Pod Save the World - The world Biden inherits

Episode Date: January 20, 2021

On the final Pod Save the World of the Trump presidency, Ben and Tommy talk about Joe Biden’s day-one foreign policy agenda, the arrest of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, why the US dropped charges against a Mexican general accused of working with a drug cartel, how Trump is trying to keep his loyalists in the government after he leaves office, elections in Uganda, a State Department designation of genocide in Xinjiang, and more. Then activist Nathan Law joins Ben to talk about where the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong goes from here.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. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, we got a little pep in our step today. This is the last episode with Donald Trump as president. I cannot believe how good that feels. It feels better than I even thought it would. We're just watching like the mixture of familiarity of the Biden inauguration combined with how unfamiliar it is after four years.

Like there really is something pretty cathartic about the whole thing. And I remember, Tommy, four years ago, inauguration days is like one of the worst days of my life. You know, I went out to Andrews of Obama. I flew on Air Force One to Palm Springs where we dropped the Obamas off in California and then flew home on this empty Air Force One. And it was just super depressing to land in Donald Trump's Washington. I honestly can't even imagine. And also, shout out to Joe Biden's advance team for making a lot of really poignant, meaningful events today. and it looks incredible on TV.

So huge week. There's a lot happening. As we were prepping for the show today, several of Biden's national security nominees were up at the Senate for their confirmation hearings, including nominees for Secretary of State, defense, homeland security, and Avril Haynes to lead the intelligence community. Ben, one piece of news I saw coming out of those hearings already was future secretary of state Tony Blinken said that the Biden administration will end support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen is something we've talked about a million times. So that is just amazing news,

right out of the gate. Yeah. And I think what was notable about it is even though they took that campaign pledge, it's not real until you hear it in a confirmation hearing. And Tony's language was not at all hedged. Like there's a way to say, you know, we're going to work to end support for the war in Yemen or we're going to evaluate and kind of point to some process. Tony said, no, we're going to end support for this. It's not working. And people should recognize like, number one, this is something that could help positively impact millions of lives while also beginning to send a message to Saudi Arabia that the conduct of the last four years, never mind what it came before, is not acceptable to the United States. And I think people should keep in mind this shows that

activism works because people raise their voices, because there was a movement around this issue, because progressives in Congress got energized, it kind of shifted the mainstream in the Democratic Party to this position. So everybody should feel good about it and good job by Tony. Yeah, great job, Tony. Yeah, there's a lot of ways to say or signal we're going to slow walk this one

and he did none of that. So credit to Tony. So here's what we're going to cover today. We're going to talk about parts of Biden's agenda, this are day one, week one stuff that they've rolled out. We will get into the story of an incredibly brave Russian opposition leader

named Alexei Navalny and what he was doing over the weekend, how Trump officials are trying to burrow their way into the government before he leaves. Incredibly annoying stuff there. Talk about U.S.-Mexico relations, election fraud in Uganda, allegedly. An important designation of genocide in China and how populace and autocrats are kind of seeming to shrug Ben and not really care that much and not look all that upset as Trump leaves

the big stage. So that was a fun one to end on. But Ben, you did the interview today. Really cool, exciting opportunity to have this conversation. Can you tell folks about it? Yeah, I talked to Nathan Law, who's really one of the handful of leading pro-democracy activists from Hong Kong. He helped lead the 2014 umbrella movement. He's obviously been involved in the protest movement in recent years, very close to Joshua Wong, the leader who's been imprisoned in Hong Kong.

And Nathan has been basically exiled. He's seeking asylum in the United Kingdom. So he breaks down for me what's happened in the last few months for the activist community with the Chinese national security law that's been in place. what he feels like and taking his voice to the world stage on this issue, and what we as Americans can do both to support the people in Hong Kong, but also it was interesting to hear Nathan's answer to my question of what was it like for someone like you who's fighting for democracy to see what happened at our capital. I thought he gave a very powerful answer to that. So people should check it out. Yeah, another incredibly brave guy. So stick around for that.

So Ben, let's start with the Biden because I'm just excited to have him as president. His team announced that on day one, Biden is going to rejoin the Paris Climate Accords, rejoin the World Health Organization, and repeal the Muslim ban. Massively impactful, incredible things that he can just do on day one. So credit to them. Is there anything you wanted to see but didn't? I'm kind of curious when they're going to start talking about rejoining the Iran nuclear deal. Maybe that's not a day one, week, one thing. I hope it's a month one thing. But what was your reaction to what they rolled out so far? No, I think these are all no-brainers. I think it, you know, I can have. help but mention that it shows the utter failure of Trump to dismantle the Obama legacy since basically

we're reverting back to that status quo. So I think Barack Obama should feel good about it. And look, it'll have an immediate impact, not just obviously on the lives impacted, people who can travel here, at least post-COVID, the efforts that we can restart through the Paris Agreement. But it sends a message to the world, like we're trying to hit a reset button here. And we're trying to show the world the new face from the beginning, one that is welcoming to people from other countries, and one that is willing to roll up our sleeves and solve problems through the World Health Organization or through the Paris Agreement process. So I think it's a powerful first step. I think in terms of other steps, these are the kinds of things you can just do with the stroke

