Pod Save the World - Secretary of State Tony Blinken

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

On today’s episode, Tommy and Ben interview Secretary of State Tony Blinken about the threat of Russia invading Ukraine, the Iran deal, combatting antisemitism and promoting democracy. They also discuss how silicon valley views human rights in China, why Boris Johnson could party his way into retirement, how Novak Djokovic got the boot from Australia, the eruption in Tonga and why Twitter is back in Nigeria.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 Pod Save the World on Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, we booked the Secretary of State of Today Show. We did. We did. How about that? Secretary of State. Pod Save the America losers.

Yeah, good job. Good booking guys. You guys will get to hear from Secretary of State Tony Blinken. Later in the show, we talked to Tony about the Iran deal. His trip to Ukraine, he is, I think he probably is on the plane by now. He was leaving right after we were recorded. We talked about how our political problems at home are impacting his work abroad, combating anti-Semitism, some lighter stuff about being a dad, being a musician.

It's fun conversation. Yeah. I mean, hopefully we both cover some important issues, but also, you know, get a little bit more sense of the Secretary of State. The man, the myth of the legends. The man the legend, yeah. Tony's like the nicest guy in the world. Yeah, yeah. He's from out here.

I remember walking into a hotel of shutters in Santa Monica. Yeah. Just seeing him hanging out. Yeah, a couple years ago. Yeah, he was out here when he had his first kid, which was pretty cool. It feels about 700 years ago. Million years ago. He actually did a Potsie of the World Ride Along in the studio.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, back when that was also impossible. It's a blast. Yeah. When everyone could speak freely. Our news section today has been, I was thinking we could just spend 45 minutes walking through all the ways the Buffalo Bills humiliated by New England Patriots. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, the cold weather didn't really help you guys. I remember we talked about that last week. It's good. Nothing helped us. Nothing. The Josh Allen had more touchdowns and incompletions. So that's all you need to know. Yale Freed, who's one of our great video producers here at Cricket Media, he was trolling me so hard during the game that he got his dad involved on Twitter. So it was nice to have sort of a generational ass kicking from my friends in Buffalo. But they also, Yale does this great series that we started called Tommy Gets Red Pilled on YouTube. It's been very fun where they tortured me.

I saw that. I saw that. With right wing content. Don Jr. Yeah, so we did the war on Christmas and we did Don Jr.'s Instagram, and their goal is to trigger me over the course of an hour until I'm beat red and angry by the end. It's a lot of fun. Then we try to combat some disinformation. That's sort of the point of the show. Yeah.

So check it out. But what we're really going to talk about today is Ukraine, how Silicon Valley views human rights, including in China, updates on Boris Johnson and Djokovic, the tennis player, the eruption in Tonga, Twitter, Nigeria, and then the interview with Tony. So it'll be a lot of fun. Yeah. No, it's no shorter just stuff happening out there in the world. Busy. So before we get to the news, don't miss the latest episode of Offline with John Favro. John's digging into all the ways that social media is changing the ways we all engage or don't engage with new ideas.

Not entirely helpful all the time. Offline drops Sunday on the Potsave America feed. Great episode this week. Don't miss it. Also this week on America Dissected, Abdul Elsaid talks with Tom Friedan, the former director of the CDC about the pandemic and the future of the organization. Is he the really tall guy, Tom Friedan? Yeah, he was the guy who was there during Ebola.

He was good. Yeah, I remember, I think I was with him in, I remember like getting on like a dingy and driving out to a Coast Guard cutter in Haiti with him. The problem for me is that everybody seems like a really, you seem like a really tall guy, Tom. Because I'm a really short guy. There was someone who was like six, seven. And I remember like being on a boat, this guy not being able to see over shoulders. It's all a blur.

Yeah, yeah. That was a long time we go too. Whatever. Okay. So let's talk to Ukraine. You guys are going to hear us talk about kind of like bigger considerations with Tony and like step back a little bit. But here's a quick roundup of recent events and they're all bad.

There are reports that Russia is evacuating the spouses and children of its diplomats currently serving in Ukraine. So they're all getting on buses and literally just going east for 15 hours back to Russia. That's quite ominous. There was a massive cyber attack against Ukraine that took down about 70 government websites. It's no surprise. The Ukrainian government says Russia is responsible for it. The U.S. accused Russia of planning covert false flag operations in eastern Ukraine to create a pretext for an invasion.

So the idea here is that Russia sends in some operatives. They stage attacks, maybe even on their own proxy forces. That gives Putin the pretext to literally roll in the tanks and invade. Russia's deputy foreign minister said he wouldn't rule out putting military infrastructure in Cuba or Venezuela. Ben, you can smell the like 1960s, like pipe tobacco and wool suits coming off this one. You know, it's a very Kennedy Cuban missile crisis. The Polish foreign minister said that the risk of war in Europe is now greater than ever before in the last 30 years. And the White House at the briefing on Tuesday, Jenzaki, said, quote, we believe we are now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack on Ukraine.

So every indicator seems to be trending in a bad direction. It is hard to avoid the feeling that we are slow rolling into a major war. Am I wrong? Do you seeing anything positive side of the ledger? No, I mean, the mood music out there, Tommy, is pointing entirely in one direction. You know, I mean, a couple other things I throw into this, their Russian forces moving into Belarus for what they say are military exercises. but that, you know, usefully further encircles Ukraine with Russian military forces.

And you hear nothing positive at all about any follow-up to all the diplomacy that took place over the last couple weeks. That seems to be kind of dead in the water. And, yeah, everything that has happened for a period of months now has been a steady escalation up to a logical endpoint of some Russian invasion of Ukraine. I mean, I, and this make no mistake would be, you know, a cataclysmic event potentially. Now, again, part of what we've talked about here that is so complicated in a way is that, you know, Russia's been in war with Ukraine since 2014. They've occupied parts of eastern Ukraine.

They've annexed Crimea. So in some ways, it feels like, well, isn't this just a continuation of what has been a status quo? I think what we don't know the answer to, though, is what form would an invasion of Ukraine take? Yeah. And I think what's most worrying to me is, you know, it would be bad enough if they just moved overwhelming force into the two provinces of eastern Ukraine that they currently occupy, Lohansk and Donetsk. These are provinces with, you know, large Russian-speaking populations. And so the pretext for Russia back in 2014 was they had to defend the rights of these people. This is where most of the fighting has been and obviously would be a significant geopolitical

escalation to try to maybe formally annex those parts of Ukraine into Russia. But I think what's so worrying is the scale of this buildup and the speed with which diplomacy collapsed because Russia's objectives were so out of the balance of anything the United States could agree to. And the rhetoric coming out of Russia, tapping into even if you're not, if you're not, look at some of the Russian propaganda, the kind of history of Russia and Ukraine being one country, you know, feels like something much bigger. It feels like a potential kind of full-on invasion of Ukraine, the country, an effort to kind of completely undo the post-Soviet status quo of these being

independent sovereign states. And, you know, we could be looking at something that is just of a different scale than even something that we saw in 2014 on the, um, on the, current trajectory of events. And it's hard to see what is going to derail that train. Yeah. I mean, if they get to Kiev of the capital, they've caught off half the country. And you also have to wonder what this does to countries like Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, who are on that same border and wondering, like, are we next? Is anyone going to stand up for us? I mean, some NATO countries will obviously feel a different way than non-NATO countries. But it is frightening. Yeah, and I think part of what's frightening, too, is in 2014, again, it's just kind of worth

doing a bit of history. What happened was a pro-Russian corrupt leader, Yanukovych, fled Ukraine in the face of mass protests. And then the Russians kind of in response or maybe opportunistically did this kind of de facto invasion of Crimea. with like special forces and and changing the facts on the ground very swiftly. And that felt like an extension of these events that were happening. Right. This feels senseless. This feels like Putin made a decision and he deployed 100 plus thousand troops to the border

and then invaded a country. Not to be hyperbolic because nothing, there's an overuse of World War II analogies, but this feels a little bit more like the 30s. Like a leader being like, I don't care about world opinion at all. I'm going to do this in a methodical way with the propaganda pretext to it. And you see a lot of that coming out of Russia with obviously a militarism to it and with an objective. And the objective is to essentially undo the core dissolution of the Soviet Union. And we talked last week about the greater sway he has over Kazakhstan, Putin does now.

