Pod Save the World - A Peace Deal in Ukraine?

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

Tommy and Ben talk about the latest in Ukraine including reports of progress towards a peace deal, President Biden's visit to Poland, the apparent poisoning of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, and Trump's (second) plea to Putin for (more) dirt on Biden. Tommy and Ben also discuss other international news, including China's latest covid lockdown, missiles in North Korea, and the Taliban reversing their decision to re-open schools for girls. Then Ben talks with European Parliament member Katalin Cseh about the upcoming elections in Hungary and why they are so consequential.How to Help in UkraineUkrainian Congress Committee of America: donate to humanitarian effortsUnited Help Ukraine: donate to the life-saving medical supplies to Ukraine’s front linesRevived Soldiers Ukraine: donate to treatment of the wounded and the provision of hospitalsRazom for Ukraine: donate to tactical medical training and emergency response in UkraineNova Ukraine: donate to humanitarian aid for UkraineVox: How you can help UkrainiansFor a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

Welcome back to POTS Save the World. I'm Tommy. I'm Ben Rhodes. Hello, Ben. Hello, Tommy. How's your midterm Madness Bracket? You know, I just dove into that. I've not filled mine out. Pretty well done. I didn't do a March Bandis Bracket, but if I had it was a disaster. Absolutely disaster. I lost the threat on that like about 10 years ago. If you guys don't know what we're talking about, the midterms are fast approaching. And we're a little nervous about the midterms, I would say. Go to Votesaveamerica.com slash midterm dash madness.

If you want to pick a region, get involved, we'll send you ways to volunteer, donate candidates to support. It's a great way to do it. It's fun. We'll compete. Yeah, it's going to be here before you know it. Well, elections are on my mind

because you did an interview today about a big election in Hungary. I did. I did. I talked to Catalan Che, who was actually one of the leading characters in my book. She's a young member of parliament

for the European Parliament, part of the Hungarian opposition. Great Twitter follow. Great Twitter follow. And Orban's election is coming up in a few days. Boo. The playing field is not level. So you'll hear Catalan describe, you know, that the districts are drawn in this crazy way

where Orban got less than 50% of the vote last time, but won two-thirds of the seats. Feels familiar. So they have to kind of overperform just to have a shot here. But the polls are neck and neck. She talks about the opposition strategy of uniting against Orban. She talks about the stakes in a very powerful way, why we all have a stake in Hungary not staying under Viktor Orban for the sake of the unity of our alliances, but also the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And she talks about how Orban has been this outlier in Europe, you know, not going along with certain sanctions. I think very powerfully talking about how the war as presented on Hungarian television, which is largely controlled by Orban, is not the war that is actually happening.

a little Russian propaganda seeping in Hungary. And so it's, you know, it's a, it's an important election. We, midterm madness should also include hopefully the Hungarian opposition, taking its best shot of Victor Orban. And the Hungarian perspective on the war was really interesting here. There we go. As you guys can probably tell, we're going to talk about Ukraine today, but also some other issues. So for Ukraine, some news about peace talks.

President Biden just went to Europe. That made a little news you might have noticed then. There's some updates to the war effort, generally. and then President Trump, wait in again, so we're grateful for that. Then we're going to talk about some news out of China, Israel, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Jamaica, and then Ben's interview.

One quick housekeeping item before we get to the Ukraine news, if you live in Boston or Washington, D.C., and you want to come see Potta of America on tour, please do. Go to crooked.com slash events. All the details are there, and check it out. It could be fun. So, Ben, I mean, we got some rare good news out of Ukraine today, kind of.

Kind of, maybe. Right, kind of maybe. So there's signs that peace talks between Russia and Ukraine are making progress. On Tuesday, Russia said that they would scale back military activity in northern Ukraine around Kiev. And Ukraine suggested that they were open to a 15-year process of negotiations about the status of Crimea. That leaves the major question of what happens in eastern Ukraine, the Dombas region. Zelensky staff has suggested that that would get negotiated by Zelensky and Putin.

The Ukrainians have also said they would agree not to join NATO or host foreign bases if they got some sort of Article 5 like security guarantee from some collection of countries. The Financial Times also reported that the Russians are no longer demanding that Ukraine be denazified, whatever that meant to begin with. And the Russians might accept Ukraine joining the EU as long as they don't join NATO. So these talks are happening now in Istanbul. It's weird noting like this wasn't like a leak. The Russian defense minister is the one who made the comment about scaling back military activity.

So I don't know, whatever. Lots of reasons to be skeptical. they lie constantly, Putin lies constantly, and with impunity. There's some reports that peace negotiators from a previous set of talks were actually poisoned, including a Russian oligarch named Roman Abramovich, the owner of the Chelsea football team. Other people say that was food poisoning. It's hard to know what's going on there. Belling cat is really good, well-sourced on these issues, is the one who came out and confirmed,

along with Wall Street Journal, that someone was poisoned. And then there's just longstanding concerns that we've talked about before, that Putin could use peace talks as a delaying tactic while he reads. regroups and resupplies and, you know, doubles down to the military efforts. So, I don't know, Ben, obviously we all want peace talks to work and be successful. It's notable that Tony Blinken is kind of like show don't tell was his message, I think, to the world today. What did you make of these reports and this sort of flurry of news this morning? So I think here's what's positive. I mean, you know, we've talked a bit before about how I think denatification and demilitarization was code for regime

change in Kiev and Russian-backed government. And, you know, and the United States. And, and the And so I think what this confirms, at least for the time being, is that Russia recognizes it cannot achieve its maximalist military objectives of toppling the government. So this is a bit like Russia adjusting to the reality that they're facing this kind of permanent resistance. They've also suffered some military setbacks recently. So Ukrainians went on offense around Kiev. They took back this town Irpine, which is outside of Kiev.

And they basically prevented Russia from being able to encircle the city. Yep. So again, some of this may just be, in the positive sense, kind of Russia adjusting to lower war aims, right? Now, what's interesting about it is if you look at the outlines of what's being discussed, which the Ukrainians have talked about openly, okay, not being a member of NATO and having a degree of neutrality, some kind of longstanding kick the can down the road discussion on Crimea. 15 years. Yeah. awful long time. And then, you know, this very ambiguous. commitment to negotiate the Dombos region later. Part of what's interesting about that is that's a deal that kind of describes the status quo before the war. Ukraine was not a member of NATO, Russia had already annexed Crimea, and Russia was de facto occupying these two regions. Now here's what's changed, though, and here's why this is, I think, still very perilous and complicated. Russia has consumed more territory. They have expanded the areas of eastern

Ukraine, the Dombos region that they control beyond those provinces kind of out to be the entire Dombos region. They're trying to take that whole southeastern border so they have a land bridge to that's right. That's right. And so if Putin essentially occupies Maripal, which doesn't exist because he's destroyed the city and occupied the entire Dombos region, and that's kind of the platform from which he's now having this longer term negotiation, that's a huge chunk of Ukrainian territory that goes beyond the pre-war status quo. And so there's something very, I think unappealing's not strong enough a word, very, very offensive, frankly, for Ukrainians to be asked to accept, okay, the Russians just kind of destroyed huge chunks of your country, Russia's de facto occupying bigger chunks of your country than it did before the war. And that's the peace deal, you know.