of a pen through executive action. You're right. I think another initial test will be how soon do they try to reenter the Iran nuclear agreement or at least signal that they would formally reenter if the Iranians return to complying with the deal. Will they release, you know, the intelligence on Jamal Khashoggi's murder? There's a lot of things to look for in the next, you know, 30 days, but I think this is a good day one message for them. Yeah. So you mentioned sort of a new face to the world. A lot of folks are going to hear this episode on inauguration day when Biden is delivering his speech to the nation that, you know, it's directed at American citizens, but it's going to be heard around the world, you know, not a new face, a familiar one, but, you know, a major change.

So what foreign policy priorities and messages do you, as a former presidential speechwriter, think will be in this speech that should be in there? And then how do you balance that, you know, sort of the domestic needs of an inaugural address with the reality that this is literally viewed by everybody in the world. And there's a big international messaging piece that has to be a part of an inaugural. Yeah, I mean, I was thinking about this from working on the first, well, the two Obama inaugural, but especially the first Obama inaugural address. Look, people mainly are listening in this country for what vision is Joe Biden setting

for America, but the world watches that speech very carefully. And it's not really a place where you roll out, you know, policy initiatives or even, you know, certain policy directions. It's where you set a tone of how are you going to approach the world. What are your priorities? What do you choose to mention and what do you not choose to mention? And the Obama inauguration in 2009, after the Bush years, we really wanted to signal a return to diplomacy after the Iraq war, a return to respect for the rule of law after torture and Gitmo and the Bush years. But also, you know, to signal a willingness to reach out to adversaries. And there was a famous line from that inaugural address where Obama said, you know, we will extend a hand if you unclench your fist to autocratic regime. and that line kind of foreshadowed what became the Iran nuclear agreement and the Cuba opening.

So I think Biden has an opportunity here. The world is going to be paying careful attention. This is the first American voice that they're going to hear in this setting since Donald Trump became president. And I think he'll be signaling kind of a return to America embracing diplomacy and embracing our values. But I'm curious, like, what does he emphasize? Does he emphasize climate change as a global priority? Does he emphasize the pandemic is the first, second, and third order of business? Or does he allude to the competition of political models that we have with China now,

the democratic backsliding that's been happening in the world, the disruption coming from Russia and from disinformation? I would like to see him kind of reset American foreign policy around new themes. You know, not terrorism, not the wars, but around pandemics and climate change. and disinformation and combating authoritarianism, I think he can really, you know, point us in a new direction here and then spend the rest of the first 100 days filling in the blanks. Speaking of familiar feelings, I just noticed the New York Times did a piece about how Joe Biden uses a Peloton bike.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they suggested that didn't comport with his regular guy image and might pose a security risk because it's a connected device because I guess. maybe they don't realize that like literally everything is connected to the internet these days. So it does feel familiar and oddly comforting that we're back to incredibly stupid, tome-deaf political stories about the president. Yeah, like Arugula, you know, Obama eating Arugula or what have you. I mean, I was at that event.

Yeah, that's a fun one in Iowa. It's amazing. Yeah, it's your fault. But, you know, it's amazing that we, like, after four years of this arsonist, that the political media is going to revert so quickly back to, like tan suit scandals. But I mean, you're right, there's something comforting it. Like, like, if that's the worst thing they have to talk about. Like, and actually in all seriousness, I'm really curious whether that stuff can have the life it used to have, right? I mean, after Trump,

maybe. But like, are people who's going to look at that stuff and kind of roll their eyes? I would hope so. I don't know. I wonder how much Fox can drive stories like that, because that is their bread and butter and they're getting more partisan, but we'll see. So let's talk about some serious stuff. happening internationally, starting with Russia. So we've talked a bunch on this show about Alexei Navalny. He is a Russian opposition leader, anti-corruption activist. He's a nationalist, and he's perceived as a major threat to Vladimir Putin, at least by Vladimir Putin. Last August, Navalny was poisoned and nearly killed by Russian intelligence operatives. One of Alexei Navalny's attempted assassins is so stupid that the guy actually took a phone call from Navalny, who was pretending to be some

senior Russian intelligence official and talked openly about the operation with Alexi on this open line. So you can't make that stuff up. Navalny has been receiving medical treatment in Germany for the last several months, but he vowed to return to Russia. And on Sunday, he made good on that pledge by hop on a flight to Russia. And he was immediately arrested upon landing. So he was held overnight at a police station given this sham trial that was totally irregular, a sentence to 30 days in prison, and there he will await a decision that could land him in jail for much longer. That case deals with a 2014 parole, basically. And Russian authorities say Navalny failed to check in with them twice a month as required by his parole when he was in Germany recovering from the Russian government poisoning him.

