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Pulitzer Historian: The Next Stage Is Democracy Collapse - Anne Applebaum — Transcript

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0:00This was Trump's net worth when he went
0:02into office, $2.3 billion. And this is
0:04his net worth now, just two years later.
0:07$6.5 billion.
0:09>> So, we've never had a president running
0:11businesses while in office. And so,
0:13decisions are being made not based on
0:15what's good for Americans, but what's
0:17good for his company. For example, why
0:19did the Saudi government invest $2
0:21billion in Jared Kushner's fund? It
0:23wasn't because they just like Jared
0:25Kushner. It was because Kushner is
0:27Trump's son-in-law. And so my biggest
0:29concern is the deterioration of American
0:31democracy. I mean, it's already
0:33happening. Most people think democracies
0:35end with tanks in the street or somebody
0:37shooting up the presidential palace, but
0:38actually in the modern world, they
0:40mostly end because someone who is
0:42legitimately elected begins to take
0:44apart the system. Trump, he has never
0:47cared much one way or the other for
0:49American democracy. He admires foreign
0:51leaders who have no constraints. And I
0:53have a goal that is to remind people of
0:56why democracy is important and to pay
0:58attention to the ways in which it's
1:00declining so that we can fight back. So
1:02we're just at the beginning of what
1:04could be quite a big change.
1:05>> So there's five core tactics that
1:07autocratic leaders use to dismantle a
1:09democracy. Could you walk me through the
1:10five tactics?
1:11>> So first of all,
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2:04Please help us. Really appreciate it.
2:05Let's get on with the show. [music]
2:10>> An Apple Bomb, what is it you spent the
2:13last couple of decades of your life
2:15doing, understanding, studying, and
2:16sharing with the world? I started out as
2:19somebody who was fascinated by the
2:20Soviet Union. I went there when it still
2:23existed as a as a student. I was lucky
2:26enough to watch it fall apart. I was a
2:28journalist based in Warsaw at the time
2:30the Warsaw pack came to an end. Then I
2:33spent
2:35some years writing history books trying
2:37to explain how control was maintained
2:40over such a large space uh by so few
2:43people. But all that time, I thought
2:45that what I was doing was writing
2:46stories about the distant past. I was
2:49analyzing a system that didn't exist
2:51anymore.
2:52What's happened to me in the last decade
2:54is that I've discovered that a lot of
2:56what I thought was over and done and
2:57belonged to some other era uh has come
3:00back. Most people think democracies end
3:03with a coup d'eta or, you know, tanks in
3:06the street or somebody shooting up the
3:07presidential palace. that actually in
3:10the modern world they mostly end because
3:12someone who is legitimately elected
3:15begins to take apart the system and take
3:18away the things that ensure free
3:21elections can continue and I started
3:24watching that happen in multiple
3:25countries at the same time and I saw
3:28this authoritarian instinct started to
3:31come back and that's what I write about
3:33now
3:34>> are these just election cycles or is
3:36there something bigger at play here
3:37because you know I spend a lot time
3:38reading articles from decades ago or
3:41hundreds of years ago and in all times
3:44in history it seems that there were
3:45problems but it seems that the I don't
3:47know the democratic system has a
3:49remarkable way every four years of
3:50clearing out what people weren't happy
3:52with and putting something new in is
3:54this time different to the past
3:56>> what feels different to me is for the
3:58first time in several established
4:00democracies most notably United States
4:02but not only you have political parties
4:04who come to power with the explicit idea
4:08that they will alter the system in order
4:10to make sure that they can stay in
4:12forever. The pioneer of this idea was
4:15Victor Orban in Hungary. He was elected
4:17legitimately with a big margin and then
4:20what he did was slowly seek to capture
4:23the state. So what a democracy needs in
4:26order to survive, in order to maintain
4:28its stability, it needs a few neutral
4:31institutions. You know, it needs
4:33independent courts. It needs an
4:35independent electoral commission. It
4:37needs independent media. In the modern
4:40world, it needs a meritocratic
4:42bureaucracy. So, people are hired and
4:44fired to measure pollution or worry
4:47about traffic and road construction who
4:50aren't cousins of the ruling party. They
4:53aren't somebody's friend, but they're
4:55actual experts who understand how to do
4:56things. So you need those things to be
4:59in place in order to ensure that each
5:01time there's an electoral cycle, it's a
5:03fair election. And you see people who
5:06are elected who who once they had power
5:09decided to take those institutions
5:12apart. You know, if you think about
5:13democracy, it's actually a very strange
5:16system, right? So you win an election
5:20[snorts] and in a democracy you have to
5:22preserve the rules so that four years
5:25from now your bitter enemies can contest
5:28you and maybe beat you again. You know
5:32you lose an election, you have to say
5:34okay we're allowing our rivals to stay
5:36in power uh but we trust that the system
5:39will remain fair so four years from now
5:42we can also contest them again. So it
5:44requires a certain level of agreement
5:47about the nature of the system and when
5:49that begins to break down then you begin
5:52to have imbalances and then you begin to
5:54have elections that seem unfair to
5:56people and then you begin to have a
5:57completely different kind of national
5:59conversation and we can see that has
6:01happened in several places and of course
6:03most notably in the United States and
6:06because the United States is the largest
6:09democracy because it's played the role
6:10of leader of the democratic world the
6:13influence uence of America on other
6:15countries is pretty profound. Uh and so
6:17this this idea that democracies can
6:20possibly break down is suddenly um both
6:23horrifying people but also interesting
6:25to other people who say all right if you
6:27can do it in America you can do it here.
6:29>> There's a part of me that just thinks
6:33that could never happen in America. And
6:36that's obviously a bias that I have
6:37being 33 years old and not knowing a ton
6:39about history. But there's I'm sure
6:40there's lots of people that think this
6:41is some sort of theoretical idea, but it
6:44would never happen in America because we
6:45would never allow America to not be a
6:48democracy. We wouldn't allow a a Russia
6:50situation where you've got Putin sitting
6:52in power for two decades or whatever.
6:54>> Sure, but there are systems in between
6:56Russia and liberal democracy. You can
6:59have democracies that aren't fair. And
7:02actually, I'm afraid to tell you that in
7:03the United States, there is a history of
7:05that. So the in the American South
7:07before the civil rights movement, you
7:09very often had in effect in in the
7:11southern states, you had these one party
7:13states where, you know, the rules were
7:15pretty rigged. Everybody knew who was
7:17going to win. Not everybody was allowed
7:19to vote. So black people weren't allowed
7:21to vote or they were it was very heavily
7:22restricted. It was hard for them to
7:24vote. And that existed in the United
7:26States, you know, between the Civil War
7:27and the and the 1960s, you had very
7:30undemocratic parts of the United States.
7:32And I think some of the people who are
7:34in Washington right now in the Trump
7:37administration are working from that
7:39history and from that historical memory.
7:41>> What is your biggest concern in this
7:43regard?
7:45>> Well, I have two concerns. Uh, one is
7:47that inside the United States, the
7:50deterioration of American democracy, I
7:53mean, it's already happening, right? So,
7:54it's already creating a class of people
7:57who no longer feel they have a stake in
7:59the political system and who won't vote,
8:02may never vote and fe and and will be
8:05outside of politics and outside of the
8:07national conversation. That can lead in
8:08the direction of violence that can lead
8:10in in all kinds of negative directions.
8:12We see the development of new kinds of
8:16um paramilitary in the United States
8:18that we never had before. the
8:20development of ICE. We've never before
8:22had a single national police force
8:25wearing combat uniforms, wearing masks,
8:28not subject to the normal restrictions
8:30of local police forces. We also have a
8:32rise in um high-end corruption. The
8:37president, people around him, companies
8:39close to him seem to have access to ways
8:42to make money and are making money out
8:44of doing politics in a way that was also
8:46not possible at that scale in America
8:48before. And that's sort of one whole set
8:49of concerns if you want to go down one
8:51of those roads.
8:52>> There's this map in front of us on the
8:53table. I realize some people can't see
8:55because they're listening, but there's a
8:57map on the table in front of us. Could
8:58you just explain what this map shows and
9:00why it's significant?
9:02>> The map shows the level of of democracy
9:04around the world. And of course, the
9:06thing that's immediately notable to me
9:08is that those who made the map don't
9:09count the United States anymore as a
9:11liberal democracy. Mhm.
9:13>> So at a liberal democracy, meaning a
9:15state where, as I said, the electoral
9:17rules are clear, where the electoral
9:20system is set up not to favor one party
9:21or the next, and instead it's described
9:24as an electoral democracy, which is
9:25somewhat less free. You see similar
9:28systems in South America. In Europe, you
9:30mostly still have liberal democracies.
9:32In Australia, Japan, South Korea, you
9:34still have liberal democracies. And then
9:36most of the rest of the world are some
9:38form of autocracy. Either very closed
9:42and very repressive like China or like
9:44Russia or they are in a democratic gray
9:47zone. So there are states that could
9:49really go in either direction. I mean
9:50they're still they're still open. But
9:52it's true that if you'd looked at a map
9:54like this a decade ago or two decades
9:56ago, it would have been a lot bluer than
9:58the the blue being democracy and the red
10:01or reddish being autocracy. So you do
10:04see a an absolute process of democratic
10:06decline that's been written about um by
10:09many people over the last few years. I I
10:11I think I believe very much that states
10:14influence one another. People follow and
10:16imitate and copy their neighbors.
10:18>> Do you think it's possible that in our
10:20lifetimes the US might become an orth
10:24orcratic
10:26country?
10:28So the US could become a what I think on
10:32this map is described as an autocratic
10:34gray zone. So you could imagine the US
10:36as in effect a one party state. So a
10:40state where one political party has
10:43control and the other just can't win
10:46national elections. you already have
10:49this system of we call it gerrymandering
10:51where electoral districts are being
10:54written in such a way as to favor one
10:56party or the another. The effect of that
10:58also is that once you have people who
11:00don't really have to contest elections
11:02anymore, then you have corruption.
11:04Because if you're going to win anyway,
11:06why do you have to worry about your
11:07constituents? then you have worse
11:09government and worse services because if
11:11you don't have to have a an electoral
11:14contest then you know you can pursue
11:16your own interests. You can do favors
11:18for businessmen who help you in other
11:20ways. And we see this decline of
11:22democracy already at the state level.
11:23And of course there could be a danger at
11:25the national level of a fixed system
11:28that made sure only one party ever wins.
11:32And then you would get all these
11:33pathologies that we already have at the
11:35state level. We're beginning to have
11:36them uh even now. And remember, we have
11:39right now a president who refused to
11:42accept the result of an election in 2020
11:45and who staged what was intended to be
11:48an electoral coup. Uh it failed. But,
11:52you know, the idea that he wouldn't do
11:54it again or nobody would ever dare to do
11:56that or nobody would block an election,
11:58I think it's pretty naive at this point.
12:00I mean, it happened already. Um, and so
12:04of course it can happen again.
12:05>> Do you think he's going to try and get a
12:07third term in office?
12:08>> I don't think so because I don't think
12:10he wants one.
12:12>> Um, but I think it's possible that
12:14people around him will try to shape and
12:18affect the elections in a way that makes
12:21sure that a Republican wins
12:23>> or maybe his his children.
12:25>> It's very possible that one of his
12:27children will run for president
12:28>> because there's a way to kind of control
12:30power in America. You know, when they
12:31they talk about MAGA, which is, I guess,
12:33a collection of people now. You know,
12:35you could say Jay Vance is part of MAGA
12:36and the kids and Trump. So, maybe they'd
12:40want to keep it within MAGA. Maybe
12:42that's the
12:42>> they might or they might want to want to
12:44keep it within the family. I mean, look,
12:46what is MAGA now? You know, what what
12:49what is different about Trump's second
12:50term from Trump's first term. So, one of
12:53the things that happened after January
12:55the 6 after the attack on the Congress
12:58was that many of the people who'd been
13:01around Trump, Republicans, people who do
13:04foreign policy, people who do domestic
13:06policy,
13:08left. They said, "Right, this is too
13:10much for us. You know, we're we're
13:11American patriots. You know, we can't
13:14support this kind of attack on our
13:15political system." And they departed his
13:17presence.
13:19But that exactly that moment that attack
13:21on the electoral system attracted other
13:23people.
13:24>> So for different reasons, people who
13:26disliked the American political system,
13:28who don't like democracy, don't like
13:30liberal democracy, thought it was
13:32leading America in a leftwing direction.
13:34Some of them have political reasons.
13:35They were attracted to Donald Trump
13:37because they said, "Right, this is
13:38somebody who has the nerve to try and
13:40overthrow the system, and we like that."
13:42And they're they're they're not all the
13:43same. They have different views. So
13:45there's a tech authoritarian group who
13:48want influence over the American
13:49political system because it's good for
13:51their businesses and because they don't
13:52get the point of democracy anyway and
13:54they think they should be in charge.
13:56There's a a kind of Christian
13:58nationalist group who think the United
14:00States should not be a secular state. It
14:02should be a Christian state and they
14:03want to they are interested in taking
14:05over the system um with that. And and
14:07then there's a traditional MAGA group
14:09who think the United States should be
14:10run by the people who used to run it.
14:12you know, kind of white Christian people
14:15of a certain kind and they want to bring
14:16the United States back in that
14:18direction. So, they're they're different
14:19views. Um, and they don't all agree with
14:22each other, but they they do agree that
14:24the system requires radical change and
14:26that's the difference between the first
14:28and second term. So, Trump's first term,
14:31I think he has never cared much one way
14:34or the other for American democracy. He
14:36personally sees himself as someone who
14:38should be allowed to act in any way he
14:40wants. He doesn't like any kind of
14:41constraint. Um he admires foreign
14:44leaders who have no constraints, but he
14:46was one way or another constrained in in
14:48in his first term by the system and now
14:50he's surrounded himself by people who
14:52are seeking to help him avoid those
14:54constraints. And that's that's new.
14:56>> I think when we have these
14:57conversations, we assume that everybody
14:59agrees that democracy is the better
15:01path.
15:02>> Sure.
15:02>> And that they understand the downsides
15:04of an autocracy. So there are different
15:06kinds of autocracies to be clear and
15:08some are some are more repressive than
15:10others. The the main thing that you
15:13would notice the first thing that you
15:14would notice would be the absence of the
15:16rule of law. Rule of law means that
15:20judges and courts and the legal system
15:22make decisions based on the constitution
15:26or on the laws. And in an autocracy you
15:29have rule by law. And that means that
15:32the law is what the person in power says
15:34it is.
15:34>> Mhm. And so if you did a program for
15:37example and someone on your program said
15:40something that was offensive to the
15:41leader of the country, you could be
15:44arrested and you could be put on trial.