And so I think it's going to be hard. Zelensky said he put this to a referendum. him again like a russia not withdrawing at least at least all the way back to where they were at the beginning uh if not getting out of eastern ukraine entirely this is going to be the rub and and again as you alluded to part of the challenge here is that as much as we'd like to see an end to the violence and the end to the suffering the the reality is the russians can't be trusted at all you know and so i feel i fear there were in a circumstance where you know maybe they'll even be a deal but will it stick?

Will the Russian definition of what, you know, Donbas is that they occupy match the Ukrainian one? And let me get into that. Because like that feels really complicated to me because Putin could withdraw troops, but there's still these separatists there. And if those guys stick around and they're still trying to topple the regional governments

and they're still fighting Ukrainian forces, it's not clear to me how Zelensky will react to that and what that will mean in terms of, you know, U.S. sanctions or international sanctions generally, right? I mean, how we decide when this is over if Russians are de facto occupying all this territory, unless Zelensky is like, cool with it. Yeah. And, you know, again, what's the status of Murielpo?

You know, like, and can the Ukrainians rebuild? And same thing with the Dombos region, which has suffered enormous destruction as well. I mean, again, I think that if you could have like a lasting ceasefire in which the Russians really did pull back and obviously, the shelling stopped and Ukrainians could return to their homes in places like Kiev and some these other cities. That's to the good. But these larger questions, this is not going to be settled in a couple weeks. Even if they come out and say they have the outlines of a deal in a couple weeks, we have to recognize that, as Tony Blinken said, like, we have to watch what the Russians do here. There's also me the question, you mentioned this security guarantees issue. This is an

interesting formula. Essentially, there's a bunch of names. NATO countries that include the United States and the UK and Turkey and others that are being asked to give a de facto Article 5 guarantee that essentially says if Ukraine is attacked again, we will come to their assistance, which is not NATO membership, but is something... That's a big thing for us to agree to. Yeah, no, and it is. And the thing is, you know, the Russians have to agree to that too. So, look, I applaud them on being creative in these formulas and just trying to find something

that can work. It's very interesting to me that the talks have moved from Belarus to Turkey. So it moved from being really an away game for the Ukrainians to being, if not a home game, something closer to it. Yeah, the Turks don't love the Russians. They don't. And it's a sign, again, it's a sign. There's a positive in all this. It's like the Russians, this is not where they wanted to be. When they launched the war, they did not think that six weeks later they'd be negotiating in Turkey for much less than what they wanted. Yeah, this is not the strong man situation that Putin was hoping for. You mentioned this. I mean, the humanitarian situation, Marriopol is horrific. The city is getting shelled, but also the Russians are just starving people

there out. I mean, hunger is a tool of war. A couple more just sort of random military updates. There's these reports that the Ukrainian military has launched these counteroffensive, as you mentioned, including in the northeast. There are some disturbing videos of Ukrainian soldiers allegedly torturing or maybe even shooting in the leg Russian POWs. Then I saw some other reports suggesting that those videos were actually faked. I was going to say those have to be verified. Yeah, against, we don't know. We will have to get to the bottom out.

The Ukrainian government will. There's more reports that the Russian mercenary is called the Wagner Group are being sent to Russia. Their private militia creeps, they are known for committing war crimes. And the UK has said several times that their mission, the Wagner Group's mission is to assassinate President Zelensky. And then lastly, you know, there's some reports, I think last week, then at the end of last week, that the White House has a special team meeting several times a week. to game out the U.S. response to possible chemical or nuclear weapons used by Russia. So really no surprise there. But it's just sort of a mixed bag. The other thing I noticed that was interesting was the Times had a report about how much and how active President Macron has been of France in talks.

He's called Putin 17 times, met with him once. He called Zelensky 25 times and met with him twice. So it's interesting to watch him sort of insert himself in this process and see if that will bear fruit. It hasn't borne any fruit to date. No, yeah, no. I mean, one of the things that Macron had talked about was some kind of French-led humanitarian evacuation of Maripo, which would be great. But even today, Macron announced that Putin had basically said no to that. So this is yet to kind of lead anywhere. It's all well and good to keep channels open.

But at the end of the day, it does appear that. this whatever is happening in Turkey, this, the Turkish mediation channel. The main event. It feels like the main event and McCrone feels like the sideshow. The Roman Abramovich thing is kind of interesting to me. Yeah, this is like a very close oligarch ally buddy of Putin. So yeah, this guy was, he was a governor under Putin inside of Russia. So he was an active participant.

He was a rich guy who got basically dispatched to the middle of nowhere in Siberia and told him run for governor. Yeah, go for that. But his reward was, you know, he got to go to London. But he was, you know, literally we've talked about this, referred to as Putin's wallet. He's been sanctioned by a bunch of countries, the British, the Europeans, not been sanctioned by the U.S., because apparently Zelensky asked that he not because of this mediation role he's playing. And then it pops up that he was potentially poisoned. He's got a lot of connections with Erdogan, who, you know, you'll recall is not the, doesn't have the cleanest hands either. No, no, no.

Corruption flows in lots of different ways. So hard to know what exactly to make of Abramvich's role, but there's clearly a role that he is playing. Yeah. Which, again, I think the other thing to be concerned about and all this is like, who really speaks for Putin? You know, like do these people at the table, you know, they may think that they're empowered to negotiate, but it may not be what the actual play is. God knows. The only person who really knows is Putin himself. I do like that Abramovich in the past has denied being tied to Putin or being an oligarch at all.

Which is bullshit. It's a total question. It's complete nonsense. But yeah, now he's over leading negotiations. And reportedly went blind for a couple hours because of whatever this poisoning was, that skin was falling off their hands, their faces turned red. So the other big news, I think, of the U.S. was President Biden went to Europe last week.

And NATO, the European Union, the G7. They announced some new sanctions. They talked about sanctions enforcement efforts, which is interesting because Zelensky's been pretty critical of sanctions enforcement lately. Biden went to Poland as well, where he met with U.S. troops. announced a billion aid for refugees, met with some Ukrainian refugees, especially some small kids. And then he gave this major speech about the war. Most of the reporting of that speech, or on that speech, rather, has been focused on this

ad lib near the end. For God's sake, this man cannot remain power. Ben, I offered my hot take on the Biden speech and the ad lib on Pats of America Monday. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, but also on the cleanup, the clarification that the White us has offered a couple times now, that essentially Biden was just expressing moral outrage and not a policy change. Do you think a president can sort of credibly make that distinction? Can Biden, you know, can he Salina Zito himself? Can he take me seriously, but not literally? So I want to start this by saying, I think that, you know, in general, that trip was quite successful

and kind of reinforcing the steps that have been taken in terms of solidifying the allies that are, imposing sanctions and army Ukrainians. So I'm going to focus on a couple areas where there are problems, including that comment. The sanctions point is real. If you look at the data, the ruble is recovered. The Europeans have not really imposed swift sanctions on that many of the largest Russian banks. Swift banking. Yeah, yeah.

There's some holes in this sanction regime that do need to be patched up. This is not just Zelensky rhetoric. And frankly, the biggest hole is that the Europeans continue to buy all this oil and gas from Russia. Yes. But also what are called secondary sanctions, essentially going around the world and sanctioning other countries that buy Russian oil and gas, those types of things, that does have to be done. Second on refugees, I'm glad that they hit the note. I'm glad that they made the announcement of the 100,000 refugees.