Belarus, which he's basically turned into a client. But you mentioned this, you know, Moldova and Georgia are also former Soviet republics that have an uncomfortable Russian presence. What's next for them? You know, if there's a, if this train gets going and there's momentum behind it, you know, you could see a situation in which several countries are somehow immersed in this conflagration. And, you know, the flip side for Russia is, you know, there's no easy military task to, like, conquer Ukraine, you know. So once a war begins, it can lead in directions almost always that none of the parties anticipate, you know. Yeah, and we're going to talk about what aboutism and foreign policy in a minute in the limits of it and how frustrating it can be in debates. But I couldn't help but think as we were, you know, listening to possible U.S. responses to a Russian invasion.

The United States overtly talking about basically funding and arming an insurgency. This comes after 20 years, well, not 20 years in Iraq, but a decade plus in Iraq where we were fighting against an insurgency funded in part by Iran. History goes further back. In Afghanistan, we support an insurgency to repel the Russians. It's just like all of this stuff keeps repeating itself. None of it seems to benefit anyone involved. It's just, it's hard not to feel sort of despondent at the moment. Well, it just feels like there's this moment.

where the Pudens of the world are just going to, you know, at some point, this kind of ethno-nationalism on steroids, which is what we've lived through for the last decade globally, spills into actual conflicts, you know? And that's part of what's so scary. I'm not one of these people that believes in the, like, reverse domino theory credibility thing. No. Because the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan. But there is something else to be worried about, which is that it's less about, like,

like the perception of the U.S. and Afghanistan and more just about do all these national leaders start making their play? You know, like you got Xi Jinping with Taiwan. You've got, you know, all manner of border conflicts that have festered for a while. And, you know, we could be ushering in like a very unstable period of time here. I think you've got to try whatever you can. I hope that they're continuing to try to exhaust diplomatic efforts. I hope that, you know, I would actually be glad if, you know, there were efforts that we didn't know about that, and Biden is undertaking with Putin to try to forestall this. I also think that a certain point, we talked to Tony about this. We try to step back and get it. Why is this important? What is the broader context within

which this is occurring? And Tony's been out there a lot on this. I frankly think this is something that, like, we're not to hear from Biden on at some point, too. Because, you know, unless everything we're seeing takes a pretty dramatic turn, swerve in a different direction, something that feels like it's been a kind of backburner, secondary issue can really be the dominant thing in global politics for the foreseeable future. Oh, absolutely. And associated, like, economic impacts and, you know, it's going to spin out. Okay, let's talk about human rights in China. Because yesterday, a video circulated on Twitter of a billionaire investor named Chamath Polyhapitia, who, who, this video just triggered me into the fucking stratosphere, Ben.

This clip was from a podcast, Eos, with a bunch of other, like, super rich Silicon Valley investor types. Here's the clip that went around Twitter. Nobody cares about, nobody cares about what's happening to the weakers, okay? You bring it up because you really care. And I think that's nice that you care. The rest of us don't care. I'm just telling you a very hard.

Wait, you're saying you personally don't care? I'm telling you a very hard, ugly truth, okay? Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my. line. Okay. Of all the things that I care about, it is below my line. What's the line, bro? I mean, if genocide is below it, I don't quite know what rises above the line. Real, real nuanced issue genocide. Now, in case you're wondering if this clip was somehow taken out of context in unfair, I'm here to tell you that I listened to the whole conversation and it got worse. Did you do red pill to listen to that thing? I know. Jamath. If Chimov was just making like a political

observation that generally speaking voters don't care about human rights. So they don't care about human rights. So they don't care about the Uyghurs. They don't care about foreign policy issues when they vote. I would concede part of that depressing point. Yes, there are more front burner things. They focus on what's happening in their neighborhood, their pocketbook, et cetera. But his argument was way beyond that. He was saying he doesn't personally care about the U.S. He was saying that caring about human rights is a luxury belief in the U.S. until we clean up our act at home. That talking about the U.S. is just virtue signaling. He even questioned was sort of like skeptical when his co-hosts, this guy, Jason Calcanus, who's some investor guy, who's actually really great.

in pushing back and pushing for human rights as being important. But when Jason was saying, yeah, there's a million Uyghurs being held in concentration camps, he was like kind of skeptical, right? Like throughout he was doing the bit where conceiving that he doesn't know what he's talking about has no expertise in the issue, but kind of casting doubt on every factual claim by someone who actually knows what he's talking about and is well informed. And it was very frustrating. And in this conversation, no one on the show brought up the fact that, you know,

maybe this guy, Chimoth, owns a small stake in the Golden State Warrior as the NBA team and maybe his reticence to talk about China or criticize China is driven by money because the Chinese government kicks the shit out of anyone who criticizes them on human rights and silences them. So that would have been worth raising. But there's all this nihilism dressed up as savvy and what aboutism about how like the U.S. is bad and we have no standing to criticize others and just infuriating. Well, one other thing, how did he make his money? Chima. Investing in like it's some firm called social capital

where they claim to be doing something for a greater good. Yeah. And like he kept getting presented like the right wing picked this up and they got mad at him because he was seen as someone who was a liberal. And frankly, I think the viewpoints you heard on this podcast are more representative of the Silicon Valley mindset than this sort of tired suggestion that it's full of liberals. Like yes, socially the younger people are liberal. but I think these guys are focused on making money and capitalism.

And just to put a fine point on it, you know, they're talking about what they stand for at the very end. Shemat says, I stand for me. That was kind of his concluding point. So he got destroyed for these comments on Twitter. He eventually sort of apologized.

But what I thought might be useful to listeners, it's like talk about this issue more broadly, but also talk about how to push back on this kind of what aboutism. Because you hear this all the time, Ben. and like people who try to tell you that the America has no standing to talk about human rights or call out human rights violations by China or name your country. It becomes this one-stop-shop excuse for throwing up your hands at problems, saying you have no agency, shutting down people who actually try to care.

And, you know, look, I've been talking for a while. So I'll just pause before like sort of suggesting some ways I think we can push back. But if you have any thoughts on like, I don't know, this kind of conversation or this mindset that no one cares about human rights, that we can't even talk about it because our own house is in order, like, I don't know, this sort of general offensiveness of it all. I think there's two things that stand out to me. And what I was getting at is how did you make his money? He was also an executive at Facebook, right? Yes, that's it. I forgot about that.