15:47And instead of the court saying, "Right,
15:50we we've looked at this case and
15:51according to the law, we have in the law
15:53it says we have freedom of speech and
15:54you can do whatever you want," they
15:56could somebody could could ring up from
15:58the Kremlin or from the White House or
16:00from, you know, whatever is the
16:02leadership of your country and say, "No,
16:03actually, we want this guy in jail and
16:05we don't care what the courts think."
16:07Um, and that's the big difference here.
16:09I'll tell you a real story that happened
16:10in Hungary when Hungary was going down
16:12the road in the direction of a one party
16:14state. You can be the CEO of a company
16:16and people can come and knock on your
16:18door and they can say, "We would like
16:20you to sell us a majority share in your
16:23company and you say, 'N no, why should I
16:25let you do that? I I my company, I built
16:28it. I invested in it. I don't want to
16:29sell it." And then, okay, so what
16:32happens the next day? Somebody breaks
16:33the windows of your house. A few days
16:36later, your children are harassed on the
16:38way to school. People who work for you
16:40start having legal problems. this or
16:42that, you know, some kind of mortgage
16:44issue or some, you know, and you
16:46suddenly your company encounters
16:48regulatory issues. There's a tax
16:50inspection and one by one, the state
16:53finds a way to harass you, to harass
16:55your company, your workers, so that
16:57eventually you say, "Okay, I give up. I
16:59sell and I'm leaving the country." And
17:00this happened to somebody I know. Sounds
17:02like um anthropic in the United States
17:04recently where an anthropic the AI
17:06company refused to give the United
17:09States access to its AI under certain
17:12conditions and then very quickly Pete
17:14Pete Hegsth did a a post I think and
17:16Donald Trump did a post basically saying
17:18that they were going to restrict their
17:20ability to work with the government.
17:23>> We aren't used to the idea that the
17:25government decides which companies
17:27thrive and which ones die, you know. So
17:30once you have an an autocratic state
17:32that can do what it wants legally, then
17:34it can decide which companies succeed.
17:37It can base government contracts which
17:39are very important in every country not
17:41on who's the best company or not on some
17:44kind of blind procurement process but on
17:46who's your friend you know or or who's
17:49donated to your political party or who's
17:52in the case of the United States who's
17:53invested in your company. So one of the
17:55things that we have in the United States
17:56for the first time ever I think is a
17:59president who is actively doing business
18:03in countries and in areas that are of
18:06interest to the people he's doing
18:08business with. So for example the Trump
18:09family does business in Saudi Arabia. It
18:12has a it has a deal with a a Saudi
18:14company called um Dar Alakan which is a
18:17sort of development company and it that
18:19company has close relations to the Saudi
18:21leadership. The Saudi leadership is
18:25interested in deals with the United
18:27States, but I mean political arrangement
18:29with the United States and the money is
18:31going into the Trump family coffers in
18:34order to make a better arrangement for
18:36the country of Saudi Arabia. So it's a
18:38way in which because we have a declining
18:40democracy and because we have a
18:42increasingly kleptocratic system
18:44decisions are being made by the
18:46president of the United States by the
18:47white house not based on what's good for
18:49Americans but on what's good for his
18:51company and that's and that if you look
18:53at Russia that's exactly how the
18:55political system works there if you look
18:56at China is more complicated it's a
18:59bigger country it's more sophisticated
19:00but even there you have again decisions
19:04made not for the welfare
19:07of the Chinese people, but for the
19:10ruling party, for the Communist Party.
19:12>> And we have two uh jars of money here.
19:14This was uh Trump's net worth when he
19:17went into office, $2.3 billion
19:20reportedly. And this is his net worth
19:23now, just 2 years later.
19:25$6.5 billion. Looks like being a
19:28president is a profitable job.
19:30>> So that has never happened before. This
19:32is completely new in American history.
19:35There have been presidents who there
19:36have been whiffs of corruption around
19:37them. There's been, you know,
19:39presidential relatives who've tried to
19:41trade off the president's name. But
19:43we've never had a president running
19:45businesses while in office. And as I
19:48said, in such a way that the people with
19:51whom he's doing business are are hoping
19:53to benefit politically or or or in other
19:56ways. And that's that's completely brand
19:58new. And if you just back to your
20:00original question, which is why is
20:01democracy better? Churchill was the
20:03person who said that democracy is the
20:05worst system of government except for
20:06all the others. So it's a multi-reasons
20:09why it's flawed. You know democracies
20:11have require an immense amount of
20:14tolerance. There's always a lot of
20:15cacaphony. There's a constant flux and
20:18change that that people find
20:20innervating. But at the very least what
20:22democracies can do is they can force
20:25issues like this into the public sphere.
20:27you know, you're allowed at least in a
20:29democracy to question whether uh this
20:32decisions are being made in on the basis
20:34that they're good for everybody or
20:35they're being made for the benefit of
20:36the president.
20:37>> I guess supporters would say, you know,
20:39Trump's not running the businesses
20:40himself. It's just his kids activity
20:43that is generating this net worth.
20:47>> Yeah. But I mean, everybody knows that
20:49they're his kids and you you wouldn't do
20:52it. You know, why why did the Saudi
20:54government invest $2 billion in Jared
20:56Kushner's fund? It wasn't because they
20:59just like Jared Kushner. It was because
21:02Kushner is Trump's son-in-law. And now,
21:04of course, Kushner is the Trump
21:06administration's negotiator in the
21:08Middle East. Um, so he's negotiating
21:11with his business partners. The
21:13appearance of conflict of interest is
21:16overwhelming. And as I said, we've never
21:18had in American history or I think in
21:20recent British history, we've never had
21:22that kind of conflict of interest so
21:25clear at that at that high a level.
21:27>> Do you spend much time thinking about
21:29what's going on in the Middle East, the
21:31wars in Iran and what in Venezuela and
21:33the bigger picture here of what's
21:35happening and how this might link back
21:36to what you were saying about
21:38authoritarian regimes. It's all very
21:40confusing. I I feel like we went through
21:42a period of relative peace through the
21:44Biden era and Trump obviously ran on
21:47this promise that he wasn't going to
21:48start new wars. Um and we seem to be
21:50having a lot of wars. Russia and Ukraine
21:53still raging on doesn't seem to be
21:54nearer to any conclusion and now there's
21:56this war in Iran that threatens to be a
22:00neverending war. What is what what what
22:04>> there are several things going on. One
22:06of them is that in declining democracies
22:09and in historically in autocracies is
22:12you have leaders who conduct wars as a
22:16way of consolidating their base and
22:18consolidating their support. Uh and so
22:20one of the things that Trump likes to do
22:22is if he declares a war, I believe he
22:24had a different expectation of the Iran
22:26war. He's using foreign policy. He's
22:28using these fighting of wars in order to
22:30consolidate his support at home. So
22:31that's that's a part of what's
22:32happening. But some of this is nothing
22:34to do with Trump. You know, we are now
22:36living in a world where the historical
22:39political system, um, the one that was
22:41built after 1945, some people call it
22:43the liberal world order, I don't really
22:45like that term because it sounds kind of
22:47mushy, but the the order that has
22:49existed since 1945, the one that was
22:52somewhat based on the UN, that was based
22:54on a set of rules and treaties, that
22:57order has begun to break down. And
22:59[snorts] it's breaking down for several
23:00reasons. one we've started to discuss
23:03already which is changes inside the
23:05United States and the United States was
23:06an really important pillar of that order
23:08but it's also breaking down because the
23:10autocratic powers uh Russia, China,
23:14Iran, Venezuela until recently uh and
23:17and others have been challenging that
23:20order for a while themselves. They
23:22didn't like the American dominance of
23:26you know of international politics in
23:27the conversation. they were competing
23:29with America at a at a strategic level
23:32but also in what is really a war of
23:34ideas. So let's go back to autocracy and
23:37democracy. You know if you are the
23:39leader of Russia or you're the leader of
23:41China, what is the thing that is most
23:43threatening to you? And the answer is
23:47the language of liberal democracy. So
23:49all this stuff that we find boring and
23:52we're used to and you know this idea of
23:54freedom of speech and separation of
23:56powers and rule of law all those things
23:59that we have come to take for granted in
24:01our societies are a huge challenge to
24:05the political system in Russia or China.
24:07You know what is Putin most afraid of?
24:09He's most afraid of a street revolution
24:12of the kind we had in Ukraine in 2014.
24:15So when people are standing on the
24:16street and they have signs saying we're
24:18against corruption, you know, we want
24:20democracy, we want to be in the European
24:21Union, we want to be integrated with
24:23Europe, he's afraid of that happening in
24:25Russia because if you live in an
24:27autocratic state where you don't have
24:29freedom of speech, where there is no
24:31justice, where the government decides
24:34what all the rules are, then those ideas
24:37are explosive and exciting, the same way
24:38they were in the 18th century when when
24:40they first appeared in the Declaration
24:42of Independence. And people can be
24:44motivated by them. People will go into
24:45the street for them. People will risk
24:47their lives for them. And the autocrats
24:49know that. And so really for the past
24:52decade since 2013, 2014, you see them
24:57seeking to spread those ideas to promote
25:00them. I mean, we all know now about
25:02Russian propaganda campaigns. We know
25:04what Russian disinformation looks like.
25:06There's a Chinese version, too, which we
25:07don't see that much in English, but it
25:08appears in in other countries. We see
25:11them seeking to undermine democracy,
25:14trying to spread the influence of a
25:16different set of ideas. So the war in
25:19Ukraine is exactly that war. The
25:22Russians are firstly trying to destroy
25:25Ukraine as a nation. They want it to
25:27disappear. This is they're they're an
25:28empire. They want Ukraine to be their
25:30colony. And they understood perfectly
25:32well that by challenging Ukraine, by
25:36invading Ukraine, they were defying this
25:38liberal world order. They were defying
25:40the rules of post-war Europe because in
25:42post-war Europe, there was a decision
25:44made after 1945. We're not going to
25:46invade each other anymore. We're not
25:47going to have wars. Instead, we're going
25:48to decide everything by by diplomacy.
25:51Borders will not be changed by force.
25:53And the Russians understood that they
25:55were breaking that that norm. And they
25:57invaded Ukraine. They also invaded
25:59Ukraine because the Ukrainians were
26:00using that language, that powerful
26:03democratic language that we take for
26:04granted. And Putin said, "If they can do
26:07it in Ukraine, then people could do it
26:08in Russia. and so I need to crush this
26:10Ukrainian democracy movement. And so
26:12that war really is a fault line between
26:15the democratic world and the autocratic
26:17world. So I think what what you're
26:18seeing is the breakdown of an older
26:21system that was more or less organized
26:24around by American rules.
26:27>> Through history, which lasts longer,
26:29democracy or autocracy?
26:32>> Oh, autocracies.
26:33>> They last longer. Well, look, if you
26:34look back in history, most human
26:35societies in most times have been what
26:38you would we would now call autotocracy,
26:40but they were whatever. They were
26:40monarchies. They were led by tribal
26:43leaders, by warlords. There have been
26:46very, very few liberal democracies. And
26:48most of them have not lasted. And I
26:50should also say the people who wrote the
26:51American Constitution knew that. And
26:54when they wrote it, they were reading
26:56the history of ancient Rome. There was a
26:58Roman Republic and it fell when it was
27:00taken over by Julius Caesar. So, they
27:01all knew that story. They were reading
27:03about the Greek democracies, Athens,
27:05which also fell. And when they wrote the
27:08US Constitution, they were thinking, how
27:10do we make this last? What can we put in
27:12it to make it last? It's a longer story
27:15whether you think they were successful
27:16or not. But everybody who created
27:18democracies, whether it was after World
27:20War II in Europe, whether it was America
27:21in the 18th century, everybody
27:23understood that this was a fragile
27:25system. And they tried to put checks and
27:28balances,
27:30you know, judicial, legislative, and
27:31executive power. They tried to create
27:34systems that would ward off the impulse
27:36towards autocracy.
27:38>> I don't know if you have the answer to
27:39this question, but where are people
27:41happier on average in a democracy or in
27:44autocracy?
27:44>> So, I have to tell you, I know a little
27:46bit about happiness surveys, and over
27:48and over and over again, the happiest
27:50place in the world is Finland.
27:51[laughter]
27:52Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway,
27:55Scandinavia is very happy.
27:57>> The reasons for that may not be anything
27:59to do with the nature of the political
28:01system might have other sources, but the
28:03happiness is certainly connected to
28:05democracy. It's connected to stability
28:06and of course connected to wealth. Just
28:09looking at some research here. It says,
28:10"While wealth and economic stability are
28:11critical for happiness, regardless of
28:12the government type, democracy provides
28:14additional structural benefits like
28:15participation, security, and lower
28:17corruption that tend to lift a society's
28:20overall life satisfaction.
28:22>> Well, democracies by definition are at
28:25least in theory, the state is structured
28:27in a way to benefit everybody, right? At
28:30least that's how it's supposed to work.
28:31Mhm. [clears throat]
28:32>> So whether it's a national health care
28:34system or whether it's a system of roads
28:37and railroads, you know, the state is
28:39building things that are designed to
28:40serve everybody in an autocracy that
28:43doesn't necessarily happen. So in
28:44Russia, ordinary Russians have no
28:46influence on that decision. They have no
28:48way of expressing their views. They
28:50can't say what they think. They have no
28:52ability to influence the state. They
28:54can't say, "Well, actually, hey, we'd
28:55like to build a hospital instead of
28:57bombing another city in Ukraine." And so
28:59they have very little ability to change
29:00the system and that and that of course
29:02creates frustration and unhappiness.
29:04>> If that is true and this is why I asked
29:05the question if it's better for the
29:07people and at some degree I think if
29:10informed people would choose it which I
29:13think is and I say the word informed
29:14because I I understand in a lot of these
29:16countries where they don't have
29:17democracy I'm now using don't have
29:19democracy instead of having to say that
29:20word again. They limit the access to
29:22information so that people don't know
29:24what they're missing out on, I guess, or
29:26don't have those potentially disruptive
29:29ideas. They're not exposed to them on
29:31their on their phones or devices. I I
29:33would think a person would choose to
29:35live in a democracy if given the choice
29:36and the information.
29:38>> I would think so. Although
29:40you know there are other you know there
29:43there's a deep human need for a sense of
29:47stability and security and hierarchy for
29:51some people
29:52>> and it's true that authoritarians seem
29:56to offer that. You know in a democracy
29:58you do have this constant change of
30:00leaders. You know there's more demands
30:02on citizens. You know you have to
30:03participate if you care about your
30:05country. It's not just enough to vote.