We need to hold their feet to the fire because they have not met their refugee commitments this administration in general, right? You know, they said they're going to take an 125,000 refugees this year. I think they're on pace to take something like 17,000. So, one seven? Yeah, yeah. Wow. So they, they, I hope that's true that they're going to take on it does.

But like it bears fruit. Now, on the speech, look, I thought it was a, I agree with your take. I thought it was a really good speech, probably the best of his presidency. He laid it all out. He laid out the stakes. He drew the outlines around the policy. He prepared people for a long struggle. He rightly made this an exemplar of the broader struggle between freedom and tyranny in the world,

democracy and autocracy. And it was not a regime change speech. That's clearly it wasn't a policy. No. No. And so he said what, like any normal person watching this thinks, which is like, my God, like how can Putin's same power? They clarified it and I thought that was fine.

And right. I don't really understand why he felt like he had to come out and say, actually, no, I really did mean that because president's views are not personal. the republic. So, so, so I, especially on foreign policy. Yeah, I mean, I, so look, I don't think in the grand scheme of things, I don't think this is a huge deal. I don't think that it gives Putin some ammo that you already have. Like, that's the thing I'm so sick of hearing. It's like, guys, Putin is going to lie and manipulate the media and do whatever he wants to do and he just invaded a sovereign country. He doesn't need some pretext from Joe Biden based on a speech. Shut up. Yeah, I was done

lots of these phone calls with Obama and Putin in the late Obama years where Putin would always say that your policy's regime change. And Obama would be like, no, it's not. And Putin believes, or at least says that he believes that U.S. policy's regime change. And he has said that for a very long time. He accused Hillary Clinton of trying to topple his government in 2012. Because she issued a written statement. Think about the parliamentary elections, right? He kicked a bunch of NGOs out of the country decades ago. Yeah. So this is one where, like, I don't really agree with, like, anybody. Because, like, I don't agree with the press obsession on this. Because, like, will Putin say that this is proof of U.S. policy regime change? Sure.

But it'll say that about everything we do. You say it about its sanctions. It's like they report on Putin like they do Mitch McConnell. Yeah. It's like a bad faith actor who's known to lie. Like you don't have to take his spin. Yeah. And so I think that it's kind of like it's much ado about not much. I mean, look, if you had a policy of regime change, you would be trying to overthrow the Russian government. And we don't have that policy. And we're not trying to do that. And so I guess if Biden wants to kind of stand by the kind of moral outrage, I think that's fine.

But I also, you know, saying that the. president has personal views that are separate from policies a little weird look it's high-stakes stuff it's not the time to ad lib like obviously it was a mistake i just think like that's a one-day story he corrected it everyone's right right the we don't want to send the wrong message to russia that's fine but like let's he corrected it 20 times now let's just fucking move on let's move on what is it about poland by the way remember governor romney what about your gas yeah yeah for those of you listening maybe we'll insert it in post one of my favorite things that happened in the 2012 election was mitt romney did a foreign trip where he like went to the u.k and

pissed off everybody there about Olympics preparations, then went to Israel and then went to Poland. And Ashley Parker and another Phil Rucker. We're trying to ask them. Great reporters about it. We're trying to ask them a question. And this is how it went. We'll insert that in post right here.

Governor Rodney, do you have a statement for the Palestinians? What about your Gaff? That's my favorite thing that ever happened. All right, Ben. So a couple more things out of Ukraine or out of Ukraine and Russia. So Novaya Gazeta, the largest major. major, last major, independent media outlet in Russia, suspended operations Monday. So getting harder and harder out there for a Russian citizen to get real news or not state-run news. So Lensky did a bunch of

interviews. He talked with Russian outlets, which was interesting and savvy, I think, to try to talk directly to the Russian people. You also talked to the economist where you got quite emotional about how the Russians haven't been collecting or burying their dead soldiers. Yeah, that's very powerful. Really powerful part of the interview. Accused the Russians of kidnapping or killing mayors and replacing them with Russian loyalists basically. And as we talked about a second ago, criticize Western sanctions is incomplete. Anything else or anything in these interviews stand out as particularly interesting to you? I thought that the comments to both the economist and the Russian journalists about the way in which the Russian military uses and Putin uses these troops as just cannon fodder.

And, you know, Zelensky referred to them as kids as children, you know, these are 18, 19-year-old Russians. They leave their bodies behind. And he seemed to be, you know, showing real moral disgust. It wasn't just like an information operation point to reach the Russian public. It was like real disgust for how Russia just dehumanizes even its own troops. You know, you can feel part of what's interesting about Zelensky, you know, he seems to kind of like hyper-experience the war. I mean, all Ukrainians do.

But like, you know, even, you know, feeling for these Russian troops that are obviously being killed by Ukrainian troops, you know, I think it's really powerful. And once again, kind of drew out the moral stakes at play here. You know, the problem in watching that interview of the Russian media is that, you know, how much of this is going to, if it reached the Russian public, it would be incredibly powerful. I just, you know, it's hard to say how many Russians will be able to actually. access to set with VPNs or different ways. It's getting harder and harder.

And so watching Zelensky and those remaining, you know, independent Russian news outlets, most of whom are either shut down or have had to leave the country, kind of underscore the degree to which he's having a conversation that is just not going to get into Russia. But what is going to get into Russia is the fact that these troops are being killed. And in some cases, by the way, they're not bodies coming home. I mean, like, I see some vulnerability here in the long run. The Russians can't, you can't hide the reality that your son isn't coming home, you know. And if you don't even give a shit enough to, like, recover remains that the Ukrainians are trying to provide to you, imagine losing your son in some bullshit fucking war for a bunch of lies.

And then, you know, your government doesn't even give a shit enough to bring their body home. Yeah. It is something that, again, could trigger, you know, different types of opposition to the war in Russia. Or fighting in. you know, the northern Kiev region, which, you know, that mission just gets abandoned after a couple weeks. Yeah, then the deputy defense minister comes out and says, well, just kidding. Yeah, we were really going to try to take care. Yeah. No, it's interesting. Solonski, what I came away thinking is like, wow, it's guys got like a pretty deep well of empathy if he's carrying a Russian soldier.

Obviously, he's a savvy guy and he knows the impact of this kind of comment would have in Russia with mothers and fathers of troops. But well, he had, and he also just, he had a great, just because we of the Hungary interview later, like he had a great appeal to Orban. That was great. Victor. Victor, go, you know, I love Budapest, go down to the Holocaust Memorial River there and look at the empty shoes of all the people who were lost in the Holocaust. And actually, I saw a lot of Hungarians have placed more shoes on that riverbank.

So he's just, he's been able to hit these notes. I am glad, Tommy, that he didn't take his buddy, Champagne's advice and pipe into the Oscars. Imagine if Zelensky, we're not going to get into the slop here, obviously. But like imagine Zolensky piped in with some emotional video and then like Will Smith wailed Kishrach right after it. It wouldn't have been the best luck. I was going to make – good judgment by Zelensky there too. I was going to mention – yeah, yeah. So Sean Penn made news over the weekend.

