Pod Save the World - China picks a fight with Pelosi

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

This week, Ben and Tommy explain why the Chinese government is freaking out about Speaker Pelosi visiting Taiwan, the latest news from Ukraine, the climate change bomb that might go off in Congo, Viktor Orban’s latest racist rant, Pope Francis’s trip to Canada, and why 9/11 families are doubling down on their criticism of Trump while the Saudi government plans a monument to stupidity in the desert, and much more. Then Ben talks with Zhanna Nemtsova about their new podcast Another Russia, which explores the murder of Zhanna's father and what it tells us about Russia today. Listen to Another Russia here or wherever you get your podcasts. For 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 Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben. The Boston Red Sox gave up an inside-the-park grand slam. I saw that. I saw that dude just like not run in the right direction. You just didn't see the center field or just didn't see a fly ball and right over his head. That's rough if you're a pitcher. That's rough on your IRA. If the guy's just like running the wrong direction. They gave up 27 runs. Yeah. They're all those like football scores. Yeah, you guys look like you're about to poke back into the Panner race. I actually follow baseball really closely.

Metts are good, right? Mets are good, and then the wheels just popped off the bus at Red So far off the bus. So like 27. Inside the Park Grand Slam, that does not happen. Mets play the Yankees tonight. Oh, nice, a little subway series. That's fantastic. Well, that will be great. We are going to skip all around the globe today, Ben.

We're touching all kinds of bases here. We're going to cover the controversy about Speaker Pelosi's scheduled currently planned trip to Taiwan and why the U.S. government might subsidize semiconductor construction. And talking about the latest from Ukraine, including the food and energy crisis, Congo and climate change, Victor Orban's latest horrendous comments, why the Pope went to Canada, Italy's leadership crisis, the execution of activists in Myanmar, Trump and the Saudis, why Boris Johnson will not go away. And then two stories that I'm putting under a bucket of things that will make you think you're high. Oh, those are always my favorite stories. Some of my favorite things. And Ben, you did a fantastic interview today. Please tell us about it. Well, I had John and Msova on, who is my host on another Russia.

And we just talked a bit about, you know, what John was trying to do with the podcast, how her father's legacy looks in light of the war in Ukraine, which he was killed probably for opposing the annexation of Crimea. And kind of her hopes for the future of Russia and, you know, what the future of the opposition is like there. And I want, you know, everybody to take the chance now to smash that subscribe button. The first episode dropped yesterday of another Russia. I really love this podcast. I think you're going to find it to be a really compelling story with a huge personality, Jeanne at the center of it or her father as well, and then some great other voices.

And so check it out, subscribe, rate, review, help people find it, all those things. We love those good reviews. And then it'll be on our feed. They'll do a feed drop. Yeah. So you'll get it. But just because you get it on Pots at the World, Don't get lazy here. It's free. All you have to do is take that extra step to subscribe.

Good flag on the rate and review. I haven't begged for five stars from listeners a long time. I've said this to you guys before. The only reason I do that is because it helps. It helps. People find it, but also like stupid Apple list that no one understands. The trolls always come out. So whenever I do anything in the world, it's always like zero stars, more socialist garbage, you know, or something like that. I'm always like, come on, man, you didn't listen. Did you listen? I don't think you listened. That's just mean. Yeah, it's just nice to bend, trolls. Yeah, Apple's rigged.

Help us rig it further. Yeah, yeah. I don't understand those lists. I listen, Apple, if you're listening, I love you. I bought all your stuff. You know, you got the phone. Thousands of my dollars are gone to you. Yeah.

I just don't know how that algorithm works. I even buy those little things that you need to connect. The dongles. Yeah, the headphones, the headphones. Yeah. But the thing about the series, it's an amazing series. It couldn't be better timed in terms of just like understanding Russia better. But also, I mean, you said this.

Like, Jeana is hilarious and so fun to listen to. Yeah. And, like, just a great. And, like, you two together are great together. I mean, the whole thing is perfect. She pointed out today with something she reminded me of during the podcast that this is like a foreign language. Can you imagine having to do a podcast in a foreign language? No.

She's incredible. Ben, before we get to the news, one very important housekeeping, not even housekeeping. This is more important than the show. We're 100 days out from the midterms. Less probably when you're listening to this. And I just want everyone to know, the stakes could not be higher. And if you want to get involved, go to Votesave America's midterms. term madness. You just go to

VoteSaveamerica.com slash midterms. You can sign up. You can be a part of our July 31st weekend of action. You can get involved. You can donate. You can support candidates. You can pick a region. It's fantastic. So check it out. Vote saveamerica.com slash midterms.

Let's talk about Taiwan. Because that's, I think it's the biggest story in Washington right now. Everyone's, this is your classic, like almost August controversy that everyone loves to talk about and freak out about. So, Speaker Paulosi is supposed to go to Taiwan. It's creating outrage in China and it's creating headaches for the White House. She is, I guess, reportedly planning to visit Taiwan the next few weeks. The trip was

initially supposed to be in April. She got COVID, so they delayed it. Pelosi would be the highest ranking U.S. politician to visit Taiwan since 1997 when Newt Gingrich made the trip. That he was a blast to hang out with him. I know Goda. Pelosi, she's a longstanding, harsh critic of the Chinese government. Rightly so. And her rank, her high rank in the U.S. US government. And her past comments have caused the Chinese government to flip out about the trip, or maybe they're just performatively flipping out. Who knows? And they have declared they will respond forcefully if Pelosi's visit happens. As we've discussed many times on this show, the Chinese government thinks Taiwan is their territory. Most analysts believe that the China's military buildup over the last

few years is at least in part to prepare for a possible invasion of Taiwan. The U.S. government is required by law to sell Taiwan weapons to help it defend itself. So we are in the thick of this thing. Ben, this is a very bad political setup. Obviously, no one wants the Chinese government to dictate where or when some U.S. elected official travels. That said, it's also true that Pelosi's visit isn't going to make Taiwan safer. Yeah. And there are some people who think it actually might do the opposite. It might cause China to do something stupid. The White House clearly thinks this trip is a bad idea. We know that because Joe Biden told us. Joe Biden's like, this is a bad idea. You think it's a bad idea. There was a report in the Financial Times on Monday. You got admire his candor. Yeah, yeah, no, I do.

We were laughing before we started recording. Like, that's pretty blunt. I've not seen that. I've not seen that either. There was a report in the Financial Times on Monday about how Taiwanese officials are worried that no matter what happens, the situation might make Washington more nervous about helping them out. You know Republicans will savage Biden. They'll savage Pelosi if she cancels. Yeah. What do you do here? I was wondering if Pelosi could like engineer some way to delay the trip or maybe to get disinvited. I don't know. I'm guessing she doesn't go because I don't see the upside, but I see a lot of downside.

But I don't know. Where's your head on this? Yeah, it's a crazy circumstance. And look, this is of a piece with what the Chinese Communist Party does, which is that they try to make it so difficult for you to do certain things that you just don't do them. And so that's kind of like deterrence strategy in a way. Yeah, whether you're the speaker of the house or the GM of the rockets. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Exactly. It's the same, no, it's like the same principle that they apply to the GM of the Rockets. And I think on this one, you kind of indicated something that I think is the right answer, which is, okay, I don't think that it's a good look for China to be able to tell American politicians, particularly, you know, members of Congress, they can make their own decisions, right? Actually, there's one time I had to call Nancy Pelosi and suggest something to her about a trip she was taking. How about that go? It was one of the most, like, I got yelled at in a way. Like, let's just say by the end, I was a, I was not only agreeing with her position, I was chastising myself. Offering to go on the trip too.