30:07you need to be involved in politics in
30:08some way. And autocracies, I mean, I
30:11think falsely offer stability. And so
30:13the the argument of the Russians and
30:16Chinese governments and the argument
30:17they make on in those social media
30:19campaigns that they run inside the US or
30:21the UK or Europe is exactly that,
30:23authoritarianism, stability, safety,
30:26traditional values, hierarchy. And there
30:28are people for whom that's deeply
30:30appealing. So I I wouldn't discount that
30:32instinct. And when people like that are
30:34also able to control information, when
30:36they control the security services, when
30:38they monopolize the use of violence,
30:40they can be very hard to undo even if
30:43the majority of the country wants
30:44something different.
30:45>> It's almost hard for me to understand
30:47how the people in Russia are okay with
30:50the fact that their the leader has been
30:52there for several decades and isn't
30:54moving.
30:55But it's hard for us to understand
30:56because in the UK or in America, we
30:58there would be people on the streets.
30:59>> It doesn't matter what they think
31:01>> really. Well, because they have no way
31:03of expressing what they think. There's
31:05no such thing as public opinion or
31:08public debate. There's no there's no
31:10forum you can join where you can say
31:12what you you could express your views in
31:14a way that's fair. And and if you do
31:16say, I think Putin should be, you know,
31:18it's time for him to retire, you could
31:20be arrested. And so people begin to
31:23adjust what they think and they begin to
31:26change their behavior because they know
31:28that it's dangerous to say things. I
31:29mean, this is something this is a
31:30phenomenon I found in the work I did
31:32years ago on the Soviet Union. The
31:34propagandist said how successful we are
31:35and how much hay we've grown this year
31:38and how many bits of steel we've made
31:40and it was always fake. And so the
31:42question was always, well, did people
31:43really believe that? Did people believe
31:45in the system? Do they believe in the
31:46propaganda? And the answer was a little
31:49weird. It was convenient for them to
31:51believe it. In other words, in order to
31:53get on in life, you had to believe it or
31:55you had to say you believed it. And at a
31:58certain point, what they really thought,
32:00like deep in the back of their mind,
32:01didn't matter because there was no way
32:04to say what you think. And that's what
32:07you have in Russia. Again, now it's for
32:08me very tragic because there was a
32:10period in Russia in the 90s and 2000s
32:12when there was open debate and people
32:13were speaking freely and clearly about
32:16about the state of the country. But
32:18right now it's it's once again a
32:19situation where
32:21expressing your views is dangerous and
32:23so people just don't do it and they try
32:25to stay out of politics altogether. You
32:27know, politics is dangerous and ugly and
32:29nasty. Like just stay home. And remember
32:32that this is something that's developed
32:33over years. It didn't happen from one
32:36day to the next. It was a decline that's
32:38been happening since the year 2000.
32:40>> I've heard you say that there's five
32:42core tactics that autocratic leaders use
32:44to dismantle a democracy. Could you walk
32:47me through the five tactics and maybe
32:49also link them to things that are
32:50happening now in in the West which might
32:52be warning signs of the dismantling of
32:54one's democracy?
32:56>> Well, corruption,
32:59we've done that one already.
33:00>> Mhm.
33:01>> Corruption you have in any political
33:02system, and you often have it in
33:04democracies, too. But in an autocratic
33:06society, you have more corruption
33:10because the the legal system is
33:12controlled. And so what you have for
33:14example in the United States the fact
33:15that Donald Trump has taken over our
33:18department of justice and has installed
33:21loyalists who are looking among other
33:23things for example to pro prosecute his
33:25enemies just because they're his
33:27enemies. That means you have a check and
33:30balance. So normally if there was high
33:32level corruption in the White House or
33:34in the administration you would have
33:36people inside the Department of Justice
33:37and the FBI who would investigate it.
33:39But now we don't have that happening.
33:41>> Is that different from the past? It's
33:43different. It's different. I mean, we
33:44didn't have anybody try to use the White
33:47House to make money in this way before.
33:48So, hard for me to say what would have
33:50happened in like, I don't know, the
33:52Clinton administration, but we didn't
33:54have a completely politicized civil
33:57service, completely politicized FBI who
33:59would avoid, you know, any any kind of
34:02investigation. Um, and so corruption is
34:05a particular symptom of
34:07authoritarianism, and it's also a tool.
34:09you know, it's something that the
34:11president can offer people. You get
34:13along with me, you don't criticize me,
34:15your business will prosper. You know,
34:17you will get government contracts.
34:19>> Is that what we're seeing with all these
34:20big tech CEOs that seem to be going
34:22frequently to the White House and saying
34:24wonderful things about him and his
34:25support and having dinner with him and
34:27none of them speaking out? But if you
34:29look at their Twitter feeds a couple
34:30years ago, they were all saying the most
34:32horrific things about Trump.
34:33>> Yes. I mean I mean they they've
34:35understood that, you know, if this is
34:37going to be a an American administration
34:39that you have to genulect the president,
34:42you have to be sickantic to the
34:44president in order to get business
34:46deals, um then they'll do it. If you
34:48have to donate to his White House
34:50reconstruction fund, which many of them
34:52have done, then you'll do it. If you
34:54have to donate to his inauguration,
34:56you'll you'll do it. It's a question of
34:58who is supposed to be the beneficiary of
35:00government regulation. It's supposed to
35:02be Americans. I mean, ordinary people,
35:05we're supposed to become more pro
35:07prosperous. The beneficiary is not
35:09supposed to be, as I said, the president
35:10and his family and his entourage. And
35:13that is a big shift in in in American
35:16politics.
35:17>> When I look back at someone like like
35:18the CEO of OpenAI's statements on Trump,
35:20if you go back to 2016, he said he was
35:22an unprecedented threat to America and
35:24called him a potential disaster for the
35:26American economy. He said he was
35:28irresponsible in the way dictators are
35:30and compared his rhetoric to the big lie
35:32tactics used by historical
35:33authoritarians like Hitler. He described
35:35him as erratic, abusive, and prone to
35:37fits of rage. And then I see him side by
35:40side at the White House saying nice
35:42things about him and saying nothing
35:45critical at all.
35:46>> It's one of the most bizarre things
35:48actually about this whole
35:49administration. you know, if I were that
35:52rich, like what's the point of being
35:54rich unless if you can't say what you
35:57think?
35:57>> Mhm.
35:58>> You know, I don't I don't understand the
36:00value of it.
36:00>> Can I hazard a guess as to why the like
36:02incentive structure they're trapped in?
36:04>> What's your guess?
36:05>> I think that being rich for these people
36:07is actually just a proxy of status. And
36:09I think the thing that risks their
36:11status, which is what they care about
36:12more than anything else in the games
36:13that they're playing, is losing to their
36:15direct competition. And it's quite clear
36:17to me that if someone like Sam Alman was
36:18to say anything negative about Trump, it
36:20would of course hurt his business, but
36:22actually it would hurt something more,
36:23which is his status. He would lose to
36:25anthropic and XAI and Gemini. To lose in
36:29your category of peers, which the all
36:30these sort of tech oligarchs are in like
36:32category of peers would hurt more than
36:34anything. I think it would hurt more
36:36than losing a gazillion dollars is just
36:37like losing the the game.
36:39>> Yeah. There are two things about it. One
36:41is it's very shortsighted
36:42>> because ultimately who will suffer if
36:46there is a decline in in in the American
36:49political system in the American legal
36:50system? I mean it's them.
36:53>> Maybe they've gotten used to paying to
36:54play
36:55>> in a way.
36:56>> They they have but it's a it's a it's a
36:58mug's game. I mean it's fine as long as
37:00you're one of the people who are
37:01winning, but what if what if the rules
37:03change?
37:04>> Oh yeah. Like like in Russia with the
37:05oligarchs put
37:06>> That's right. I'm sick of these
37:07oligarchs. I want different oligarchs.
37:08And that happened in China, too. So it's
37:10a so that's one um argument against it.
37:12The second argument is and I think
37:14anthropic might have figured this out
37:15already and some of the law firms have
37:17figured it out. There's also a game to
37:19be made by saying no I'm independent. We
37:22have our own corporate rules. We have
37:23our own legal code of ethics and we're
37:25going to behave as patriotic Americans
37:28and then you attract business
37:30>> and they and they may be doing all of
37:31it. And as I said there's a there's a
37:32parallel thing that happened with US law
37:33firms. there were some frivolous
37:35lawsuits and they settled them and then
37:37there were some who said no we won't
37:38settle we won't do that and the ones who
37:41didn't do it have all won you know and
37:43they're all thriving I mean so there is
37:45also a benefit to be gained both
37:48commercially and financially and I would
37:50think even in that weird world of status
37:53by standing up for what you believe in
37:55and by remembering the bigger picture
37:57and the bigger picture is what happens
37:58to the United States I mean the United
38:00States is your main market it's where
38:01your employees come from it's the place
38:03where you're doing business and if if
38:05the United States begins to suffer then
38:07you suffer too and so thinking a little
38:09bit like that would might help some of
38:10them.
38:11>> Is this just another 3 years of this
38:13sort of you know unusual behavior before
38:15we resume business as usual in in in our
38:18democracies.
38:19>> I'm I'm asked this by Europeans all the
38:21time and my sense is that a lot of
38:23things will not ever be quite normal
38:25again [snorts] either inside the US or
38:27around the world. I mean, I I would
38:29advise, for example, I mean, if you're
38:31doing business with the US or you're a
38:33security partner of the US, I would
38:35strongly recommend that you have plan B.
38:37You know, it's really time for NATO to
38:41have a plan in case the United States
38:43flakes out, to have a different security
38:46option. You know, what happens to the US
38:48after Trump isn't clear? First of all,
38:49the next president could be JD Vance,
38:51who I think is even more committed to
38:53the project of making America into a one
38:55party state. Or the next president could
38:58be a Democrat we haven't heard of yet,
39:00who decides to use the broken system in
39:04order to take advantage of it in a
39:05different way. I mean, I hope that won't
39:07happen, but you can't count it out. I
39:09mean, once the norms are broken and once
39:11the laws have changed, then it can be
39:13anybody can take advantage of it. I
39:14mean, if if Trump can use the federal
39:17bureaucracy to threaten media companies,
39:19then why can't the next president? And
39:22so, you know, you certain things don't
39:24necessarily get fixed once they're
39:26broken.
39:26>> On that point of global partners of the
39:29US now thinking about their own defense
39:30and themselves more. Is that a pattern
39:33that you're seeing? just from my
39:35observations of you know we're we're sat
39:36here in London at the moment but my
39:38observations of the UK the UK used to
39:40consider ourselves to be the great
39:42alliance sort of partner of America
39:44>> special relationship
39:45>> that we had the special relationship
39:46which I never knew what it meant but I
39:47always liked it seems like that's gone
39:49out the window
39:50>> and the UK are now speaking a lot to
39:52like President Mccron in France and it
39:54seems like we're having our own little
39:55European meetings but around the world
39:57it seems that that's happening Canada
39:59don't seem to be a great ally of the US
40:00anymore after they threaten to invade
40:02them. What it what is happening from
40:05that perspective? Are we are we becoming
40:06more individualistic and breaking into
40:08our own little groups because of Trump's
40:10rhetoric?
40:11>> What you're watching is everybody all
40:13over the world hedging. Everybody is
40:16looking for alternatives. So you now
40:18have an EU India trade agreement which
40:21nobody would have bothered to do a few
40:22years ago. You have Canada
40:25in initiating a security relationship
40:27with the EU. you have conversations
40:31inside NATO about, you know,
40:33realistically if the United States
40:35weren't to help us in case of a Russian
40:37attack, what would we do? So that's
40:39those aren't really public
40:40conversations, but privately lots of
40:41people are having them. Everywhere you
40:43go, you see these so-called middle
40:45powers. This is a term that Mark Carney
40:46of Canada first started using. You know,
40:48Brazil, India, the EU countries begin,
40:51Japan, you see them beginning to make
40:54new relationships with one another. You
40:56know, if the United States flakes out
40:58and we can't trade with them in a normal
41:00way anymore because the president
41:01changes the trading rules every 5
41:03minutes, then at least we'll have a
41:05decent trading relationship with
41:06somebody else. I I travel a lot. I've
41:09traveled a lot in the last three months
41:10and everywhere I go, that's the main
41:11topic of conversation. Canada was
41:15completely integrated with the United
41:16States. I mean, it didn't almost didn't
41:18have an independent economy. And now
41:20that Canadians are thinking, how do we
41:21benefit from our oil and gas wealth to
41:23protect our sovereignty? Who else do we
41:26do deals with? Carney's been to China.
41:28He's, you know, also talking to India.
41:29With whom will we share potentially
41:32share nuclear technology? There are
41:33these conversations between France and
41:35Poland and France and Germany about a
41:37different kind of nuclear umbrella. It's
41:39all pretty tentative, but it's it's
41:41moved much faster than I would ever
41:43expected. I think the breaking point for
41:44a lot of people in Europe was Greenland.
41:48And I don't know if people have really
41:50focused on what exactly happened there,
41:52but you had the president of the United
41:54States saying he was going to invade
41:57Denmark. All right, there we go. So, the
42:01United States was saying it was going to
42:02invade Greenland. So, Trump was kind of
42:05hinting it in public and behind the
42:07scenes there were other signs that maybe
42:09they were really preparing to do it. And
42:10so, what did that mean in Denmark? That
42:13meant that the Danes said, "Okay, we're
42:17preparing for a US invasion." And this
42:19is a very, this is a country that's very
42:20pro-American. Lots of big Danish
42:23companies in the United States,
42:25including the ones who create the the
42:26weight loss drugs. Lots of Danish
42:29American travel, friendship, everything,
42:32security relationship going back to to
42:34the Second World War. Okay, the
42:36Americans are invading. What do we do?
42:38Do we blow up the airports in Greenland?
42:42And they did start planning that. Do we
42:44plan to shoot down American planes? Are
42:46we going to shoot at American soldiers?
42:48You know, are they going to shoot at us?
42:51And they had to suddenly imagine a real
42:55war with their closest ally and how that
42:59would impact them and impact trade and
43:01impact NATO and so on. And not only did
43:03they have to do it, their close allies
43:04in Europe did it, too. So the Germans
43:06were consulting with the Danes all
43:08through this period. You know, what if
43:09the Danes shoot down an American plane?
43:11like how does that affect us? And
43:13everybody went through this kind of
43:14traumatic experience of imagining a US
43:17invasion of a NATO ally. And then Trump
43:20made a speech at Davos where he somehow
43:22changed the subject and confused
43:24Greenland and Iceland a few times and
43:26you know and it got put off. But no one
43:29has recovered. Everybody remembers that
43:32moment and said, "Okay, this is a this
43:34is an unstable power. [snorts] They
43:37could do real damage to us. they can't
43:39be relied on. We need alternatives. And
43:42so really since then, and that was in
43:43January, since then, this is when you've
43:46seen this the stuff you were talking
43:47about, you know, the visits to China,
43:49the visits to Canada, um the back and
43:51forth with India, and you see you see
43:53everybody hedging and rearranging the
43:56way they think about the world.