He said that if the Academy Awards didn't invite President Zelensky to speak on Sunday that he would smelt his Oscar in public. So Zelensky didn't speak. There was a weird crypto.com ad that mixed commerce in Ukraine in a kind of a weird way. I've never attended a smelting myself. I did agree with you. Like obviously, Sean Penn's heart is in the right place. I think he's in Ukraine. And I like Sean Pan.

A documentary about refugees. But I do worry that the second something is on the Oscars, the Academy, any award show or seen as Hollywood. It can be seen as divisive by half the country. Yeah, no, it's the right. It was the right call. I mean, he's, he's, you know, he's continues to hit the right notes. And, but I mean, he's in, there's a growing. I mean, I think the one point we should make is there is a growing gap between the Ukrainian,

The Ukrainians did not love that Biden speech. And I heard you hit that on PSA rightly. They didn't see anything new in it. No new weapon systems, no new planes, no new sanctions. They're frustrated. And the solidarity we feel for Ukrainians, they're not feeling it as much as they would like. And that could, that gap could grow unless we do escalate things like sanctions enforcement and the types of weapons are providing. Yeah, Selensky very pointedly said.

Now you're telling me that I have to wait for chemical weapons use on my people before you put in more sanctions? He's like, basically, are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, yeah. That was the takeaway. Speaking of the Ukrainian people, you know, we've been doing a series of interviews with, you know, young people in Ukraine and about their experience. We checked back in with a woman named Alexandra. She's a 21-year-old Ukrainian activist and law student who we first spoke with a few weeks ago when she was on her way to a youth leadership conference out of the country. Unfortunately, while she was gone, her home in Kharkiv has been.

bombed and destroyed. So here's Alexandra talking about that. I don't really feel anything towards that. And I don't know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. Because like, for example, when the night we did this decision to go away from my hometown and the day we actually did it, I was like, okay, no hometown anymore. No thinking about it. Nothing happened.

Okay, I am moving forward. Like, keep moving. Nothing matters as far as me and my family is safe. So, yeah, really, I was like, not to say that I was expecting, like, because everyone who is leaving their home, they are like, please let my home survive. It will happen to every home, but not mine. But in reality, it doesn't work with this.

so yeah but i don't know i just don't feel anything and i don't know whether it is like a good thing that i just have this superpower of isolating my feelings and being very rational or is it a bad thing like i am just keeping it inside and i will have this moment of breakdown where this whole thing breaks out and yeah I don't know but we'll see pretty amazing composure there but also you know a reminder of the cost for individuals even those who are out of the country and surviving I mean so the economics minister estimate the Ukrainian economics minister estimate that this war has already cost them half a trillion dollars yeah I think that like one of the things that the traps that we can fall into consuming this war is that you see these kind of

defiant and sometimes even euphoric, you know, social media videos of Ukrainians, you know, standing up, fuck the Russians, you know, we're going to rave on Putin's grave. And all that stuff is very motivating. But that doesn't mean these people aren't experiencing profound loss and trauma. And as you heard in her voice, like, they might not experience that right away, right? Like, you know, you lose her home, okay, I can't quite process it yet six months from now, you know, the trauma that is being inflicted on these people, you know, the refugee, are being greeted, you know, welcome, that's great. But like six months or now, they're going to be living in some apartment and some, you know,

foreign land with their home destroyed. So the first point is we have to remember that underneath the kind of defiance that you see in these kind of videos and stuff, there's a lot of suffering that is probably going to take time to sink in with people like Alexander. And then the second thing is, you know, we are going to have to, you know, God willing, when we get the chance, rebuild this country. Yeah, it's going to take a lot of money. It's a lot of money, and it has to be spent.

I mean, they are fighting on the front lines. I mean, there's something uncomfortable. I totally agree with our policy of not wanting to go to war with Russia, right? But watching, you know, Biden and Poland talking about defending every inch and, you know, supporting Ukrainians on the front lines of the fight, the Ukrainians are on the front lines of this fight, and they're the only ones fighting and dying, right, together with some foreign volunteers. And we do have an obligation to not pay that back, you know, in rebuilding this country. Yeah. So, you know, we talked about President Biden's speech in his trip and some of the things that didn't go well.

I think, you know, in general, the policy has gone quite well and has been handled, you know, really professionally and smartly and wisely, you know, the lack of escalation by President Biden. And we should note that in that trip. unbelievable staff work. Yeah, yeah. I mean, everything, just take the speech, everything from the venue to the speech writing as a speech writer, like, it was a brilliant speech. Like, there's some people working really hard. Here's the contrast I was trying to set up.

President Trump waited again. He's talking publicly about Russian Ukraine. Let's hear his priorities what he's focused on in the moment. The mayor of Moscow's wife give the Bidens, both of them, three and a half million dollars. That's a lot of money. She gave him $3.5 million. So now I would think Putin would know the answer to that. I think he should release it.

I think we should know that answer. We didn't put that music bed under there. It was whatever right-wing rag interviewed him. So, Ben, Trump is once again asking Putin for help finding dirt on the Biden family. That's his priority. Right now in the middle of a war. In 2016, it was like Putin, can you hack Hillary's emails? And then it was Zelensky, can you do me favor?

And then, I mean, the guy. cannot look at any situation, including this horrific war, and think about anything but his own very narrow interest. And this man is the leader of the Republican Party. He's not just like some fucking blowhard. Like, he's, he... It's just so funny. We're sitting here like nitpicking Joe Biden's performance and the hardest challenge you could ever take on the contrast is this fucking flat. Yeah, that's the thing. It's just a million times better than Joe Biden's. We're so lucky that he is in this job and not Donald Trump. Okay, so we obviously spent what the last two months talking mostly about Ukraine. So we are going to talk about some topics now that we have been able to cover

during the last month that are in other parts of the world because we've been so focused on Ukraine. We'll go a little faster because we've got a bunch of them. So starting in China, Ben, on Monday, China announced a citywide coronavirus lockdown in Shanghai, which is the financial capital and the largest city with 26 million people in it. All non-essential businesses are closed while authorities conduct mass testing. The lockdown has already impacted a bunch of companies, Shanghai, Disneyland, Tesla, many others. It's a laid. in a series of city or province-wide lockdowns in China that have impacted tens of millions of people. I guess, I mean, the question I have is like just when you thought COVID-related

supply chain disruptions were getting sorted out, stories like this make me think this can go on for more for years. Yeah, I mean, this is the problem with like a kind of total lockdown strategy, right? Is it that, you know. Yeah, the Chinese COVID-0. Yeah, once you get these more contagious variance in there, like it's going to spread. They have to figure out it some way. you know, this is, they're going to be locked down for three more years? I mean, clearly we're living with like mutating COVID variants here. And if they continue to kind of have this lockdown strategy, anytime there's a new variant and there's a new outbreak and you have these massive lockdowns, you are going to have these disruptions. And by the way, you're also having a China that is like

more and more cut off from the world just in terms of like, you know, intermingling of people. So it does speak to a kink in the total lockdown strategy. It's not sustainable. Yeah. And like, you know, even if the central government kind of lessens up on the rules, you know, you still have these provincial leaders who are worried about getting blamed if things spiral out of control. So there's all these incentives to be kind of over the top. So it seems not good.

