Pod Save the World - Covid protests rock China

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

Tommy and Ben discuss the anti-covid lockdown protests sweeping across China, soccer and politics at the World Cup, including the US win over Iran, Biden’s steady effort to thaw relations with Venezuela, updates from Ukraine, Belarus and Malaysia, news about the royal family and a victory for a boring French man. Then Ben is joined by Emma Belcher, President of the Ploughshares Fund to discuss how credible Russia’s nuclear threat really is. 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 Day of the World. I'm Tommy Bitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, the U.S. men soccer team has got me. Got me dancing, baby. The round of 16, we're playing the Netherlands. Hate those guys. I don't even know. I got an extra grind with the Dutch now. But that was something else. What a game. What a game. I mean. Christian Polisic putting it all in the line. You don't know what exactly. We'll see.

Let's hopefully not too much on the line. But he, you know, I have to say, like even before he scored, like he was, everywhere, you know, like he had the ball. He was all, he was like a magnet to the ball, like, and the guys just, they really stepped up, you know? That was like the highest stakes imaginable. Gutted it out. So much pressure. Everyone's calling you Captain America. I mean, around L.A., the banners that are up are like messy, Namar, Rinaldo, and Policic. Like, that's some big company to be thrust into. We'll talk more about the World Cup, but, I mean, the guy's like a household name now. Yeah, he's the man. We have many angles to explore on this. So I guess I'll save some of my takes. But I do want to say that I felt bad for the Iranians,

you know, um, I did too. Because those guys are not the regime, right? Those guys are the good guys. We know based on everything they've done that their hearts are in the right place. So they left it all out there too. So, uh, I'm glad that the U.S. and Iran could have, uh, conflict on the, on the field instead of anywhere else. But, uh, I know, I would, I would rather have beaten like, uh, Portugal or some, you know, they're a much better team, but, you know, some like, well, yeah, it'd be great to beat Portugal, actually. Some country would the horrible history is like an awful colonizer. Like the Dutch. Like the Dutch.

Exactly. Or the Belgians. Yeah. But we're going to talk about the World Cup in a little bit. Today we have a great show, Ben. We're going to talk about protests against China's zero COVID policy that swept across a country this last week. Politics of the World Cup. We kind of started that one. Biden's slow but steady efforts to soften diplomatic relations with Venezuela. So updates on the war in Ukraine. News out of Belarus. News out of Malaysia. a royal family update. We're going to ask Ben to put his royal correspondent hat on.

I hope he brought it with him to New York. And then boring French people are a topic for today, Ben. And then you just wrapped an interview. Are we proliferating or are we non-proliferating? Keep it, let us know. Yeah, it's not great out there right now for nuclear weapons. But given all Putin's nuclear threats, I thought it'd be good to go deep with someone who's an expert on this.

Emma Belcher runs to Plaasher-Svahn, which is kind of the preeminent. Yeah, smart person, preeminent organization dedicated to fighting the spread. and use of nuclear weapons. So she takes us through the danger of what Putin's threatening to do, what scenarios we might want to be worried about, and what the impact of Putin's threats has already been on the global nonproliferation regime and the effort to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. So a good interview for people who want to get a little more context of the occasional threats we see in the news from Vladimir Putin. I'm glad you did this. I saw something on Twitter about the Russians maybe not showing up to

some conversation about new start and implementation or something, and it got me very nervous. That came up, yeah. I mean, it's not a great moment for arms control, but she left us on a hopeful note. So, okay, good. You can look forward to that. A couple quick things where we get to the news, Ben, one, check out our new podcast with Duolingo, where we explore all the ways that language shapes our world from swearing to subtitles to everything in between. The show is called Radiolingo. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Also, there is tons of new merch in the Crooked store. We got bake appreciator aprons. We got a magnetic poetry kit that can help you make a notes app apology when you get canceled. And as always, a portion of the proceeds go to Votesave America's

Every Less Vote Fund. So check that out, cricket.com slash store. And then finally, Ben, if you want to help out with the Georgia runoff, go to Votesaveamerica.com. We can help you figure out all the ways to do it. Anything you want to say about your Anthony Bourdain piece that's out today? Yeah, no, I have a piece that's up on the Atlantic website now about Anthony Bordane, key to some of the recent books about him. Check it out. It's his real world though content because it's basically about how Anthony Bourdain's legacy should be bigger than his suicide. It should be about why was he able to connect with and show us so much around the world. So please check that out. Holiday season, it's been a while. So I'm going to plug after the fall.

Great gift. Great stocking stuffer if you want to go deep on the rise of authoritarianism. For sure. But meet some. Incredible characters from Russia, China, Hungary. You know, this is, it's in the news, unfortunately, all the time. But I would love it. If you like Anthony Bourdain article and you're like, oh, I want a little more of that, you know, just pick up after the fall at your local bookstore online. I love that.

Stuff that stocking. With paperback, you can do it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Get a big sock. Yeah. Okay, let's go to China Bank because this is pretty historic stuff. Over the past few days, there have been protests of China's zero COVID policy in a number of cities across China.

The zero COVID policy for those who don't know is basically where everyone in China is subject to mass testing, strict lockdowns, and forced isolation and quarantine at times in government facilities. It's basically prison. The frustration with these zero COVID policies have been growing for months, if not years, but the recent protests started after a fire in an apartment building in the city of Arumchi killed 10 people and injured nine more in a widely circulated video or several videos that have now been censored by. Chinese authorities, at least censored in China. You can see that COVID barricades seem to prevent fire trucks from getting close enough to this burning building so the hose can't reach the level of the apartment building that's actually on fire. It's truly awful. Arumchi is the capital of Xinjiang province in Western China. Much of Xinjiang has been under COVID lockdown for more than 100 days. Imagine you couldn't leave your city apartment for 100 days. There's reports that some people

under COVID lockdowns have been just literally physically barricaded, locked in their home. homes. So anger over the fire led to vigils. Those led to protests. Those spread across the country to cities like Wuhan, Shanghai, Beijing. They were violent clashes between protesters and security forces at a Foxcon factory. In some places, protesters were even calling for Chinese President Xi Jinping to step down and for an end to the Chinese Communist Party. You do not hear that very often in China. So Ben, reports today, I mean, this has been happening over the last week or so. Reports today make it sound like security forces have cracked down hard. Some people were arrested like in the moment at the protest sites. Others say they started getting calls from security forces