43:57>> If you're an American, is this good news
43:59or bad news that the rest of the world
44:01is hedging?
44:02>> It's very bad news.
44:03>> Why? because a lot of America's
44:06prosperity in the post-war period has
44:08been based on the fact that America was
44:11dominant in global trade and you know we
44:14make money out of our European
44:15relationships. Um you know we produce
44:18things that we sell all over the world
44:19and actually you know we import things
44:21from all over the world and that's good
44:22too. You know the the root of American
44:24post-war prosperity is is are these
44:26relationships especially with Europe um
44:28and also the root of America's security
44:30dominance. I mean why are there NATO
44:33bases in Europe? It's not just to
44:34protect Europe. It's also because from
44:36there the US can project power into the
44:40Middle East. It has it can you know into
44:41Africa. It has it has a sort of window
44:44on the world from there. And once those
44:46bases are gone then the US is suddenly
44:49cut off and far away in a way that it
44:52wasn't it wasn't before. And there are
44:53all kinds of other risks. You know will
44:54the US dollar go on being so dominant?
44:57US makes money out of that. Um, will US
44:59goods go on being so valued? You know,
45:01in Canada, they boycott US products now.
45:03And actually, this was when I was in
45:04Denmark uh in February. I was shown an
45:08app. You can take a picture of a thing
45:10you see in the supermarket and it will
45:11tell you whether it's made in the United
45:13States. And if it's made in the United
45:14States, you don't buy it because they
45:16were so angry. Even the dominance of
45:19American tech, which a lot of Europeans
45:21have belatedly woken up to as a problem,
45:24could be in question. So Europeans are
45:27looking to do cloud storage in Europe
45:28and payment systems in Europe because
45:31you know maybe the US is unreliable and
45:33so all all it's it's we're just at the
45:35beginning of what could be quite a big
45:37change and yes Americans would feel
45:38that.
45:40>> Coming back to this point about the war
45:41in Iran you said that Trump sort of
45:44misestimated what would happen here.
45:46Yes. Obviously flew into Versa and took
45:47Madura out of bed
45:49>> and that seemed to go fairly well um
45:51from what he might have been expecting.
45:53Um but then he attacked Iran and this
45:57war seems to know no end now.
45:59>> I mean here's another feature of
46:01dictatorships is that nobody questions
46:03your decisions and nobody offers you
46:05alternatives. So
46:06>> the people around you
46:07>> the people around you. So when he was
46:09planning the war in Iran you from the
46:11reporting that we know people did say
46:14well you know Mr. President you know the
46:16Iranians are not like the Venezuelans.
46:18It's a it's a very embedded regime and
46:20the Iranians had a plan already for what
46:22would happen if their leadership was
46:23killed. They just they had a sort of
46:25decentralized system, you know, that
46:27will kick into place. You know, they
46:29have allies all over the Middle East.
46:30They have these proxy groups in
46:31different parts of the Middle East and
46:33famously the control over the straight
46:34of Hormuz possibly. And he was told
46:38that, but it seems he wasn't told it in
46:41a very definitive way. Like some people
46:43said, well, maybe this might be the
46:45case, but nobody said to him, "Mr.
46:47president, this is a bad idea because
46:49he's known if you said, "Mr. President,
46:51this is a bad idea," he might have said,
46:52"Well, get out of my sight."
46:54>> Mh. [clears throat]
46:54>> Because he's not somebody who listens to
46:56other people's views or or takes them
46:58into into consideration. The thing that
47:00bothers me the most about Iran, I have
47:02friends and I've been involved with
47:03organizations that do Iranian human
47:05rights. The thing that bothered me the
47:06most was his utter failure even to talk
47:09to or about Iranians. I mean, there it
47:12is an unpopular regime. It's one of the
47:14worst regimes, ugliest on the planet.
47:16And yet there seems to have been no
47:18communication with the you know
47:20democratic opposition in Iran. No
47:22communication even with Paly the son of
47:24the sha the monarchists in Iran. I mean
47:26there are alternative governments. There
47:27are alternative people who you could
47:30speak to. And he never did that because
47:32his real interest isn't democracy you
47:35know or making Iran into a better place.
47:37His real interest was in somehow
47:39dominating Iran and getting them to give
47:40him a share of the oil revenues which is
47:42what happened in Venezuela.
47:44you know, so he he he's also not even
47:46thinking the way previous Democratic
47:49presidents thought. So even George W.
47:51Bush also somebody who made huge
47:53mistakes, you know, and so on. You never
47:57heard George W. Bush say, "What I want
47:59is to run Iraq and steal its oil.
48:03>> They wanted to make Iraq into a
48:04democracy." Okay, that you know, which
48:06by the way it is now, but it's it was it
48:08was a long bloody pathway. Trump doesn't
48:11even think like that. He thinks my idea
48:14is to do some deal with one of the
48:16dictators and and move on. And actually
48:19that's what's happened in Venezuela. So
48:20Venezuela is still a dictatorship and
48:22it's run by the same regime as before
48:25just led by a different person.
48:27>> And he's been quite vocal about the fact
48:29that they're getting all the oil. Yes.
48:30Which is it's crazy thing to hear that
48:32you'd snatch up you'd snatch a world
48:33leader and then the same day you talk
48:35about how you've got the boats stealing
48:37the country's oil. I say the word
48:38stealing but taking the country's oil
48:40and proudly saying it. And it's not even
48:41clear what he means by that and so on,
48:43but it was not the action of a of a of a
48:4620th or 21st century president.
48:49>> The midterms are coming up and um
48:51[clears throat] I was reading that
48:52Trump's approval ratings are at an
48:54all-time low. It's the first time I've
48:55seen people that were sort of devoted
48:57supporters of his like Tucker Carlson
48:59coming out and saying apologizing for
49:01supporting him.
49:02>> So this this war in Iran seems to have
49:04really backfired in a way that I don't
49:05think he was he was intending. And you
49:07can kind of tell by how Trump's feeling
49:09because you just watch him in
49:10interviews. And the line that he repeats
49:1275 times is [snorts]
49:14probably like in some respects the exact
49:17opposite of what's going on. [laughter]
49:18So when I when I watched him in an
49:20interview this week and he was
49:22repeatedly saying obviously he says how
49:24great the war is going. So that makes me
49:26feel like it's not going well. Yeah. It
49:27was that was the main narrative was just
49:28like how well the war is going.
49:30>> He keeps saying we've won, we've won,
49:32it's over. One of the problems of having
49:33a president who lies all the time is
49:35that you, you know, you just stop
49:36believing. I mean, even if the war was
49:37over, you wouldn't believe it because
49:39he's his his his track record is not
49:41good. Um, I mean, look, I think the
49:43important thing to understand about
49:44Trump is that he's somebody who has no
49:46strategy. He doesn't care that much
49:49about what happened before he was
49:51president. He doesn't know the history
49:53of Iran, you know, um, he doesn't
49:55understand much about the history of the
49:56region, and he doesn't really care about
49:59what's going to happen later. He's
50:01interested in what is happening now and
50:04is he winning in the current moment.
50:07>> What does winning mean?
50:08>> Whatever it means to him. So I'm I'm
50:10winning the contest with this journalist
50:12or I'm winning the argument about Iran
50:15or like we're winning the war or we're
50:17I'm you know the opinion polls are all
50:18in my favor. So whatever is the
50:21situation, he has to emerge as the
50:23winner. That's his narcissistic
50:26mentality. That's not very good for
50:28strategic thinking because sometimes you
50:29don't win immediately like you have to
50:31have a plan, you know, and you have to
50:32have a long-term aim and you have to
50:35have a strategy on how to get there. But
50:37he he doesn't think like that. If you
50:39watch him if you watch him perform on
50:41television,
50:42whatever is the happening, he will
50:44convert it into that, you know, I'm
50:46winning.
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52:53When you begin to see attempts to
52:56corrupt and shape elections, this is
52:59when you know your democracy is in
53:00trouble. When the rules of the election
53:03are challenged. when um there there
53:06begin to be arguments about who can vote
53:08and and attempts to make some people not
53:11be allowed to vote when you try to alter
53:13the result in some way. I mean any an
53:15attack on elections is a classic way in
53:19which democratically elected leaders
53:21undermine democracy. So an example of
53:23this okay Victor Orban who just lost an
53:25election in Hungary after 16 years he
53:29had twothirds control of in Hungary if
53:32you have twothirds of the parliament
53:34then you can change the constitution so
53:35he continually altered the Hungarian
53:38constitution in order to give himself
53:40electoral advantages so changing
53:42constituencies and rebalancing the way
53:44votes were counted in the United States
53:46I think we already talked about
53:47gerrymandering um gerrymandering is
53:50unbelievably anti-democratic and the
53:52fact that we of a kind of gerrymandering
53:54contest right now.
53:55>> What's gerrymandering?
53:56>> Jerrymandering is a great word actually.
53:58It comes from a congressman named Jerry
54:00in the early 19th century who drew a map
54:04of an electoral map which looked like a
54:06salamander. And a gerrymandered map in
54:09in US terms is a electoral map that has
54:13been altered to favor one political
54:15party. you know, the city of Nashville,
54:16instead of having a single Democratic
54:18representative, instead of having a
54:19sensible constituency around the city,
54:22um, that would vote for one member of
54:24Congress, has been divided into several
54:26constituencies that are designed in such
54:28a way that only Republicans win. And
54:31once you have maps that are designed to
54:35favor one party or the other, then you
54:37begin to get real democratic decline.
54:41>> But there are other things happening in
54:42the US too. So there are fears that ICE
54:45which is the paramilitary organization
54:48created by the president supposedly to
54:51go after immigrants that what if what if
54:53ICE troops are put on the street dur on
54:55election day you know would some people
54:57be intimidated from voting so there are
54:59fears that he will do that uh in some
55:02states
55:03>> there's something called voter ID he
55:04talks about a lot
55:05>> yes well this is also very strange so of
55:07course in the US you have voter ID and
55:08most people have driver's licenses um
55:10they want to change the law so that
55:12either have to use a passport or a birth
55:15certificate. And most Americans don't
55:18have passports. I think 60% don't. I I
55:21don't remember the number, but it's it's
55:22very low. Many people have lost or never
55:25had their birth certificates. If you
55:27passed a law like that, it would make it
55:29much more difficult for some people to
55:31vote, especially certain kinds of
55:32people. So married women would have to
55:35show a passport, a birth certificate,
55:36and a marriage license because you'd
55:38have to show that because your birth
55:39certificate name is different from your
55:41married name.
55:42>> Okay. Yeah.
55:43>> So you'd have and so many people believe
55:46this is a way to get fewer women to vote
55:47and women are more likely to vote
55:49Democrat. It's also part of a narrative.
55:53So, the administration is trying to
55:55argue that lots and lots of illegal
55:59immigrants are voting,
56:01which is a conspiracy theory. There's no
56:03evidence of it. There's no evidence of
56:05really of almost any illegal immigrants
56:07ever voting. And if you think about it,
56:08if you were an illegal immigrant, why
56:10would you want to vote?
56:11>> Because [clears throat] it would just be
56:12a way of attracting attention to
56:14yourself. But they seek to establish
56:16this narrative as a way of disqualifying
56:19Democratic votes. They want to say that
56:22votes in Trump did this during the last
56:24election. Votes in cities are too high.
56:27If they need to call for a voter
56:29recount, they want to say that this is
56:31the explanation for why they've lost.
56:33Um, [snorts] and so the part of the
56:35reason why they're talking about voter
56:36ID is that
56:37>> so just looking at some of the data, it
56:39says young voters between 18 and 29,
56:41roughly 24% of them lack the documents
56:44that would qualify them to vote. Um, in
56:46minority voters, 11% of citizens of
56:48color lack these documents. um compared
56:50to a smaller percentage in white
56:51citizens. In lowincome America, only one
56:54in five households earning under $50,000
56:57has a passport. And as you said, married
56:59women, 69 million women have birth
57:01certificates that do not match their
57:03current legal name due to marriage,
57:06>> right?
57:06>> So, okay. [clears throat]
57:07>> I mean, it's it's risky because I
57:09imagine lots of Republicans don't have
57:11passports.
57:11>> Yeah.
57:12>> But I think they've calculated that it
57:14would suit them better. So, they're
57:15looking to shape the voting population
57:17in a way that will benefit them. M
57:19>> so they're looking to find ways to
57:21massage the outcome.
57:23>> And that's you know that that's a kind
57:25of classic when you're in a country
57:27which is declining democratically one of
57:29the classic things that happens is the
57:32ruling party seeks to alter or change
57:34who is able to vote and how votes are
57:36weighted as a way of altering the
57:38outcome.
57:39>> What's the third one?
57:40>> Personnel. Well, we talked about this
57:42one a little bit already.
57:43>> Oh, the civil servants.
57:44>> This is civil service in a modern
57:47democracy. So in a 21st century
57:49democracy, government does a lot of
57:51things. It manages the road system. It
57:53it sometimes organizes health care. It
57:56organizes regulates the insurance
57:57markets. It does all kinds of governance
58:00pollution and all those people who do
58:03those jobs. Um [snorts] it's very
58:05important that they be people who know
58:06how to do them. So you want the person
58:08who's measuring air pollution, you want
58:10that person to be an expert in air
58:11pollution. Mhm. [clears throat]
58:12>> You don't want them to be, you know, the
58:15president's cousin
58:17>> or the person who is regulating the
58:20insurance market. You want that to be
58:21someone who knows about insurance
58:22markets. And you don't want it to be the
58:25best friend of the vice president
58:28>> in corrupt autocracies. That is who gets
58:31those jobs.
58:32>> Seeing this a little bit with the Fed.
58:33No, he doesn't like Jerome Pal in the
58:35Fed,
58:36>> right? And so he's tried to undermine
58:37Jerome Powell. He's sued Jerome Powell
58:40or he was investigating him rather for
58:42some kind of fake um financial scandal
58:45and he tried to put pressure on him to
58:47resign. He tried to put pressure on him
58:49to change his policy. And I you know
58:51honestly I don't I don't know whether
58:53the person who who will come in next
58:55will be will be more susceptible but
58:57he's certainly been chosen because Trump
58:58thinks he is. And so what Trump wants is
59:01to have civil servants who are
59:03historically independent and that
59:04includes the chairman of the Fed. Um it
59:06includes actually department of justice
59:08the attorney general usually has some
59:09independence. What you want is people
59:12who are acting in the interests of
59:13everybody and in a in a functional
59:15democracy in the happy Scandinavian
59:17countries then at least most of the time
59:20that's what they're doing. And in a
59:22corrupt democracy or in a failing
59:24democracy, then you have people whose
59:26interests are not everybody in the
59:28country, but their interests are the
59:30president, his family, his party,
59:34anyway, not not American. And so that's
59:36the danger of undermining the civil
59:38service.