Yeah, exactly. So, but I think that the, the thing to do here is put the question to the Taiwanese. Sure. Because the negative consequences of her going would ultimately be born by the Taiwanese. Like, I don't necessarily think China's going to invade Taiwan over this trip. But there were, you know, there were some. indications that maybe there be some very aggressive military actions and response, things that could kind of reprisals on Taiwan. You know, if they on balance are willing to accept that risk and would

like her to be there, then I think, you know, that you've given them the opportunity to say, hey, look, we think this is going to be Harry. Like, do you still want the speaker to come? I think she can, she can have that conversation. Because I do think at this point, it's pretty bad look to to have the Chinese government basically canceling her visit. You know, like I, whatever you think about whether or not the timing is right, it's just, it's so far out there that like pulling it back feels like a tough place to be. And for what reason? Why are the Chinese doing this?

I think they're doing it for a couple of reasons. They have a party conference on the horizon where Xi Jinping is likely to try to install himself as the leader for life. He doesn't want any embarrassments in the run-up to that. We, the U.S. potentially has an arm sale to Taiwan that could be kind of designed to fend off more effectively a Chinese invasion. So a little bit more provocative of an arm sale than the kind of planes and stuff we sold them in the past. And so tensions are up for a reason. There's a, I guess, a reason why, like you were talking to me before, like this didn't seem like that big a deal in April it does now.

But again, I think, you know, put the question to the Taiwanese, do it privately and go. with that guidance? Yeah, and certainly the Russian invasion of Ukraine has just completely changed the context. I mean, I don't know about you, but that's right. People who are like, you know, pay a lot of attention to geopolitics, ask me all the time, when do you think China is going to invade Taiwan? It's no longer if it's a when question. And yeah, I mean, you can feel that tension and that pressure here. Yeah, it's been really interesting because like this is a question worth asking. Some of these kind of hypotheticals feel extraneous, but like this is a pretty big question. like because if the U.S. and China are going to war, it's going to be over Taiwan. And thus far,

you've heard two very different analyses out of the war in Ukraine. One is, wow, the war in Ukraine was much harder for Russia than they thought it would be. It wasn't a cakewalk. There were real sanctions. They're stuck in this very difficult conflict taking huge losses. And therefore, that might make the Chinese think twice. There's another theory that part of the reason why this has been so hard for Russian Ukraine is that there's been like seven years where the Ukrainians have been able to train and arm themselves and prepare for the invasion that kind of began in 2014 but didn't really go full tilt until this year. And that the Chinese might want to get ahead of that. And instead of sitting back and letting Taiwan arm itself for another decade and develop all these

plans to fend off their invasion that they might just want to go in the next couple of years, we don't know. You know, we don't know. But it is a tinderbox and it's going to be something watch and and ultimately I think people like the level of Pelosi are probably going to want to visit there given how central it is to so many U.S. interests. So speaking to those interests, the Senate voted to advance a bill today that is designed to boost competition with China and in particular to incentivize the construction of facilities that make semiconductors in the U.S. According to the Congressional Research Service, nearly 80% of semiconductor manufacturing capacity is in Asia, including 22% in Taiwan. And if the U.S.,

loses access to those suppliers, there would be massive, massive, massive economic and national security ramifications. So specifically, if China invaded Taiwan took over these facilities or destroyed them, we would be screwed, big time screwed. So the bill is over 50 billion subsidies for companies to build semiconductor manufacturing facilities in the U.S. And there's an investment tax credit for chip plants estimated to be worth over $20 billion the tax credit is. So, Ben, I totally understand the concern here. I agree with the concern. it's not, the pandemic showed how fragile our supply chains are for like cloth, you know, masks, let alone, right, super complicated semiconductors. I just don't know how much we need to incentivize

a gigantic corporation, like a Qualcomm is a $170 billion market cap. Bernie Sanders is calling the bill corporate welfare. Like, what do you think? Like, how necessary do you think this bill is? Well, it's clear that it was necessary for us to kind of get ahead of this problem looming on the horizon or potential challenge. Because like you used to, like you used to. said, I mean, if like we have an enormous reliance on semiconductors from Taiwan, if those were to go off the market, but this impacts everybody's lives in a way. I mean, you know, like this is obviously got an economic impact. But like, you know, every computer in your car and in your phone, all these things, like you could see real disruptions to kind of technologies people rely on on a regular basis. And it's just kind of an indication China is trying to build this indigenous tech sector of its own, right? So this, this is. So this. So this. You know, it's just a lot of it's just. And it's just kind of an indication. And it's just kind of an indication. Right. So this. So this. So this. So This is the Cold War part. China is pouring a lot of money into onshoreing, like bringing into China the supply chains that they rely on for key technologies.

And this would be the U.S. replicating that, trying to onshore our own development of core technologies like semiconductors. So this is a huge bill that kind of is an opening cornerstone of the Cold War competition as supply chains between the U.S. and China kind of bifurcate, split in two. And we don't want to be overly reliant on things that come from either China or, in this case, Taiwan or other countries that are potentially under Chinese influence. Japan, Korea. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, part of the problem I have, though, is this bills have like a long under the radar road to passage. At the beginning, there was a lot more stuff that made sense in terms of like investments and kind of basic research. and innovation. Like, the United States has not been investing in kind of research and innovation at the federal level at the rate it used to for a long time. Those numbers have been declining. And so there was originally like a broader approach taken to spurring innovation, including in the semiconductor industry, but, you know, across different sectors, kind of shrunk down to this very semiconductor-focused approach. And, yeah, I think inevitably, you know, to split the difference here, and I think in this case that that's merited.

There's some interest in catalyzing this industry and making sure these supply chains are secure. I'm sure that in the writing of the bill and in what happens in Washington, it gets cusier and cusier and cussier for the big corporations. Oh, you think a couple lobbyists get in there? Yeah, the lobbyists get in there. And like, well, how do you make this as easy as possible

for this already very profitable company to do this thing that's in the national interest? So it feels to me like good intention, the bigger framework was probably more useful because it addressed other things, including kind of basic research and development. And yeah, probably a little corporate welfare got laundered in there in the process. Yeah, as sense that happened. Part of the background for why people are suddenly worried about semiconductor shortages is the war in Ukraine is raging on. And now the Russians have access to

none of these technologies because of sanctions. So let's talk about Ukraine for a minute. So there was a glimmer of hope in Russian, Ukraine last week when the Russians and Ukrainians signed a deal to free up more than 20 metric tons of Ukrainian grain for export. This deal was brokered by the United Nations in Turkey. It was signed in Istanbul. Obviously, it won't end the war, not suggesting it would, but it could help ease a food crisis that has had devastating consequences already, especially in Africa. But less than a day later, Russia bombarded the port in Odessa, where Ukraine ships its grain. So now this whole thing is very much up in the air. The broader issue with stake here is that Ukraine has all this grain stored.

They can't move it on railways and on the roads because there's just too much of it. They need to get it on boats. But Russians have blockaded the Black Sea ports and Ukrainian militaries mine their own harbor to repent further Russian invasions. So it's not safe. So, you know, apparently Ukrainian officials are still going to try to get boats out later this week. But their confidence in Russia's word is obviously shaken by this, you know, 24 hours later bombing. do you have any theory on what happened here? Like, I'm just always struck by whether this is stupidity and incompetence and intra-Russian,

like not talking to each other, the military, and the diplomats, or if not, why bother with these negotiations if you're Russia and then immediately break the agreement? Like, aren't you just wasting your own time? I think this, like, feels intentional to me. And it reminded me, Tommy, in 2016, I think, John Kerry very laboriously negotiated a kind of ceasefire with humanitarian access into Syria. This is like the height of the, you know, Syrian crisis, humanitarian crisis, refugee crisis, and painstaking negotiations with Sergei Lavrov announced a much fanfare, this ceasefire,

you know, understood that it was, you know, not a perfect deal. But, you know, the premise was any lives that can be saved by getting aid in, that's the better. within days, they literally bombed, like, aid trucks going in. Like aid trucks that were marked as aid trucks could be seen from above. The only planes flying in the air were Russian and Syrian, so the Russians either did this or knew it was being done. And this reminded me of that. Like, you reach a deal and almost immediately, you violate the deal in the most flagrant way.