on their cell phone saying like, hey, where you've been lately? There is no country on earth better prepared to quash descent than China, but it was still remarkable to hear experts compare some of these recent protests to what they saw in Tiananmen Square in 1989. I guess for me, Ben, the question is whether she is willing to give a bit, Xi Jinping that is willing to, is willing to give a bit on COVID restrictions, or if he continues to see that as an affront to his image as this like all-powerful godlike leader. I mean, and to be clear, to the COVID zero defenders I see on Twitter, Xi Jinping doesn't give a shit about people getting sick. This is all about his image as like stronger than the West or being better at dealing with COVID. But I guess, man, like if COVID zero

continues, the protests will continue too, I assume. So I don't know, what do you think is going to give here. What comes next? Yeah, I think you put your finger on the dilemma. I mean, first of all, a couple observations. These really are historic, unprecedented, stunning protests, not because there's millions of people in the street. They're not. And not because the Chinese Communist Party is going to fall anytime soon. I don't think that's the case at all. But clearly there is an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the government because these are protests that are happening all across the country, right? So it's not just like some university students in Beijing. You know, this is workers, students, you know, middle class, working class, west, east of China. And so what it tells you,

if there are even a few hundred people willing to come out in all these different places, that's an indication that underneath the surface of Chinese life, there is some serious discontent with the guy. And yes, like most of that is focused on zero COVID. But as you said, the protests are giving people also form to kind of err a bunch of other grievances. But the zero COVID thing is a huge fucking problem for them. And the dilemma that you identified is the one that she is going to have a problem either way. Because if he refuses to reverse his zero COVID policy, which would mean opening up the country more or reaching out to the West for vaccines, which they don't want to do. Yeah, we're giving people vaccines that actually work instead of like Chinese made ones.

Well, because that's the other thing that got them in trouble is that their vaccine doesn't work that well. And so they're not confident in opening up because it doesn't work as well as some of the other vaccines that are out there. And so either he's got a choice where either he keeps the lid on to kind of show that he's not going to be forced into shifting course or he shifts course. And, you know, the years of policy that he's pursued are proven to be something that even he had to acknowledge or wrong. Either way, he loses his face. Either way, this is someone who's being cut down a notch. And this idea that you heard a lot of two, three years ago about the Chinese model of government being ascended and Xi Jinping being kind of leader of the future, that's all

been dealt a huge body blow here. And so, again, I don't know that we'll see significant political change in China anytime soon, but it does point to the weakness. And as we've talked about, too, zero COVID is having serious economic consequences on China. And companies are already looking to move their supply chains. to Mexico, to Vietnam, to other places, because who wants to do business in a place where your workers are getting barricaded in their apartments almost three years after the beginning of COVID in Wuhan?

I would lose my mind. There's people throwing themselves out of apartments, committing suicide to get out of the locked house. I mean, how are these guys not just stolen the formula to the Moderna vaccine or something? It's like genuinely shocking to me that their vaccine doesn't work. Yeah. So, I mean, Ben, the other thing I noticed about this is the, Chinese state media, we're going to talk about the World Cup now, Chinese state media was actually censoring the broadcast of the World Cup because Chinese citizens saw all these people like

hanging out in the stands having a good time not wearing masks and it suddenly dawned on them that not everywhere still is doing COVID-zero like full lockdown restrictions. Yeah, I mean, it speaks to the failure of nationalism and authoritarianism, right? The failure of nationalism is that they're so proud that they won't reach out to anywhere else for vaccines. And failure of authoritarianism is that they want this kind of total control over society. That's another reason why they like these lockdowns, by the way, gives them more control over people. And that's failed too. But you can't hide the world from people. So when you got the World Cup on and there's like tens of thousands of people with that mass hanging out together

having a great time from all over the world, it just spotlights the fact that nobody else is doing this anymore, right? China is like the only place on Earth that is doing it. And it's not working. And by the way, at some point, like this virus, unless it disappears in the face of the earth, which I don't see anybody saying it's going to happen anytime soon, like people in China are going to get COVID, you know, and they're going to have to deal with it at some point. You can't delay this forever. Seems like they haven't gotten their hospital system up the snuff in case there wasn't a big flux, which is an incredible failure by the government.

So as we mentioned a couple times at the top, the World Cup is happening. if you want to understand more about, you know, FIFA, the corruption there, how the World Cup ended in a tiny repressive country like Qatar. Check out my podcast series, World Corrupt. That aside, Ben, I don't know about you, but I've was watching, I've been watching hours and hours and hours of these games. I imagine it helps that it overlaps with Thanksgiving when you're kind of like doing nothing anyway or watching football. But Roger Bennett, my co-host on the series, the host of the Men of Blazers podcast, he always has a line where he says that when teams of the World Cup take the field, their country's histories join them and I always was like that's that's a nice line and it certainly is true I didn't realize how true it was and so I started watching

these games and you see like Germany played Japan and I just kept thinking how weird it was that like an all-axis powers matchup or when the US or the UK play Iran like we just saw and there's the history of you know colonization or US meddling and a country comes to the fore and again like speaking of Iran I'm obviously glad we won, but I do feel badly, like we were saying, because these Iranian players have already sacrificed an awful lot. They showed solidarity with the protesters in Iran or the protest movement in Iran by refusing to sing along with their national anthem before a game. They didn't celebrate goals. CNN reported that those players are now being monitored by IRGC officers and their

families were threatened with torture or prison time. So that's awful. I saw like the Japanese these fans made news because they were photographed cleaning up the stands after winning a match. Ben, any like favorite standout moments for you, either politics, the soccer itself, anything? Well, first of all, my main takeaway, what's interesting, and I want to preface is by saying, actually, I love the Olympics, winter and summer, but it does feel like the World Cup has kind of taken the place of the Olympics in just the size of the event. I think it's bigger. It's like five billion people are going to watch.