So there's some Kafka-S nightmare, if I've ever heard one. So Navalny is called on supporters to take to the streets and protests. The government is also cracking down on his team, his supporters. They, I guess, arrested his cameraman for a three-month old tweet that they said incited extremism. On Monday, there's reports that Navalny was transferred to the same prison where another anti-corruption activist named Sergei Magnitsky was murdered several years ago. So that's disconcerting. Ben, what do you think Navalny's strategy is here?

And how do you think the Biden administration should handle this? I mean, this is an incredibly high-profile case that's landing right on their laps. Yeah, it's amazing to watch this play out. And we've talked before about how I've had, you know, conversations with Lexi Navalny over the summer for my book. And, you know, and actually I was in touch with him in Germany, just checking in. And the guy, like, he's so laid back and kind of fearless and kind of that he was making fun of me for Black Cube spying on me while we were like texting. And I was like, hey, how are you doing, man?

And he's like, oh, you should watch your comms like Black Cube, you know. But I mean, I tell that story because it's just this guy was like, you know, utterly fearless about his own circumstances. Fearless, yeah. And look, he's he is Putin's worst nightmare. He's been building a reputation for 20 years as an anti-corruption activist, exposing essentially the rotten corrupt core of the Putin cabal that runs Russia. And he's just laser-focused and burrowed into it. And it's clearly Putin's Achilles heel.

It's his biggest vulnerability politically and otherwise. And Putin's desperation to silence Navalny, the more they try to do that, the more they're just proving Navalny right, you know, that they can't allow someone who blows the whistle on their corruption to continue to have a platform. And he, by the way, is also, if Putin has established himself as kind of the master troll, like the thing you pointed to, Navalny's can want up them in the trolling. I'm going to get on the phone and dupe your guy and admitting what he did. So he's got a showmanship that is dangerous too. I think just watching him go back, knowing he'd be detained, you can't overstate the courage.

And I thought about Navalny a lot in writing my book. And I'll have more to say about this, obviously. But the two things that stood out to me as I watched those scenes were one, you know, he's really motivated by anger at how corrupt his country is. You know, like there's a deep well of anger that he draws on, like that I have to play a role because I'm so upset by what's happened to my country. And that is clearly a motivating factor for him. The other thing that I was struck by is his wife was there saying goodbye to him. And he said something to me in our conversation about how he could only do this with the support of his family. And it just to remind you, they've got two kids, like, you know, for his wife to take that on. She's an equal partner in this too. So, I mean, when you watch those images, think of what he's going into, but also, you know, the sacrifice she's making. But I think for Biden, you know, I was pleased that.

Right away, Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, tweeted about this. Trump has been totally silent. So you felt immediately that this is going to be an issue that Biden himself is personally raising. And frankly, raising the profile of Navalny, we may not be able to control what Putin does, but he's getting a global profile. And the more eyes that are on this, the higher the cost is for Putin if he continues to mess with Navalny. And the more he's a bit in a box because, you know, Navalny,

has a huge following that's only growing, and Navalny in prison only raises his profile as well, particularly if the U.S. is playing that role of trying to catalyze other countries to speak out on this. So this will be very interesting to watch play out. And I just hope he's okay physically, though. Yeah, me too. I mean, look, again, to just double down on how courageous he is. I mean, on Tuesday, today, as Navalny is sitting in a jail, his team released a report describing Vladimir Putin's secret palace on the Black Sea that Navalny says cost $1 billion to build. One billion dollars, Ben. That would get you like a four-bedroom place in Venice if you had that much money.

And his team posted this like text document that details all these connections. They did a 113-minute YouTube video. It's all designed to go viral on social media. They figured out that like the 30 square miles around the building was controlled by Russian intelligence, including the airspace and the coast. They found floor plans that have the spa, the movie theater, a strip club, and something called an aqua disco. So he is going at Putin himself, right at Putin himself, while he's literally being held by the guy. That is just astonishing courage. Yeah. I mean, the guy just goes right at Putin relentlessly. And you can see how politically

potent that kind of corruption would be in Russia. You know, this guy is building himself a billion compound, you know, with taxpayer money that he stole or money he's skinned off the top. And Navalny's been doing this year after year exposing these guys through these types of reports, these types of investigations, using social media, using his blog back in the day. And yet, to do that at the same time that, you know, this man literally controls your physical circumstances is just an unimaginable amount of courage. And he's got a network. He's got offices. It's not just a lonely guy. He's got an organization across Russia, you know, with dozens of offices and hundreds of people associated with it who are also assuming that risk. So this is this is not just, you know, one dissident. This is someone who, you know, who's got a platform and he's got popular support in the country. He's got structure in the country. And, you know, this is the threat that Putin realizes he faces. But, you know, for Putin, you know, he may have overrefer. reached here by poisoning Navalny because the spotlight is just getting bigger. And I, you know, he's in that

circumstance where whatever he does now, whatever Putin does, is going to raise Navalny's profile. You know, whether he's imprisoned or released, his profile is up. Let's hope, let's hope he is safe. Putin won't even say his name, by the way. Let's turn to Mexico for a minute because I want to revisit this story of a guy named El Padrino and what that case is a court case around it or investigation means for relations between the U.S. and Mexico. We talk. about this story back in the day, American law enforcement officials started hearing about someone named El Padrino or the Godfather when they were wiretapping calls between members of a Mexican drug cartel. He was this shadowy figure who seemed to have enormous power. And he was later revealed