Why would they do that? I think that for Russia, it's a kind of very callous, even sadistic reminder, hey, like, we control whether this happens or not. So sure, we're going to make this agreement and that'll be good for us to go around the world and say, see, we're trying to get this grain out. But then we're going to remind everybody, including the Ukrainians, that ultimately we're the ones who hold the lever as to whether this stuff gets in or out. And I think it's an indication some of this stuff will get out, some of it won't.

the Russians will be kind of controlling that access, leveraging that access, and it's gross. And it does call into question, though, you know, ultimately this war probably ends at the negotiating table. That's where most wars end. Like, man, how can you trust these people? No, I know. No, I know. Did you see that Bill Burns, the CIA director, was asked about Putin's health, and he said, there are lots of rumors about President Putin's health. And as far as we can tell, he's entirely too healthy. Yes. Very spicy from Bill. Yeah, that's about as spicy as Bill. I just like that. Like, what the fuck? Whoa.

Wow. Okay. I mean, I agree with you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's, you know. Bill Burns. She was off the stage just a little bit. I'm not saying I wish she was dead.

I just wish it was, you know, incapacitated. But do you think it was prepared? It seemed like a quip. It seemed like a quip. Yeah. Yeah. CIA director usually, yeah, he picks his words. Also Tuesday, Ben, so the European Union energy ministers

announced an agreement that calls on all nations in the EU to voluntarily cut their natural gas consumption between now and spring of next year. These guys are, these European countries are trying to prepare for a very long winter. As Russia continues to reduce the amount of natural gas they're sending to Europe, they're literally like metering down the amount that's going to Germany through the North Stream 1 pipeline. Germany in particular gets more than half of its natural gas from Russia. And shortages will impact regular people trying to eat their homes as well as the German economy, which is driven heavily by this big industrial base that is super energy intensive. So one report that said Germany's chemical and pharmaceutical industries alone used 27% of the country's gas supply. So huge economic ramifications.

That context that we just talked through made it all the more shocking and disgusting that the former German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, just popped up in Russia like today or yesterday. He said he decided to take a vacation to Moscow, as one does. Because as one does, yeah. Yeah. So Gerard Schroeder spent the last couple of decades raking in cash from Russian oil and gas interests and is still on the board of Rossneft, a Russian state-controlled oil company. So great guy Ben. Do you feel like people were always this awful? Like it feels like there's, like, you know, like Jared Schroeder, Boris Johnson, like these people we talk about, you know, like Alex Jones types.

And like it just feels like there are more people like at Gerhard Schroeder 20 years ago would have been shamed out of doing that. You know why the recency bias I normally have with all things in my life. I normally agree with you. But I was reading a lot about Argentina in the late 70s yesterday. People were pretty awful. And the fact that not only did they get the World Cup in 1978 and they were torturing people so close to the stadium that the prisoners could hear it, but, you know, who was a special guest at the games from the U.S., Henry Kissinger. Henry Kissinger, who I noticed, you know, who helped, you know, obviously design many coups. Like, you know, he was what John Bolton inspired to do.

Yeah, they're all yucking it up about their coosies. And Kissinger has this book out and, like, you know, the guy is still treated like this kind of titan of. everything, you know, anyway, that's put that aside. Is he the New York Post went after Joe Biden for not inviting Henry Kissinger? Yeah, like what? It was like there's a mandate that Henry Kissinger comes in, like, good? Every president. Point for Joe?

Yeah, good for Joe Biden. I wish we hadn't. Yeah, I feel gross that we had them in. I, like this German thing, though, is something to watch. And look, there's just no way, obviously they're going to have to work hard to diversify energy. They're going to have to try to innovate their way out of this. oftentimes in wars like catalyzed societies to like change things faster than they would have otherwise, you know. And that's kind of what we're in, even though like Europe is not in the war.

They are deeply implicated by it. And so they're going to have to move faster on alternative solutions, but there's no way around kind of making a decision. Are we going to make the case to our people again and again that this is just what we're going to have to do for the next couple years? and part of it's going to suck. There's no way to avoid that. No. The danger would be to promise, oh, we'll deal with this. It's going to be fine.

Or just hope it ends over soon. Or hope it ends, you know, somehow. Like, no, you have to project out that this could be a war that goes on like it's going now for a couple years and make that case. Because otherwise, I think the, you know, the seams are going to continue to pop in the coalition. Yeah. And we'll get to how they've sort of popped already in Italy in a little bit. Also, Ben, do you see that the right?

Russian said they're going to withdraw from the International Space Station after 2024 and focus building on their own station. Good luck with that, guys. Can you imagine? Imagine being on the first post-Russian sanctioned Russian space launch? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, imagine. It must be, is it awkward up there?

Like, do they talk politics up there in space? Yeah, I don't know. So who's the cosmonaut, they'll call them cosmonauts again, who's up there until 2024? And it's like, hey, you know, how about that Wimbledon winner from Kazakhstan, you know? What neutral bullshit can talk about. All right. So the flip side of this energy equation is our next topic. And I just want to warn you in advance, Ben, that I went deep on this and it sent me into a spiral

of depression. I did too. This is dark. Congo. This is from the New York Times. Congo to auction land to oil companies. Our priority is not to save the planet. That's a quote from the president, some minister or somebody.

I guess that's the theme these days, right? It's the DRC. It's Joe Manchin. None of them wants to prioritize saving the planet. So here's why this is so bad. So the Democratic Republic of Congo, they want to auction on. off parts of the Congo rainforest to oil and gas companies for drilling. This is terrible for a lot of reasons. You know, there's a big gorilla wildlife preserve there. There's all these old growth forests,

but especially worrisome is the fact that the Congo is full of peatlands. Peatlands are waterlogged, wet areas where dead vegetation doesn't really rot. So that means carbon gets sucked out of the atmosphere by plants. It's stored in, you know, limbs and leaves and shit. And when it falls down, it gets trapped in the water. It just sits there. It doesn't really. rot, it just doesn't escape back into the atmosphere, so it just traps carbon for a very long time. These kinds of swamps and peatlands make up 3% of the Earth's surface, but store twice as much carbon as all of the world's forests combined. So hugely important.

Not good. So according to the times... I don't like where this is going. Yes, the peatlands in Central Africa store the equivalent of 20 years of U.S. fossil fuel emissions. So if that land is converted into a farm, cleared for oil and gas drilling, blah, blah, just dries out, it will be literally an explosion of carbon into the atmosphere. So this announcement from the Congo government comes less than a year after the leaders at the COP 26 Climate Change Summit announced the exact opposite, which was a 10-year agreement to protect the Congo Basin, which included all these international pledges of money from rich countries, from like the Bezos Climate Fund, blah, blah, blah, spaceships, whatever else he does. So I shouldn't mock him for this.

This is a good thing. This is a very good thing that he's doing if he's paying to help this. So obviously Congo is not alone in pursuing new oil and gas deposits following the spike in energy prices and left to Russia and beta Ukraine, right? Like I think Biden's debating whether to, you know, shut down drilling in the Arctic Circle or in other places as we speak. But I guess we just have to hope like that this current comment is just posturing in an effort to get more international support, which they obviously deserve. But it's just, I don't know, man. It's like really it's incredible to see every government pivot. away from caring about climate change or doing anything about climate change kind of all at once

in like the last six months. Yeah, it's pretty dark. And, you know, you almost can't hold it against this guy who said this thing because, like, you know, he's just some guy, you know, in a country that's deeply impoverished. But, like, at a certain point, the math just adds up. And, like, when you talk about things like the Congo Basin or the Amazon rainfall, which is being, you know, steadily deforested, right? Destroyed by Boston.

One of the world's largest carbon capture rainforests just could be tipped over to a point of no return where suddenly it's like an emitter, right? We just can't do that. Like, we can't afford to do that. And we have to recognize that the tone that is set by the big countries ends up filtering down to everybody else. And so if the U.S. and other big countries are like, we are putting our shoulder to the wheel behind a clean energy transition, that's the way that the global economy is going to run.