Yeah, it's interesting how that's happened. And part of that's just the, you know, the accessibility of soccer, right? Some of those Olympic sports, you know, not everybody can be a skier, you know, not it can be a figure skater, you know, track and field, I guess anybody can run, right? But anybody with a ball can play soccer anywhere. And so that's a standout to me. Another thing is that the politics, there's an interesting irony, which is that, as you guys detail and will corrupt.

You've had all this money plowed into soccer by the Gulf, by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates. UAE. And interestingly, by elevating the profile of soccer, it's also elevated the degree to which then there's a magnifying glass on, in this case, Qatar, you know, as the host. And so some of the fact that soccer's grown is because of how much money's gone into it. but it's interesting how much people do connect the spotlight of the World Cup and of soccer generally with, well, wait a second, what's going on in this country, you know, or what's going on in this corrupt organization FIFA? And, you know, sure, they'll get through it. And at the end of the day, you know, Qatar probably benefits for most in the World Cup. But, you know, they had to make some changes.

And so that stands out to me as well. I think in terms of moments, look, I love rooting for the U.S. also like rooting for underdogs. I love seeing smaller countries like Senegal got through today to the round of 16th. That was awesome. I was super excited about that. I've been rooting for Ghana too. Ghana wants a big games. I think the Iranian players, you know, how they've dealt with the national anthem, their clear discomfort with the kind of wrote, you know, propaganda of their own government being out of step with clearly the views of their players has been interesting. And I thought that Tyler Adams, you know, the U.S. captain getting questioned by some of Iranian state media goon about whether he's embarrassed to play for the U.S., how they treat black

people and gave this incredibly thoughtful answer, it did speak to the fact that, you know, soccer players on the world stage, like, have to represent the full complexity of their countries. And so all in all, it's kind of just fascinating to watch it all play out. Totally, man. I mean, there's some other big upsets. The Saudis beat Argentina. Well, that was, yeah, that was headspin. Nobody had that one.

Morocco beat Belgium. That was a big upset, some other great games. Ben, did you see this weird thing where the U.S. Soccer Federation released an image of the Iranian flag? And they edited out the emblem of the Islamic Republic. So it was just a green, white, red flag. And they said they did it in solidarity with protesters, but then they only left it up for like 24 hours. And Iranian state media flipped out. And they called on the U.S. Kikidavit of the tournament.

Like, I didn't really get the point. I don't know. It seems a little bit, I don't know, inflammatory without a real end goal. I'm not sure. Well, it's, you know, like the social media account for the U.S. men's team is not the place to conduct regime change, you know? So, like, even if that's your goal, like, I just, I think it's just kind of not, you know, the forum for it. Yeah. But, you know, they also, they had a, they were like using Taylor Swift somehow to talk shit on, on England. Oh my God, that was very lame. Yeah.

I think to be sympathetic to them, they're, they're just, trying to get attention, man. If you're the social media person, like, you're just, so we're talking about it. So maybe they did something right. I don't know. But I do just think that, like, one of their trend that stands out to me that's kind of interesting is the degree to which the players on these teams, right, and this was a subject of scrutiny after France one last time, some of these countries are not, let's just say, hospitable to immigrants. Oh, no. Right. And by the way, I include Saudi Arabia, right? where a lot of the, their standout players were black, you see this on a lot of the European teams.

It does point to some of the awkwardness of global migration policy that, you know, love to have the open door for athletes, but, you know, you're not going to get those athletes unless you are being generous to migrant populations generally. For sure. Not to politicize it to that extent, too. I will just say that goal, you mentioned Argentina from Messi, another highlight to me because I've just never seen like such artistry and precision

you know why not maybe that never but it was up there you know it was really good and then Richarleston's goal for the Brazilian team yeah a lot of what these rich countries do Qatar in particular is it's called talent harvesting and they'll just kind of steal players from other countries by offering them money and citizenship I saw the US announced an arms deal with Qatar the halftime of today's game yeah celebration that was not great yeah and then Ben just sort of unrelated point from Iran The Supreme Leader's niece, a woman named Faraday Mordakani, called on foreign governments to cut ties with Iran. This is in response to these ongoing protests.

Her specific quote was, tell your governments to stop supporting this murderous and child-killing regime. This is not surprising per se. She's a well-known human rights activist, and she was quickly arrested and thrown into Avine prison. But, you know, another data point that like some, I don't know, this protest is happening. people are still in the streets, people are still talking about it, there's a real threat to this regime, so we'll see. Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely the case that there are more conservative people in Iran who maybe are not entirely with the protesters, but big butt, you just get the sense that a very strong,

probably majority of the Iranian people are just over this regime and its restrictions, particularly on women, but also on other freedoms. we got plenty of data points for that by now. And again, the World Cup, you know, Jason Resign had an interesting piece about urging people to root for Iran to win, which I have to say I couldn't quite get there. I vote for TIA. I mean, others were saying the opposite, too. That's the hard part. Well, what Jason's point was that Iran's presence at the Cup was drawing attention to the protest.

Because, you know, like you said, when Iran plays, you talk about it. So I think in general, you know, does, does happening in the World Cup and Qatar solve all their human rights problems? No. But did that scrutiny nudge things in the right direction or at least create some discomfort that's important? Yes. And the same thing is true with Iran's presence as well. Okay. So switch of gears here a little bit.

So we've been watching in real time this thawing of relations between the U.S. and Venezuela over the past several months, year plus. And the Biden administration took another step over the weekend when they eased sanctions. to allow Chevron to resume limited energy production in Venezuela. For now, any profits from the sale of Venezuelan oil and gas will go towards paying down debt owed to Chevron and not to the Venezuelan state. But the administration says these are steps that are in support of talks between the Maduro government and opposition leaders. Those are happening in Mexico City.

Biden's team denies that this move is about increasing energy production to help replace Russian oil, but of course, that would be a benefit in the long term. hopefully these talks result in about $3 billion worth of frozen Venezuelan government funds that are frozen overseas, getting transferred to a UN-administered humanitarian relief program to help out the people of Venezuela. The U.S. and the opposition leaders also want Maduro to agree to allow free and fair elections in 2024. Ben, I don't have any faith in Maduro to do the right thing, really. Biden is taking heat for this already. you know, the Wall Street Journal editorial page is attacking him. Oh, no.