to be General Salvador Sienfuegos, Zepeda, who was the former defense minister of Mexico. So like, senior, senior, senior guy. The allegation is that General Sienfuegos was basically helping one cartels, smuggling operations while directing military operations at their rivals. The evidence against him was strong enough that it included Blackberry messages between the general and the cartel members, like setting up meetings, which seems pretty dead to right. So last year, General Seenfuegos was arrested in Los Angeles for drug trafficking and corruption charges, but soon after the Trump Department of Justice dropped all these charges and they let him return to Mexico.

You know, there were these reports at the time that officials at the State Department and DOJ were stunned. They were furious about the decision. But it was spun as necessary to protect the U.S.-Mexico relationship and to prevent Mexican authorities from basically kicking American drug enforcement agents out of the country. American officials seemed to think that he was going to get prosecuted in Mexico anyway, in part because the foreign minister, I believe, said as much. But late last week, Mexico's attorney general, just clear general, San Fuego's of all charges. because Mexican officials were reportedly furious that they didn't get a heads up on this operation and the arrest ahead of time because they work so closely with American drug enforcement on the ground. They let us in Mexico to do this work. And so I get why they'd be pissed about that.

I also understand why the U.S. wouldn't want to tip an investigation of someone that's connected. So, Ben, to me, this case is sort of a window into an example of how Biden is inheriting a very complicated U.S.-Mexico relationship. Amlo, the president, was close to Trump, he didn't recognize Biden's victory for a long time. How do you deal with this if you're the Biden folks? Like, do you think they need to get to the bottom of this strange extradition case? Are you hopeful that Amlo and Biden can figure out a way to get along? Like, is this a concern?

Yeah, I think it's a concern. And I think the bottom line is that, you know, the Mexico relationship, which we don't think about enough, could be, you know, a prickly issue in the first year of the Biden administration. I mean, look, first of all, this whole thing is really weird. If you arrest somebody for this level of crime, you know, with this kind of evidence, like you said, why would you turn him back? The only explanation is what you said, which is that the Mexicans like threatened us. But that's still weird. And Trump and Amlo had this kind of weird bromance, which doesn't make sense to a lot of people because Aml is this kind of leftist populace and Trump is to the right.

But they're both populists, and they both are very sovereignty conscious and, you know, leave me alone and I'll leave you alone kind of thing. And so something doesn't smell right about this guy being returned clearly kind of over the objections of the people who are prosecuting him. So that, that to me bears, you know, examination. But then I think, you know, Aml went ahead anyway in downgraded cooperation with the U.S. in the last couple weeks, making it harder for us to do counter-narcotic stuff in Mexico. And so I think that the combination of him, you know, not recognizing Biden right away, whatever lingering issues there are out of this case, and just a posture that seems like,

you know, Amlo is not going to want to listen to the Biden administration on just about anything suggests it's going to be prickly. And, you know, to be fair, from the Mexican side, they would argue you guys would probably use some of the access you gave us, you know, in this country to spy on our defense minister. I saw like, I'd be pissed too. Yeah, I saw a statement one of them made, you know, kind of on background that you would never arrest a defense minister of, you know, France or Germany, which is, you know, you can, you can kind of see the point, although I don't know if they, I would like to think we would, you know, if they were like helping a cartel.

So I'm not sure that argument necessarily holds water. But, you know, I think the bottom line is that there there may have been an assumption that because Trump used anti-Mexican language and he's basically a racist about people from Mexico that somehow relations were going to improve in a weird way they're set up like you said to they're entering a bumpy period to begin with and that could be harder to put together with a difficult you know unpredictable leader like Amla. Yeah, I hope that the Biden folks and maybe Congress do some sort of hearings, to investigation something to get to the bottom of this because, yeah, it does not smell right. Let's talk about one last Trump item before he's gone because I think this is important.

So the Washington Post reported that the National Security Agency or NSA, those are the folks who intercept phone calls and emails and do electronic surveillance, plans to install a Republican partisan hack and former Trump White House official named Michael Ellis as the NSA's top lawyer. This move was reportedly pushed by the top Pentagon official. officials who wanted to, you know, basically take this last ditch effort to install a Trump political hack into a job that is supposed to be a career civil service position that isn't political and where the person who gets it is chosen based on merit. There's no argument that this guy deserve the job on the merits. He's like barely out of law school. Work for Devin Nunes, the dumbest person in the world. And so it doesn't deserve this spot. This process where political hires end up in civil service jobs is called burrowing. But this is an extreme example, even for the Trump people, because the current head of the NSA, a Trump guy, doesn't want Ellis in this job. The DOD did this over his objections. So Speaker Pelosi sent a letter to the acting secretary of defense asking him not to install this guy Michael Ellis into the NSA job.

