
01:45:26
think you could interview anybody?
01:45:29
>> Probably could interview anybody. I
01:45:31
mean, there would be some people who are
01:45:32
hard to interview because they lie, you
01:45:34
know, for example, and then I don't know
01:45:36
how to deal with that. Then you don't
01:45:37
want to have an interview where you're
01:45:38
correcting somebody the whole time.
01:45:40
>> I would certainly talk to anybody as a
01:45:42
journalist.
01:45:42
>> Would you interview Trump?
01:45:45
>> Yeah. I mean, he he would have he would
01:45:46
pose exactly that problem because how
01:45:48
would you deal with the fact that he's
01:45:50
saying something that's not true? Would
01:45:51
you then say, "But Mr. the president
01:45:52
that's not true and then go down that
01:45:54
road of arguing with him or would you um
01:45:57
or would you just listen and write it
01:45:58
down?
01:45:59
>> So you're worried it wouldn't be
01:46:00
productive?
01:46:00
>> I'm worried it wouldn't be productive.
01:46:02
>> That that's also my line to be honest
01:46:03
with um with people is there's certain
01:46:05
people that are really consequential so
01:46:07
you feel you should interview them but
01:46:08
part of me worries that some of them
01:46:10
wouldn't be it wouldn't be productive
01:46:11
anyway.
01:46:12
>> So I wouldn't get anything out of them
01:46:14
that is new or useful or productive. So,
01:46:17
>> right. I mean, I would I would talk to
01:46:18
anybody who is who with whom you can
01:46:21
have an argument and who's reality
01:46:23
based.
01:46:24
>> Mhm. And my other thing is just people
01:46:25
that don't take things off the record
01:46:26
because sometimes when we ask to
01:46:27
interview people, they'll say, "Yes, but
01:46:29
as long as you don't talk about this and
01:46:30
for me that's a no-go."
01:46:32
>> Well, I didn't take anything off the
01:46:33
record.
01:46:33
>> You didn't? Thank you. I appreciate
01:46:34
that. Um, well, you have so many
01:46:36
wonderful books. I heard there's also a
01:46:37
cookbook which I didn't manage to locate
01:46:40
which is a bit of a diversion from from
01:46:42
your subject matter but um they are
01:46:44
brilliant books and the reason why I I
01:46:46
was very keen for my team to reach out
01:46:47
to you and ask you to come today was
01:46:48
because not because just you write great
01:46:50
books but you're a real demystifying
01:46:52
force in a world that's becoming
01:46:53
incredibly misty for many of us in part
01:46:55
because there's just so much information
01:46:57
accessible to all of us now. But I
01:46:58
highly recommend people go check out
01:46:59
these wonderful books. I'm going to link
01:47:01
them all below and many of them are a
01:47:03
continuation of the themes and subjects
01:47:05
we've talked about or adjacent stories
01:47:06
from history. But you're a remarkable
01:47:08
storyteller an and that's why I think
01:47:10
people love listening to you so much. So
01:47:12
I really appreciate you taking the time
01:47:13
today to um help demystify all of this
01:47:15
for me. I actually have never had a
01:47:16
conversation that is so centered on the
01:47:18
the subject of democracy. I've heard
01:47:20
people talking about it for the last 10
01:47:21
years as this sort of this thing that
01:47:23
matters. But this conversation has
01:47:24
really opened my eyes to both the value
01:47:26
of it, but also the risks and the
01:47:29
slippery slope that causes societies to
01:47:31
lose it. So, thank you so much for doing
01:47:32
what you do because it's incredibly
01:47:33
important. And as a as a 33-year-old
01:47:35
that's lived most of my life in the
01:47:37
West, um it's very easy to take
01:47:39
democracy as a subject for granted.
01:47:41
>> I think I have, to be honest.
01:47:43
>> Yes. Well, it's it's it's normal. It's
01:47:45
it's it's the it's the water we swim in.
01:47:47
We're the fish, you know, and the idea
01:47:49
that there would someday not be water is
01:47:50
unimaginable.
01:47:52
>> But thank you for asking such um such
01:47:54
penetrating questions. Thank you.
01:47:57
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