And so the first point is there is this kind of libertarian streak in Silicon. Valley that frankly is not just unique to Silicon Valley. It permeates a lot of the American corporate culture that essentially says, you know, my own profit, my own innovation is inherently somehow a good, no matter how much harm it does to other people. They literally say later in this interview one other guy is like, I think the way we saw this is through technology and innovation and more speech. And it's like, guys, we just tried this. Yeah. And you know, you've had a lot of people making a lot of money not giving a shit what the outcome of what they do is, whether that is Facebook spreading cancer of hate speech and disinformation and conspiracy theory around

the world, or whether that is just pouring money into parts of the Chinese system that are being repurposed for mass surveillance and interminant people, right? And if you want to get at the what aboutism, do some reading about what's happening to the Uyghurs. right this is a systematic oppression on a scale that you cannot wrap your mind around right it can be a lot worse right and this leads to the second point which is the idea that americans don't really care about foreign policy or human rights um is it's a nice talking point and it may on the surface level be true but like we just opened the show by talking about the fact that there could be a war in Europe because of the same kind of ideology, the same kind of ethno-nationalist

fascistic ideology that could lead someone to think that they can invade a country, they could lead them to think that they can interfere in our politics and our elections, that could lead them to be spreading, as Russia does, a lot of the anti-vax garbage that is prolonging the pandemic in this country in other places, this ends up hurting you in the long run, you know, in the same way that if we live in a world in which increasingly a kind of merger of American-made technology and Chinese-style autocracy could really be the future of how societies are organized. I mean, you don't care about it until you're forced to care about it when it comes home, right? And the United States has always been an imperfect messenger on this. But if you actually talk to people who are on the

front lines of the battles for human rights, like they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, need America to at least try to be its better self and to at least try to live up to the stories we tell about who we are and the stories you tell about democracy and human rights and people being created equal. And if you don't think that matters to people, like the reason, say, the Cold War ended the way that it did, you know, yes, America was full of hypocrisy throughout the Cold War. But the reality is, like people felt like there were enough other people around the world who cared about freedom and democracy to sacrifice for it on the other side of the Iron Curtain. And people thought that freedom and openness looked like a more

attractive option by the time you got to the late 80s than what they were living with. And that created untold prosperity for the American people, right? The end of the successful in the Cold War, the opening of markets, et cetera. It made it possible for people like these guys on this kind of bro investor pod to get rich, you know, to the extent that they have. So I'm, like why we're still having a debate in 2022 about whether the survivability of democracy and human rights matters to people, I think speaks to why we're in the fucking mess that we're in. You know, like, these things should be taken as a given and they're not anymore. And that sucks.

Yeah, I mean, listen, people don't care about any issue until you convince them to care or inform them about it. That's true for foreign and domestic. Like the anti-abortion activism was is a relatively modern creation. You know, the religious right organized and activated in this country and it became a massive voting issue. And with respect to the Uighurs, you can see the camps that were built from space. Yeah. You know, there are videos from inside the re-education camps. Like the BBC was let in there.

Some of the most haunting things you've ever seen, like YouTube them, buddy. There were interviews with survivors. Like, there's no doubting that the genocide occurring in China. And it's just frustrating to hear someone question that. And there's a real strain of this on the left that's particularly frustrating. I think because they worry that it's a pretext for war. But I think that's part of what you have to get at with this sort of like rejection of what aboutism. I just think people like broadly, when you hear these kinds of arguments, like the first thing to reject this false choice that we have to choose about caring about like human rights in Xinjiang China or, you know, domestic rights in the U.S.

Like we have to do both. And in fact, getting our act together at home helps us, you know, talk about human rights abroad, right? Like, that's the first thing. I think we all just need to reject outright the idea that human rights or democracy promotion means Bush era wars. I get why that's triggering for people and they think that, but no one's arguing that we should go to war with China. This is about like speaking up pressure at international fora like the UN or other places, like embarrassing them. Divesting. Divesting, right, on individual level divesting.

And then just lastly, like, I hate when people assume they're powerless in these situations. Like, I don't, I don't think for one second that I like the Chinese government gives a fuck what I think. But how many times have we talked about protest movements, individual activists that have started movements that have swollen to the point of like toppling governments? Like, I just got elected in Chile who was a, you know, started in the streets as a protester. So, you know, like if you try at scale, like your voice can matter and you can make it. difference. And when people who are big, like, rich influential people like these investors sort of say, ah, no one cares. It's not worth caring. It's on my like list of things. I think that's actually damaging for people to hear. Yeah. I think, you know, number one, it matters because it fucking

matters to the Chinese Communist Party. If it didn't matter to them, why would they go to such lengths to intimidate people to not speak out about this stuff? Right. Right. Like secondly, I've talked to people, I talk to somebody today who's in a significant risk, who's an activist in another country. Every conversation you have with someone who's actually endangered, they always tell you how much it matters to them that people in other countries care. Because otherwise, they're just alone. What the hell are they doing? Like, otherwise, they're insane for caring and sacrificing. If you can't even show that basic ounce of solidarity with the people that are on the front lines of these fights, then you're pulling the rug out from under them.

The last thing I'd say about this is, you know, connecting it to the domestic politics piece. I think an insight on the Republican side is that none of this is about issues. It's all about identity, right? So like Trumpism isn't about any set of policies. It's all about identity. foreign policy is an extension of of their domestic identity politics around white ethno-nationalism. And we have to have a sense of identity that is actually proud of values, right? Like it can just be negative.

It can just be like, oh, these people are killing democracy. There has to be a democracy worth saving, you know? And so like it's time to actually once again be unafraid. and unabashed in making the argument for values even if America's like not lived up to them

and even if we have to point out all the ways in which America is not living up to them because right now and I ask Tony this question the momentum is so overwhelmingly with this other story

that's a shitty story like the ethno national story it ends horribly right like it never ended well in history right like but if we're like in this defensive crouch constantly and we're cowed by what aboutism and we're cowed by not

wanting to lose Chinese market share or whatever the fucking excuses we have on a given day to not care about these things, then you know that you will lose. Absolutely. And so let's actually stick with this question of technology and human rights overlapping because after seven months, the Nigerian government has finally lifted its ban on Twitter. The government suspended Twitter on June 4th after the company deleted a post by Nigerian president, Mohamedu Bihari, that was deemed to be threatening. He referenced like a civil war from the 70s, I believe. It was very strong. scary. To get back in business, Twitter agreed to open an office in Nigeria, comply with tax laws, and respect local Nigerian laws, basically. The pretty significant concessions by Twitter

that some analysts think could change how the service is used in Nigeria, you know, famously back in 2020, Twitter was a key critical organizing tool around the Nsars protest movement. It was this section of the police that were incredibly brutal, they were indiscriminately killing people. and young people in Nigeria organize around that hashtag very effectively. It's not clear that that kind of organizing would be allowed under the new rules. You could see the government saying it's against the law.

That said, you know, not having access to Twitter without a VPN was really hard on mostly young Nigerians who love Twitter and use it for like to find jobs, missing people, to have debates. Like they use in all these different ways. It's not like Gus who use it to like shit post and, you know, quote tweet.

Quoteam. Like I guess it was. I know what I could ever do without quoting you. I don't either. I guess, like, you know, time will tell which way this goes, right? Whether the Nigerian government benefits, whether Twitter cave too early, whether people are actually getting a service back that they really need. But did you have a sense, Ben, of, like, what you thought the impact might be, not just

for Twitter users, Nigeria, but also, like, I don't know, whether there might be a path here for other governments that want to regulate social media or kind of bend companies to their will when, you know, powerful figures, in this case, the president get criticized. I think the reason this matters is, look, there's some places where it's pretty clear that platforms like Twitter are not going to be able to survive. I mean, they're already not in China, for instance. And more repressive and close societies, you know, are going to have less and less of a place for American social media platforms. Nigeria is one of these places, though, that is a relatively open society.