A couple reports at Israel, Ben. So first, at least 11 people have been killed in terrorist attacks in the past week, including reports of four or five people killed. in a shooting near Tel Aviv a couple hours before we started recording. So this is obviously just horrific. This comes as Israel is hosting a summit this week with the foreign ministers of the U.S. Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Egypt. Those meeting kicked off on Sunday. They're expected to cover things like Ukraine, talks of the Palestinians, Iran, especially efforts to revive Iran nuclear deal. Ben, the images out of this summit were clearly trying to project unity. They did

one of those goofy like arms crossed holding hand things. I never understand why that's like a not a fan. Not a fan. But you know, look, this is this is clearly like, okay, this is the new post-Abraham Accords political dynamic that they're showing the world. But, you know, some of the coverage I noticed framed it as an effort by Israel and these Gulf neighbors to coordinate on issues and sort of increase their leverage against the U.S. I wonder how Tony Blinken, who was over there for these meetings, felt about that framing in the cover. It jumped out of me in some of it. Well, I mean, first of all, the, you know, the terrorist attacks are horrific and the loss of life. Really scary.

And what's scary is, like, what is behind it. And when you start to see multiple attacks like this, you know, makes you really concerned about a trend. So, you know, that that is obviously something that nobody wants to see. On the, you know, I'm sure that part of the impetus for what Tony Blinken is doing is, you know, they're constantly reports of us being at the doorstep of a return to the JCPU.A. So close. Yeah. So I imagine part of this is you know, you get all the big countries because the Saudis are basically

represented through their, their consular, the Emirates. You know, you get them to try to kind of, you know, reassure them, you know, brief them, prepare them for this. It was funny. like when people used to say, well, are you worried that these countries are going to start to, you know, make decisions without you or something? No. I mean, like, they, fine. Like, I, the U.S. shouldn't, I don't want the U.S. to have to, like, make all the decisions in the Middle East, you know. Yeah, it hasn't gone so well. And by the way, it's not like these countries, like,

listened to us anyway. I mean, like, every single one of the countries you named has done very profound things that are, like, against what U.S. interests are, what the U.S. would advise him to do. I think that the harder challenge, right, is, and I don't put this on Tony. It's just the, you know, you give a big speech about we're in a global generation-defining struggle between democracies and autocracies. And then the next day you're in a photo op with Egypt and the Emirates. By the way, the Emirates, just a few days after MBZ welcomed Bashar al-Assad. to the U.E.

We had to talk about this, right? Very publicly. Like it was, you know, photo ops, like cameras in there, smiles, you know. And by the way, not only is Assad like a butcher, but he's also a Putin ally, right? Like one of the few Putin allies out there. And so, you know what? Fine. Go off.

Make your own decisions. Have fun. Grow up. Like I'd rather be on the democracy camp. I believe that we're in a battle between democracies and autocracies. I also believe that you're not going to win the battle of autocracies if you're buddies with Muhammad bin Salman, you know? And so, you know, like I, yeah, is there some realism where we have to kind of work with these countries on something? Sure. But the things that we have to work with them on,

you know, like terrorism, like that's in their interest anyway. We'd like to work with them on things like the Palestinian issue. But it's not like they were working with us on that. No, the long track record of that. Yeah, it's not like a track record of them, you know. So I do think at a certain point here, the discomfort and awkward, you know, the, the discomfort and awkwardness of framing American foreign policy around a struggle between democracy and autocracies and then, you know, clasping hands with like Egypt and the Emirates, you know, it's a problem that is going to have to untangle itself over time. Yep. That's a complicated one. You mentioned this. You know, the Iran nuclear deal, there's constantly reports that's on the brink of being sort of

unfrozen. The latest reports I saw is that it's stuck over whether the U.S. will reverse Trump's decision to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC, as a foreign terrorist organization. It's sort of like a standoff of who will blink first on that one. I don't know. I'll take this head on. It's like people are going to at me anyway. I mean, that designation doesn't really achieve anything beyond the symbolic, you know, like these are people who evade sanctions. Like these are not people that are like the, you know, Tehran business community trying to do stuff with Europe. These are. Right. people who live in black market economics, who've lived under different forms of sanctions

and kind of overlapping designations and all the rest of it for a very long time. If this is the impediment to getting a nuclear deal done and rolling back that nuclear program, like by all means, let's get the nuclear deal done. And by the way, even with the nuclear deal in place, you can impose designations. You can sanction all manner of Iranian entities for things. the idea is that we're going back to the status quo ante where it was when the U.S. pulled out of the deal and I'd rather have that than the symbolism of a designation that doesn't accomplish all that much in the real world. Yeah, sanctions are a means on an end.

Yeah. We kind of, we always forget that here. And the IRGC is completely deplorable. And they've sponsored like all manner of bad shit. And we should continue to try to deal with them in any number of. ways, but you use sanctions not as an end, as you said, but to get something done. And in this case, if we can get done rolling back the Iranian nuclear program, I'd rather get that done. Yeah. And here's an example why. North Korea decided to let everyone know that they're still a pain

in the ass. Last week, they launched their first intercontinental ballistic missile, the first time since 2017. Since that happened, Ben, I've seen some debates in the non-proliferation nerd community that I do watch closely. Yeah, it's a great community. It's a great community over whether this was a new and improved ICBM or whether there was maybe a failed launch and they faked some of the footage and that they really just launched an older missile. Either way, bad news.

We don't want this. The North Korean propagandists released this weird slow motion hype video about the missile test that makes Kim Jong-un look like a guy who's about to wash out a top gun. Good reminder. This problem was never solved. the net effect of the Kim Trump relationship was basically North Korea getting a bunch of years of running room to improve their nuclear arsenal and missiles. So that's another phone one for President Biden. I mean, look, for example, if you haven't watched the video, go watch the video.

It's a great thing. Because Kim Jong-un, like, checking his watch and taking the sunglasses off and giving the nod, you know. But just so people know, I mean, if they've accomplished this breakthrough with their ICBM capability, you know, this is their capacity to hit the continental United States with a nuclear weapon. So obviously, like, not a great outcome. But, you know, to me it just speaks that this problem isn't going away. And, you know, and by the way, it's going to get like, you know, the U.S. talked about seeking new sanctions to the U.N. Security Council.

Russians are not. Good luck with that. The Russians are not getting on board with that, given that the Russians are turning into the new North Korea, albeit with like 10,000 nuclear weapons or more than that. But yeah, I mean, the ICBM thing is a concerning element. Sure is. A bunch of updates out of Afghanistan. So the most concerning is the UN says that more than half the country is on the break of starvation.

That's just sort of the humanitarian situation there has gone from very bad to worse, in part because of the U.S. sanctions. The Taliban has proven to be just as bad as we expected. Last week, they had promised to allow girls to attend secondary school. they bizarrely reneged on that promise as girls were about to walk in. So that means young girls can't get more than the sixth grade education, which is horrific. The Taliban has also banned the BBC and other international broadcasters from airing in the country. And back in the U.S., President Biden extended temporary protected status, which will allow tens of thousands of Afghans who are living in the U.S. as of March 15th to remain here for, I believe, 18 months, something like that. So lots of worrisome updates here, Ben.