59:40>> The fourth one is
59:42>> information.
59:43>> Okay,
59:44>> all dictatorships seek to control
59:46information. You know, in China, the
59:49entire internet since the 1990s has been
59:51constructed so that the government can
59:53control it. There is no outside
59:56internet. There is there's nobody who's
59:57active on the Chinese internet who isn't
59:59somehow known or accounted for somehow
1:00:01by the authorities. And the internet is
1:00:03also connected to a whole system of
1:00:06surveillance cameras and other kinds of
1:00:07databases so that people can be tracked
1:00:09all through the system and all through
1:00:11the country. People do have VPNs in
1:00:13China and they and they do get out, but
1:00:15the majority of people are inside the
1:00:16that's probably the China is the most
1:00:18extreme form of that and Russia is
1:00:20actually now heading in that direction.
1:00:21So Putin has now cut off Russian access
1:00:24to most forms of Western social media,
1:00:27you know, Instagram and there were some
1:00:29amazing videos of really sad Russian
1:00:33Instagram influencers who were losing
1:00:35their audiences because of [laughter]
1:00:38Putin's Putin's changes. So he's now
1:00:41he's now heading in that direction. But
1:00:43even inside the United States, which is
1:00:45maybe the loudest and most open
1:00:47democracy in the world, you can see the
1:00:48Trump administration seeking to shape
1:00:51the information space in new ways. So we
1:00:54have federal regulators who are now
1:00:57willing to put pressure on television
1:00:59stations if the president asks them to.
1:01:01We have the president putting his thumb
1:01:03on the scale of people who are acquiring
1:01:06new media companies in order to make
1:01:08sure that the new owners are somehow
1:01:09friendly to him.
1:01:10>> What about Tik Tok?
1:01:11>> Tik Tok, CBS, uh CNN, these are all
1:01:15media companies where the president is
1:01:17trying to get people who are sympathetic
1:01:20to him in charge. And this is, by the
1:01:21way, you know, we all have this idea
1:01:23about censorship that it's like there's
1:01:25a guy in a room and he's crossing
1:01:26sentences out of a newspaper article.
1:01:28You know, that's what censorship is. But
1:01:30actually nowadays that's not how media
1:01:32control works. So in Orban's Hungary in
1:01:36Erdogan's Turkey what happens is that
1:01:38the leadership
1:01:41encourages or helps business people or
1:01:44groups close to them to acquire media
1:01:46properties. So they do it through the
1:01:48level of media ownership.
1:01:49>> So who owns the media becomes the most
1:01:53important question and then the person
1:01:54who's who's in charge of the media can
1:01:56then influence in some ways what it's
1:01:58able to say. So it doesn't give you
1:02:00complete control. So actually in Hungary
1:02:01you still had a couple of very small but
1:02:05still existing independent websites who
1:02:08turned out to be very important but you
1:02:10had an attempt to control for most of
1:02:12the television was controlled either
1:02:14directly or indirectly uh by Orban and
1:02:17it looks to me like Trump is trying to
1:02:18achieve something like that. There's a a
1:02:21piece of that that also involves culture
1:02:24and universities as well. [laughter] um
1:02:26[clears throat] pressure on universities
1:02:28so that they don't produce people who
1:02:30are too critical. In the US, you've had
1:02:32the Trump administration took over the
1:02:33Kennedy Center, which is the most
1:02:35prestigious arts venue in Washington,
1:02:39and tried to change its nature and tried
1:02:41to change its, you know, who who was who
1:02:43could play there and who couldn't. Um
1:02:45and the result is actually that it's now
1:02:46been shut down for two years. You see
1:02:48this on both sides of the political
1:02:50aisle, both on the Democratic side in
1:02:53different ways. But I but I think that
1:02:55both parties when they're in for long
1:02:56enough, what we're allowed to say
1:02:59changes.
1:03:00>> Yes. Although the mechanisms have been
1:03:02different. I mean, I was involved in the
1:03:04argument, you know, some years back
1:03:05about this, you know, we I think it was
1:03:08incorrectly called cancel culture, but
1:03:09whatever. The the the argument that was
1:03:12happening inside universities and some
1:03:13press and other institutions about what
1:03:15you could and couldn't say. [snorts] And
1:03:17I thought it was um you know that that
1:03:20there was this peer pressure and
1:03:21sometimes institutional pressure on
1:03:23people and people were cancelled that
1:03:24means they lost their jobs or they were
1:03:26kicked out of whatever group they were
1:03:28in because they'd said something the
1:03:30wrong way. You know I I I argued against
1:03:32that and wrote about it and so on. What
1:03:34you have now is a little different. You
1:03:37now have the president just, you know,
1:03:39attempting to change media ownership and
1:03:43you have you you're beginning to see
1:03:44what happens when the administration
1:03:46goes into university and said, "You
1:03:47can't teach this course. You can't hire
1:03:49that teacher." That was the deal that
1:03:51was given to Harvard, I don't know, um,
1:03:53you know, some months back. The reason
1:03:55why Harvard wound up refusing to deal
1:03:57with the Trump administration and when
1:03:58it started to sue them was because the
1:04:00administration was trying to actually
1:04:02decide who would teach what courses at
1:04:04Harvard. I don't believe there's a
1:04:05precedent for that. But I agree with you
1:04:07that it is an illiberal instinct to try
1:04:10to control speech. And there's a
1:04:13left-wing version of it and there's a
1:04:14right-wing version of it. And the people
1:04:16who are really in favor of free speech,
1:04:20and they're vanishingly few, are the
1:04:22people who are willing to call it out on
1:04:23both sides. And one of the things you
1:04:25often hear now from these sort of
1:04:26so-called free speech warriors is that
1:04:30they're perfectly happy to shout about
1:04:32the left cancelling people or left-wing
1:04:35rhetoric that they don't like, but then
1:04:36they keep quiet when it comes from the
1:04:38other side.
1:04:40>> Yes. I was looking back through the
1:04:42history of this happening on both sides
1:04:43of the aisle and in Mark Zuckerberg's
1:04:45testimony I think in front of Congress
1:04:47he said that he was repeatedly pressured
1:04:50um for months by the Biden Harris
1:04:52administration to remove certain content
1:04:55and then there's the whole Hunter Biden
1:04:56lap laptop story where Zuckerberg
1:04:59confirmed that Meta were asked to demote
1:05:02a New York Post story by the FBI and
1:05:06then there's various other stories here
1:05:07about PE Twitter executives being
1:05:09emailed by White House officials um and
1:05:12being asked to change things on their
1:05:14platform.
1:05:15>> So there is a difference between someone
1:05:17sending you an email and saying you know
1:05:19look we this has been flagged by a
1:05:21monitoring group as maybe fake or as
1:05:24maybe Russian disinformation or as you
1:05:26know coming from some kind of foreign
1:05:28influence campaign and so you know it
1:05:30would be great if you took it down or
1:05:31demoted it and there's a difference
1:05:33between that and taking over the company
1:05:35in order that the president gets to
1:05:37dictate what's on it. Nobody coerced
1:05:40Meta into doing anything
1:05:43or Twitter. You nobody said, you know,
1:05:46Twitter will be will pay a fine if you
1:05:48don't do X or Y in the context of people
1:05:51looking for foreign influence campaigns.
1:05:54There were conversations about what was
1:05:56appropriate to print and what wasn't.
1:05:58>> I think from what from what I've
1:06:00observed, it happens on both sides, but
1:06:01in different ways. I remember was it was
1:06:04it Elizabeth Warren talking a lot about
1:06:06um the section 230? M [clears throat]
1:06:09which I think protects some of the big
1:06:11social media companies from being sued
1:06:12for users posts. And I think she would
1:06:15repeatedly reference section 230 and
1:06:17other democratic lawmakers as a way to
1:06:19get the platforms to take a more
1:06:21aggressive stance on what they called
1:06:23like hate speech and speech and
1:06:24disinformation.
1:06:26>> So section 230 essentially allows the
1:06:29platforms to be to escape the rules that
1:06:32newspapers for example have to abide by.
1:06:34So
1:06:35>> so actually we do have regulations. We
1:06:38have liable laws. We have laws about
1:06:40terrorist content, for example. So,
1:06:42there are laws that regulate some parts
1:06:44of speech that we've agreed are good in
1:06:46order to, you know, maintain peace and
1:06:48so on. And the platforms are exempt
1:06:51>> um because of section 230. And so, the
1:06:54platforms have argued that we don't
1:06:56control what's put up on our platforms
1:06:58and we don't bear any responsibility for
1:06:59it. I'm not sure that removing section
1:07:02230 is the best way to deal with this,
1:07:03but making the online world conform to
1:07:07the same laws as the offline world seems
1:07:10to me kind of very basic. I mean, it's
1:07:14[clears throat] it seems obvious to me
1:07:15that child pornography that's illegal if
1:07:18you have it in your house should also be
1:07:21illegal if it's published online. Um it
1:07:23seems to me that um people recruiting
1:07:27for ISIS that's illegal to do you know
1:07:30down the street from here then it should
1:07:32also be illegal to do online. Um and the
1:07:35tech companies have been trying in
1:07:36recent years in this is an argument
1:07:38that's taking place both in Europe and
1:07:39the US and elsewhere to get out of
1:07:42responsibility for just for conforming
1:07:44to the law in the countries where
1:07:45they're active. And in one or two places
1:07:47there have been big clashes. I was just
1:07:48in Brazil which is one of the places
1:07:49where that happened. um where the
1:07:52Brazilian law said something that was
1:07:54published on Twitter was illegal and
1:07:56they fined the company for publishing
1:07:58it. Twitter didn't want to pay the fine
1:08:00and there was an argument back and forth
1:08:01and for a while Twitter was shut down in
1:08:02Brazil. But it does seem to me that any
1:08:05given country whether it's Brazil or
1:08:07Nepal or you know Ethiopia and
1:08:11particularly democracies I should say
1:08:13you know democracies have the right to
1:08:15say these are our laws for example these
1:08:17are our electoral laws we have laws on
1:08:18election spending and if the platforms
1:08:21violate those laws they're in breach of
1:08:23the law you know and so election is a
1:08:26very important one because if you're
1:08:28spending a million dollars on Tik Tok
1:08:32illegally
1:08:33that can be much harder to see than it
1:08:36would be if you were buying television
1:08:38ads. And so finding a way to bring the
1:08:40the social media companies into the
1:08:42legal system seems to be completely
1:08:44legitimate.
1:08:45>> Mhm.
1:08:46>> And in fact, I would even go farther
1:08:47than that. I would say that if European
1:08:50countries in particular don't do this,
1:08:53then I'm not sure European countries
1:08:55will be able to maintain their
1:08:56sovereignty. Like will you be able to
1:08:58run an election in Germany or England?
1:09:02>> If
1:09:03>> if your electoral rules can be easily
1:09:06defied by platforms that are based in
1:09:08the US or China,
1:09:10>> what such electoral rules might be
1:09:12defied by?
1:09:12>> Well, laws about spending, laws about
1:09:14advertising.
1:09:15>> Yeah, fine. Everything is a trade-off,
1:09:17right? And this is what I've learned
1:09:18from being a podcaster and interviewing
1:09:19so many people about so many things. So,
1:09:21I often just think all the time with
1:09:22every idea that I'm exposed to about
1:09:24what the trade is. So as you were
1:09:25speaking I was thinking about what like
1:09:27how does this become a slippery slope or
1:09:28what's the the the downside of this
1:09:30trade?
1:09:32So what do you think that
1:09:33>> I'm sure there's a you know of course
1:09:34there's a downside. I mean the the
1:09:36downside is you know I don't know
1:09:37country X has bad laws and then the
1:09:40platforms have to conform to the bad
1:09:41laws. Questions about speech are
1:09:43particularly sensitive. You know what
1:09:44one one person's terrorist speech is
1:09:47another person's free speech right? So
1:09:49>> but somebody has to make that decision
1:09:51about what the rules are. And I think
1:09:52the person who should make the decision
1:09:54is the are the people who should make
1:09:55the decision are the elected
1:09:56representatives of that country.
1:09:58>> Yeah.
1:09:58>> And the decision should not be taken by
1:10:00Elon Musk.
1:10:01>> It's funny because
1:10:02>> or Mark Zuckerberg
1:10:03>> to some degree it sounded like what Elon
1:10:05Musk says. I remember watching him him
1:10:07in an interview. I can't remember who it
1:10:08was with but he basically said exactly
1:10:10that. He said we'll abide by the laws of
1:10:11every country that we operate in. And
1:10:14some and oh it was his interview with um
1:10:17the CNN guy that used to be on CNN, Don
1:10:19Lemon.
1:10:20>> Mhm. and Don Lemon is pushing is saying
1:10:22look there's hate speech on your
1:10:24platform and then he asks him what the
1:10:26hate speech is and I don't think he can
1:10:27say but he Elon's response to him is we
1:10:30abide by the laws and pushing push
1:10:33>> there's but there's a record of them not
1:10:34doing that but so you know so that
1:10:36that's just disingenuous I mean it's
1:10:37true hate speech is a you know it's a
1:10:39longer conversation I mean what you how
1:10:41you define it what you say it is is
1:10:43different but some countries do have
1:10:44hate speech Germany has them so Germany
1:10:47decided after World War II you know to
1:10:49ban Nazi symbols I think Germany is a
1:10:52very very successful electoral democracy
1:10:54and if they want to ban Nazi symbols I
1:10:56think they should be allowed to. I mean,
1:10:57in America that wouldn't work, you know,
1:10:59and it was you you can't ban Nazi
1:11:01symbols in the United States. But I
1:11:02don't see why America should impose its
1:11:05rules on Germany. Like, doesn't Germany
1:11:07have sovereignty? Doesn't Germany get to
1:11:09decide, you know, what the rules of its
1:11:11national conversation are?
1:11:13>> Because in the US, racism is not illegal
1:11:15on the internet in the United States due
1:11:17to the First Amendment,
1:11:18>> right?
1:11:19>> So, I could be racist on X.
1:11:22>> Yes.
1:11:22>> And that is fine.
1:11:23>> And many people are. If you spend any
1:11:25time on X, you will see it. It's very
1:11:26hard to miss
1:11:27>> according to the laws because it's not
1:11:29it's not legal. But I think most people
1:11:32a lot of people would say that the
1:11:34platform would have an obligation to
1:11:35take down that racism. Someone starts
1:11:38being racist to me.
1:11:39>> Yeah.
1:11:39>> Me me on the internet. A lot I
1:11:41understand why a lot of people would say
1:11:42like okay that kind of behavior should
1:11:44be taken down but it's within the
1:11:45country's laws. So do you think it's f
1:11:47like this is a bit of a I don't want to
1:11:48be got your question but it's like do
1:11:50you know what I mean? I guess this is
1:11:52where the clash comes in because
1:11:53something can feel deeply immoral but be
1:11:55illegal.