It is a democracy, albeit one with a lot of people. of problems, so are we. And so the question is, what is a platform like Twitter look like in the long run in those places? I think it's inevitable that, you know, look, any local regulator has a right to take some interest in it. The question is, in practice, does that stifle the sense of openness on the platform or not? And so it'll be an interesting test. You know, the idea that they're going to have more of enough presence in Nigeria and be more tuned to what's happening Nigeria, I think is a good thing, right? I mean, a lot of these companies run kind of almost on autopilot from Silicon Valley and have these huge consequences in these

other countries. And so I think it's not wrong to have a greater expectation that they're more tuned and plugged into what's happening in a place. The question is, at what point does that become censorship. And I think, or censorship that kind of undermines the kind of core tenet of the platform. And look, everybody's wrestling with this everywhere. I think that's all the more reason for the United States and other countries to try to come together on a multilateral basis. And actually, I put this question to Tony, too, but like, we should get ahead of this regulation question. These platforms are so unregulated that that gap is going to be filled by every individual country. And I think what you need is some kind of common principles, norms, standards,

regulations that a bunch of countries are entering into together so that you don't have this kind of massively unregulated, you know, from a domestic standpoint in the U.S. set of technology companies that then, you know, have a different regulatory framework everywhere they're operating. Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's turn to an issue that is a little lighter, a little more fun that I can't it enough of on social media, which has been Boris Johnson literally can't stop partying. I have lost count of the number of parties hosted by Boris or the, by the Tory party during lockdown, that I don't know which ones he attended anymore, which ones he's denied, like what lie goes there. So last week, Boris Johnson apologized to Parliament for attending a garden party in May,

May of 2020, again, May of 2020. That's the most half-assed apology. Yeah, during the lockdown. He tried to claim that he thought it was a work event, right? He's like, oh, I went out for 25 minutes. 25 minutes isn't a short period of time. Yeah. You could probably identify that this was a party by all the boozing that happens in 25 minutes. Number 10 also apologized to Buckingham Palace for a staff party that Boris apparently didn't go to that went down the day before the queen was forced to attend her husband's funeral and sit alone by herself. That's tough timing for everyone involved. I think that if I had gone to a party with like, what, 25 people in May of 2020?

I would have fucking been aware of it. Oh, yeah. Because I was locked in my house all the time. Oh, yeah, it would have been sweet. So it wasn't like a normal thing where you wander out. And this is like peak lockdown. Like, you think you'd be aware that this is unusual that I'm around all these people drinking without masks and, you know, hanging out.

Oh, yeah. If I accidentally have spent a half an hour at a razor with 40 people in the backyard with wine, I'd be psyched in May of 2020. Yeah, yeah. Seriously. I mean, there's just like an insult to people's intelligence that flows from the way in which Boris has handled all is. And like he can't undo the manifold original sins that add up to this scandal. And so like he's just a permanently damaged political figure. Right. You can't, he will, he will never be seen in the same way after this. And he will never resign because he's that full of himself. If he proves me wrong, that's great. And the conservatives don't know how to toss him overboard because they made their deal with the devil. So it's just watching a lot of people. people getting their comeuppance because they had to party. Yeah. And so, okay, making this more complicated for Boris is the fact that his former aide, this guy

Dominic Cummings, who was like the Karl Rove of Brexit or whatever bullshit before he got pushed out. He's out there saying now he's writing on his blog, his substack, that Boris is a liar. Cummings says he warned Boris not to let the party happen. He told him it was against the rules, but then Boris Johnson let it happen anyway, which would mean that Johnson just brazenly lied to Congress saying he was unaware of this. he didn't attend, blah, blah, blah. Ben, here's what Boris had to say in response to these latest allegations from Dominic Cummings. No, nobody told me that what we were doing was, as you say,

against the rules, that the event in question was something that we were going to do something that wasn't a work event. So, philosophical question for you, if you write the rules, do you need someone to tell you what the rules are? Yeah, I mean, then, you know, if, If he truly didn't realize that they were in lockdown in May of 2020, then that's another reason to get rid of him. I mean, I think the queen part bears repeating if I was like labor. If this guy, if the queen of England, the queen of England, right, like one of the most, whatever you think of the monarchy, like, you know, this is like an office that, let's just say, has generally been pretty high up on the food chain. Her in particular. in the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom, right?

If she's going to the funeral of the person she was married to for like 100 years and is sitting alone and go look at the picture, wearing a mask, and there's nobody within like a hundred feet of this woman. It's a little lady. If the rules apply to the queen of the United Kingdom that you are the prime minister of and you either don't know the rules or think you can break the rules, maybe it's time to resign. Okay?

Here's how a resignation might be pushed upon him. So for, I think this is from our friend Mark Landler in the New York Times, for Johnson to be forced out, 54 conservative lawmakers would have to write to Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee, what the hell of that name, which represents the Tory backbencher, as they can call for a vote of no confidence.

And then Johnson would have to survive a majority vote among all 361 conservative lawmakers to fully survive. Then I think he would have basically a, basically a 12-month reprieve where he couldn't be challenged again. So I don't know, all of this happens in private. We'll see. But a few people are breaking away from Boris. People are breaking.

I mean, if they go into the next election with Boris as the leader, you know, I know, I know the guy's been slippery in the past, but it feels like they kind of get walloped. You'd need a bunch of people to get together and decide to put their hands on the knife together. And that probably would involve one person making a run and being the leader. and Boris has sucked up so much oxygen that that is more difficult for them. I don't really shed a tear

for the Tories in this scenario at all. I do think when we laugh at other people's arcane procedural rules, keep in mind that the rest of the world is probably like, what's this filibuster? Yeah, that's right. The 1920s committee sounds goofy. It's a filibuster.

Favorite party movie from you? Can't hardly wait. Dazed and confused. Super bad house party. You got to vote. Animal House. that must be canceled. I don't know.

Did you just do it? Did you just cancel it right here? Shit, you're out. Like I haven't seen it in a while. You're out, Belushi. I remember really liking it. I was going to say, favorite party movie. You know what?

Like, days of confused. You know, I was in high school, and that was like the movie that, like, if you had to stay home on Saturday and have some people over, like they're on Dating Confused, you know. You'd like rip a bong hit and like, you know. Vintage McConaughey. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, vintage McConaughey. Kind of an all-star cast. Oh, absolutely. Except for the kid who plays the young guy who no one really hurt from again. You want to touch his nose all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I'd say Dasing Confused.

Great, great flick. Yeah, link later, you know. All right, let's talk about another conservative asshole who's in a bit of trouble. here, which is Novak Djokovic. So after his 11-day fight with the Australian government, tennis star Novak Djokovic was deported from Australia on January 16th, and he will not get to play in the Australian Open. We covered the backstory of this in greater detail last week, but the short version is Jochovic. He's unvaccinated. He went to Australia anyway, thinking he would get an

exemption from their rules requiring visitors to be vaccinated. He lied on his immigration or visa forms. His visa got revoked. It got returned. It got revoked again. And generally it was a huge mess. At the end of the day, Australians who sacrificed a lot during this pandemic were in no mood to grant an exemption to this celebrity who had shown total disregard for others. Scott Morrison, Australia's prime minister, cheered the decision. He's generally a hardliner in all things immigration, as we discussed last week, kind of a shitty guy, reportedly took a shit in his pants in McDonald's bathroom in the late 90s, just an aside. Ben, probably right around when Ken Harley-Wa came out. Ben, what do you make of the argument that the reasoning behind Jokovic's eventual deportation

basically that like Australians could see him, anti-vaxxers could try to emulate his disregard for COVID rules and, you know, sort of like, I don't know, like get some wind in their sales because of his actions, that that was a threat to public safety. Some activists are saying, that's a terrible precedent and it could actually be used to suppress legitimate political speech in the future that's inconvenient for the ruling power. Yeah, I mean, we took our shots at Scott Morrison last week because, yeah, he deserves it in general. But I think if you follow this all the way to the end, it felt to me like the better argument

and the one that, you know, ultimately he lost is that he just broke the rules. Right. And, you know, the forms weren't accurate. He wasn't vaccinated and he didn't have his shit together. And if you break the rules, you don't get to play. that's a better rationale than you know this kind of example setting which can be repurposed in bad ways I have a world though take on this that is probably lame but I'm going to do it anyway so Jokovic gets defeated by Australia guess who's up next the French France if France doesn't

stand up to Jokovic it's like August 2.0 right like once again So your second August name dropped today. You did it as in Sony too. Once again, you have an Aussie flex followed by a French, you know, like, so let's see. That's what you got, Macron. So you're saying to Macron, you, uh... Balls in your court. Balls in your court.