That's how people are going to make money. And oh, by the way, for countries like the DRC, we are going to subsidize your transition. We're going to basically pay you to not make money off of these oil fields. That will work. If we all lose our minds and I'm not trying to minimize how difficult high gas prices are, but if the only reaction to that is, oh my God, we have to find more fossil fuels. It's going to set off like a global boom in fossil fuels. And everybody's going to go looking for the way to get a buck.

These deposits are now worth more. Yeah. And so, like, this instinctive reaction that we had to not pivot from what's right in front of us with high gas prices to a more diverse, clean energy driven transition, but rather to say like, oh, time to put that on. hold. And oh, by the way, the fact that Joe Manchin doesn't want to spend money on that means that we can't really do what we need to do, so we might as well just go back to the oil. Like, this is the kind of, these are the kinds of things that people are going to look back on 20 years now and be like, why on earth did they make that decision, you know? And so I think there's no substitute for setting a tone at the top of the international food chain in terms

of the big countries and the big economies and big companies and big philanthropies to say, like, no, now it's actually the time that we have to like be extra vigilant. to fill the space if they need to be made whole by philanthropy, like the Bezos Earth Fund or by foreign assistance, like that. How about by the Belgians who looted the country? Or the Belgians, the little reparations there. Like, that is a worthwhile investment for the pain that you're going to face. Truly.

Whatever we face from destroying the Amazon and the Congo Basin, those cost you may far higher than the gas prices are now. Yes, for sure. All right, let's pivot from depression to a little anger for a minute. So because your buddy, Victor Orban, is in the news. Oh, yeah. Orban, again, for listeners, is a far-right nationalist prime minister of Hungary, who is very popular in Republican circles these days.

Who can forget when Tucker Carlson went over to Hungary to hang with Orban and broadcast from Budapest for a week? And Orban coming over to Texas for CPACs. On Saturday, yes, he sure is. On Saturday, Orban delivered a speech from Romania, where he said the following, we, Hungarians, are not a mixed race. And we do not want to become a mixed race. He later said that countries where European and non-Europeans mingle were,

quote, no longer nations. So like you mentioned, August, Orban goes to Dallas, Texas, the annual conservative political action conference for CPAC meeting, where he's going to be with Trump, Ted Cruz, and a bunch of other Republican politicians who I'm sure will pretend they never heard these comments because deep down they know that's what their base wants to hear. Earlier this year, CEPAC actually held an event in Budapest.

So, you know, Victor Rwan saying the quiet part out loud here. Trump endorsed him. Yeah, I think what's, you know, I write about, And after the fall, I read about this speech he gave in Romania in 2014. And just pausing this, why is he giving speeches in Romania? It's because he has this idea of the Hungarian nation as a kind of blood and soil nation. And he has like the historical grievance was that the borders that were drawn for Hungary after World War I kind of, you know, carved out a bunch of ethnic Hungarians who are in countries like Romania, right? Now.

Sounds very Putin-like. I mean, to take it, you know, even a notch darker, that's very Hitler-like, right? That was Hitler's original grievance, right? The Sudentland, the Germans outside of Germany who were in Czechoslovakia or Austria or whatever. So just by going there and kind of giving this kind of nationalist address to these ethnic Hungarians, he's tapping into the vein of blood and soil nationalism. Now, the speech he gave in 2014 that I wrote about used to be the most controversial speech he'd given there, which is where he called for something called illiberal democracy. He said basically democracy's dying. The future models are set by China and Russia, and we're going to have illiberal democracies, which are

basically like soft autocracies, right? I think the question about Orban, and in many ways you could say it's also the question about people like Trump and Steve Miller and maybe hangs over Ronda Santis, is do they, like, is it possible to play footsie with fascism and and, and, and, and and blood and soil nationalism without becoming the full thing. And I think what Orban is showing us is no, like you get on that trajectory, you start with a liberal democracy and pretty soon you're talking about mixed race, you know, because that's what this ideology is about. It's about ethno nationalism, right?

And so he's just saying the quiet part out loud, I don't have high hopes that the Republicans will like distance themselves from this garbage, you know? No, I don't either. It's what they believe. It's what Tucker Carlson's a great replacement theory is a version of the same thing. Yeah, and Orbaugh talked about the great replacement theory all the time. Yeah. So that's dark.

Another dark story, but one that, you know, at least includes some contrition, which is on Monday, Pope Francis visited Canada, and he apologized for the Catholic Church's role in administering schools where more than 150,000 indigenous children were forced to attend between 1881 and 1996. These children were forcibly taken from their homes. Many were starved, physically or sexually abused, and pressured to abandon their culture and language and what has been called a cultural genocide. We talked about these schools on the show last year because unmarked graves of hundreds, if not thousands of indigenous children were found

on the grounds where these schools used to operate. So Pope Francis initially met with a delegation from Canada, apologized, I believe, last year, and then he made the trip himself and went to Canada this week where he said, quote, with shame and unambiguously, I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the indigenous peoples. He later said the schools were a deplorable evil, and they were part of, quote, a colonizing mentality of the times. Survivors, I think, appreciated the apology, but want more, including financial compensation, prosecution of surviving abusers, and the release of all the records that are available from the time. So obviously long overdue, but it does seem good that the Pope went. Yeah, long overdue,

and I think that those demands are very reasonable. Me too. There's some sort of compensation funds that are being set up, but I think it's like Canadian Catholic organizations that are then fundraising to pay them. And I think these guys are like, look. Yeah, back in the cash. Yeah. One of the other interesting things about watching that, you know, Pope Francis looked pretty old. It's like 85. Yeah.

And you kind of forget he's out there, right? Like, but I mean, I think he deserves credit. Like he's clearly, you know, he seems like he's out beyond the comfort zone of the, the, the, the, the, the, traditionalists over there at the Vatican. You know, like, it definitely has that feeling of a guy running institution, but not having full... Well, and the right-wing Catholics in the U.S. savage. They savage. I caught a newsmax segment on this where they mocked the woke pope's white apology tour.

Yeah, well, there you go. I mean, like, this is so... Like, these children were... There were some schools where, like, 75% of the kids who attended died. I mean, this is, like, the most horrific thing you've ever heard. And yet it gets lumped in with, like, like, wokeness and, like... social media. It's like the dumbing down of all that. But I think it's an interesting reminder, you never know quite exactly what's happening in the Vatican, but my sense has been that

Francis has been trying to push the envelope on on these historical reconciliation and apology issues, on obviously, you know, trying to catch up to the sexual abuse scandals and all manner of other things in the Catholic Church. And you feel him doing what he can with his own actions. the question is can the institution kind of get to where he is. And so the apologies and indication like Pope Francis's head is in the right place on this thing. Can he or the powers that be or Catholics generally make sure that the institution does its part? And that's when things like compensation come into play. Yes, yes, agreed.

So Francis, I think he had a broken knee too. Yeah, he was in a wheelchair. Like, yeah, didn't look great. So he's in Canada right now. Trudeau had like the haircut, though. Oh, did he? Yeah. Another scandal for the right wing.

Back home in Italy, things are still a mess. The Italian prime minister, good transition. Thank you, Mario Draghi. He resigned last week. We talked about this, I think, two weeks ago, how he resigned. They asked him not to resign, but then Draghi finally resigned for good after his efforts to keep together.