Oh, no. I know, I know. I know. I know. It sucks that money is going to Chevron. But like, I think Biden deserves a lot of credit here for trying something different, taking the political heat and just trying something new because the easy path, as we've talked about with sanctions is to do more of them.

More tough talk about isolating the regime, blah, blah, blah. And the end result is Venezuelan people are suffering. There's more migration flows out of the country that destabilizes. of Venezuela's neighbors, and there's zero political progress. So any thoughts from you on sort of what you've seen so far and realistic hopes for next steps or progress markers in these overtures? Well, we've covered how much the status grows just not working. And it is not working to matter what window you look at it from, right? So if you care about human rights and democracy in Venezuela, this sanctions policy is not working. You know, just going with the Trump policy

that we recognized, you know, Juan Guaido is president of Venezuela like five years ago and sanctioned everybody. Well, human rights situation has gotten worse, so humanitarian situation has gotten worse. If you're worried about global energy prices, having Venezuelan oil largely locked up is not helping. If you're worried about migration at the border, this is obviously driven much further border crossings from Venezuelans. It's not working. In terms of, like, what to look for next, you know, first of, of all, I think this is the beginning, not the end of a process of both trying to broker some agreement between the Venezuelan opposition and Maduro government, about maybe a schedule

for having some kind of elections, some political pathway out of the stalemate that Venezuelan politics has been in, as well as further lifting of sanctions. I, you know, Emmanuel Macron is coming to the U.S. on a state visit in the coming days. I think the Europeans and the French would be high on this list, are probably more interested in Venezuela than they normally are because they want oil on the market. They're getting hit worse than we are by global energy prices and dealing with the cutoff of in the price cap on Russian gas into Europe. And so I'd kind of look for whether there's any Venezuela talk around that Macron visit and how Europe is potentially supportive of some kind of rapprochement between the government and Venezuela, the

Maduro government and the opposition. So I think this is an issue that could move, not in the direction of solving itself, but can you get to a place where there's some agreed upon schedule of elections and sanctions are being lifted? And the humanitarian crisis is alleviated to some extent, not entirely, but to some extent. And yeah, like there's obviously a little bit of the pressure taken off global energy markets. So speaking of global energy markets, let's talk about Ukraine because it's really the backdrop of the whole thing. So Putin continues to just decimate Ukraine's domestic energy infrastructure. The AP ran a report about surgeons having to operate on patients with only headlamps for light, just like awful harrowing stuff. Western countries are struggling to find

or even produce, in some cases, enough ammunition to help the keep the Ukrainian military supplied. NATO has pledged to fill the gap. They've pledged to fix Ukrainian power grid, but obviously that is going to take some time. Republicans are also promising more. oversight over U.S. assistance to Ukraine in the next Congress. And so the Washington Post had an interesting piece on how the Biden team is doing more to track weapons shipments and publicize their tracking of those weapons shipments. I think we all agree that's a good thing no matter what. But to energy, I mean, Politico had a piece on strains between the U.S. and Europe over Ukraine policy. You had all these anonymous European officials accusing the U.S. of war profiteering

because we're selling more oil and gas at higher prices and more weapons. The weapons piece is a little confusing to me since the U.S. is giving away billions of dollars worth of weapons, but I guess they're saying like our U.S. arms dealers are profiting. Also coming to the forebend is how pissed off the Europeans are about the climate change and made in America provisions in the inflation reduction act. I didn't see this coming. I saw the Koreans were really mad about some of it. Yeah.

But the, you know, you're reading all these stories about how European clean energy companies are having to base some part of their company, some part of production in the U.S. to get those tax credits. And basically, Europeans want to be grandfathered in or allowed to participate in the tax credits, even if they're not made in America. Outside of Ukraine, you got governments in Moldova across Europe concerned about how to keep people alive this winter. I saw then the economy looked at the impact of energy prices across Europe. And they found that in a normal winter, a 10% rise in real energy prices is associated with a 0.6% of the economy. increase in deaths. So this year's energy crunch could cause over 100,000 extra deaths of elderly

people across Europe. So 100,000 deaths because of this war outside of the fighting. So like big picture, steady state awful. But man, those stories about the European rage at the U.S. over those climate provisions really jumped out of me. Yeah, it's been building for a little while. And, you know, first of all, there's a summit happening now in Romania that's focused on getting, you know, kind of humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. How do you, how do you keep the electric grid, you know, resilient? Can you decentralize the electric grid? Just like Tony watching the soccer game with some of those counterparts. They just tweeted out some photos. Just hanging out, right? Watching the game like everybody else. But that's important, just trying to figure out how can you figure out

creative ways. Again, you know, the normal power grid is maybe not going to work here. There are other ways to get generators in, just deal with the humanitarian impacts in Ukraine. But the mega trend to watch, I think, is this tension between the U.S. and Europe. And I see why the U.S. has done everything that it's done. But I also see why the net of all the things the U.S. has done would really piss me off as European. And so just to break this into pieces, on the climate provisions, look, we've talked to, the Biden administration's taken what's kind of an industrial policy approach to the economy,

where a lot of the spending that they're pursuing in, semiconductors and climate in particular is kind of picking winners and picking American winners, which sounds kind of normal to people, but they've kind of gone farther than has been the case in recent years and saying, hey, there's like hundreds of billions of dollars and basically the way in which you're going to give these tax credits and the economic incentives we're going to create are you have to make this stuff here. You know, you have to make these clean energy inputs or you have to make these electric vehicles or all these things have to be made in the U.S. And so if you have multinational companies, even European companies, suddenly it becomes more cost effective for them to move their operations of the U.S.