And all of them are made more difficult to address by the amount of time, money, and just mind share of that is being spent on Ukraine. Not that it shouldn't be spent on Ukraine, but it's just sort of, you know, it feels like Afghanistan is getting forgotten. But it comes back to this question of what is the purpose of sanctions. Yeah. And sanctions are not in any way affecting positively the Taliban's behavior. No.

And we just read like three updates. I was getting worse. So it's not like they're, because. we're sanctioning them, they're letting the girls go to school. And so to my mind, I would rather lift those sanctions and try to save hundreds of thousands of lives, potentially, then keep those sanctions on and contribute to the starvation of Afghans because we don't like the Taliban. You know, it's as simple as that. Like the U.S. policy right now should be doing whatever we can possibly do to save the lives of as many Afghans as possible, whether that's helping them

and get fed or that's opening the door to more refugees, right? And there's not a sense that there's urgency around that like there should be. Yeah, it's really, really cool. The girl's stuff is, is horrifying and watching some of the videos of these girls realize that they can't go to school was about as heartbreaking as anything you can watch. Now, again, I don't believe anything the Taliban says. But there were some spokespeople in the Taliban who were trying to claim, like, look, you know, we're not reggae down the decision. This is actually about trying to figure what uniform that schoolgirls will have to wear. The whole thing was just so confused and nonsensical and I don't know. Even there, I think that part of the issue is, are there other countries that

have more influence with the Taliban than us that can lean on them? Yeah. Like the OIC, the organization of the Islamic Conference, like that's kind of the umbrella organization for Islamic majority countries like uh because you know they're not going to listen to us um but if if your goal is to do whatever you can to get those girls in school you know part of what you'd be doing is quietly trying to talk to anybody who has any line into the taliban to get them to stop being such fucking assholes yes i feel like i use a lot of profanity i'm sorry look so the world is kind of rough sometimes you got to do it uh last story i have and you know maybe you won't want to use profanity now because I'm asking you to put on your royal hat. So this is more prim and proper.

So a visit by Prince William and his wife Kate to Jamaica didn't go as well, I'd say, for the royal family as they hoped because Jamaica's prime minister told Will that the country wants to be independent and remove the queen as the head of state. And they also had protesters calling on the UK to pay reparations for slavery. Prince William, you know, he's denounced slavery, but it pointedly didn't apologize, I don't believe. A few months back, Barbados removed Queen Elizabeth as its head of state. Ben, you got any odds on the Royals getting the boot from Jamaica? Feels like that's where this is said.

Some momentum. I mean, the Jamaicans did it like on camera too. It wasn't like a subtle thing. It was like, hey, guys, welcome. We would like to become an independent country no longer have you as our titular head of state. You out. I'm going to put on the royal hat for a second. Please.

I mean, I do think like, look, Will and Kate, you know, have some qualities. And what are those? They seem like, you know, personable people. Did you see the tweet from the royal correspondent? Is a picture? Will. Okay, please, go ahead. Well, I were going to get to that.

But first thing I was to say is like, they do need to kind of evolve, you know? Like, if they're kind of the next generation, if kind of the thing is, Queen, pretty old. Yeah. Charles, you know, there's a lot of meh around Charles. So the future of the monarchy rests on these two. Yeah, sure does. You got to apologize for this slavery. You know, you've got to move to a different place in your family's bin.

And just kind of doing the tour where you show up and you greet some children and, you know, you pose in front of Bob Marley's house and stuff they did, that might have, like, been a home run trip like 20 years ago. Like, you need to kind of, I don't want to say. You know, we need woke royalties here. But, like, you need to kind of meet the moment here. Acknowledge reality. You're the younger people. Like, speak to the history in a different way than your grandparents did, you know?

I think you drew this to my attention, the rural correspondent, who said that... The name is Richard Palmer. Posted some pictures of Will and Kate. Looking good, I have to say, and said, like, what a couple of crackers here. A couple of crackers here. And then he follows up. Someone just told me that crackers means something else in parts of the U.S. To be clear, I meant that these are a couple of cracking excellent pictures.

Honestly, you can't say anything. Really one of the funniest things I've ever seen. A plus content. I mean, sometimes you get a gift like that on Twitter. Yeah. Occasionally it's good. But yeah, I mean, you can't, how do they not know that these questions and conversations are going to come up when they go on their colonial road show? And you need better answers.

And somewhere between like Megan and Harry, like just kind of bailing out on the family and doing an Oprah special and Will and Kate just kind of doing what their grandparents did, you know, visiting the Commonwealth countries a few decades ago. There's a middle there that they have to find here where, again, it's a little bit more closer to reality, acknowledging history, making amends for it, imagining a different kind of relationship with the country like Jamaica. And, yeah, like, need a little work here. Yeah. You know, the last thing I should have brought up was the very sad passing of Madeline Albright, who was the first woman to serve as Secretary of State. She died at 84.

Her family of child of Czech refugees fled the Nazis, rose to just a person of enormous prominence. She was the country's permanent representative at the U.N. in the early 90s before becoming Secretary of State. She's been on the show a couple times, incredibly sharp, kind, thoughtful person. She'll be missed. Yeah, I mean, the only thing I'd add to that is just like she mentored like just about everybody. Everyone. And I remember when I was, you know, pre-Obama days, like when I was like a 20-something in D.C., like she had this kind of dinner group at her house in Georgetown, which is constantly inviting dozens of people over for these kind of discussions about foreign policy and, you know, treated like, you know, 29-year-old nobody's like me the same way she treated like, you know, visiting. foreign ministers. Like, she was just an incredibly generous person with her time and experience and

wisdom. And so if people were kind of watching the reaction to her death, I mean, like, huh, this is like a lot for a former Secretary of State. I think that's why. It's because, like, almost everybody I know in this field had some kind of personal experience of Madeline Walbright being very kind to them. It's a good lesson, by the way, of like, you know, be nice to people. Like, it matters, you know. Yeah, no, that's a really good point. I mean, like, you just remember forever the person who is nice to you. Yeah.

When you're that age or when there's some hot shot and you feel like you're nothing and you're, you're, you're, you feel like an imposter at whatever location you happen to run into them. Yeah, and we experienced this in the Obama years. I mean, you could, you know, you could tell the cabinet types and, you know, who went out of the way to be nice and then the ones who are just kind of dicks. And, you know, you remember that. Yeah. Yeah. On next episode, we'll name names. Okay, we're going to take a quick break.

When we come back, you will hear Ben's conversation about the very, very, very, so many various important Hungarian elections that are coming up. So do not miss that. This is the most important thing we got going on besides Ukraine in terms of this fight against authoritarian. I am very pleased to be joined by Catalan Che, who is a member of the European Parliament from the Momentum Party and vice chair of Renew Europe, a liberal group in the European in parliament. Thanks so much for joining us, Catalina. Hey, Ben. Thanks for having me.

So I just want to start. You're obviously in the final days of the election campaign. How are things going? What is your day like? What's it like to be trying to campaign to unseat Victor Orban? Well, days are extremely tiring, but also super motivating. I honestly haven't seen this much energy on the streets of Hungary in the, what, like four years? Oh my God, it's four years now. So in the four years since I've been in politics, we are doing a lot of rallies, a lot of door knocking,

going around in circles, to visit even the smallest place all across Hungary. I'm doing a lot of events together with politicians from other parties as we are running in a broad coalition. So that's also an exciting experience to get to know each other's voters better. and yeah, I just can't wait until Sunday, not only because I'm tired, but because I'm so hopeful that this can be a very big day for Hungary and democracy in general.