She demanded relevant paperwork from the hiring process. And all of this matters because even though Biden's team is about to take over, it'll be harder for them to fire this guy if he's in the agency in a career civil service role. They'd have to basically downgrade his position or just lock him in a room with no computer and nothing to do all day. So, Ben, I'm curious what you made of this case because there was also a report over the weekend that back in December, Trump tried to install another former Devin Nunes aide, another Trump, Devin Nunes aide, and political hack named Cash Patel as the deputy CIA director, but they only backed down when Gina Haspel, the current head of the CIA threatened to resign. This guy Cash Patel, who's a total hack, ended up as chief

of staff in the Department of Defense. So still in a privileged position in terms of information, but luckily he wasn't over the agency. I saw that Gina Haskell actually resigned today. So I don't know what's going on. What did you make of all this, all these machinations at the 11th hour with these complete hacks? Well, I think the first thing is, and it's worth pausing on this podcast will come out the day Joe Biden has inaugurated. you know, it's reaffirming just how big a bullet we dodged. You know, I mean, it was, it was just in the last year that Trump was really just beginning to get the lunatics in charge of the asylum over there, you know, with like Rick Grinnell running DNI and these crazy political hacks being put into really the most

sensitive national security positions in the government. I mean, man, four more years of this and I don't know what the hell we'd be dealing with. I think the second thing to try to look forward, the Biden people are going to have to be relentless in just getting rid of these people. You know, I mean, you know, they may want to be polite and they may want to go through different processes. I don't think they can afford to do that. These people are in incredibly sensitive positions. They're political ideologues. They're extremists. Like, he's got to get these people out of there because, and look, people say, oh, you're talking about, you sound like Trump with like the deep state. Let's be very clear here. Like the people that Trump was attacked

You know, you and I may even just, even if you disagree with some of the elements of, you know, American national security policy, they were like qualified professionals. These are the most mediocre fucking people on the planet. Like these people would not be employable anywhere in the world except American far right politics. They have no. I wouldn't hire these guys to do IT at cricket media. No way, man. Oh, don't put it down. NSA's general counsel.

These guys, every single. listener to this podcast is more qualified to be the general counsel at the NSA than this asshole. Okay. So let's not forget that it's both the virulence of their fascistic ideology that we saw manifest at the Capitol and their utter mediocrity and self-interest, right? So they've got to have a plan to go on every one of these agencies and just get these people out the door as soon as possible, right? And then the last thing I'd say is I worry about the information that these people know. You know, like, they've been at the leadership positions at the NSA and the intelligence community and the defense department, never mind Jared down the hall from the president of the United States. They have in their possession, in their heads, incredibly valuable national security information of the U.S. government operates about all of our covert operations around the world. What's to stop these people from walking out the door and selling that to the highest bidder, you know, because we know that they're really only interested in themselves. So I don't, I don't know the answer to that problem because it's, you know, but it's something that I think

people should have antenna for. As we look to where these people land, we, I hope that journalists, and we can try from our vantage point, keep track of where do these people end up? Do they go working for Eric Prince in like shadowy contracting world? Do they go work for foreign governments, for whom, you know, the knowledge they have may be valuable? Like, so this is a story that bears is going to have to bear some attention even after we dodge the bullet tomorrow. Yes, another place where I hope the Biden people, and maybe even Congress, are able to do some digging, figure out what these folks have been up to because it's a huge mystery that we got to get to the bottom of. All right, let's turn to Uganda. On Saturday, Ugandan President Musevani announced that he had won a sixth term.

He said he won 60% of the vote in an election that opposition leaders and international observers said was stolen or at least irregular because of fraud, intimidation and a nationwide internet blackout. that essentially shut down social media sites and messaging apps near the end of the election. Musevani said that his administration ended up blocking Facebook. So I think they blocked the internet in total for several days. And they claimed they did it after Facebook shut down accounts linked to his party, the National Resistance Movement or NRM, the government, for allegedly trying to manipulate the election. And so this is part of the challenge here for Facebook, frankly, and for the international community, because, you know, Facebook takes down these government-linked accounts for manipulating election information.

And then the government says, okay, you're going to take down our accounts. We're going to shut down the whole internet. And the loss of the internet and social media primarily hurts the opposition because Ugandan government has more control over traditional media, right? So it's just not a fair fight. The leading opposition candidate, again, Bobby Wine, has called on Ugandans to dismiss the election result, call it fraudulent, and announced that the military had basically surrounded his house and put him under house arrest. Jake Sullivan, Biden's incoming National Security Advisor, tweeted an article about Bobby

Weinstein's detainment and said that these arrests were concerning and that the world was watching, which is really a welcome change from a national security apparatus that just didn't care about elections, Africa, democracy in general. But that brings me to the show when I ask you about then. Yeah, or American democracy. So according to Washington Post, the U.S. gave Uganda. $936 million in aid in 2019. In return, the U.S. gets assistance with missions in, you know, Sudan, Somalia, help with refugees, a lot of stuff. But many Ugandan say that the U.S. dollars propped up Mousseveni,

it helped keep him in power. It is really more part of the problem and solution. What do you make of that? How do you think the Biden folks should handle this disputed election and this broader question of like, okay, do we need to rethink the way our aid is maybe helping, you know, dictators stay in power for life. Yeah, I mean, first, there's like no question that this election was not at all on the level. I mean, there was like violent disruption of opposition protests, intimidation. People should follow Bobby Wine on Twitter. He's basically live tweeting his house arrest, you know, as we speak.