I'm giving them away. I'm giving this away. That's good. The French opens in May. So Djokovic either gets a shot or Macron has to see whether he can be as tough as the Australians. That's good. That's good. It's worth noting that a recent poll found that 71% of Australians wanted Jokovic to get the boot. So the politics here are pretty obvious. Serbia, where Jokovic is from, is big-time best. Yeah. They're like lighting up buildings with his name on them. They're denouncing the Australians.

So yeah, that'll probably. Serbian nationalism also tense not done well. Nothing bad. Nothing bad ever happened there. Okay, well, I have to keep monitoring that one. Another story that I think caught literally everyone's eye over the weekend was the undersea volcano in the South Pacific Island that erupted about 40 miles south of the island of Tonga. The eruption was so massive that you could see the mushroom cloud and shock wave. It generated from space. Never seen anything like that in my life. Yeah, it looked like deep impact.

It really did. It looked like a movie. Terrifying. I created a tsunami wave that apparently in the sort of island nation of Tonga, it's like 170 islands all together, was nearly. 50 feet tall. Hard to imagine anything more terrifying than a 50-foot wave coming at you. It devastated villages. It swept around the world. I saw reports. I mean, like, we all woke up in LA, like, don't go near the ocean, tsunami warning. And it was like a foot wave. But there were reports that in Peru, there was an oil spill and two deaths associated with tsunami waves. That's wild. The islands in Tonga are now covered with this thick volcanic ash. It's fouling water supplies. It's been hard to figure out what the scale of the destruction was. because communication was cut off for a couple of days. Another added complication is the fact that Tonga has these pretty strict quarantine rules. They've managed to keep COVID out because they're an island.

And rescue organizations don't want to deploy staff until they are requested. So Ben, I don't know, man, it was a pretty horrifying thing. Stories like this for me, though, are a reminder that I spend a lot of my life worrying about pretty pedestrian matters. Yeah. And they're like every once in a while, someone will share a link about like super volcanoes or something like that. that makes you realize that you're kind of a puny weak species. Yeah, it's a good reminder that the Earth doesn't really care about your politics or any decisions we're making. Facts don't care about your feelings.

Yeah, the volcanoes and the climate change and the rest of it, the tsunamis, like, don't really care. I mean, it's also a reminder that, frankly, we need, given how short our attention spans are, that, like, this kind of stuff happens relatively frequently. You know, I mean, it was not that long ago that we had a massive tsunami that killed 250,000 people. You know, that was less than 20 years ago, less than 15 years ago, right? Or that we had to- Bush administration. I was like late Bush administration. Yeah, or Fukushima, the tsunami that, you know, killed a lot of Japanese people and caused, like, a potential nuclear meltdown.

It is, like, worth bearing in mind that one reason why it would be better if nations could work together on things is that, we're not. we're going to be periodically dealing with this. I mean, what's your favorite disaster? I mean, you've got Armageddon, you've got a deep impact. You've got Independence Day. 2012, that's where everything gets cold. I think Armageddon is really in the top of the canon. Yeah.

Maybe it's just a nostalgia thing, you know, Affleck, Erasmith. That stage Affleck, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the little animal crackers. Big Affleck, yeah, yeah. Don't close your eyes, fall asleep, miss a thing. thing kind of stuff. It's good. It was good. Good album. Yeah. Anyway. Scary story. Scary story. But I felt bad. I mean, the images from Tonga were pretty horrifying. And, you know, I'm sure that they're going to need a lot help in rebuilding and attention spans

that can move on. So hopefully there's a donor community internationally. Yeah. Listen, you mentioned Fukushima. I've been reading, I've been reading Reagan land for like a year now. I feel like you've been referencing that for a while. I know. Now we're right around the Three Mile Island, sort of almost disaster when there was real concern that there was going to be a nuclear meltdown and the way that impacted the energy debate and policy in this country and, you know, exacerbated a whole set of anxieties that were already pretty high because there were gas lines and fuel shortages of places

and prices were going up and Jimmy Carter's like blaming consumers and it was just a total mess. And, you know, if you look at Fukushima though, that's part of what prime prompted Germany to get off nuclear, which is complicated their climate targets. So these things have a North Stream and knockoff. And Nord Stream too. So these things all, you know, it's all connected, right? It's all connected. Final topic.

And this one has the metaverse buzzing. On Monday, the Italian Senate hosted a hearing on transparency and open data in government. Not sure if you saw this one. It included politicians, economists, IT specialists, and even a Nobel Prize winning physicists. It's a big deal. But despite all those big brains, despite all its expertise, someone managed to crash their Zoom feed or like whatever, I don't know, teams, whatever they use and start airing 3D animated pornography featuring a character from the Final Fantasy 7 video game. I'm not familiar with the Final Fantasy canon, but I know it's popular. Here's my question.

How does that go down in 2022? too. I was a huge fan of like the Zoom bomb video genre in early COVID, you know, like some really hilarious kid at a high school does something funny and fucks with their teacher. But at this point, like every elementary school teacher on the planet can click out of that stuff like instantly. What gives here? Inside job? I mean, I'm going to go inside job on this one. It's, I was not prepped for this and I, I have no place to go other than some grudging admiration. Whoever did it. Yeah, yeah. I was, I was some branding for you, Bunga Bunga Zoom. Yeah, yeah. I mean, let's just say like we talked about arcane parliamentary deliberations before. I mean, this is one way to live and

things up. Maybe this is what happens when you all of a sudden there's like a white nationalist five-star party, a bunch of fucking jokers in there. Yeah. Yeah. Italian politics has always been, you know, a bit crazy. This definitely elevates at a different level. I wonder which one of these we're going to do for our Snapchat show, which you all should check out. It's very fun. It's very funny. We pick an issue a week. We could do the Italian Senate. We could do Boris Johnson. can do, I don't know, the Uighurs again. Maybe tweeted us. Yeah.

Vote. Tweeted us. Let us know what you think. Yeah. The Secretary of State. Yeah. The Secretary of State. You could also do that.

See how that cuts down. Speaking of Tony Blinken, Secretary of State, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we will have our interview with Tony Blinken, Secretary of State. So stick around for that. We are thrilled to welcome on to the show today. The Secretary of State, our friend or former colleague, Tony Blinken. Tony Blinken. Tony, it's great to see it.

Tommy, great to be with you, great to be with you, Ben. Great to see you guys. I wore a shirt with a collar, Tony. I hope you notice that. That's rare. I was actually going to note that, Ben. I really take that as a sign of deep respect. Respect for you in the office, sir.