The fragile government coalition just completely failed. The parties are now preparing for general election in late September. I think it's September 25th. There is obviously, like, you know, considerable amount of time. between now an election day and the parties will likely jockey for position and form alliances. But, you know, most people currently think that the results of this September election will be a more right-wing government. And I saw one poster suggesting that, you know, if these center-left parties remain divided, then an alliance of three right-wing parties could conceivably win a two-thirds

majority in both houses of parliament, which would get you into Victor Orban territory and give you the ability to do things like amend the Constitution, which should be very bad. Hopefully that doesn't happen. So, you know, the challenge of Ben is like the real, the only option for the Democratic parties where like the social Democrats is to align with the populist and kind of shitty five-star movement. But the Democrats are so furious at five-star for abandoning Draghi that they say the rift is irreversible. The five-star guys were like they wanted, you know, basic income, minimum salaries,

issues like that to get more attention. So a concern now is that right-wing parties like the League, brothers of Italy and then Silvio Berlusconi's party, Forza, Italia. That guy just never dies. That's a theme today. It just creeps who never go away could form a coalition and really do well. So another one we're going to watch and canary in the coal mine for high energy prices in Ukraine-Russia policy.

Yeah. Now, this could be a huge spoiler inside the EU and like a crack in the kind of Western European countries, right, drifting in this fascist direction. It's not good. Italian fascism is, you know. Well, history there. history is not great. I mean, look, I think that you've had these huge divisions and splintering on the center to the left in Italy and like they just have to get their shit together here, right?

And there just has to be a coherent political message with the dose of populism, by the way, economic populism, that they can carry forward. And at the end of the day, like, you know, yeah, you're going to have to decide, like, can you try to eclipse these people at the ballot box? or can you try to engineer some kind of complex unity scheme to at least prevent worse outcomes? But here, I think you really, you know, the Italian left has been on its back foot for about a decade, you know, or since really 2016 when Mateo Renzi kind of lost control of things there, right? So, like, hopefully, like, someone can come out of that pack and unify what has been a very divided left. Yes, very, very troublesome.

So, Ben, you know, an area close to home for you, close to your heart, Myanmar is looking pretty grim. On Monday, the Myanmar military announced that they had executed four democracy activists. These men were accused of helping the resistance movement that's been fighting back since the military state of coup last year. They were sentenced in secret. They were just closed-door trials and then executed. And then I think the fact that the military decided to announce these four executions, despite international outcries and pressure from, you know, Cambodia, Malaysians, like the other countries in the region, it said, please don't do this. And they did it anyway.

There's a shocking new level of impunity. What do we know about these men who were murdered? And what do you think it tells us about, like, the current state of affairs in Myanmar? So these were really prominent people. Like, these were people, some, you know, some had roots back into the 1988 protest movement with Aung San Suu Kyi. They'd been political prisoners before the opening in around 2011. in 2012, then some of them served in Parliament. These were like active politicians. And then, you know, interestingly, one was like a hip-hop artist. He's a rapper, right?

Yeah. So, like, a lot of the, you know, civil society-based artistic opposition to the junta or to military government came through this kind of thriving political hip-hop scene. So you had this kind of cross-section of very prominent people who have been political prisoners, politicians, artists, very well-known people. And, you know, clearly this was a message that, like we don't give a shit about international opinion. And if you oppose us, you could ultimately die, right? They want to send the starkest possible message. What was notable with me, Tommy,

is like in addition to the U.S. and ASEAN, the Southeast Asian countries, like you indicated Cambodia, Hun Sen, like the prime minister of Cambodia, not exactly a liberal guy. No, right? This guy is basically a dictator. He appealed for them to not do this, right? If you are that far out of step with even like a Han Sen, I think there's some danger. in this for the junta, like they're maximizing their own isolation, even though they're in a, they're in a weaker position than they were back when they ran things, you know, completely 20 years ago, because there's bigger unrest. Right.

There's a movement. It's a more organized armed opposition. And so what I see is just a grinding civil conflict that continues tragically. So I saw like the White House NSC spokesperson statement was like, you know, the U.S. condemns in the strongest possible terms, you know, this event. You see, you know, it seemed like something I could have put out when I was in that job, right, and did a million times. I mean, do you think we're just going to go back to, like, another endless cycle of, like, sanctions and isolation and et cetera, or there are other paths here to pressure them? I think that the, like, the pressure that matters the most is the pressure that's coming from the closest to them.

So the Southeast Asian countries, ASEAN, these 10 Southeast Asian countries, this includes the countries on their border, like Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, you know, that's their neighbor. That's a club of countries that Myanmar wants to be in. And them being kind of outside of that club cut off, that does isolate them. It hurts them in a way that the Chinese may try to make whole. But then the other thing is real outreach to the opposition. Like this is, we always think about just pressure and sanctions. Who is talking to the kind of government, some of them are in exile, some of them, are in the country fighting, you know. I'm not saying getting into like an arm these people kind of situation. I'm just talking about like political context, dialogue, like demonstrating that we really

don't think the junta, this is a junta that when they put this to a vote, they always lost like 90% of the vote. Right. So this is not even like a 50-50 situation, right? It's not even close to popular. So I think part of what you have to be doing, not just the U.S., but these other countries, is keeping very open lines with other leaders inside and outside of the country. the ethnic groups also that are organized inside the country and that resist

to junta. And then keeping an eye on Aung San Suu Kyi, like she's in prison too. Like her, anything happens to her. That could be a real triggering event for like an explosion in that country. Yeah. A few more quick things before we get to your interview. So families of the victims of the 9-11 attacks are keeping up the pressure on President Trump for hosting the Saudi-owned live golf tour tournament at his course in Bedminster.

I think it's this weekend. and the players, they're also pressuring the players for participating. They released a television spot today. Let's hear that. My two brothers were murdered on 9-11. I live every single day without my father. FBI files show the Saudi government was involved. This golf tournament is taking place 50 miles from ground zero.

It's disgusting. Worse than a slap in the face. You're taking money from an evil regime. These are 3,000 Americans that were killed on American soil. How much money to turn? you're back on your own country. 200 million? Sure. I'll forget about the atrocities. I'm never going to forget. I'm never going to forgive the golfers for taking this blood and money.

Tough, tough, tough ad right there. Ben, I think you can see that Trump is worried about this, but obviously not enough yet to cancel the tournament. He didn't interview with the Wall Street Journal where he said that the live tour has been worth billions of dollars in publicity to the Saudis. Yeah, no shit. It's called Sportswashing. Yeah. And said that the controversy over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. has, quote, totally died down. And he also pretended not to know why the 9-11 families would be upset about the tournament happening at his course, which is absurd on its face.

But also a Trump aide called them a few days ago and tried to, like, talk them out of being critical. So I don't know. I mean, I think, look, I think it's going to happen. But this could take, you know, a chunk out of his political standing. This is pretty bad. Yeah, at a time when, you know, his political standing seems to be coming back down. He's a little wobbly here. I mean, keep in mind, this is the guy who, like, made up the story about, like, watching Muslims celebrating 9-11.

Yeah, that's right. He's willing to demagogue 9-11 for his own purposes. And he also specifically blamed Saudis in the past in interviews. Yeah. So this guy, you know, totally full shit. I mean, I think that, like, this is one of those things where it's so many things that everybody intuitively knows are gross about the world come together in one thing. Right? So it's like golf, right?

Like, no offense to people play golf. You think it's gross? I don't think it's gross, but it's obviously associated with wealth, right? Oh, sure. Like golf is something that is already associated with being a bit out of reach to normal people. Yeah, the fancy club. Something that fancy people do at fancy clubs. The Saudis, like, murderous dictatorship, sports washing through golf is like,

yachting is the only thing they could have done that would have been. been a little more like kind of just reminding everybody that this is about money yeah um trump wanting to make a buck and getting paid directly to have this isn't like a bank shot they are like paying him no there's no spinning this it's like clearly and then trump himself saying that like all the attention has been like good publicity like which speaks to what everybody knows is kind of wrong with our media he said the quiet part out loud yeah he said yeah so like oh really distracting from their murders. Everything about this event is the quiet part out loud.

It's like, it's like we're going to ostentatious wealth in your face, like Saudi dictatorship in your face, like 9-11, you know, profiteering for political gain and then not giving shit about the victims. Like it's all right there. And so maybe, just maybe, this is one of those things that actually sticks, right? Because it's like, it's completely and utterly fucking indefensible. That said, like when you see it, you're like, oh, this would be a cleaner. shot if we didn't just like fist bump wash this guy like a couple weeks earlier.