This could be really damaging to European clean energy industry. Finally, the Democratic talking point for like three decades comes to fruition. Yes. Creating tax breaks for jobs companies that move jobs here. That's right. And to be clear, I see why the Biden administration did what they did. So I'm not even criticizing, but I'm also see, of course, like if you're Europe, you're going to be like, well, this is annoying. this is going to like screw us. And meanwhile, they've taken a different approach to climate that's

less turbocharging spending and more, you know, carbon tax and border adjustment tax and the kind of cap and trade type policies that the U.S. couldn't get through Congress. And when you couple that with, there's some truth to the idea that the U.S., you know, you're right, we're not like we're giving billions of dollars in military aid, but the way that works is, you know, we're buying more weapons from our own arms dealers, some of whom are competitors to Europeans as well. And so that's another source of U.S. spending that is prioritizing or benefiting U.S. industry relative to Europe. And so at a time when we're asking the Europeans to swallow, like, harder pills than us, frankly, the war in Ukraine, as you point to particularly most vividly with the

death statistic, that war is a lot harder on Europe than it is on America. That's a tough time to also have like a trade war. And so my hope is that they can try to find some accommodations here? Are there ways to integrate some European supply chains with ours? Are there ways to kind of create not just an industrial policy that benefits just the U.S., but how do we incorporate our allies into some of this? There's going to have to be some work done to prevent a real rupture, because the more people get cranky on a range of issues, the harder it is to hold together this coalition that has helped us deal with everything from Russia's sanctions to arming the Ukrainians to fighting climate change, all the big things we want to do in the world.

kind of depend on the U.S. and our allies, particularly Europe in countries like Japan and South Korea getting along. And the more we're doing things that make that a problem, the more that can be exploited by Putin or Xi Jinping. So this is a kind of mega trend to watch of particularly as Europe goes into recession that might be harder than our recession. And populism in far right is gaining traction. Does that populism lead to anti-Americanism in European politics? That's a distinct possibility. So this is something to watch in the next few months. Yeah, I mean, look, I think I completely support and understand why President Biden and the Democratic Congress wanted to pass the IRA and all the climate provisions in there. I mean, it's like an existential threat to the humanity. And so we had to do that. And I completely understand why Congress wanted to pass the Chips Act, which helps us compete with China and incentivizes companies to make semiconductors and things like that in the U.S. But you're right, like the confluence of those bills in addition to the war raging on for what is 7, 8, 9,000. months. I mean, I can absolutely see why that would upset our friends in Europe. By the way,

Tommy, one more thing on that, which is it's also the sanctions, right? The Iran sanctions, the Venezuela sanctions. It connects to the Venezuela conversation because if you're Macron, you're probably like, okay, yeah, like stack it up, right? Climate provisions and the Made in America provisions and the Chips Act. And meanwhile, you know, because Trump put a bunch of sanctions on Venezuela, we can't even get the world from there, you know, so actually it might be interesting to see whether it opens up some cracks on some of those other issues as well. Come on Macron. Let rip, buddy. Come on over. Yeah, state visit will be interesting. I mean, they'll put on a good face, but it'd be

interesting to see what happens at that press conference. Yeah. You'll probably want to know what's in that file in Mar-a-Lago, too. Ben, speaking of the war in Ukraine, in neighboring Belarus, the foreign minister of Vladimir Maki suddenly died on Saturday. He has been one of the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko's cronies for decades. The New York Times described Maki as the architect of a failed effort to thaw out relations with the West. They noted the muted reaction inside Belarus to his death. The Washington Post had a different take. They noted that Maki was supposed to meet with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, earlier this week.

They kind of made him sound like a staunch defender of the Russian war effort. I don't know what to believe, Ben. It is just the latest, though, in a long list of rather mysterious. serious deaths. I think he was in his mid-60s. He wasn't that old. And boy, if you're a Belarusian senior official who's seen as pro-Western, I imagine there's a target on your back. Yeah. I mean, fucking foreign minister, you know, I mean, we've talked about all the oligarchs who seem to have had accidents on balconies. A lot of windows. Yeah. But I mean, you know, one of the more plausible piece of analysis I saw was like, yeah, this is a message to Lukashenko

and anybody else that if we see you straying from the line, like, you know, you too may come down with a sudden illness. The flip side of that, though, is that the rank brutality and brazenness of the Russians, you got to think is it might help them control Belarus, but like if I'm in Central Asia, if I'm in, like, Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan, I'm like, kind of don't want to rely on the Russians that much anymore because I don't want to end up in a situation where I'm having an accident on the balcony. So, you know, Putin, as a president,

with everything Putin, you know, he's going to reap what he sews, right? And all these tactics, they may help achieve one thing in the short term, but they actually, I think, only served to further isolate him in the longer term, not just from like the West, but from anybody who's looking at thinking, like, I don't really want to cozy up too much with these guys because I might end up, you know, having an accident. Yeah. And there were some reports, I think, I saw yesterday of a bunch of Russian military equipment getting shipped into Belarus. So there seem to be, I don't know, staging more forces there for whatever reason. I don't know if that means they're going to make another run at Kiev for Belarus or something like that. It just sort of,

it was notable given the timing of the foreign minister's demise. Yeah, or make a run at like, you know, de facto annexation of Belarus. You know, maybe Putin can't win Ukraine, but he decides to just kind of take another piece of territory. I don't know. I mean, it's something to watch. Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me. Ben, Malaysia has a new prime minister. What do we know about 75-year-old, Anwar Ibrahim. So, yeah, I flag this because this is kind of a crazy story. Bear with me for a second. But Anwar Ibrahim, you know, this is someone that we raised a lot in the Obama administration

because he started his kind of career as something of an activist, went into government with the kind of long-time, you know, really kind of de facto autocrat who ran Malaysia for a long time, this guy, Mahatir. And in the late 90s, he had a falling out and started some pro-democracy protest. and then he was thrown in prison on charges of corruption and sodomy. Charges he denied, by the way. Why sodomy, you may wonder.