Yeah, my hair is barely dry from the shower. In fact, it's not. Tony, we know you're going to go to Ukraine later today, and I think Ben wants to ask about that, but I was going to start with a quick Iran question. You know, I know you're closely monitoring these talks in Vienna, Austria. diplomats are trying to figure out a way to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, something near and dear to our hearts and prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. The latest reports are that Iran

wants a guarantee from the U.S. that the United States won't unilaterally quit the agreement and reimposed sanctions like President Trump did in 2018. But binding a future president involves passing a treaty that gets two-thirds of the votes in the Senate, which we all know is challenging. So my question is, you know, is that a fair request given the recent history? And are there any creative ideas that you've heard floated for how a president, President Biden might be able to address the Iranian concerns and get this thing, get this thing done? Well, Tommy, just to take a step back for one second, and you guys know this better than

anyone because you were immersed in this when you were in government. I think it's fair to say that the decision to pull out, of the nuclear agreement. It's one of the worst decisions made in recent U.S. foreign policy history. Thanks to that agreement, we had Iran's nuclear program in a box contained. We were able with great assurance because of the extensive

monitoring and verification procedures that were put in, feel very confident about that. And even the past, previous administration said that Iran was making good on its commitments. Unfortunately, what we've seen, more than unfortunately, is since we pulled out, Iran using that as an excuse to resume many of the dangerous activities it was engaged in before the agreement, stop them from engaging those activities. And now we're at a place where after having pushed back the time it would take them to produce

enough fissile material for one weapon to a year, we're now down to a matter of weeks by public record. So this is what we inherited, unfortunately. And we, we're going to, we inherited, unfortunately. And we are, we still think that the best outcome would be to put that program back in the box by getting back into the agreement, the so-called JCPOA. So you're right. One of the things that Iran has asked for is guarantees that we won't pull the rug out again. And you're also right that in our system, you can't provide that kind of hard and fast guarantee. President Biden can certainly say what he would or wouldn't do as president, as long as Iran remains in compliance with the, with the agreement. but we can't bind future presidents.

This is one of the things that we're talking about. But I'm obviously not going to negotiate in public, even with my close friends on the pod. We'll see where we get. But here's the reality. We have very little runway left to see if we can get back into mutual compliance because what's happened is this. Because the Iranians have restarted so many of the dangerous activities

that the agreement had stopped, they are learning more, building up more knowledge, building up greater capacity to break out more quickly. And even if we return to all of the restrictions under the agreement, we're going to get to a point where we can't recapture some of the benefits of the agreement. So that's a real consideration. The other problem we have is that they are producing enough material enriched to very high levels that we're getting down to a breakout time right now. that is really, really troubling. So we're working hard at this. We think it's in the interest of the United States and the interest of allies and partners to see if we can get back to the agreement, but I think we'll know that in the next few weeks. So Tony, it's kind of a groundhog day here.

We talked about Iran and now Ukraine. And you're heading out to Ukraine. And I wanted to ask you question that that gets to the value of that experience of going. You know, obviously people watch this stuff and they see readouts of phone calls and they see you shaking hands with somebody and walking into some ornate meeting space. But you've been to Ukraine a bunch over the years I know. And I just, I wanted to start by asking you, is there a moment you've had in Ukraine where the stakes of what they're going through really hit home to you? Like an interaction with somebody, how do you bring home for people that this is a country full of human beings under threat trying to do something hard.

Like, what is a moment you've had where you were standing there somewhere in Ukraine and had an interaction with somebody or something that really kind of hit home with what's at stake here? Yeah, sure. Ben, first of all, you know, I think we all know. There's no real substitute for doing things face-to-face or at least mask to mask these days. You feel things, you pick up things, you get things from that kind of. a direct conversation that you can't get certainly on the phone and even, you know, even on Zoom. So in and of itself, it's really important to be there to listen, to watch, to pick up

things. Second, you know, one of the things that brought this home from me was one of the, one of the times I was there after the Russian invasion of 2014. I was there several times. After that, I was in government then working with both of you. And, you know, walking along the Maidan, talking to people who had been there, who stood up when this government came in and basically took away the promise that Ukrainians had voted for to be able to, you know, have a future with Europe. And then they took to the streets peacefully to say, this is not, what we want. And the snipers started at them, gunning down people, peaceful protesters in the

middle of this large public, famous gathering place in Kiev. But actually being there on the ground and sort of putting yourself where these people had been and looking up at the buildings where the snipers had been shooting down at them gives you a pretty palpable feel for what people had done to stand up for their own democratic right to choose the future of their country. And the other thing I'd say is this, you know, for so many of us, for many Americans, yeah, they ask the question, why are we so focused on Ukraine? Why does this, why does this matter? It's, you know, half a world away. And what's so important about this? And the answer is this. Of course, Ukraine matters in and of itself. And we've been standing strongly over many years for its

sovereignty for its territorial integrity for its independence, the formula you hear repeated endlessly. But it's also bigger than Ukraine because what's happening is this. You've got one country, Russia, by its actions, saying that it can just change the borders of its neighbor by force, saying it can decide for its neighbor what its decisions are going to be with whom it may choose to associate, not the people of that country through their elected. government. You have a country saying it's fine to have a sphere of influence where we basically bend neighbors in our area to our will, not their own choices. And if we let that go with impunity, then I think we open a huge Pandora's box where it's not just Ukraine, it's other

autocratic countries around the world like Russia that say, we're going to do this too. And that is a recipe for conflict. It's a recipe for chaos. It's a recipe for human suffering. and it's a recipe for undermining democracy. So that's why this is important. And it goes from the individuals, from that person at the Maidan, to something that actually affects Americans and people everywhere. Well, what it's going to ask you, I mean, one of the things that's frustrating or challenging about this is that, you know, this is not something that's going to be solved, you know,

even in the tenure of one president in the sense of like Russia's not going to totally back off and Ukraine's going to totally be free to make its own choices. You're in some ways in the near term trying to prevent worse outcomes. Like the success is like Russia doesn't invade this country, right? And so stepping back, Russia has done so much to shape the story in the world over the last decade, through disinformation campaigns, through the Prudence, forced his personality, through actions like invading base of Ukraine. how are you guys thinking about challenging that momentum?

How are we telling our story? How do we push back both against the what aboutism on Ukraine, but also this flood of disinformation? Because right now, I think the sense in the world is that the momentum is on the side of the autocratic story, whether it's emanating from Russia or China, but we're focused on Russia in this regard. How do you piece together a counter disinformation strategy? a narrative on Ukraine and just the story that we stand for in a way that begins to push back

against that Russian momentum. You know, Ben, I think it's one of the fundamental challenges of our time. And you're right, first of all, that many of these problems, challenges are not going to be solved in one fell swoop, that sometimes success in foreign policy is preventing something even worse from happening. Sometimes success is pushing things down the road. and buying time and space to see what else comes along to help you shape things in a better way. But at the same time, you're right that we have a huge challenge, particularly in the information space,

the misinformation space, the disinformation space, something that we've felt acutely, and it's been growing, growing, growing to the point where it's one of the major challenges that we have in our own security. look, I think there are a number of things that we are doing, we can do, we need to be doing more of. We've got to relentlessly and effectively tell our own story. So much of this is about narrative. And one of the challenges that we have is that facts and figures are one thing. Actually having a narrative, a story that resonates with people, is just or maybe even more important. And so what we say, the way we say it, how we get it out there

is really important. Look, we're supposed to be pretty good at narrative. So that's something that I think we ought to be able to build on. A lot of this is speaking in solidarity with one voice. And one of the reasons that we've spent so much time, the first year of this administration, trying to reinvest in and reinvigorate our alliances and partnerships is precisely so on these big issues. The rest of the world, hears us speaking and acting as one. And I think, you know, the last week we had these meetings at NATO, at the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Union, others. If you were a Russian participating in those meetings or listening in on them, you would have been struck by the unity of voice, what was coming from all of our allies