I do think there's a leave a den. I do think there's a leave of den because like this is going to piss off like New York fighter fighters and cops and like the set of people that Trump thinks are his guys. Maga type people. In the same way that I do think that in some way the lack of regard for the law enforcement and I know this was an issue on Twitter. But like the lack of regard for law enforcement on January 6th kind of put the lie to the blue line crap, you know, like, like Trump is, you know, he's taken some pretty direct hits at his own

base in these things. And I think he's losing altitude. I really do too. And it's not wishcasting like this feels bad. No, this feels bad. Speaking of, you know, former blowhard politicians who won't go away, Boris Johnson did another interview. The Telegraph reported that Boris told his buddy, who's a former conservative party fundraiser that he doesn't want to resign and that he wants to be the Tory party's leader during the next general election. Boris's friend. It's like one conversation with one guy made up this whole story. It's a guy named...

Classic British tabloid. Lord Crudis of Shortage, that cannot be a real name. That's a thing. I do not believe that's a real name. That's something from Harry Potter. Downabby season five right there. But apparently Lord Crudas has launched a bring back Boris campaign. So, like, again, this is our life now.

It's like we're talking about 20, 242. We're going to be doing a podcast about Boris Johnson, B.B. Nanyahu's resurgence and like Donald Trump Jr.'s campaign. And Gerhard Schroeder will be at like Putin's DACA and the Black Sea or something. Yeah, I mean, like, the thing that's also so crazy about this is that, like, we're like not even weeks away from Boris resigning. And, you know, he's basically, like, we know you want to come back. Winking at people, like, I didn't really want to do it. Telegraph's kind of his home base paper there.

And the reality is that the conservative party is so strange and British nominating is so strange in general. Like, watching this competition play out, you realize it's like just like a couple hundred thousand people who were probably that you know among the nuttiest people so um yeah boris a bit of a zombie like energy out of him i mean at some point this means that the tories themselves are going to have to pretty definitively break from the guy yeah they better hurry up liz trust when you know when you're prime minister uh like this is going to be a guy with a knife falling you around looking your back yeah uh yeah call the priest could need like a excommunication here yeah um

residents of the Australian town of Mildura then were pretty freaked out last week when they looked up and they saw the sky above them glowing pink. They were wondering, was this aliens? It's the end of days. No. Turns out it was a medical cannabis facility that was testing out LED lights that created an effect that just happened to make people think they were high as hell. Wait, is that like Delta Man Hopbox though? Like if you breathe that in, were you... No, no.

So the Washington Post had a fun story on this. I guess they use red spectrum LED lights. Those help the plants grow. Filed that one away. and someone accidentally left the curtains open in the facility. So all of a sudden the entire sky just lit up like it was some sort of like sunset. So I don't know, I guess the lesson is if the sky is pink, like don't freak out. Is this what happens when a labor government gets in though?

Just explosions of marijuana. Marijuana just like across the sky. I feel like when we visit Australia, there's usually something kind of cool like this happening. Maybe we need like those guys, Dan and those guys from the Rational Field podcast to go check it out. They should. Do some investigative work on the scene. It's like 350 miles from Melbourne. Burn, I think.

Yeah, yeah. So, I don't know, road trip. Yeah, road trip. Yeah, why not? Yeah. Speaking of things that will make you feel like you've been taking bongets, the Saudis, again, are in the news because the government released a design for something called the line.

I flagged this year, yeah. 500 meter, 170 kilometer long vertical city. Wait for it. The Saudis, they released drawings and like a hype video that Ben sent around to a text right of us this morning and I guess said the press. So it looks like two gigantic mirrors. were like laid on their side and run parallel

next to each other for miles across the desert like it's a like it's God's razor blade right? It's just ridiculous looking. I will spare listeners all the absurd utopian promises about like sustainable this

and you'll never get in the car that and ventilation. It's nonsense. Here's what I want to know. Which do you think is more likely to get constructed? The line Saudi buildings or the volcano powered Bitcoin City

in El Salvador. Oh man. I guess I'd have to go to the line because at least they actually have some money there. I will say that the way this video was presented, people need to look at this. And yeah, I recommend take an edible wait about an hour. That's an hour. You know, crank this thing out. This thing is like totally fucking bonkers, but it is presented like the Crown, His Majesty's vision. Like it is very much personalized to MBS. And the amount of megalomation. that it would take a human being.

I mean, that's what's truly scary about this. Like, to think, okay, I have an idea. I'm going to pay to get, and you know these architects are probably being offered more than the golfers. So much money. Just sit in a room and be like, this is going to be like a line through the desert. And we're going to have like floating Jetsons cars and all this stuff. And like there's a degree of megalomania here that is a bit alarming. I mean, think about this.

Like, okay, we got this big country. We got all these people. We're going to build two buildings that are run parallel that are 170 kilometers long and jam everybody into them. And that's a good use of space and an idea. And put giant mirrors in the desert. Like they're going to reflect sun and melt shit and kill wildlife. Would you want to live in like a compressed city like that, though? Like that's kind of like what I don't get is like what?

Well, you know the Saudis. It's a very egalitarian society where everybody will get a free. Yeah, I'm sure everybody will get a fair shape. You get a window and everything else. It's just so it's like, yeah. Like, who, you're right. The weirder thing is, like, someone is indulging MBS, Mbavim Solomon, the Crown Prince, and he thinks that releasing this will make him look good.

And he has this little coterie of advisors who tell him, yeah, yeah, do it. Get that out there. I just don't get, like, our friend Cody Keenan pointed this out. Like, why wouldn't you just build a circle? That seems more logical. Like, it's literally like you built a city like it's like the high line in New York or something. It's very strange. Right.

Is the idea that, like, everyone has a view of the ocean if it's a line? You do it on the coasts? I think the idea is that then there's this, like, like high-speed transportation that you can get from one side of the line to the next, like, fast. You can do that in a curve, right? But literally, it looks like a bunch of architects got high in, like, Riyadh and, you know, drew some stuff. And they drew two lines.

They had, like, one ruler. What was the breakthrough? Like, what was like, wait a second. I got it. I got it. It's just a line, you know? It's so dumb. It's so dumb.

And they'll probably build some version of it because they have so much money. Right. Because the version of this podcast that would actually push back on him in Saudi Arabia would get you ex-execute. Yeah, yeah. So he'll never hear this. Thank God. Well, knock on wood, yeah. Well, yeah.

Anyway, that guy sucks. Okay, we are going to take a quick break and we come back. You will hear Ben's interview with Janemsova about all things Russia and an amazing new podcast that's coming out. So stick around for that. I'm very pleased to welcome back to Pod Save the World, a Russian journalist and activist, a leader of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation and co-host of the new podcast, another Russia with me, Janana Nemtsova, Jean-Suka to see you. I'm good to see you and thank you for inviting me on your show.

Well, look, it's really exciting. It's great to have another Russia out in the world, the story of your father and your family and you out in the world. We want to just introduce people a bit more to this podcast and to you and this story and kind of bring it up to date here. So just to start this conversation, why don't you just remind our listeners who your father was and what the stories that we're telling in the podcast? So my father was Boris Nemtsov. Boris Nemtsov was a statement. He held senior positions in the 90s under Yelton's presidency. But shortly after Putin came to power in early 2000s, he lost the parliamentary elections.

And in 2007, he joined the U.S. opposition movement and became one of the most fiercest Putin's critics. He was a very powerful voice in our country. When Putin decided to next premier, my father was one of the few people who openly criticized this move of Putin. He was against the war in Ukraine, which didn't actually start on the 24th of February, 2022, but it's starting. started in 2014, mainly in Donbos, in East Ukraine. My father was assassinated on the 27th of February 2015 in Moscow in the very heart of the city just in front of the Kremlin walls.