It's a conservative Muslim society, so there's kind of trying to stigmatize the guy. He served a bunch of time in prison. And you look, you know, when we would go over there time in the Obama administration, this was always like case one that we'd be raising. Like you have to release Anwar. Really like some people were comparing him, you know, to people like Aung San Suu Kyi and others who'd been in prison

for their pro-democracy. beliefs and did two stints in prison. And so it was pretty out of politics. Then miraculously reemerges because he makes a deal with the same guy who in prison, Mahatir, a few years ago, to get out of prison. But the deal was supposed to be that if he supported Mahatir, that he could then become prime minister. Obviously, Mahatir backs out on that deal. And then now they had this election. I tell that back to it because it's just pretty crazy that the guy who just became prime minister of Malaysia served a couple pretty long stints in prison. And I think he was in like solitary confinement and talk about a political survivor. And I think this doesn't solve Malaysia's

problems. And I'll talk to that about that in one second. But it's not that Malaysia doesn't have divisions and problems of democracy anymore. But there's something hopeful about this guy being resilient enough. And some of it was principal and some of it was dealmaking. But just kind of a remarkable political story that this guy is now the prime minister. Now, Malaysia is still pretty divided because they're on the back end of a massive scandal that people may remember the one MDB's theft of billions of dollars from the sovereign wealth fund by the traditional ruling party there, that scrambled everything. And so the issue is that nobody can get like a majority of seats. And so Anwar was chosen to be prime minister with a pretty low plurality in like the king of

Malaysia, which is interestingly a rotating office in Malaysia, had to essentially select him. And so he's this cabinet that's kind of team of rivals-y and it's pretty tenuous. But I always watch Malaysia because it's kind of one of those bellwether states. It's an important medium-sized country in an important region in Southeast Asia, nestled between, you know, Chinese interests and American interests, a place that is democratic, although, you know, it's had not like a perfect democracy by any stretch. And so where they tilts politically, like, are they becoming more democratic or less democratic? You're saying it's the Bucks County of the world? It's kind of the Bucks County of the world. Like if you were to list the swing states out there in the world, I, you know, Malaysia, South Africa.

I can see that. You know, these are countries that you want to watch. So I'm very interested to see if Amwar can succeed as prime minister and if they can get out of some of their recent political difficulties. It's not going to be easy, but it is a pretty crazy story. Anwar's story is also probably comforting for President Trump to know that you can go to jail and then come back and win again. Just kidding.

Our Justice Department would ever put an obvious criminal in jail who actually deserves to be there. All right, Ben, so we got some news about the royal family. None of it is great. Two stories. First, Queen Camilla. She was at a hospital or something was delivering Paddington Bears to a bunch of small kids.

She had a very awkward interaction with a young black girl that struck some people as racist. She seemed to pick up this little girl's arm by the sleeve rather than by the wrist, the suggestion being, or the suggestion that was made on Twitter was that she didn't want to touch her skin.

As more information came out, it could have been that Camilla was like literally just talking about the girl's bracelet and thus sort of touching that, picking that up. I don't know. This could be an unfair Twitter reaction. But it's also a reminder that the royal family has not come close to putting to bed concerns about racism within their little crew there.

In speculation that Camilla herself was the one who said something racist to Prince Harry and to Megan Markle about their family. Then Ben, I saw that William and Kate, they're going to Boston this week. Yeah. My question for you is, like, how do they not have someone smart enough on their team to advise them against visiting Boston in November and December. What's happening there? So, I mean, first of all to, I'm going to say to Camilla, is it like, not to pick at all wounds here, but like, you know, who didn't have a problem interacting with children of every race. Who's that? Diana.

So, you know, just going to pour one out again there for the woman who could have been the queen if, well, if a lot of things are different. But, you know, you do kind of wonder, like, Boston is lovely in the spring. It's lovely in the fall. So, you know, you have choices, right? You have, like, fall foliage in that area or you've got, like, beautiful spring weather. What's the point of going to Boston? They're going to, like, a Pats Jets game?

Well, the Bruins are doing pretty good. Maybe. Yeah, the Bruins are good. Maybe they want to check that out. I think we're home against the bills, maybe. But in Boston, you know, it's not been a good place for the world. You know, they had some issues with the tea in the harbor and the state. Yeah.

Just go to Dunkin Navy. Standback. You know, yeah. I mean, what would you urge them to do if they wanted to connect with the good people of Boston? It would be, I think they went to, oh, they went to New York in 2014. I think they went to like a Knicks game or maybe it was a Nets game and they like fist bumped with Jay-Z. That was sort of the last like big cultural thing. I mean, I guess you could do like a little, Jesus Christ, what are you doing in Boston?

In the summer I would have been like, go to the Pops, go to the vineyard. I don't know, do something fun. Go to Red Sox game. That would actually be a thing that they could probably have a good time. They went to Fenway. Yeah. But now it's just like, I guess, you know, you hit up the Pats and get some Dunk of Donuts. Yeah, you go to a Pats game.

You, you know, drive to New Hampshire to buy beer on Sundays. Have they changed those laws? I think they might have changed those stupid blows. I don't know. Listen, all I'm saying is they need better advice. Ben, last story before we get to your interview here. So to paraphrase the Beastie Boys, in France, you have to fight for your right to be boring, or at least that's what a French man learned when France's highest court ruled

that a man referred to in court documents only as Mr. T was wrongly fired for not being fun enough at work. I wonder if French readers find Mr. T references funny. He was kind of like a globally known figure. Oh, he must have been. Yeah, must have been. Yeah. Like that persona, the vibe, the- And the haircut, you know, the chains. The eight team is global. I think so. Yeah, it was very global. Okay, good. So I saw this headline and I assume this was like a case about a dude who like didn't want to go to the happy hour or something, which is of course fine. But the Washington Post write-up said, quote, Mr. T had argued that the fun culture in the company involved humiliating and intrusive practices including mock sexual acts, crude nicknames,

and obliging him to share his bed with another employee during work functions. What are you doing in a bed during a work function? So my takeaway is, what the hell do the French people define as fun here? Like, what is happening? Maybe go to a wine tasting? I mean, you know, they're kind of libertine. I mean, the French, they like to, you know, they like to unwind to work and, you know, they like to, I guess, get into bed together. I mean, look, if you were to tell me that that was going to be something that happened somewhere in the world, France would probably be the first country that popped in my head. I mean, the workplace problems I've had in my life usually involved, like, people getting on my computer when I went to the bathroom and, like, sending emails, which was like a lot of that. of that at the Obama campaign, a little less so in the White House. It might have been interesting to do there. PRA, yeah. Look, the French, you know, they'd like to, I don't know, push norms.