And Museveni has long been an autocrat, but this election, I think most observers, think was the worst that they've seen. That as he's gotten older and probably less popular, he's gotten more autocratic. And Bobby Wine was, you know, he's an interesting guy. He was a pop star. You know, he's a popular figure in the country who became a politician. You know, that's a hard, you know, that's a hard opponent for a guy who's old and out of touch. I think the U.S. influence in Uganda is really significant and longstanding. And people are right to be critical. I mean, Moussevonies had these autocratic tendencies for a long time. And he was a security partner of the United States and assistance partner in the United States.

And nobody could look at this and not think that Moussevni was like an African leader kind of aligned with American foreign policy interests and look where we are. So I do think that the Biden team needs to kind of communicate here. Like, look, this is not going to be business as usual in our relationship if you're not taking steps to address this. And, you know, I mean, it's time, I think in general. and all these relationships, given how precarious the state of democracy is around the world, for the U.S. to ditch its double standards. And that should be true across the board. Not just in Africa, by the way, because sometimes people rightly say, well, you know,

you look the other way with the Saudis, but not, you know, in sub-Saharan Africa. No, I'm saying there should be kind of a uniform standard here where we're speaking out on behalf of the rights of the opposition, as Jake Sullivan did. But we're also, you know, having hard conversations about, you know, how are assistance relationships will have to change if these most basic democratic norms are ignored. Now, all that said, our capacity to lecture people about, you know, abiding by democratic norms and elections is also precarious as well. And that's why we had to recognize that, you know, we can't just preach. We had to practice that stuff here, too, you know.

Yeah, not great when the current U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says, yeah, we'll have a peaceful transfer of power to the second Trump administration. Like, Joe, like that probably don't land all that well abroad. But yeah, I think the theme of today's show is Jake, Tony Blinken, Samantha Power, here's a massive problem for you to manage, which brings me the next topic, which is China and the Uyghurs. So on Tuesday bend, the State Department declared that the Chinese government's systematic imprisonment, repression, in some cases, for sterilization of the Uyghur ethnic minority in northwestern China is genocide, and it's a crime against humanity. This announcement, which came in this long statement from Mike Pompeo, the Secretary

of State, also called on international bodies to take action as well. The Biden campaign had previously said that the treatment of the Uyghurs amounted to genocide. And then Tony Blinken reaffirmed that statement in his confirmation hearing again today. So, you know, this determination could lead to more sanctions or other penalties. So, Ben, you know, to stepping back, like, for once, I'm really happy with something Mike Pompeo did, right? Like, this was the right call. I also think, it's quite clear that these guys sat on this decision for nearly a year because Trump didn't want to piss off the Chinese and screw up trade negotiations. It's also important to remember that according to Trump's former national security advisor John Bolton, Trump once or at least maybe twice

told Chinese President Xi Jinping that building these concentration camps to hold a million plus U.S. in what became forced labor camps was exactly the right thing to do. So he's complicit in this. Ben, what does this determination mean for the U.S. and China. And what do you think comes next here? Like, are there pressure points you think we can use to actually stop this genocidal behavior? I mean, to some extent, this kind of finding just raises the pressure on the government to do certain things. In a way that sends a message like, if you're a company that's invested in Jingjing province, you're kind of anticipating there may be sanctions. It may be prohibited for me to do any business there. So I should pull out. So, you know,

it has an impact both in the kind of message it sends, but also in just the fact that it suggests future sanctions, future actions by the U.S. government, potentially, you know, taking this to multilateral forms like the United Nations. And look, I think it's appropriate. And, yeah, if the Trump people really cared, they wouldn't be doing it in their last week in office. But people should understand. I do not believe genocide should ever be thrown around lightly. There are a lot of horrible things that happen around the world that are terrible, that are even mass atrocities that don't constitute genocide. But the reason I think it's appropriate here is the term was invented to describe an effort to essentially erase a people. And that's what we're seeing with the Uyghurs.