and partners. That doesn't just happen. It's the product of a lot of work. It's the product of building trust, confidence among us, and we spent a lot of time and effort doing just that. So the more that's happening, I think, the more the prospect that we will help carry the day. And ultimately, and this is a big part of the challenge too. It is about trust. It's about trying to build that trust so that when your voice is heard, people not only listen to it, but they believe it. And that goes to much more fundamental problems about governance that we feel not only internationally outside our country, but in our country as well. Yeah, so, I mean, forgive me if my lights go out again. It's not a cyber attack. I'm sitting

alone in a studio and the lights are motion-based and sometimes they're. They just turn off on me and it's pitch black, which is really fun. Tommy, you need to just keep moving. Yeah, I'm just going to do this in the duration of the interview. Jumpinjacks. Look, Ben and I are obsessed with this global competition that you're talking about between democracies and autocracies around the world. I know you're on team democracy and that you spent a lot of time talking about why the

democratic system, why democratic values are better than the alternative. But, you know, as you alluded to, you know, our democracy has been a bit of a mess lately from January 6th, the on. ongoing election lies. Are there times when you're abroad talking with some foreign diplomat where they say to you like, hey, Tony, is your shit together over there? Like, is this thing going to work out? Are there times you've heard, you know, a Russian, a Chinese diplomat, some other try to undercut the U.S. system by pointing at what's going on in some of the darker recesses of our political discourse? Absolutely. It certainly our, um, uh, our adversary

our opponents are very happy to point fingers at that, to try and poke at it. And indeed, they may be helping to foment it themselves, going back to what we're just talking about, with misinformation, with disinformation, with trying by various means to play on the fissures that exist in our own society. Friends, partners, allies, yeah, they might reference it more obliquely. But here's the interesting thing. It's both a challenge, but there's also, I think, some opportunity in it because when we're asking other countries to do what may be for them hard things, politically challenging things, particularly when it comes to really strengthening their own democracies and creating the space necessary democracies for all sorts of different groups and people to have their voice heard, to have their say. In a funny way, our own travails can be a source of strength as well as a, as well potentially

as a weakness. And I mean it this way. One of the things that still sets us apart from virtually every other country is not only our ability, but our willingness and determination to confront our own challenges, our own problems openly, transparently, not trying to. sweep them under the rug, not trying to pretend they don't exist, as is the case in so many other parts of the world. And so we're grappling with challenges right now, but we're doing it in an open, transparent way. And the rest of the world can see that. And it's something that I can talk about

as proof positive that when we have problems that we have to confront, well, at least we're doing it open. And you know, you might be inspired by that to do the same thing. So in some ways, They can be helpful. But look, the bottom line is this. I think when it comes to the challenge of our time, certainly one of the challenges of our time, the faceoff between democracies and autocracies, it's pretty simple on one level. We simply have to demonstrate as democracies that we can deliver in meaningful ways for what our people want. Because the argument that you hear, and you guys talk about this all the time, the argument that you hear, from the autocrats is, you know what, democracy just isn't fit for purpose for these times. It's paralyzed. It's polarized. It moves too slowly. And the great benefit of an autocracy is that can move quickly. It can dedicate resources to whatever place it chooses without having to go through some kind of convoluted democratic process. Well, we have to prove that wrong. We have to demonstrate that when it comes to what really matters in people's lives, what they want,

what they need, what they aspire to, we can respond to it. and we can do it effectively. And that requires us, I think, to do that internally in our own governance and our own politics. But from my perspective, in the job that I'm in, it's also more necessary than it's ever been to do that collectively, to do that together. And here's why. Look, there are lots of cliches that the three of us know very well from having worked in and out of government for a long time. But cliches usually have a kernel of truth to them. And one of them is, is that we simply can't deal with most of the challenges that really affect our lives alone,

that the United States for all its power simply can't get effective results if it's doing it alone. So when you think about it, just to state the obvious, the three big things, I think, that are having more of an impact on people's lives than just about anything. COVID, climate, new technologies that are disrupting the way we do things.

We can't simply deal with those effectively on our own climate. We're 15% of global emissions. Even if we did everything right at home, we've got to deal with the other 85%. COVID, to state the obvious, and we've been living through this once again with Omicron and the variants, even if we managed to do everything right at home, if there's still variants circulating elsewhere, they're going to come back and bite us. We have the need, the obligation, the responsibility to work with other countries to make sure that we're beating the virus everywhere. And on emerging tech, it's so both potentially powerfully positive but also incredibly disruptive.

A lot of the rules, the norms, the marketplaces for all of these things are global. They're not simply our own. So if we can't figure out a way to come together with other countries to write the rules and to shape the norms the way the technology is actually used, it may be used in ways that we don't like, no matter what we do at home. And all of this starts with trying to build the strongest possible collection of countries that basically have the same perspective as we do, the world's other democracies. When we have that solid foundation, that solid fork, there's a lot more that we can get done in the world than just the United States doing it alone.

That's kind of been the foundation we've been trying to set over this first year. on the tech piece Tony and it's connects to the idea of getting our house and ordered home and dealing with things abroad. I know you're bullish on I think what is a really important initiative, this US-EU trade and technology council, which I think a lot of people looked at and saw is, okay, this is good. This is the US and Europe kind of sitting down and figuring things out amongst themselves in part because we're going to be dealing with China on everything from supply chains to data, privacy, and security to everything else. I guess the question I had, though, is that, you know, we, I'm sure, want to talk, and there are all these working groups dedicated to

standards and supply chain security, et cetera. But at the same time, we're coming to those meetings, I know from talking to Europeans, where there are a lot of concerns about U.S. technology platforms. You know, Facebook is not exactly contributing to the health of democracy around the world. there's a lot of concerns in Europe around privacy on data. When you enter into a multilateral effort like that, where on the one hand, you want the eye to be focused on, you know, how is the Chinese Communist Party potentially undermining the safe and democratic uses of technology? How much are you also getting near full about U.S. technology platforms?

And what can we really do to have a kind of healthier tech ecosystem absent some agree on norms that may impact our technology platforms as well as preparing to deal with a growing Chinese tech sector. Yeah, Ben, look, you're exactly right. And it's both. We've got obviously trade frictions with Europe, some big ones that we've actually worked through over this past year, including a long standing issue of subsidies for the big aircraft manufacturers, as well as tariffs and so forth.

But especially in the tech area, too, we have some differences, differences of approach. And we have to work through those. And we are. At the same time, there is so much more in the perspective that we bring to bear on these issues that unites us than divides us as compared to how autocracies want to regulate and rule technology. And so what I'm finding in these meetings is that even as we're working through some differences, we are seized increasingly with the notion that we have to be working together to try to do more to shape all of these norms and rules and standards.

Because if we don't, then someone else will, and that someone else will almost certainly do it in a way that's antithetical to the fundamental values that we share for democracy, for openness, for the free flow of information, for protecting people's privacy, for protecting their human rights, to make sure the technology, to the best of our ability, can be used for good things, not as a tool of repression, surveillance, you name it. So I'm finding in these conversations that, sure, the frictions are there, the differences, some differences are there. We work on them. We've worked through them. We've made real progress. But increasingly, there is common cause in trying to make sure that we are the ones who are kind of setting the rules for the road for the next generation.

Tony, changing gears here. So, you know, you spoke in really movingly about your stepfather's experience during the Holocaust where he survived being held in several Nazi concentration camps. There was this horrible incident over the weekend where a man took several people hostage at a synagogue. I'm not going to ask you to get into any of the specifics of that incident because I'm sure it's an ongoing investigation. But unfortunately, threats against synagogues or Jewish communities are happening far too often, both in the U.S. and abroad.