I don't know. It sounds a little weird, though. Where did Mr. T. work? Did we, like, is that clear? It was some, like, consulting company. I forget the name of it. It was not anything that really jumped out of me. It just sort of the whole thing seemed odd.

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, like the French are wrestling with their identity like everybody else. And, you know, Mr. T's standing up for people who want to be, you know, just a little square. That's fine. He'd be the fool who messes with them, I guess. Heptid be square. All right, we'll take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll hear Ben's interview with Emma Belcher. And the Plow Shares Fund, they're going to talk about the global effort to get nuclear weapons out of the hands of bad guys. So stick around for that. I'm very pleased to be joined by Emma Belcher, who's the president of the Plowshares Fund, which is in my first. my view, the best organization dedicated to reducing the threat of nuclear weapons supports a lot of

really great grantees and organizations involved in biting the threat from nuclear weapons. So, Emma, thank you so much for joining us. Ben, thanks so much for having me. And thanks for featuring this issue on the podcast. Yeah, well, the reason I wanted to have you on Emma, and, you know, full disclosure, I've been a supporter of a pleasure as fun, but is that we've been talking a bit over the last few months, obviously about the periodic threats of nuclear weapons use from Vladimir Putin. And it's something that a lot of people are worried about, but aren't quite sure what to think about it or how to

think about it. So I really wanted to have you on to kind of unpack these issues for us. And I guess for starters, when people hear Putin threatening the use of nuclear weapons, what scenarios should they be worried about? You know, when we hear about tactical nuclear weapons use, what does that mean versus, you know, a more larger use of nuclear weapons? Like, what is a scenario that worries you that could potentially happen in Ukraine? Yeah, well, I mean, first off, it's a pretty scary time. We've got to take Putin's threats seriously. Obviously, I can't get in his head and determine, you know, what exactly he might do.

But, you know, certainly there are a range of things that he could do. You know, he could, as you say, launch some kind of, a smaller yield nuclear weapon, which a lot of people refer to as tactical, but it's important to remember that tactical nuclear weapons don't always mean small yield. They can be the size of a Hiroshima or Nagasaki bomb. But, you know, he could use a small nuclear weapon against, say, a military facility inside Ukraine. He could also use it against civilian infrastructure facilities inside Ukraine, as we've seen him do with conventional weapons. He could also do some kind of demonstration effect, potentially over the Black Sea somewhere where no one's necessarily hurt,

but it sends a signal that he's willing to use them. And then the ranges of implications and response would depend on the various scenarios. But I think one thing is pretty clear is that any use by Putin of a nuclear weapon would be pretty devastating. You'd have impacts on human beings, you'd potentially have people killed, you'd have longer term. You'd have longer term health issues, environmental damage, and he would have broken a taboo against nuclear use that's held for over 75 years. What I think is important here, though, as we think about the different scenarios he might use, is that in effect, Putin just by threatening to use nuclear weapons, has kind of made use of them in a way, right? So just threatening has really

enabled him to invade a sovereign country, which has resulted in atrocious war crime. we've now got a humanitarian crisis and even impacts on the global economy. So we're in a position now where nuclear weapons have not been used, but they're kind of in the background supporting and perpetuating a whole lot of things that we care deeply about. Yeah, I was going to ask about that because the threat itself, I can't remember, you know, it's not like the U.S. threatened in Iraq or Afghanistan, the use of nuclear weapons. And it's hard to remember in your research and work, how new is this?

When was the last time you feel like the world was on this kind of precipice where someone is kind of normalizing the threat of the use of nuclear weapons as a part of their kind of military and political strategy? Well, I do think this is quite game-changing because he's threatened to use and is used as a tool of coercion, right, not as a tool to deter the United States from attacking Russia, person, but as a tool for him to be able to go in and invade a sovereign country. And when we think about, though, the threat level, you know, I think we're now at a point that we haven't seen for 40 years since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Different situation, but when you have these heightened periods of tension, that's where we really worry about the potential for miscalculation, misunderstanding or accident. So even if nuclear use isn't originally intended, something could happen, something small could happen that then spirals out of control and escalates to nuclear use. And I think we saw the potential for that, you know, a couple of weeks ago, where we initially had reports that maybe Russian missiles had landed in Poland, which would have been sort of some kind of direct attack on a member of NATO, which could have resulted in certain type of response and maybe escalation. Now, thankfully, cooler heads prevailed, and people waited to find out that it was

actually Ukrainian anti-rocket missile that fell into Poland, killing a few people. And so thankfully, nothing happened there, but I think what that episode showed us is how easily and quickly something could spiral out of control when nuclear weapons are at stake. And so how do you, you know, it's obviously, like you said, you can't get in Putin. said, and this is a very complicated policy challenge to support Ukraine while trying to avoid nuclear use by Russia. What do you think should be weighing in the minds of the Biden administration and Ukraine and its supporters as they navigate trying to help Ukraine prevail on the battlefield while trying to avoid nuclear use? What kind of measures can we learn from history or the research

has been done around how to avoid nuclear conflict that might be relevant today? Well, this is a really tricky fine line that the Biden administration has to walk. I do think that they've walked it really well so far, which is providing as much support to Ukraine as they possibly can, without actually backing Putin into a corner where he feels as though his only option is nuclear use. So that's why the administration hasn't been able to enforce a no-fly zone. It's why it hasn't been able to send troops to Ukraine. and it's why it also hasn't sent longer range military systems for Ukraine to be able to attack Russia. And in my mind, it's navigated this challenge really well.