1:11:56>> Sure, there's a difference between
1:11:57illegality and immortal. And some, you
1:11:59know, historically newspapers and other
1:12:01media have decided not to print racist
1:12:04material because it's immoral or because
1:12:06it's offensive. Even social media
1:12:08platforms, I I think have a debate about
1:12:10how much ugly stuff they want to appear
1:12:12on their sites because if people see too
1:12:14much of it, they'll stop going on it. I
1:12:15mean, I, you know, reduced my usage of
1:12:17of Twitter because there was too much
1:12:19anti-semitism and too much racism and I
1:12:22didn't want to watch it anymore. So, um,
1:12:23and I think many people, others have
1:12:25made the same decision. You know, speech
1:12:27is a constant negotiation. You know,
1:12:29what's acceptable, what's unacceptable,
1:12:31and the norms do change over time. I
1:12:33will agree to that. What the autocrats
1:12:34try to do is something a little bit
1:12:36different. It's not in this gray area of
1:12:38hate speech and free speech. It's
1:12:40controlling the system itself. you know,
1:12:43what what are the boundaries of what
1:12:45people can see, what platforms they have
1:12:47access to. So, the Chinese don't really,
1:12:50you know, what they're what they're
1:12:51interested in is are you criticizing the
1:12:53Chinese Communist Party?
1:12:54>> That's the fundamental thing that
1:12:56they're controlling for.
1:12:58>> I was wondering, as you were speaking
1:12:59about this earlier, if I'm in China, can
1:13:00I just get up and go?
1:13:02>> Can I just leave?
1:13:04>> Where would you go? And could you get a
1:13:05visa to go there?
1:13:07>> Good question.
1:13:08>> I mean, the Chinese do leave. I was I
1:13:10just wondering if it's easy to leave
1:13:12China if you're a citizen of China or do
1:13:14they restrict you from going somewhere
1:13:16else? I don't know. I'll go to Bali.
1:13:17>> Um
1:13:18>> could I not just go move to Bali
1:13:19[laughter] if I
1:13:20>> think about think about it if I mean
1:13:21this is this was a you know this used to
1:13:23be a problem for people in the Soviet
1:13:24Union. I mean okay theoretically you
1:13:26could leave you could get an exit
1:13:27passport. I mean I'm sure there are some
1:13:29restrictions on who's able to get
1:13:30passports and who isn't. I mean I'm um
1:13:32but say you were able to go. you you'd
1:13:34need to go somewhere where you could get
1:13:36a visa, where you could work,
1:13:39>> where you [clears throat] could set up a
1:13:40life, where you speak the language,
1:13:42where it's reasonable to imagine you
1:13:44could stay there for a long time. I
1:13:45mean, immigration, I mean, especially
1:13:47given languages and and and professional
1:13:50qualifications. So, it is not always
1:13:52easy. It's not always practical for
1:13:53everybody. I mean, I have friends who
1:13:55are still I have many friends who left
1:13:56Russia, but I have one or two friends
1:13:57who are still there and that's because
1:14:00they have aging relatives or because
1:14:03they don't speak any other languages and
1:14:05they don't feel they'd be at home
1:14:06anywhere else. I mean, there are there
1:14:08are many reasons why people can't leave
1:14:11even if they don't like their state or
1:14:12they don't like their political system.
1:14:15>> So, what's number five on our numbers?
1:14:18>> Uh, you've you've used the word power.
1:14:20>> Okay.
1:14:24control over power ministries and the
1:14:27use of violence. Most autocracies sooner
1:14:30or later want to create some kind of
1:14:33repressive system that's also physical.
1:14:35So it's not just control of the
1:14:36information space. There's also some
1:14:39element of coercion. [snorts] So people
1:14:41who don't go along with the system don't
1:14:44get to just float around. There's some
1:14:46way of threatening them physically
1:14:48>> like ice.
1:14:50So, ICE is not supposed to be that. ICE
1:14:53is supposed to be an immigration
1:14:54enforcement
1:14:56institution. Um, but the way it's been
1:14:59used is well beyond the way any
1:15:03immigration institution was used before
1:15:05in the United States. So, look at what
1:15:08ICE looks like. They are masked. They
1:15:12are wearing military uniforms. They are
1:15:14often driving unmarked cars. They drive
1:15:17in vans. They're not driving in police
1:15:19vans and they're not following the rules
1:15:22of local police. They're not accountable
1:15:24to anybody. They're not accountable to
1:15:26the mayor, you know, or to the governor
1:15:28of the state where they are. And that
1:15:30gives them a kind of impunity and a kind
1:15:33of ability to behave badly and they seem
1:15:35to be accountable directly to the
1:15:38Homeland Security Department and to the
1:15:39president. And we've already seen how
1:15:42this can affect the behavior of ICE.
1:15:44that we saw during the during the
1:15:46protests and the arrests and the
1:15:47protests in Minnesota. We saw two people
1:15:49were killed. And what was really
1:15:51horrifying to me wasn't just that they
1:15:53were killed. It was how the
1:15:55administration reacted. You know, it was
1:15:58Vance and Gnome and several other people
1:16:01immediately said of the people who were
1:16:03killed, they were guilty. So instead of
1:16:05saying this is horrible,
1:16:08>> you know that an American police force
1:16:09killed a these were both US citizens. I
1:16:11mean, there have been other people
1:16:12killed, too, by the way, but these two
1:16:13were were notable because they were US
1:16:15citizens and they weren't immigrants.
1:16:17Two, instead of saying two people were
1:16:19killed, this is horrible. We need to
1:16:20have an investigation. This must not be
1:16:22allowed to happen again. The immediate
1:16:24instinct was to give them impunity.
1:16:27Like, you know, we're not going to
1:16:29investigate this. It's not a real
1:16:32problem. You know, the the the instinct
1:16:35was to put them above the law. And when
1:16:37you have a military force, and as I
1:16:39said, especially one that's militarized
1:16:41and looks like, you know, they they're
1:16:43dressed like they're in Fallujah, you
1:16:45know, when you have a military force
1:16:47that's above the law, then it's really a
1:16:49paramilitary. If you have a police force
1:16:51that can harm ordinary citizens and not
1:16:53pay any price for it and isn't
1:16:54accountable, then you're not serving
1:16:56Americans. You're serving the interests
1:16:58of of the of the ruling party.
1:17:01>> This is super interesting to me. My team
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1:17:28thing I'll ever ask of you. Do we have a
1:17:30deal? Let's get on with the show.
1:17:32Do you think this is um potentially the
1:17:35decline of the what one might call the
1:17:37American empire? I was um I was looking
1:17:40at how long empires tend to last and I
1:17:42was before you came and there's this
1:17:452000 250 year figure which is famously
1:17:47popularized by a British historian
1:17:48called Sir John Gub in his essay the
1:17:51fate of empires and the search for
1:17:53survival after analyzing empires from
1:17:55the I can't say that wordians
1:17:59>> Assyrians
1:18:00>> exactly what I said Assyrians to the
1:18:02British um club found that despite
1:18:04differences in technology geography
1:18:06religion and surprisingly shared a
1:18:08similar lifespan standard life cycle.
1:18:10Glob argued that empires typically go
1:18:12through a predictable sequence of stages
1:18:14over those 250 years. The first one
1:18:17being the age of pioneers, outburst and
1:18:19conquest. The age of conquest which is
1:18:20the military dominance. The age of
1:18:22commerce which is vast wealth creation.
1:18:24The age of affluence, comfort and a
1:18:26shift from duty to selfishness. The age
1:18:29of intellect focus on philosophy and
1:18:30education over defense. The age of
1:18:32descendence, internal division, massive
1:18:35inequality and collapse. So if you view
1:18:37the United States as an expansionist
1:18:40project from its very inception, pushing
1:18:42westward across the North American
1:18:44continent through its power, then the
1:18:47math says if you take it from 1776 to
1:18:49now to 2026, it's exactly 250 years old.
1:18:53So if you use Gub's 2000 250ear life
1:18:57cycle model from 1776 to now, political
1:19:00scientists argue that we are in the age
1:19:02of descendants of the American Empire.
1:19:05This stage is typically characterized by
1:19:07deep internal political division, vast
1:19:08wealth inequality, massive national
1:19:10debt, and a cultural shift away from a
1:19:12shared sense of civic duty. So, first of
1:19:16all, that's a pretty accurate
1:19:17description of what's happening in the
1:19:18United States. However, you have just
1:19:20touched on something that I feel very
1:19:22strongly about, which is that I don't
1:19:24believe in historical inevitability.
1:19:26>> Interesting.
1:19:27>> And I I think is very dangerous. So the
1:19:30idea that we are on a slippery slope
1:19:34downhill and we can't stop it because
1:19:36that's the way history is going or
1:19:38alternative the idea that everything is
1:19:40fine and it will continue to be fine
1:19:42because liberal democracy has triumphed
1:19:43which is what we thought in the 1990s.
1:19:45Anytime you think that something is
1:19:47inevitable that takes away your
1:19:50willingness to act. Yeah.
1:19:52>> What happens tomorrow and next year is
1:19:56completely dependent on what we do
1:19:59today. Whether the United States
1:20:01survives as a democracy or not depends
1:20:03on choices Americans make, things they
1:20:05say, the arguments they have, you know,
1:20:08the degree of civic participation, not
1:20:11some historical rule that some very
1:20:14brilliant political scientist invented.
1:20:16And as I said, I think this has happened
1:20:17before. I think we had this moment of
1:20:19complacency after the fall of the Soviet
1:20:21Union in the '90s. Americans and
1:20:24Europeans became convinced that
1:20:27everything was best in the best of all
1:20:28possible worlds and we didn't have to do
1:20:31anything in particular to maintain our
1:20:33democracies because democracy was the
1:20:35best system and we just won the Cold War
1:20:36and it was all going to be fine and we
1:20:39lost sight of the ways in which
1:20:42democracy was beginning to slip and we
1:20:44were beginning to lose things.
1:20:46>> And I think it was sense of complacency
1:20:48and above all it was a sense of
1:20:49inevitability. It's inevitable. We've
1:20:52won the war of ideas. the war of ideas
1:20:54is over. And that's why we we missed the
1:20:56rise of Russia. We missed the the
1:20:58significance of China. And we missed a
1:21:00lot of those things because we were so
1:21:02sure that we were just winning.
1:21:03>> Isn't that in and of itself a cycle?
1:21:06>> It's a cycle. But my point is that the
1:21:07cycles aren't predictable. I mean, you
1:21:10can stop the cycle. You can reverse the
1:21:11cycle. Countries can and do change their
1:21:14trajectory. I say I've I've lived a lot
1:21:15of my life in Poland. First went there
1:21:17in the 1980s. My husband is Polish. So
1:21:19on Poland is a completely different
1:21:21country from what it was 30 years ago.
1:21:22And it's a country that has really
1:21:24changed itself in ways that weren't
1:21:27necessarily predictable in 1990. And so
1:21:30I I do think countries change. Is all of
1:21:33this downstream
1:21:34from something that doesn't change,
1:21:36which is human nature. And therefore, if
1:21:38we understand human nature as the
1:21:39constant, then one can almost predict
1:21:41these dare I say the word again, cycles
1:21:43of how humans will go from there to d
1:21:47>> human nature is a constant. But there is
1:21:49so much accident in history and so many
1:21:52random things happen that you can
1:21:55sometimes predict how people will react,
1:21:57but you can't necessarily
1:21:59predict exactly what's coming. You know,
1:22:01when Boris Yeltson was drunk and sick
1:22:05and had to choose the next leader of
1:22:07Russia, there were a number of choices
1:22:09he had. And the person he chose was
1:22:10Vladimir Putin, who at the time was a
1:22:12very low ranking. I mean, he was a he
1:22:14was a FSB. He came from the KGB and he
1:22:17was someone they chose because they
1:22:19thought he would be loyal to the Yeltson
1:22:21family and he wouldn't prosecute them.
1:22:22Nobody imagined him as a dictator or an
1:22:25imperial leader who would be seeking to
1:22:27reconquer the former Soviet Union. And
1:22:30what if they'd chosen, for example,
1:22:31Boris Nimsov, who was another leading
1:22:33Russian politician at the time. You
1:22:34know, I don't know that he was a perfect
1:22:36Democrat, but he was very open-minded
1:22:37and he would have been interested in
1:22:39integrating Russia with Europe. Okay.
1:22:40What if he'd become the leader of
1:22:42Russia? We would be in a completely
1:22:43different world. And why was there was
1:22:46nothing inevitable about that decision.
1:22:48There are many random completely out of
1:22:52the blue things that happen in history.
1:22:55You can always say there's always some
1:22:56percentage of any population that's
1:22:59instinctively authoritarian for example
1:23:01and there's always some percentage of
1:23:02any population that's instinctively
1:23:04liberal or extinctly libertarian
1:23:06>> because of egos and power
1:23:07>> because of just the way people the human
1:23:08nature have the people have different
1:23:10but what is the balance of that group
1:23:12how the leadership of the country
1:23:14encourages or discourages one set of
1:23:16values or the other you know that that
1:23:19affects h you know who who's winning the
1:23:21arguments um and so I I I don't believe
1:23:24in inevitable cycles.
1:23:25>> Have you heard of Ray Dalio talking
1:23:27about the sort of boom and bust cycles
1:23:29through history and when like a
1:23:30population becomes very comfortable you
1:23:33have this sort of inversion goes the
1:23:34other way. Do you believe in those kinds
1:23:36of cycles? You know, I suppose there is
1:23:38a phenomenon whereby yes, as people
1:23:40become comfortable, then if Frank
1:23:41Fukiyama actually had in his famous book
1:23:43about the end of history, he had a
1:23:44description of well, what happens if we
1:23:47have two, you know, if everybody becomes
1:23:48a liberal democracy and everybody's
1:23:50pretty prosperous, then the next thing
1:23:51that will happen is some people will get
1:23:53bored
1:23:54>> and out of their boredom and out of
1:23:56their desire for change, they'll attack
1:23:58the system and and want to undermine it.
1:24:00It's kind of what happened. So there's I
1:24:02suppose there's some there's a there's
1:24:03some human element like that you know
1:24:05that the there will always be some part
1:24:08of the population that feels left out or
1:24:10feels discriminated against and and
1:24:12wants a bigger voice or wants to run the
1:24:14country. I mean so you can you can see
1:24:16that I just don't think it's something
1:24:18that scientists can predict.
1:24:20>> Is there a link between democracies and
1:24:22sort of rampant capitalism? So, in a
1:24:26democracy, I don't know much about this
1:24:27stuff, so I'm just asking the question.