Yeah, so basically, you know, your father had been heir apparent to Boris Yeltsin, then the leading opposition figure, and then this terrible assassination. You mentioned the situation. You mentioned the situation in Ukraine. And one of the things that was interesting to me in going back and telling this story with you was just how outspoken your father was against the war in Ukraine, against the annexation of crime. He had a time when a lot of people in Russia were obviously going along with that and supporting it. There was that one interview in particular you found, give people a sense of the kind of things that your father was saying, literally up until the eve the night before he was assassinated about Putin and the war in Ukraine.

Well, my father actually used quite strong terms when he described Putin and his policies in Ukraine. During his last interview, he described Putin as a pathological lawyer and that he actually started an absolutely insane war against the country which is actually was, unfortunately, one of the closest countries culturally in the post-Soviet space. So he attacked Vladimir Putin quite personally when he was in Kiev. There was a conference in Kiev in 2015. and I don't know once again how to say it in English, but it was quite strong. He basically said like he is completely mad, but he used a stronger term to describe Vladimir Putin.

And at the same time, my father also was a political prophet because he, as you said rightly, he was among the few ones who condemned the annexation of premier and who basically predicted the war with Ukraine. But he was also quite a courageous person. And in some of his interviews, he said, Putin can kill me. I'm not sure that he believed in that. But I think that he, understood that risk and that is why at some point of time in 2014 he decided to leave Russia and he spent one month in Israel and then he decided to come back and to fight with Putin. Once he was asked, it was in one of his interviews, he was asked, you know, like, Boris, do you think that Putin actually needs you and he responded?

You know, I do not care whether Putin needs me. I know that many Russians need me, and that is why I'm here. That is why I am working. That is why I'm a politician, and I'm fighting for a democratic Russia, because we are now on the wrong track. And I think that many Russians still need my father. My father has become a symbol of resistance. I know lots of people who were teenagers when my father was assassinated, it was more than seven years ago,

and they still discover my father, and I get a lot of messages on social media, a lot of direct messages, and people are saying, like, or your father was such a great political visionary. I've just watched like hundreds of interviews. His videos after the invasion of Ukraine are going viral. So he is an important politician for Russia. I know that in the United States of America, when you say Russia, people think Putin. Putin.

So that is bad. Russia is a complex country and it has always had different paths. But unfortunately, up to these days, Russia chose. a dictatorial way of development, except for those 10 years, almost 10 years, yes, under Yolson. But still, I think that our post does not define our future. And I believe in another Russia. I know that it now exists only in my imagination. But I think we should think about our future, and we should envision at least how the future can look like and we should have hope. I think that that podcast gives hope for Russians and for many, many Russians, by the way,

who live in the United States of America. So I'm being like too worthy. I'm sorry. No, no. Well, you mentioned obviously the war in Ukraine and, and Russia is deeper in dictatorship than it has been at any point since the fall of Soviet Union. What motivated you to want to tell this story again now? Why is this an important story for people to hear right now with the war in Ukraine and everything that's going on?

As I said, first of all, the discourse of Russia around Russia is dominated by Vladimir Putin. I think that is really misleading because an increasing number of Russians do not actually support Putin. You know, in dictatorships, you cannot trust any opinion polls. Because we live right now in a dictatorship. People are feared to share what they think about, politics, about Vladimir Putin, about the war in Ukraine. So we do not know that. truth. That is one thing. And I know our society is very polarized, but I think that at least 40% of Russians do not support the war with Ukraine. So, and those Russians, broadly speaking, are represented by my father. And also, it's very important from the historical point of

you, it happens very rarely that a politician is a prophet. It was with Churchill, who predicted the war with Germany and who warned many politicians in the United Kingdom and across Europe of the threat of Hitler. And I think that my father was this person who warned people in Russia and outside the country. He traveled many times to the United States of America. He met with some senators. He warned about the threat of Putin, how dangerous he was. That's what he said. And that is true. So sometimes there are people who are capable of predicting the future, though it's very, very difficult. And we have to listen to those people. And once again, the image of Russia right now, is extremely bad. It is dreadful. And I think that it's an important moment to remind that, like, Russia is very diverse, that Russians are not all the same, that not all Russians are willing to live under the dictator and Putin is a dictator. So it's also a much. So it's also a Among everything else, though, like this is just part of what was so compelling to me and telling the story was just what a human story is.

I mean, on the one hand, your father's story traces the arc of Russia, right? He's there in the aftermath of Chernobyl protesting that. He's there at the fall of the Soviet Union. He's there as the kind of rising star at the onset of democracy and capitalism. He's there fighting the oligarchs. He's there fighting against Putin. He's there opposing the war. You know, you can kind of trace Russian history in your father's history.

But then there's just also this very compelling figure, kind of a colorful guy. You guys obviously had this incredibly close relationship. I think a lot of people sometimes, you know, probably people listen to this podcast, you know, they see people who take huge risks. You know, people like, well, obviously like your dad, but like an Alexan Navalny who's in prison now or, you know, people who are in prison in Belarus next door or people who are protesting. investing in Myanmar against the military regime there. And they wonder, particularly for prominent kind of dissidents and political opposition figures like your father, I think people wonder, what's it like to be related to those people? You know, what's it like to be the spouse or daughter or son of somebody who's taking on all that risk? I mean, what would you tell people about

what is that like? What was it like for you at the time, knowing that your father was in danger, watching him and the stories you tell in the podcast of visiting him in prison. I mean, how do you explain that to somebody? I just want to say one more thing. I think that is important about my father that can be a source of inspiration for many people across the world that my father, as you said, was an establishment politician, and then he lost everything and he started from scratch. Yeah, yeah.

He started because he believed in his values and he wanted to defend those values. And he could start things from really from the very beginning. That is very compelling as a story. Well, when my father was like a senior statesman, I think that his story, his political career basically did. find me so much. Yeah. I think hadn't my father been boring themselves, I wouldn't have been involved in social activism or political journalism. Yeah. I would have clearly chosen another path. And now, especially when my father was so brutally killed, it was a moral choice for me,

not only to speak out, but to do something meaningful to keep his political legacy alive. And this podcast also serves this aim and it's a huge part of my life, a huge part of my professional life to keep his political legacy because we all know that people's memories are very short and we have to remind them. of those people, of those people who take huge risks. But you also mentioned the case when he ended up in prison for 15 days. I felt very sorry for him. Probably even I felt embarrassed that my father, for some reason,

ended up in prison. So I was surrounded by very successful people who were working like in businesses, who were making money. Moscow was like a growing capital that attracted lots of foreigners and people just leave their lives. They didn't care about the future. They didn't care about politics. They were disengaged. And in a way, up probably to this moment even, I felt like an outsider in this circle because we had a different story, we had a different family story.

My father was under incredible pressure and we could feel it, especially after the annexation of Premier. Because once again, 86%, literally, probably even 90% of Russians supported the annexation of Premier. They didn't see anything wrong about that. And then they're billboards of your father saying, you know, national traitor up. I mean, that's not got to be easy thing. Right.