And I think going forward, what they must be thinking about is, you know, how far can we actually go beyond where we've gone now, but short of provoking Putin. So as you say, really hard challenge. There are no easy answers. But that's what a lot of those of us that you mentioned at Plouches and other and our partners are really trying to come together and think about how we actually get ourselves out of this crisis and what we do next. Yeah, I mean, you're naming something, which it's interesting. It doesn't get named enough, which is that if Russia didn't have any nuclear weapons,

probably is a different kind of response from the U.S. and NATO. You know, it's not necessarily just the Russian kind of conventional warfare with NATO that has been a restraining factor on some of the steps that the administration has taken. It really is at risk of nuclear conflict. That speaks to the, as you said, like we're in a world now where nuclear weapons are being used as a policy of coercion. They're being threatened in an act of conflict. how much do you worry about other leaders in other parts of the world either deciding,

oh, I better get me a nuclear weapon so that I can do that or just other leaders who already have nuclear weapons thinking, well, I'm going to start to use this as a tool to more overtly threaten our course. What should we be watching for as warning signs? Yeah, I'm absolutely worried about that. We don't want people, including Putin, right, to take the lesson that threatening nuclear use is going to get you what you want, that it's a useful tool of course. coercion, we don't want others to be looking and saying, all right, well, they could be helpful

for me and my revisionist aims. And so you worry about that. We know, for example, that China is watching closely to see what the response is by the US and its allies to what Putin's threatening and what is doing in Ukraine. Now, that said, China, Taiwan and the Russia-Ukraine situations aren't the same. but I think we know that the Chinese are watching to see what happens. The other one I worry about is Kim Jong-un, and the fact that he has recently been ramping up his missile testing,

he looks like he's preparing to do a nuclear weapon test that he hasn't done in a number of years. You've got to think that at the back of his mind, or maybe the front of his mind, he's thinking, yeah, I see how important nuclear weapons are. he might not be as likely to think about giving them up in the future. But all of this really hinges on what happens at the outcome of this war, right? Is Putin able to get away with nuclear blackmail and hold the world hostage?

Or is Ukraine able to prevail, in which case it might send a signal that Putin's nuclear weapons aren't as useful as he thought. So it'll be really interesting to see what happens. and it's why we're at this inflection point right now. So what we do and how we move forward is going to be critical. Yeah. No, I mean, it's an interesting way to think about it. I mean, if he loses or is perceived as losing or even loses power, kind of sends a message to all those nuclear weapons.

Not only they did not help them, they might have actually lulled him into a sense that he could do things that he couldn't. So in a way, there's so much. just taken Ukraine, including this. One other thing I wanted to ask you, though, given this where we are, we're this kind of crossroads, right? Like the Iran nuclear deal is kind of, you know, on the skids, you know, particularly as the focus there is rightly on the protest movement. Kim Jong-un, moving forward to his nuclear program, Russia, we've talked about, what next for the kind of global non-proliferation agenda? And for so long it was, you know, getting to further reductions in nuclear

stockpiles negotiated between the US and Russia and maybe bringing in China and other countries while trying to stop the spread of nuclear weapons of places like Iran, North Korea. Do we need a 2.0 version of that? Like, what do you think that the future of this area of global policy is? Yeah, I absolutely think we need a 2.0 because, unfortunately, the path we're heading down now is an arms race with the U.S. and Russia. and we need to be able to turn things around and draw on methods and approaches that have proven to work. So arms control agreements and reductions.

Now, the tricky thing is, as you point out, it's a really challenging time to do that right now. We've got a situation where there's high tension between the US and Russia, and Russia just sort of cancelled the talks that were scheduled today between the US and Russia that could have got them back on track with respect to arms control. And, you know, certainly I think there are people in the United States and other places who just think the idea of negotiating with Vladimir Putin is abhorrent for understandable reasons. But we need to make sure that those opportunities are open, opportunities for diplomacy are open down the line because we know that is the best way of reducing the nuclear threat.

And if we take a country like Iran, for example, obviously the talks are on hold, rightly so, since the crackdown on protesters who are protesting Masa Aminis killing by the morality police, you know, the administration is sort of, you know, talks are on hold, which they should be. But we do know that the best way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is to actually come to some kind of deal, to make sure that its activities are a restrained. and to make sure we get inspections, rigorous inspections back in, that can give us a heads-up and intelligence on the point in time if Iran decides to actually divert material and develop a weapon. So it's hard to imagine now, but we have to be holding out for a resumption of discussions and negotiations for arms control. And I also think there is a whole thing. There is a hope because if we look back over history at moments of crisis, it's after those moments of crisis when we've made it through, that there are real opportunities for change. So I'm just hoping that we can get through this one and that we're ready to go and that we can also have the kind

of support that we need to conduct these kinds of discussions, given that it's a challenging environment. Yeah. No, it's a good point, Dan, Dan, because, you know, it's always, darkest before dawn here and we may have to weather a few really hard years but if we could avoid nuclear use and and hopefully avoid further proliferation you would hope you know it was what a decade after the Cuban Missile Crisis the US and Soviet Union are are getting really serious about major arms control talks informed a bit by that scare right well look Emma thanks so much for pulling back the lens and giving us some context here and folks can check out plowshares online and you guys have a podcast press the button uh because people really want to

get get deep in in this stuff um they should check that out um but thanks for talking to us today right thanks very much for elevating this issue ben because it's been overlooked for far too long thanks again to emma belcher for joining the show uh thanks again to uh christian polisic for putting your twig and berries on the line here for your country we're very proud of you yeah We, yeah. Hopefully it's, he's okay. Hopefully he's okay. Hopefully he's okay.

Thank you guys for putting up with the longest East Coast swing of, I've been on a Thanksgiving journey here for like over three shows. But I'm doing it. Yeah, you've just been doing laundry like crazy? Yeah, that's a good thing about being in my parents. But I'm doing a book event with our friend Cody Keenan tonight. So that's why I hung around. But I'll be back in studio next show.

Do you, will you have bourbon on stage or will that be after? I 100% guarantee that Cody will have Bourbon in the green room before the show. Before during and after. Yeah, probably before, during, and after. Knowing Cody, yes, that's right. See, Mr. T would not want to be at our event, I don't think. No, he would not have a good time talking about Grace, which you can also purchase. Fantastic book.

Yes, Cody's book. Check it out. All right, man. Well, that's it for us this week, and we'll talk to you guys next week. 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 who upload our episodes and videos at YouTube.com slash crooked media.