I'm curiously what your reaction personally is to sort of seeing these horrible things happen and what role you think the U.S. can and should play in trying to stamp out anti-S. and prevent these kinds of hate crimes, both, you know, in the U.S. and around the world. Well, I guess I start by saying that there is a lot of history that we all know and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, share and we know throughout history that anti-semitism acts of anti-semitism violence directed against Jews are the canary in the coal mine. And usually they augur not just bad things for Jews, but for many, many other groups until you wind up with a larger configuration. So in and of itself, we have to be incredibly vigilant about that, whether it's in our own society or whether it's in other places around the world.

And we are. We're making sure that, you know, here at home, communities, synagogues have some of the tools that they need to protect themselves, even as we're trying to deal with the larger underlying issues and around the world. We're incredibly vigilant about reemergence of anti-Semitism, or for that matter, whether it's Islamophobia, other kinds of prejudice and violent acts directed against one group or another. But as I say, it almost always in our history has started with anti-Semitism and with acts against Jews. It's something that we're focused on not just ourselves, but increasingly with different groups of like-minded countries who are experiencing the same things. and because of their own history are incredibly attuned to this.

But then we all have challenges in our respective politics, where sometimes these issues are used for ill. And that's something that we have to be on guard on as well. We're going to wrap with a few quick kind of lightning around personal questions, bridging from that very serious topic to the, personal. I'm just wondering, what do your kids think you do, Tony? They're pretty small. You're gone a lot. Do they have any idea, you know, what you do? Like, what do you tell them? So, Daddy does FaceTime. What do you tell them what do they actually think you do?

So my kids are almost three and almost two. My son's almost three. My daughter's almost two. they know I go to work, whatever that is. They know I go to the State Department, whatever that is. Well, that's, that's when I, so that's, but look, here's the honest, here's the honest and really hard truth that I have to confront. Every once in a while I'm on, you know, on TV. And my wife, your, your mutual friend, Evan Ryan, will say to my kids, oh, look, daddy's on TV.

And almost every time the response. is I want Elmo, where's Sesame Street? So I do not hold a candle to any of our fuzzy and furry friends on Sesame Street. I imagine in a year your kids would be like, Daddy leverages soft power around the world to advance you. So just, listen, here's my other challenge is my son is particularly good training for doing diplomacy around the world because I ask him to do something and he says, no. Where do you go from there? Yeah, you got to get creative. Tony, you're a musician, guitar player.

Are you playing a band? I have deep sources within the State Department that tell me that you curate your Spotify playlist yourself, even though you get accused of having someone do it for you. When are you going to pull together a musical summit, get some of your favorite bands, musicians, guitar player in the State Department? Or maybe you take the show on the road. You do a world tour where you guys are just sort of rocking out for democracy or something. We can workshop that. That was terrible. I got to say, Tommy, that could really be

the final sign that we're heading for Armageddon. It would, I'm not sure that would do anyone any good. Yeah, I've been in a series of bands over the years. I like to say that one group of guys that I played with, we never play live. We just sort of go to a recording studio and, and try and put down some tracks, much like the second half of the Beatles career where they stopped performing and went into the studio. Yeah. In their case, it was because, one, you know, they couldn't hear themselves over the screaming fans.

And two, the music was getting so much more sophisticated that they wanted to be in studio. In our case, it's because no one would actually come paid a little here to play a lot. But nonetheless, that's kind of where we are. Look, you know, for me, we all have sort of threads in our life. And the common thread for me really has been music, something to always, always fall back on. And also, you know, you talked about the. the Spotify playlist. We've been doing those now in the countries that we're visiting. It's an incredible way to connect with people because, you know, it does bring people together.

It does cross cultures. It does cross differences. And so showing that respect and love for music from different parts of the world is a really good way of connecting. But look, if I had had a chance to pursue a career as a musician, I would have done it. I realized that in early age, there was only one thing missing. Talent. Are you George, Paul, Lennon, Ringo? Where do you stand in the get back? Continuum. Billy Preston? It's a, yeah, it's a continuum. I mean, you know, there are times when you're you're kind of a Paul person, times when you're a John person, a George person, a Ringo person. I wouldn't want to pick or choose. I'm going to throw one lightning one at you, which is you travel a lot, best meal as Secretary of State and worst wake-up call as Secretary of State.

Here we go. Okay, best meal as Secretary of State? And we're going to say you can't say anything French because I know you don't want to cause another August kind of incident here. So we'll just rule out the French here. Look, here's the hard part, too. Because of COVID and Omicron, when we're traveling around the world, we're generally actually not eating out in the state.

That's brutal. So it's really, now I will tell you, and I know this is really dangerous because if I say one thing, pick one place, pick one country. You got to do it. But nonetheless, I will say this. Last time I was on the job during the administration we were all part of, I think one of the greatest meals I've ever had was in Tokyo at the Skiji fish market where there's an incredible hole in the wall, sushi place, which is just a countertop. but it was breakfast and people line up at five in the morning to go to that counter and have breakfast there and it's beyond words. All right.

That's a good answer. That's a great answer. All right, Tony, you are in a room with 100 of the most talented college seniors in the country. You have 60 seconds to pitch them on why they should join the State Department over the CIA, Wall Street, anything else, go. Because you can make a difference for your country, because you can do something and be part of something larger than yourself, because you can go to work every day,

literally as well as figuratively, with an American flag behind your back. Because when it comes to what we've been talking about, the things that are actually having an impact on your life, on your neighbor's lives, lives of Americans, whether it's climate or whether it's COVID, whether it's technology, whether it's these confrontations among different powers, you can actually be in a job where you can do something about it, where you can make a difference. And even if it's only for a short

time in your life, there are wonderful things to do in so many different ways in so many different pursuits, but if you can spend a little piece of your time, actually being part of something that is larger than yourself, working on behalf of your fellow Americans, trying to make sure that the world is just a little bit better for us and also for our kids, in my case, something I think about every day, then you're not going to get any greater job satisfaction than that. I'll sign up at some point. Do you think you could pass the more than service exam? That's a whole other matter.

Let's go there. Yeah. I don't know that I can do it right now. I'm not sure I can swing that thing. Well, listen, Tony, I think we are over our lot of time and probably keeping you late from, you know, like high-level diplomatic meetings in Ukraine designed to prevent a war, so we should probably let you go. But thank you so much for doing the show, for talking with us, for being a friend for so many

years and all the great work you're doing. We really appreciate it. Great to be with both of you. I'm a real longstanding friend of the pod. always will be. And my kids even have pod onesies. Yeah, that's dedication. We're all in. That's that's dedication. Indctrinated early. Start him real. All right. Safe travel. Thanks. Thanks again to Tony Blinking for jumping on the pod right before he jetted off to Ukraine. Hopefully this was more fun than all the work he has ahead of him.

I do wonder if the person who did the Italian job, right, is as any, connection to the genius who was running the CNN live Twitter feed on Nears Eve. So funny. Yeah. So funny. When you get fooled by a like a fake like hashtag bendover name on the CNN crawl, it's just it'll always make your laugh. Kind of like early Simpsons. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just a sucker for incredibly childish stupid shit. Like the Buffalo Bills fans love to throw dildos on the field for some reason. I didn't understand that. I don't know why they do it.

I saw that and I wondered about that. It's just very funny. It felt very specific. You know? Why Buffalo? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Of all the stadiums that could happen and why does it happen in Buffalo? Yeah, why Buffalo?

Let us know if you're... Someone answer this. Any Buffalo World is out there, please let us know why this is, why your people... Why your people do that. Engage in this tradition, you know. This tradition. It's like the masters. Yeah.

Tradition like no other. All right, that's it for us. Talk to you guys next week. Potsave the World is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Mew. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Segglin is our sound engineer.

Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Yale Freed, and Phoebe Bradford who film and share our episodes as videos each week.