1:24:28But in a democracy, does it tend to be
1:24:30the case that you end up with wealth
1:24:31inequality because you let everybody,
1:24:32you let free markets play out and then
1:24:34you're going to have these like tech
1:24:35oligarchs up here that have all
1:24:36gazillions of dollars, a trillion
1:24:37dollars, and lots of people at the
1:24:39bottom of the rung. Whereas in I don't
1:24:40know, in China, I guess they somewhat
1:24:42defend. I don't know. Do they defend
1:24:43against?
1:24:44>> No, I would say almost the opposite. So,
1:24:46historically, democracies have I mean,
1:24:49there have been different phases, right?
1:24:50So I don't want to overgeneralize but
1:24:52certainly in the 20 second half of the
1:24:5420th century the the democracies since
1:24:56the second world war have tended towards
1:24:58equality and including in the United
1:25:00States and at their most successful and
1:25:02prosperous moments people there was if
1:25:04there was much less wealth equality than
1:25:07inequality than there is now and the
1:25:09countries we were talking about earlier
1:25:10the happy countries those are relatively
1:25:13equal countries and those are countries
1:25:14with big welfare states and a lot of
1:25:17redistribution of wealth and those are
1:25:19countries where people feel invested in
1:25:21the system partly because they don't
1:25:23feel completely outclassed by a group of
1:25:25oligarchs. If you look at the United
1:25:26States in the 1950s, that was a period
1:25:28of also huge social mobility when lower
1:25:32middle class, middle- class people began
1:25:33to get wealthier and there's this
1:25:35enormous wave of prosperity and that's a
1:25:37period when everybody is becoming
1:25:39wealthier. And that was also a period
1:25:40when you have the, [clears throat] you
1:25:41know, very successful American
1:25:43democracy. You have the civil rights
1:25:44movement. You have democracy beginning
1:25:45to spread to new populations or to
1:25:48people who'd been excluded before. So
1:25:50you have a a connection between equality
1:25:52and democracy, wealth, even wealth
1:25:54equality. And one of the things that
1:25:56gives critics of the United States most
1:26:00anxiety now is precisely what you just
1:26:03said, you know, the emergence of tech
1:26:05oligarchs who have so much more power
1:26:08than any one politician and who even
1:26:11have the power to to organize
1:26:13information space. How long will that
1:26:15group of people want to live in a
1:26:17democracy where everybody gets a vote
1:26:19and wealth is supposed to be distributed
1:26:21more evenly? There are some members of
1:26:22that community who have become illiberal
1:26:24or anti-democratic for exactly that
1:26:26reason.
1:26:27>> If we don't believe in inevitabilities,
1:26:29then [snorts] what is it we have to look
1:26:31out for as those living in a democracy?
1:26:33We talked about the five things there,
1:26:34but are there anything is there anything
1:26:36coming up where you're worried that as a
1:26:38society we might overlook it or allow it
1:26:41which results in us falling back down
1:26:44into an autocratic society? And is there
1:26:46anything we can do proactively now to
1:26:49defend our democracy?
1:26:51>> We are lucky in that we live in
1:26:52societies where we can vote.
1:26:54>> Mhm. Um, and so it's really important
1:26:57that we vote, that we know who we're
1:27:00voting for, that we vote in all
1:27:02elections, including local ones. When
1:27:04people become nihilistic, when they say,
1:27:07"They're all the same. I don't care who
1:27:09wins the election. It's not worth voting
1:27:11because, you know, they're all corrupt."
1:27:13This is what autocrats try to create.
1:27:16So, what does Putin want Russians to do?
1:27:18Does he want them to be political? No.
1:27:20He wants them to stay out of politics.
1:27:22You know, what do the Chinese want? they
1:27:23want their people out of politics. And
1:27:25so whenever you see too many people who
1:27:27are have responded to that kind of
1:27:30negative inspiration, that's when you
1:27:33should worry. And I worry a lot about
1:27:35the United States on exactly those
1:27:36grounds. Actually, look at how the
1:27:39leader of your country talks about the
1:27:41press, how he or she talks about the
1:27:44judges, the judiciary, how he or she
1:27:47talks about the civil service. A real
1:27:50Democrat respects those institutions and
1:27:53wants them to stay in place precisely so
1:27:56that democracy can remain so that at the
1:27:58next election there will be a fair
1:28:00election.
1:28:00>> Do you think the the mainstream media
1:28:02are politicized? Do you think there's
1:28:04political bias in the mainstream media
1:28:06like the big titles?
1:28:08>> You know, some of them have business
1:28:09models that are that are biased. So
1:28:11Fox's business model is to appeal to the
1:28:14right-leaning part of the American
1:28:15population and to, you know, to
1:28:18encourage them in their biases and get
1:28:19them to watch TV. There's
1:28:21[clears throat] some media that are now
1:28:23dependent on on polarization and kind of
1:28:25live off it. There are some who try to
1:28:27be neutral, but you know, even
1:28:28neutrality is hard to achieve now
1:28:31because a neutral investigation that
1:28:34turns up something bad about the Trump
1:28:36administration will immediately incur
1:28:39the reaction on the part, you know,
1:28:40you're biased. You we've lost our our
1:28:43assumption that that press are operating
1:28:45in good faith.
1:28:47>> So, it's become much more difficult.
1:28:48>> This is so interesting for me as a
1:28:49podcaster who I guess now is considered
1:28:51to be media. the like the inherent
1:28:53incentives of media mean that like if
1:28:58say I'm running X newspaper and I write
1:29:00a story and I've built up a base of
1:29:02people for whatever reason right that
1:29:04want me to say something negative about
1:29:06Trump I have an economic model and an
1:29:08incentive structure that means that if I
1:29:10write that article it's going to get 10
1:29:11times the reach 10 times the engagement
1:29:1310 times the subscribers if I write the
1:29:15exact opposite article I know I'm going
1:29:17to get so if I say Trump is amazing even
1:29:19though I've built up a base that I think
1:29:20a certain way the article is going to
1:29:22get a fraction of the the reached
1:29:24engagement subscribers. So, as a as a
1:29:26CEO of such such a company, you're going
1:29:28to have to hire more and more people,
1:29:29create more and more output to receive
1:29:31the same um rewards versus just writing
1:29:34something bad about that particular
1:29:36person. So, you become incentivized. But
1:29:37then the other factor is that
1:29:39geographically Democrats and Republicans
1:29:41in the United States exist in certain
1:29:43areas. So if I open my office in New
1:29:45York or LA, most of the people I'm going
1:29:47to be able to hire come with a certain
1:29:49like statistically come with a certain
1:29:50political view. So I I do wonder if
1:29:52eventually like the fate of most media
1:29:54organizations is they do get politically
1:29:56captured one way or the other.
1:29:58>> You have to fight it.
1:29:59>> You have to fight. And as a podcaster,
1:30:01yeah, cuz now I'm I'm part of the media.
1:30:03I I now understand because I feel it.
1:30:07>> So I feel that I sit here with Kamala
1:30:09Harris, I'm attacked. I sit here with
1:30:11Ivanka Trump, I'm attacked. I see it
1:30:13with Michelle Obama attacked. Gavin
1:30:14Newsome attacked. [laughter]
1:30:16And I understand there's this great
1:30:18quote which I favored the other day. It
1:30:19was like, "You have to join a tribe or
1:30:21you get killed by one." Or something
1:30:22words to that effect. And I I get it. I
1:30:24get why some of my peers in podcasting
1:30:27have sought defense behind a particular
1:30:30tribe because just taking the arrows
1:30:32from both sides is not the nicest
1:30:34feeling in the world.
1:30:35>> No, [laughter] but
1:30:36>> No. I mean, it's funny when you said
1:30:38mainstream media. I don't even know who
1:30:39that is anymore. It's not so much about
1:30:40hearing from both sides. It's about
1:30:44trying to establish what's true.
1:30:46>> Yeah.
1:30:46>> And so the job of what what you do is a
1:30:48little bit different from what
1:30:49journalists do. So journalists go into
1:30:51the world and they gather information
1:30:54and they if they're good journalists,
1:30:56they try to figure out what actually
1:30:57happened and then they bring it back and
1:31:00they write it down or they make a video
1:31:01about it and they try and make sure that
1:31:03it's accurate, right? And so if you're
1:31:05devoted to that project, then you you
1:31:07seek to avoid political bias, but you
1:31:10know, inevitably
1:31:12you might wind up saying the president
1:31:14is lying or the leader of the opposition
1:31:16is lying. And then you're immediately,
1:31:18you know, in the world of people
1:31:19shouting at you and saying you're
1:31:21biased.
1:31:21>> Um, but I I do feel that it's really
1:31:23important that this particular
1:31:25profession of the people who go into the
1:31:27world and try and establish reality that
1:31:30it continues to exist.
1:31:31>> I agree. You know,
1:31:32>> there needs to be a business model for
1:31:33that. I mean, for democracy to exist,
1:31:36for an accurate and meaningful national
1:31:38conversation to exist, we need to have
1:31:40some people who are trying to figure out
1:31:42what's real.
1:31:42>> I agree. And I think those people are
1:31:44incredibly important, which I think
1:31:45people think podcasters won't say cuz I
1:31:46think sometimes we're positioned as
1:31:47being like the rebels or radicals or
1:31:49whatever that are like doing it from
1:31:50their kitchen. This did actually used to
1:31:52be my kitchen. But [laughter] um but I
1:31:54very much agree. I very much agree that
1:31:56there are incredibly
1:31:58um rigorous truth seeeking journalists
1:32:02out there that have this very unique
1:32:04skill which is not one that I possess or
1:32:05or test to possess at all that they go
1:32:08deep for long periods of time without
1:32:10bias in search of the truth and then
1:32:13they deliver it to the world. And I'm
1:32:14well aware that if we lose that, then I
1:32:16lose so many of the things that I
1:32:18fundamentally care about and that I've
1:32:19built my entire life and career on,
1:32:21especially as like a young black man in
1:32:22business who understands that there's
1:32:24lots of people that came before me that
1:32:26revealed things about the way society
1:32:28functioned that have benefited me. And
1:32:30so that I should my way of sort of
1:32:32paying that forward is protecting the
1:32:33same privileges as a um as a podcaster.
1:32:36is I mean there is a danger that we go
1:32:37down a road in which especially as AI
1:32:40develops and we get more and more of our
1:32:42information online that we lose touch
1:32:44with reality. Mhm.
1:32:46>> You know, if if AI is only accessing
1:32:49what's available to the, you know, to
1:32:51the model online,
1:32:52>> there's still a whole world out there
1:32:54where things are happening, you know,
1:32:56that that's not online [laughter]
1:32:58and and the making sure that we're
1:33:00constantly in touch with what's what's
1:33:02reality on the ground, what's really
1:33:04happening in Ukraine, you know, what's
1:33:05really happening in Iran, and not living
1:33:08on just what's available to us on our
1:33:09phones. It's really important. One of my
1:33:11fears is that the the algorithms with AI
1:33:12are becoming better at knowing what to
1:33:14serve me in order to make me dwell and
1:33:16therefore it creates more ad dollars for
1:33:18the companies. And so I might not just
1:33:20be living in a fake reality. I might be
1:33:21living in a completely personalized one
1:33:23that's completely different from your
1:33:24own because as I went on my phone this
1:33:26morning, one of the things the sections
1:33:28on my phone is suggested for you. Now
1:33:30this is obviously showing me things that
1:33:32are based on my past viewing
1:33:35consumption. So if I viewed this person
1:33:36having a fight in the street, I'm
1:33:37getting more people having fights in the
1:33:38street. So now my perception is that
1:33:40everyone's having fights in the street
1:33:41[laughter] and and that means it's
1:33:43harder to connect to each other.
1:33:44>> We are very much I mean I think this has
1:33:46really happened already that we we live
1:33:48in our own algorithms when you're asking
1:33:50the more fundamental question about the
1:33:52breakdown of democracy. I mean, there's
1:33:53nothing more toxic to democracy than
1:33:56polarization. Because if you live in a
1:33:58world where the people on the other side
1:34:01of the political divide aren't just your
1:34:02rivals and you don't just disagree with
1:34:04them about taxes, you know, but they are
1:34:06your existential enemies and if they're
1:34:08in charge, then you know, the world
1:34:10ends, then it's very hard to have a
1:34:13normal democratic debate or create a
1:34:15normal, you know, have a normal
1:34:18election.
1:34:18>> Mhm.
1:34:21Do you know what this is?
1:34:22>> It looks like a very old newspaper.
1:34:24>> Very old newspaper
1:34:26from a long time ago.
1:34:28And you're in it.
1:34:31>> Gosh.
1:34:32Oh, it's Wow. Uh, that's a um that was
1:34:37that took a lot of research.
1:34:39>> Yeah. What is that?
1:34:41>> That is I don't they don't even have
1:34:43these anymore. That was a New York Times
1:34:44wedding announcement
1:34:46>> from 1992. I think
1:34:47>> 1992. married since 1992. I'm still
1:34:50married to the person who it was
1:34:52announced that I was marrying a Polish
1:34:54He was then a journalist
1:34:57>> and now he's the Polish foreign
1:34:58minister. We got married in Washington,
1:35:01but he was born in Poland and it's a
1:35:04long story, but anyway,
1:35:06>> lots of photos of you here.
1:35:09>> Interesting. Oh, there's a nice one as
1:35:10well. You're looking very presidential
1:35:11there.
1:35:12>> That was a long time ago.
1:35:13>> And I've got another one of him and
1:35:14Hillary Clinton.
1:35:15>> Right.
1:35:16Politics has been a big part of your
1:35:18family's life in various ways.
1:35:21>> I mean, it would be hard to deny that.
1:35:23Yeah.
1:35:25>> Is it stressful?
1:35:27Cuz it's constant and it's and it's and
1:35:29it's more polarizing than ever before
1:35:31and it's divisive and it's it's a lot of
1:35:33energy. Even talking about these things
1:35:34I find to be quite um
1:35:37energy draining.
1:35:41>> Yes. I mean, actually, it became more
1:35:42stressful in more recent years. I mean,
1:35:45social media made it more stressful than
1:35:46it used to be.
1:35:47>> The stressful part is um living a part
1:35:50of your life in public. We try to not
1:35:54live all of our lives in public. This
1:35:55has been very useful to me as a
1:35:56journalist. Actually, you begin to
1:35:57understand the difference between what
1:35:59you look like in public and what your
1:36:01reality is, you know. So, people react
1:36:04to you in all kinds of ways depending on
1:36:06how where they've seen you on TV or
1:36:08where they've what stories they've read
1:36:09about you, some of which might not be
1:36:10true. And there's often a kind of, you
1:36:13know, that the way you're perceived is
1:36:15not necessarily the way you are. And so
1:36:17I I try to keep that in mind when I meet
1:36:19public figures, you know, that I have a
1:36:22set of perceptions of them based on what
1:36:24I've read about them,
1:36:25>> which I wouldn't have if I met, I don't
1:36:26know, somebody introduces me to the next
1:36:28door neighbor. I wouldn't have that in
1:36:29my head when I met them. But when you
1:36:31meet a politician or somebody who's um
1:36:33who's who's wellknown, you come with you
1:36:36come with stuff. And I try when I meet
1:36:39people to drop it as much as I can
1:36:41>> because you've seen that at home.