Like the regime of Putin was trying and is still trying to marginalize a lot of people. And they, at that time, they were partially successful. So sometimes when I worked at RBC, the privately owned television network. It was a business news network. So, and yes, I didn't feel that confident because, like, people, people, a lot of people supported, like, Crimea and they couldn't understand why me and my father. we're against that because like Putin got got this peninsula without any blood so it was almost bloodless and we should be happy about that and we were we were like shocked and we felt that it would

lead to something really awful something disastrous and that happened so it's difficult It's difficult and I think it's the same for all families across the globe whose fathers and mothers are fighters who are fighting dictators because it's this story is universal. It's not only about Russia, it's about all dictatorships and the risks associated with those regimes. Yeah, no, that's well said and that I think that that really, that's what really stood out to me, or one of the things that stood out for me in the podcast. I'm just curious in going back and telling this whole story, did anything, did you learn

anything new or did anything surprise you as you kind of retraced these events of your father's life and your life? Well, actually, earlier this year, my book, my father's daughter was published in Russia. It has become a bestseller. So, of course, I had known a lot of facts about my father because when I was writing this book, I spoke to a bunch of new people. But for this podcast, I also, as the executive producer, I also did a lot of background interviews. And I met with my father's colleagues who worked with him when he was governor of the province of Nizhny Novgorod. And what actually still surprises me that there are people who worked with my father in the 90s and who do not now oppose Putin, but they still openly, openly say,

despite all those censorship laws, that they have huge respect for my father. And they try to keep the memory of him alive. And this is one person who actually he is the member of the United Fisher. He works in the original parliament. Yeah, he works in the original parliament of, of, of,

of New New Yorker, right? And he's still, I follow him on Instagram and he still writes a lot of posts about my father. and about that time. So that's quite surprising that people are not afraid to say we respect Boris himself, and probably it was the best period in our life. Yeah, I mean, that's really interesting because, you know,

the people that are, you know, die-hard Putin supporters, then they're the people that are strong Putin opponents, and a lot of those people have had to either leave the country. here. But then some of these people you're describing, anybody who can, you know, kind of go along with Putin, but also still have respect for Boris Nemtsov is more complicated, is somewhere in the middle. And I guess the question is, you know, a lot of people watch the war and they think, are these costs finally going to cause more of those Russians to move away from Putin? Those people who are kind of, you know, they don't love Putin, but they've kind of gone along with the whole thing.

And they don't want to take the risk of opposing Putin. do you think what do you think it will take to get more Russians to to to to oppose what Putin's doing you know is is there a danger to him that if the war goes on and the casualties mount and the economy continues to take a hit at some point will his grip on the Russian people loosen how do you that's obviously the big question but how do you evaluate that based on on your you know your experience I think that the answer is very simple and very clear though it's quite difficult to achieve it. So what should happen? Putin should be militarily defeated by Ukraine. And it will change everything. It will ruin Putin's positions in Russia. He will lose all

his support around him. I mean, people on our people, they, once again, I think also I just polarized, I think like 50% roughly same, roughly sane, 50% of Russians are supportive of the war and 50% do not support the war. But they are not active because they fear, we have a lot of repressive laws in our country, so you can get into jail if you openly say, I am against the war with Ukraine. If even you call it the war, it can get you to jail. So you should take it into account. It's a dictatorship.

And all dissenting voices are under direct danger. But if Russia loses in this war, it will change everything. And that is why I'm not a politician, but I understand how difficult it is to support Ukraine for such a long period of time. I can understand that people are tired of it because everybody actually pays a price. You see how high the oil prices are, gas prices, whatever. There is the food crisis, everything. But if we want to stop a dictator, we should defeat him.

That's it. Yeah. It worked in the post. It will work right now. Yeah. And I think that like the international community should acknowledge that and should not forget about that. Yeah. No.

But it also suggests, you know, it's kind of a, Putin must understand that too, which makes this war so existential to him. I mean, I just want to say that. So these are not just beautiful words that Ukraine is on the full. front line of the fight for democracy and freedom. It is true. Yeah. No, sometimes that's true. Sometimes that cliche is true, and this is one of those times.

I wondered, you know, what would your father make of the podcast, do you think? You know, I mean, I know you have kind of an ongoing, you know, even though he's gone, I feel his presence in your life, and I feel you evaluate things you do through his eyes. That's something I've learned about you in the five years. and friends. So how do you look at this through his, through his eyes? I don't know.

I think that he would be positively shocked. I mean, that is, if we are talking about it, about the production, about the process, about the fact that we together, once again, I am not an native speaker.

I'm not, English is a foreign language for me. Yeah, yeah. And I worked so much on my English, you know that. I tried so hard to improve my pronunciation, taking sessions with Patrick Driver, who is a British actor. I invested so much in that. My time, whatever, my talent, if I have any, everything.

And it's quite a rare achievement that I managed to do that with you and to be an honor for me. So I think my father would be very happy for me because he wanted me to build a successful career. He wanted me to be financially independent. He didn't want me to be dependent on my husband or, I don't know, boyfriend. Yeah. And I think that he would be very happy with that and proud. And also I think he would love the fact that his story would be known in the world, around the world. Yeah.

I think that I definitely exceeded his expectations. Well, that's good. And I definitely exceeded my mom's expectations as well. And I exceeded my own expectations. And thanks so much to Profit Media and to you for giving me this incredible opportunity. Well, I love that, John. It's been so great to obviously get to know you the last few years, but to do this podcast, too. I think people get a sense of how infectious your personality is.

And it's just such a, I don't know, it's such a compelling story. I'll tell you, I went back last night because I'd listened to the first episode and the first episode talks about the 90s and when Yeltsin had kind of suggested your father could succeed him. And I went back because I have the film with the archive of when Yeltsin played tennis with your dad. And people should listen to the first episode and you'll hear this story, but of Yeltsin going to visit Nizhnyny Novgorod where Nemtsov was governor and playing tennis with him and saying this guy has what it takes to be the next president of Russia. And just watching young Boris Nemtsov hit tennis balls with the president of Russia, It's just such a different world, right? I mean, it's amazing how much can change in just about 30 years.

And I guess that shows that things can change for the better in the next 30 years. By the way, by the way, I just want to pick on it. Many people have already forgotten about that case. Many people have already forgotten that my father had a chance to become Russia's next president. Yeah, yeah. And that is really hopeful that, yes, it was a theoretical possibility. My father was very, very close to that. And during this tennis match in 1994, in Njvny Novgorod, a reporter, my mom's friend,

Nina Zvereur, approached Boris Yeltsin and asked him, Boris, what do you make of Boris Nikolaevich, what do you make of Boris Nemtsovich, what do you make of Boris names of our young governor. And he replied, like, I'm very much impressed with his work. And I think that he might be a very good president of Russia. It was in 1994. So my father was younger than me. Yeah, that's, well.

I'm 38. I'm 38. Yeah, but you're still young. There's still time. To become Russia's next president. Yeah, you have to come back. That's where this is going. Well, Boris may not have gotten there, but I hope that in the future there are presidents of Russia

who draw on his example, and that ultimately will be the success of his legacy. But, Jana, thanks so much. I know you joined us late from Prague. I know you've got a bunch of people there for the Nemtsov Foundation, journalists and activists. So keep up the good work you're doing and keep in touch. Thank you very much, Ben. Have a nice day. Thanks again to Jana for doing the show.

Thanks again to The Lion Hotel. the High Line is cool in New York City Highline is very cool I remember the great additions to New York in my lifetime Yeah and I remember I said I did When I left the White House

I thought it was fun to do cable TV And like you could get You know a free like train ticket And an hotel room Yeah I remember doing Alex Wagner show On MSNBC when she had that like 1 PM thing So I went up

Shout out to Alex Wagner By the getting the Mado spot Which is fantastic for everybody I think that she'll be really good at that But yeah I went up there stayed at the standard highline psyched. That's a cool hotel

of standard high line, yeah. The problem is the club up top is a bumps pretty hard if you have a TV hit in the morning. Like you're not gonna, you're gonna want some ear plugs. They don't design that hotel for the TV. Also, there was a controversy for a while

of people just being performatively naked in those windows over the high line and like, you're walking around with their kids. That was not my. Well, like, but it's, it goes on for for a long way too.

Like you can, you know, you can go all the way up the west side there. It was just a train track before? Yeah, it was just train tracks. And they just turned into this like public space in these parks. And they keep building out from it. You know, so like they keep building that kind of additions and you get like this food.

It's great. People should check it out there in New York. All right. Everyone go. Check it out. That's all we got for this week. Talk to you guys next week. See ya.

Pots Save the World is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Muse. Saul Rubin is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Segglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,

and Amelia Montuth. upload our episodes and videos at YouTube.com slash crooked media.