They're trying to erase their identity. They're not necessarily going to kill every last Uyghur, but they are going to say that if you don't agree to essentially abandon your religious practices, abandon some of your cultural practices and basically be dictated by us who you are, you can't really, you can't exist freely in this country. And so they're trying to wipe out the Uighur people, the Uighur identity, at least as they are. And so I think it merits this kind of response. And I think it does set a frame for the Biden years where they're going to have to take that issue seriously. It can't be kind of a secondary issue. And you're right, there's like a theme to this show. We've got Nathan Law from Hong Kong. We've got Alexana Volney.

standing up to Putin. We got Bobby Wine under house arrest in Uganda. We got the genocide determination like these issues around democracy and human rights that sometimes felt like the secondary issues in foreign policy. I wish that wasn't the case. I think they're going to be very front and center because things are so contested around the world right now. Yes. Yes. I agree. Well, let's close on a story that I think is sort of a little more hopeful and optimistic, which was the New York Times last week had this piece about how European populists, including some of like the worst far-right leaders out there, are now essentially condemning Trump for inciting an insurrection on his own capital. That includes Marine Le Pen in France, who's just wretched,

Geert Wilders. I don't know if I'm saying his name right. I don't care. He's a far-right asshole in the Netherlands. Your buddy Victor Orban in Hungary basically just declined to comment, which is kind of funny in itself. Now, I don't think that this means that any of these politicians really feel all that badly about it. I'm not saying they're going to reform themselves or moderate their views. But it does seem to suggest that even like the Marine Le Penz of the world understand there's a political cost to supporting anti-democratic violence. So maybe that's a good thing. I don't know.

Do you have any hope here? Do you think some of these guys will view Trump's defeat as a warning maybe or maybe it'll become easier to present? prevent these people from maintaining or assuming power? I don't know. I think these people are perfectly capable of reverting back to being, you know, creepy nationalist authoritarian. I think what it does indicate, though, is just how singularly disgraced, like, Donald Trump is, you know?

And, you know, Trump kind of probably thought some of these people were his buddies and would have his back vocally, but, like, they didn't really like Donald Trump. Like, Donald Trump's the kind of guy who believes everyone who kisses his ass. and now he's finding out that none of those people believed any of those things that they told them. And look, I think that's positive. I think you and I, we talked about this on our text chain, but like there are structural issues in the United States and around the world that are not going away. They were here before Trump. They'll be here after. You know, the anti-democratic, you know, extremist elements of the Republican Party were here before Trump, they'd be here after him.

the creepy assortment of nationalist authoritarian around the world were here before Trump, they'll be here after Trump. But Trump was a singularly insane force. I mean, both because he was president of the United States and commanded so much attention and oxygen, and because he was kind of this unique blend of like a narcissist, incompetent, buffoonish, but malevolent and I guess media effective in some ways personality. And it's a good thing that that that has been basically very rapidly in the last couple weeks rejected, you know, in this country and around the world. Like, even though those structural problems are there, like the fact that Donald Trump has been so utterly diminished that even like Marine Le Pen, who's basically a French,

far right, you know, crypto-fascist feels the need to condemn him. Like that, like, at least we've dealt with the Trump issue for now. Like, now we can attack the structural problems. Yeah. Yeah. That, That's exactly right. I mean, like, we could have added to the structural problem list that Biden will have to tackle, the fact that, you know, all the violent nationalist forces that Facebook helped Marshall here in the U.S., it's still helping abroad. North Korea rolled out a sub-based ballistic missile last week. So that bromance with Kim Jong-un didn't really do much. There's still a challenge of extremism within the Department of Defense in those ranks. All of those are very important issues, but I was just hoping we could close briefly by making fun of Mike Pompeo's Twitter feed. Yeah. Because it is one of the most unbelievably stupid, immature.

It's basically like MAGA clip art all day. Like, what the fuck is happening there? Yeah. And like he's been doing it for like three weeks. Weeks after tweet, like treating like the basic function of his job. You know, like a picture of him standing in front of a plane. you know, as if he like made world peace or something and then interspersed with tweets meant to trigger people like us, you know, calling multiculturalism and ism that, you know, is not who we are.

And the bottom line, though, wokeism. Wokism. Like these people are much more, you know, all the people I know who use the term woke are like right-wing people criticizing like the rest of us. Like I go around embracing wokeism, whatever that means. But Tommy, the thing that stands out to me, I don't know if. struck you is like, Mike Pompeo also, like, he'll put out these graphics on his Twitter feed of like him saying, it's like a quote in like just a giant picture of him, right?

Which number one is not something anyone wants to look at, Mike Pompeo. No. But number two is like what this, this is the kind of guy who stands in front of the mirror talking to himself and thinking, you know, like seeing something in the mirror that none of us see, you know. Drafting, drafting an inaugural. Yeah, exactly. like who's buying this, right?