Yeah, no, and I want to get into the opposition. I want to start by just asking you, though, to explain what some of the structural hurdles are that you're facing. You know, I think people hear about Orban and the kind of illiberal model. he sought to build. How much do you guys have to overcome in terms of, you know, the amount of votes you'd have to win to prevail, given how he's drawn parliamentary districts? And what challenges do you face in just getting your message out with his kind of dominance of Hungarian media? So imagine playing basketball with a field that is tilted, like, extremely? And you are not on the

on the good end of the field. This is what Hungarian politics feels like in the past years. Just a very quick recap, Orban took power in 2010 in the middle of the financial crisis and he got the supermajority of the votes

which in Hungary basically allow him to do anything he wants and instead of doing good things like fixing our healthcare system or raising wages for teachers or I don't know just think about any good thing you would do if you would have unlimited power

so like instead of all of this he dismantled the fragile system of institutions in Hungary he redrafted the constitution without any sort of public consultation he obliterated the free media that we have here and redraw

the electoral districts extremely and all this results in a situation where basically right now you can get to a constitutional majority with less than half of old votes costs. He didn't

even get a simple majority when it comes to the total number of the votes last time and yet he controls over two thirds of the seats in Parliament. In terms of the more practical ways of how it manifests in our democratic system, Peter Marquis-eye, who is the opposition leader, he got five minutes of live airtime in the public broadcaster in the course of four years.

Five minutes and four years. And in the same day, the very same television channel repeated Orban's big rally speech nine times. So this is a good comparison, I believe. Big speech nine times a day versus five minutes and four years. So you guys have to get your message out the old-fashioned way by knocking on doors and literally meeting people because you can't really reach them on the big television stations and radio stations, right? Yes. A very, very big part of the Hungarian media is controlled by my channels that are.

close to Orban or his oligards or are public channels, which are funded by Hungarian taxpayers' money, but are actually used for permanent campaign purposes. And as we have some areas in Hungary where people do not really have access to other medias apart from the free channels, they have an extreme monopoly. And this also manifests itself in very disturbing. situations. For instance, if you are an opposition party or an opposition candidate, the post office refuses to distribute your flyers. So you have to do it yourselves. If you want to buy posters, even though you would have money, a lot of companies are not selling you

billboard spaces. You are just in an extreme example if you want to speak up against the system. And here we haven't even addressed the fact that a lot of people, particularly in the smaller cities or villages or in the poor parts of the country are literally afraid to take your flyers. Because they're afraid that if they are seen as somebody in favor of the opposition, then they could lose their jobs or lose their contracts with the city hall or just challenge their basic existence, basically. When we had local election campaigns, pains in 2019, a number of our candidates from the Momentum Party had to step back from running because they were actually threatened at their workplace. We had an activist who got taken away

by the police like a year ago because he was critical with the government on social media. So this is an extremely oppressed environment. And of course, we have to do a lot of groundwork to try to bring the truth out and try to counter the centralized narrative that Orban is spreading on every single available channel paid by our taxpayers money. I'm curious, you know, I'm going to get to the opposition in a second here, but you mentioned the enormous advantage of Orban-friendly media. Are the people in Hungary consuming the war in Ukraine in the same way that people in the rest of Europe are, is the truth about the war on television, or is Orban shading that truth?

because of his longstanding ties to Putin? It's an extremely disturbing situation in what we have here right now. There is literally a war waging in our very neighborhood. Those Hungarians who live close to the Ukrainian border, they can hear the sirens. And yet, we have our public media that is founded by us Hungarians,

which spews Russian propaganda basically nonstop. seriously we in the EU made I think a very good decision when we banned the sputnik and Russia today and all the other Russian propaganda channels but in this situation basically the Hungarian public propaganda is the last standing leg of Vladimir Putin in the Union and and he just wouldn't believe if you turn on the public television or those channels which are close to the government you hear these so-called experts going on air and saying things like President Zelensky is a Nazi on drugs or that Ukraine is not a real country and has no rights of existence,

absolutely mind-blowing propaganda. And it's really coming at you in such a massive quantity. It's very hard to challenge it. But yet I feel that it hasn't really gotten hold of the Hungarian public because the solidarity I feel that are demonstrated towards, the Ukrainian refugees is so enormous. So I really hope that this pile of hatred and lies do not find a fertile ground in Hungary. Because with our history, I truly believe that we are so much better than what Orban believes for our people to be. So I have to imagine, like you said,

that the general public mood in Hungary would be one that is sympathetic to Ukrainians and and wary of Russia, especially given the history of Russia's efforts to dominate Hungary. Is this a political vulnerability for Orban that he has obviously been so close to Putin over the years, continues to be an outlier within the European Union in terms of sanctions on Putin? Do you see this as an issue in the campaign that could hurt Orban? Well, I think he has a really hard time. He has been selling this life for the past 12 years. Vladimir Putin is a great friend of Hungary.

He came to visit Budapest, I think more than most European capitals. We were the first country hosting him after the Crimea situation. And he was always portrayed in contrast with the West, which is failing, with the EU and the NATO, who are our enemies. So this was the narrative that was sold to the Hungarian public

via the enormous media machine of Orban for so long. And right now, people are actually faced with the truth that this guy who was portrayed by

portrayed as a friend of the country is actually a war criminal. It's actually massacring children in our neighboring country. And in the same time, the opiate

dealings of Orban really put Hungary in an extremely vulnerable position. So there are two things. One is morality, which I really think has to be 100% on the side of the victim and not the oppressor, but also a very practical reality is that Orban really subordinated the country to Putin. He made long-term energy deals with him, even. even after Crimea happened, he contracted Russian companies to build our nuclear power plant. Like, you know, our nuclear power plant is built by the same guy who is actually shooting at nuclear power plants in our neighborhood. There is an extreme amount of entanglement between the Russian elite and the Hungarian government. And this makes us very vulnerable and very

isolated. Orban is losing even his last friends in the EU over his ties to Russia. You know, the Polish government openly criticized him. And just a few days ago, the meeting of the Vichagrad for the regional, Central European bloc of cooperation that Orban was very fond of, actually refused to meet the Hungarian side in Budapest over his stance on Putin. So if Orban stays in power, we will become the president. of the EU for a very long time to come. And I sincerely do not wish this to happen to our country because it weakens us so much in such a critical time. Yeah.