1:36:42>> Because I've seen it at home. So yes, I
1:36:45mean we have compatible lives that are
1:36:48somewhat different. I mean I have stayed
1:36:50well away from Polish politics. I don't
1:36:52play any role in it. I have a different
1:36:55name from my husband which you know I
1:36:57didn't change my name and that was also
1:36:59has led us allowed us to be separate and
1:37:01we share a lot of views but not all. Um,
1:37:06and so we, you know, we have kind of
1:37:07different trajectories, but as I said, I
1:37:10find mostly knowing what it's like to be
1:37:13a politician helps me understand them.
1:37:16>> Have you ever thought about going into
1:37:17politics yourself?
1:37:18>> No.
1:37:20>> You can't have two politicians, one
1:37:21family. [laughter]
1:37:23>> You know, a lot of what I do is
1:37:24journalism or it's something or
1:37:26journalist adjacent. You know, I go in
1:37:27and try and find things. I try and
1:37:29explain them. I try and say what what I
1:37:32think is happening. And the job of a
1:37:34politician is quite different from that.
1:37:36You know, it's to you arrive with a set
1:37:40of views. You need to explain them to
1:37:42people. You need to convince them. It's
1:37:44just it's a different it's a different
1:37:45way of thinking about approaching the
1:37:46public. So, I'm not I'm not campaigning
1:37:49for a for a cause.
1:37:51>> Is there a particular outcome you're
1:37:53seeking with the work that you do, with
1:37:54the books that you write, and the
1:37:56conversations you have? Is there one
1:37:57particular outcome above all others that
1:37:59you're aiming at?
1:38:02There's an outcome that's general but
1:38:03not specific. In other words, I'm not
1:38:05trying to elect any particular person to
1:38:07be president. I do have a goal that is
1:38:10to remind people of why democracy is
1:38:14important, why we need to maintain it
1:38:16and to pay attention to the ways in
1:38:18which it's declining so that we can
1:38:21fight back. I mean, I have a I have a I
1:38:23have a broad goal in that sense and
1:38:24that's not only inside the United
1:38:26States.
1:38:26>> Why is this so personal to you?
1:38:30It it's the thing I've been fascinated
1:38:32by since I was in my 20s.
1:38:35>> Why?
1:38:36>> Because I think it's I saw the Soviet
1:38:39Union when it was still the Soviet
1:38:40Union. I was a student in Lennengrad
1:38:43when it was still Lengrad. I felt what
1:38:45it was like to live in a heavily
1:38:47autocratic society even briefly. And I
1:38:51had really spent the rest of my life
1:38:52trying to understand what it was, how it
1:38:56worked, why people went along with it.
1:38:59And I've also spent a lot of time more
1:39:02recently trying to warn people against
1:39:04it, against going in that direction. You
1:39:07know, it's also not the thing I thought
1:39:08I would be doing. I changed um you know,
1:39:12if you if you're looking at my books,
1:39:13you know, I wrote three history books. I
1:39:15wrote the Gulad book. I wrote a history
1:39:18of the Ukrainian famine. I wrote a book
1:39:20this is this is a book about how the
1:39:21Soviet Union took over Eastern Europe.
1:39:23How they sort of did regime change in
1:39:24Eastern Europe after the war. You know,
1:39:25they're about things that happened, you
1:39:27know, in the distant past. But I had a
1:39:29realization in about 2014 2015 that I
1:39:35was living through a period of history
1:39:37myself. In other words, there was a
1:39:40historical shift happening around me and
1:39:43I felt the need to start recording it as
1:39:45a kind of eyewitness. And so that book
1:39:47Twilight of Democracy was a description
1:39:50I mean it starts with a description of a
1:39:51party I gave and then the book is about
1:39:54how people I knew had changed. I knew a
1:39:57lot of people who had been very
1:39:58radicalized. I knew lots of people on
1:40:00the center right, you know, we were
1:40:02anti-communists, we were, you know,
1:40:03whatever, Thatcherites, Reganites, and I
1:40:06saw many of them become more radical.
1:40:08And I thought, this is a really
1:40:09important moment of change, and so I
1:40:11should record it as a witness. And so
1:40:13that book is the first book that I wrote
1:40:14in the first person about something I'd
1:40:17seen. And that was just me being
1:40:20affected by the world I live in. Maybe
1:40:22it did matter that I was married to a
1:40:24politician because some things that you
1:40:26would have noticed in a more distant way
1:40:28affected me personally.
1:40:29>> Mhm. [clears throat]
1:40:30>> Maybe it was
1:40:32the particular circumstances of being
1:40:34both American and Polish and you know
1:40:37seeing a similar pattern of things
1:40:38happening in both places. Either way, I
1:40:40I felt that something important was
1:40:42happening and I've really been motivated
1:40:43for the last decade to explain it to
1:40:45people and try and understand it.
1:40:47>> In [snorts] that regard, what is the
1:40:48most important thing we haven't talked
1:40:49about that we should have talked about?
1:40:50Um,
1:40:52>> what would regime change really look
1:40:54like
1:40:56>> in our countries?
1:40:57>> Oh, in the west?
1:40:58>> Yes.
1:41:00>> Isn't it just electing a new person?
1:41:02>> What would it feel like to live in a
1:41:05very different kind of society? How
1:41:07would you feel living in a place where
1:41:09suddenly the values shifted? They were
1:41:11different
1:41:12>> for better or for less.
1:41:13>> For the, you know, the the, you know, we
1:41:15think, for example, free speech is is a
1:41:18value and we've been arguing about it
1:41:19here. What does it mean? what's hate
1:41:20speech, you know, how do we measure it
1:41:22and so on. What if you suddenly found
1:41:24yourself waking up one morning in a
1:41:25society where free speech was bad,
1:41:28[clears throat]
1:41:28>> you know, where it wasn't? You didn't
1:41:29automatically assume that it was good.
1:41:31We also have an assumption that there is
1:41:34some kind of meritocracy in our
1:41:35societies, right? That if you try hard
1:41:37and work hard and maybe you're lucky and
1:41:39study, then you can be successful. What
1:41:41if you found yourself suddenly in a
1:41:43society where that wasn't true and
1:41:45actually the only way to get ahead was
1:41:46to have a cousin in the ruling party?
1:41:48Being able to imagine that and think
1:41:50about it um is important for
1:41:53understanding this bigger issue of
1:41:55democratic decline like what's the
1:41:56change of our system that we're trying
1:41:58to avoid and what does it feel like to
1:42:00people who experience that. So [snorts]
1:42:02this has been a subject of a lot of my
1:42:04books. So that book Iron Curtain is
1:42:06about it. I've written a lot about
1:42:08Ukraine and what happened when the
1:42:10Russians occupied eastern Ukraine. They
1:42:14did this thing. They did regime change.
1:42:16They change the rules of the society. I
1:42:18think we don't reflect enough about what
1:42:21what are the what are the deep rules of
1:42:23the societies we live in and what we
1:42:25would lose if we lost them.
1:42:28Hm.
1:42:30it seems unimaginable and it seems quite
1:42:32far away and that is I guess a privilege
1:42:34of having lived in a democratic society
1:42:36for my whole life that it's almost just
1:42:38seem like as I said like it seems like a
1:42:40theoretical concept but you know history
1:42:45they say it doesn't repeat but it rhymes
1:42:47and um I guess there's you know I I
1:42:49believe that even if we don't know the
1:42:50time frames I do believe that there are
1:42:52certain cycles in history that are um
1:42:55accelerate or come about because of
1:42:57human nature and so But I'm also well
1:42:59aware that there are things that we can
1:43:01do or not do that could lead us to go
1:43:04down the uh the slope of
1:43:08a bad a bad slope.
1:43:09>> So then you don't believe in
1:43:10inevitability.
1:43:11>> Well, it's interesting. I kind of
1:43:12believe in both, which is I think that
1:43:14there's this fundamental human nature
1:43:15which drives us which um causes these
1:43:17cycles to occur. And actually, one could
1:43:19even argue that it's inevitable that
1:43:22eventually we miss the signs and we go
1:43:24down the slope. But the time frames of
1:43:25that occurring or if it occurs there we
1:43:28still have agency and control over that.
1:43:30Does that make sense or is that does
1:43:31that sound like a total contradiction to
1:43:33believe in both human nature does cause
1:43:35these cycles but but at the same time
1:43:37today we have a choice. We have agency
1:43:39over whether we go in that direction.
1:43:42>> Yeah. Hum I mean human nature is like we
1:43:44know how it works and so it offers us
1:43:45some warnings right. It it's you know we
1:43:48we know what we should be trying to
1:43:49avoid. Mhm.
1:43:51>> As I said, if you if you focus hard on
1:43:53what it is that you don't want to
1:43:55happen, I mean, that's what strategy is,
1:43:57right? And then you work backwards and
1:43:58you think, how do I how do I make sure
1:44:00to prevent that from happening, you
1:44:02know? Then you you begin to get a pretty
1:44:04clear idea of what's useful behavior in
1:44:07the present. [clears throat]
1:44:08>> We have a closing tradition and where
1:44:10the last guest leaves a question for the
1:44:11next guest, not knowing who they're
1:44:12leaving it for.
1:44:15And the question left for you,
1:44:18what is the most challenging setback
1:44:19you've experienced and what's the lesson
1:44:21you want to pass on to others?
1:44:28I suppose the most I mean the most
1:44:30challenging things I've experienced have
1:44:32been political shifts where I when I saw
1:44:37radicalization I saw the rise of
1:44:40illiberal groups and movements including
1:44:44among people I knew close closely and
1:44:46very well and figuring out both how to
1:44:50cope with them and how to trying to
1:44:53under you know shift my thinking in
1:44:54order understand how to explain it and
1:44:57deal with it. That was probably the most
1:44:59important.
1:45:00That was probably the most important.
1:45:02>> How do you cope with them?
1:45:04>> Someone in your life has a sort of
1:45:06>> bad at it.
1:45:06>> Really
1:45:07>> interesting.
1:45:08>> I um I mean lots of people think that um
1:45:12you know you should be able to you know
1:45:13be friends with everybody and talk to
1:45:15everybody and I see that. I see some
1:45:17people are able to do that. I find that
1:45:19I care too much.
1:45:21>> Interesting.
1:45:22>> It becomes hard for me. Do you think you
1:45:24could interview as a journalist? Do you
1:45:26think you could interview anybody?
1:45:29>> Probably could interview anybody. I
1:45:31mean, there would be some people who are
1:45:32hard to interview because they lie, you
1:45:34know, for example, and then I don't know
1:45:36how to deal with that. Then you don't
1:45:37want to have an interview where you're
1:45:38correcting somebody the whole time.
1:45:40>> I would certainly talk to anybody as a
1:45:42journalist.
1:45:42>> Would you interview Trump?
1:45:45>> Yeah. I mean, he he would have he would
1:45:46pose exactly that problem because how
1:45:48would you deal with the fact that he's
1:45:50saying something that's not true? Would
1:45:51you then say, "But Mr. the president
1:45:52that's not true and then go down that
1:45:54road of arguing with him or would you um
1:45:57or would you just listen and write it
1:45:58down?
1:45:59>> So you're worried it wouldn't be
1:46:00productive?
1:46:00>> I'm worried it wouldn't be productive.
1:46:02>> That that's also my line to be honest
1:46:03with um with people is there's certain
1:46:05people that are really consequential so
1:46:07you feel you should interview them but
1:46:08part of me worries that some of them
1:46:10wouldn't be it wouldn't be productive
1:46:11anyway.
1:46:12>> So I wouldn't get anything out of them
1:46:14that is new or useful or productive. So,
1:46:17>> right. I mean, I would I would talk to
1:46:18anybody who is who with whom you can
1:46:21have an argument and who's reality
1:46:23based.
1:46:24>> Mhm. And my other thing is just people
1:46:25that don't take things off the record
1:46:26because sometimes when we ask to
1:46:27interview people, they'll say, "Yes, but
1:46:29as long as you don't talk about this and
1:46:30for me that's a no-go."
1:46:32>> Well, I didn't take anything off the
1:46:33record.
1:46:33>> You didn't? Thank you. I appreciate
1:46:34that. [laughter] Um, well, you have so
1:46:36many wonderful books. I heard there's
1:46:37also a cookbook which I didn't manage to
1:46:39locate which is a bit of a diversion
1:46:41from from your subject matter but um
1:46:43they are brilliant books and the reason
1:46:45why I I was very keen for my team to
1:46:47reach out to you and ask you to come
1:46:48today was because not because just you
1:46:50write great books but you're a real
1:46:51demystifying force in a world that's
1:46:52becoming incredibly misty for many of us
1:46:54in part because there's just so much
1:46:56information accessible to all of us now.
1:46:58But I highly recommend people go check
1:46:59out these wonderful books. I'm going to
1:47:01link them all below and many of them are
1:47:03a continuation of the themes and
1:47:04subjects we've talked about or adjacent
1:47:06stories from history. But you're a
1:47:08remarkable storyteller an and that's why
1:47:10I think people love listening to you so
1:47:11much. So I really appreciate you taking
1:47:13the time today to um help demystify all
1:47:15of this for me. I actually have never
1:47:16had a conversation that is so centered
1:47:18on the the subject of democracy. I've
1:47:20heard people talking about it for the
1:47:21last 10 years as this sort of this thing
1:47:22that matters. But this conversation has
1:47:24really opened my eyes to both the value
1:47:26of it, but also the risks and the
1:47:29slippery slope that causes societies to
1:47:31lose it. So, thank you so much for doing
1:47:32what you do because it's incredibly
1:47:33important. And as a as a 33-year-old
1:47:35that's lived most of my life in the
1:47:37West, um it's very easy to take
1:47:39democracy as a subject for granted.
1:47:41>> I think I have, to be honest.
1:47:43>> Yes. Well, it's it's it's normal. It's
1:47:45it's it's the it's the water we swim in.
1:47:47We're the fish, you know, and the idea
1:47:49that there would someday not be water is
1:47:50unimaginable.
1:47:52>> But thank you for asking such um such
1:47:54penetrating questions. Thank you.
1:47:57>> YouTube have this new crazy algorithm
1:47:58where they know exactly what video you
1:48:00would like to watch next based on AI and
1:48:03all of your viewing behavior. And the
1:48:05algorithm says that this video is the
1:48:08perfect video for you. It's different
1:48:09for everybody looking right now. Check
1:48:11this video out and I bet you you might
1:48:13love

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