No, and I think people don't follow as closely should know that for Poland to do that, Poland is embraced a kind of right-wing brand of nationalism and some of the illiberal tendencies of Orban. So for them to break with Orban over this is a big step. I wanted to ask you about the opposition. You guys have pursued this strategy that, you know, you explained to me, I guess back in 2019, feels like a long time ago, when I met you in Budapest, where the opposition is running as a united front across several different parties, all supporting the same candidate for prime

minister. How is that going? What has it been like to band together with different parties, the establishment socialist, you know, even some parties that used to be on the far right, it's a big tent of, over your opposition. How is that working in practice and where does the campaign stand in terms of your hopes for succeeding? I am very glad that we realized after so many years in a hybrid autocracy that there are issues way more severe that threaten our country that are just overarching the existing differences we have with certain other parties in terms of certain

policies. Right now, really the basic foundations of the democratic principles of this country is threatened. The basic direction of the country is threatened. The direction whether we are going towards the western direction of the autocracies is under danger. And we have to fight for such fundamental principles like the rule of law or equality or the freedom of the media. Nobody could have imagined that, that we are in this situation in 2022. So this united, a lot of very different parties. I have to say, though, that this has been a cooperation since three years now. With the very same coalition, we scored a decisive victory at the 2019 local election, and ever since we are governing a lot of cities together, including Hungary's capital,

Budapest. And what happened this autumn was truly a miracle for me. You know, the opposition managed to stage at very large scale, national, primary. election where every party put forward their own candidate and the Hungarian voters chose who will represent the United Opposition. And for the American listeners, this might not be a new thing because primaries are a well-established way of conducting democracy in your country, but for us, it is a complete novelty. And we did it in a way where crowdfunding was our biggest source. We introduced innovations like online voting, and we saw.

such a huge turnout. Hundreds of thousands of people went out to vote. We had lively public debates in television. And I just really felt that the country is really yearning for democracy for these basic principles of having a debate of the leaders and the television, which we don't have, by the way. So last time, Orban debate, it was in 2006. So really what happened is really an insight into what our country could be

if we could do it right. And ever since the primary elections went down, ever since we elected Peter Marke's eye as the leader of the opposition, we are campaigning together, we wrote a joint policy program together, we are preparing to govern the country. Because we know that it's going to be a big task.

So we don't think, of course, that our problems will be over when Orban is out of office. No, like the real challenge starts then, but I am 100% sure that we are prepared to take this response, and restore Hungary in the place where it belongs to the heart of the Western Alliance of the transatlantic cooperation of EU, NATO, and also to bring higher welfare for the

Hungarian people who have been really suffering in the last years due to extreme inflation and rising food prices and governmental neglect during COVID. Well, yeah, when you're out campaigning, what is the message that resonates that you find with voters about what you would do if you replaced Orban? What is the program that you think people respond to in terms of a post-Orban Hungary? Well, there are a lot of problems that people are worried about. And I think, first of all, what really resonates with them is good and open conversation. because we are paying a lot of attention on that, having deeppox explaining policy to people listening to them.

I think a lot of people really gave up on hoping that politics could change or their voice could be heard by those in power over the last 12 years. And then first of all, I think the really open sentiment that we are putting forward in this campaign really changed this. but in terms of the concrete idea what I find very, very troubling is that so many people left the country over the past decade to work abroad

and not because they wanted to, which is of course completely fine, but because they need it to. There is an extreme amount of migration westwards from Hungary and that it really has an impact on our society. So many people are only seeing their kids, or grandkids on Skype, they don't meet them only once or twice in a year. And it is really causing a lot of people to really evaluate their choice of government

is that this country is really a place where people are leaving from. And of course they are leaving from because the cost of living has never been higher in Hungary than now. the wages of a nurse or a teacher of people in such brazenic professions have never been worse compared to what is necessary. And really, the mood in general is just so vile and so full of hatred and misogyny and oppression that this is really felt even on the day-to-day basis. families are falling apart over politics.

People are getting divorced. Those who do not share the opinions of the government are called like traitors of the country and all that. And it really creates a very depressing state of mind of so many Hungarians. And of course, when they go to the gas station and they see that just even getting to work

is even more difficult as we actually face a gas shortage in the last past days. These are things that are really troubling. But I have to say that in the past days ever since the war broke out, the war really put everything into a different perspective. And a lot of things that we talked about for long before,

about the necessity of rule of law, of our international partnerships, of the defense of democracy, I think it's really put everything into different perspectives. So even those are questioning our basic foundations of the country, our basic directions who are not necessarily political because they see where autocratic leanings can take us.

And this is not a good place. Yeah, I was going to ask you to end by describing the stakes, but for the world as well as Hungary, but I think you kind of just did. I mean, I'll give you one more chance that, I mean, I know you were in Ukraine after the war started. I know you guys have over 100,000 refugees there. I mean, how much has this war kind of elevated the stakes for what was already an important election? I mean, it was important enough that Donald Trump felt the need to endorse Victor Orban.

You know, it's been important to the far right that Orban succeed. But, you know, given your experience in Brussels, in Budapest and in your experience, you know, Ukraine recently, how do you see the stakes for the world for what happens in your election? Well, first of all, I think we have a global responsibility here, because Hungary was, I believe, the first country that started this recent wave of democratic backsliding, which really spread to so many countries all across the world. And I think we also should be the ones stopping it, trying to show a recipe to the rest of the world of how to combat populists and autocrats. But there are so much, really the stakes are so high.

The question of a united Western alliance, or one where the Trojan horse of Putin still sits at a table and vetoes, really impedes our capacity to act fast and move forward with strong sanctions, for instance, but also to reform our communities in a way that can be responsive for such geopolitical challenges. I think also when it comes to the European perspective, the question is further integration of the EU, of us gathering strength in the world, becoming a player or fermenting ourselves back to the 1980s, where Orban would like to see us. It's such a fundamental election.

But for Hungarians, who might not see these very global perspectives, just care about their lives, it's also an election where they can choose, you know, freedom over oppression, competency and competition over a corrupted nepotistic oligarchy, west over east, and peace and security over a war criminal. So I'm very much hopeful that my predictions will be right, and that this energy that I'm seeing all across the country

will bring us over the finishing line, and we can really, really show to the world that Hungary is so much more than Viktor Orban. We are actually good-hearted people. We are democratic-minded people. We want to belong to the West as Hungarians. We are not evil, hateful, disruptive people. We are a beautiful country with a lovely cuisine, a very welcoming hospitality sector.

So I really hope that news of Hungary will cover these more. exciting and more truthful aspects of my country in the future. But yeah, for this, you really have to wish us a good luck for this Sunday's election. Well, I wish you good luck for this Sunday's election. I found you to be one of the more exciting young European politicians, not just Hungarian politicians. And we're all rooting for you. I mean, we all need Hungary to be a full and democratic member of the Western Alliance. So, particularly now. So thanks so much for joining us and good luck in those final days campaigning. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Bye. Thanks again to Kathleen Che for joining the show. Thank you. Who else we think in here?

Thanks to everybody who's doing a March Madness, midterm madness. All the Hungarians knocking on doors, you know, getting the vote out. Do you think what kind of intimidation is going on there if you're working for the opposition? So this was, you know, as you heard Catalan say, right? Like what's crazy is it like some people are afraid to take? their flyers because they could get like fired from their job you know if they're seen as oh good like there's all like it's a very early putinism intimidant early kind of mid-pudinism intimidation of like essentially you know you could just you don't want to end up being blacklisted in terms of work or education by a ruling party that is vindictive so the people

knock it on doors are you know they're putting their necks out there that's big well we're thinking to them okay that's it for us uh we'll talk to guys this week positive the world is a Good Media Production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Muse. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seguin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Saul Rubin for production support.

And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth, who upload our episodes as videos at YouTube.com slash crooked media.