Like who is like, I need the Pompeo content. Like, who's like furiously like refreshing? Even the MAGA heads, I don't think are like furiously refreshing like the Mike Pompeo Twitter feed to see him like condemning wokeism on the tax dollars of the American people with the US State Department logo on it. No, yeah. The MAGA base is not like, yay, the Abraham Accords. A bunch of times when we, you know, the US government paid foreign countries to announce

that they're still not at war with Israel. I don't think he's appealing to who he thinks he's appealing to. He is basically, the story of Mike Pompeo is he was propped up by Koch Brothers money. He failed his way up by, as I think he was described in either the New Yorker or New York Times magazine piece by another Trump aide as a heat-sinking missile for Trump's ass because he just sucks up to him all the time. He thinks he's like playing this serious Washington guy card plus the sort of like, like maga, trolling, culture war, card, and combining it with what he thinks is his expertise

on foreign policy, which in reality is a utter record of just massive failure, North Korea, Iran, our relationships with allies. Like, he has failed and made every single thing worse. He thinks he's going to somehow parlay that into being president? Are you kidding me, man? Who is the constituency for this, right? Like, and, you know, I think that he's a guy who doesn't have any views, he just has feelings that he developed kind of like in opposition to Obama and listening to like right-wing talk radio or something. Like his his foreign policy beliefs don't add up to anything other than a list of like the grievances that a Fox News viewer would have with Obama era foreign policies. Like even on some of these tweets, like he's trolling Obama

using language from debates from like 2013 that I barely remember even though I was in the middle of them. Like, he's much more obsessed with Brockabal, like, like, this guy, like, he's, what's the story he's telling about what he's done? Can anybody articulate what Mike Pompeo has done other than suck up to Donald Trump and, and try to, like, trigger libs? Like, this is, this is an irrelevant person. Like, a day from now, this guy, he will not matter, and he will never, ever matter again for the rest of his life. Mike Pompeo will be utterly irrelevant. Like, like, I can't even articulate the abyss of irrelevancy that Mike Pompeo is about to disappear into, to his surprise, you know.

He's going to be doing interviews with Hugh Hewitt until the day he dies. He'll be doing like Newsmax hits with Sean Spicer, you know, or like, you know, coming on Hannity to make fun of like John Kerry for trying to solve climate change. Like, have fun with that. Yeah, making leading from behind jokes. It's going to be, it's going to be great. Okay. Well, now that we got that off our chest, we'll talk to.

to someone who's actually a heroic freedom fighter from Hong Kong. So after the break, you will hear Ben's conversation with Nathan Law. So I'm really happy that we could bring you Nathan Law today. Nathan has been a leader of the Hong Kong democracy movement since the umbrella movement in 2014. And obviously, we've been tracking on this podcast the really tragic developments there, just as we follow the really hopeful movement that Nathan's been a part of. But Nathan, thanks so much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for the invitation.

So I just wanted to start. You were in the UK where I know you're seeking asylum. And to just kind of situate people, I was wondering if you could share kind of what goes into that thought process. How do you make the determination to take that formal step? I know you've been outside of Hong Kong a lot in recent years, but that formal step of seeking asylum in another country. And what does that say about what's happening in Hong Kong now? Yeah, that was certainly a very difficult decision for me. I left Hong Kong at the end of June, which was just before the implementation of the national security law.

Because we knew that the national security law would be extremely draconian and controversial. For now, after half years of its implementation, we can easily see that it prosecutes people by their speech and basically quash the freedom of expression or your political thoughts in Hong Kong. So for me, I thought that is extremely important for us to have an international recognisable figure to be able to speak for Hong Kong freely, free from the threats of the national security law.

So I decided to leave Hong Kong in order to preserve a voice, which I think is definitely very important. and I have left behind my families, my friends. I have cut ties with my family immediately after I left Hong Kong. And for now, it's been difficult, but I think it's more than my personal choice. Well, yeah, I think we have great admiration for the work you're doing, the sacrifices you're making, as well as obviously people back in Hong Kong.

on the national security law, what has been, for people obviously who are not in Hong Kong, what do you think has been the clearest change since it went into effect? Is it the detentions? Is it some other aspect of governmental power? How do you see the national security law having changed the landscape in Hong Kong? Well, the national security law basically grants the government's sweeping power to prosecute anyone that they feel like they have a threat to the country. the national security. For example, Secession subversion just a couple of weeks ago, more than

50 democratic figures were arrested because the government thought that they are participating an subversive act by involving in a primary. So you could see from this case, you exercise your constitutional rights to be involved in an election in order to get majority, and you wanted to block government's bill and budget. And that kind of intention and actions are subversive acts in government's dictionary. So you can see how fake and how arbitrary the implementation of the National Secretary of law is. And it could really impose a white terror and politics of fear in Hong Kong. So in Hong Kong, people are very reluctant to express their genuine political opposition to the government,

because they just don't know when and where and how they are being indicted under the national security law. And the maximum penalty of the law is lifelong imprisonment. So that is very scary and the government use it as a thought control tool and a mechanism to wash out all the opposition. Yeah. I mean, I've had the experience of talking to friends in Hong Kong who I've talked to about politics over the years, who since the national security law have kind of said to me,

well, I got to be careful how I talk to you about politics now because I'm talking to a foreigner and it could be deemed subversive. That just shows you, I mean, people, this is just an, like the determination about what's subversive is a totally arbitrary one, right? And so in a way, there's no limit to what the Hong Kong government and what, frankly, the CCP can do through the Hong Kong authorities, right? Yeah, definitely. And if you look back to the cases that the government arrest those arrestees under the name of national security law, some of them were just displaying slogans of the movement, some of them were chanting it. Most of them are speech crime.

People did not commit in violent acts or even actions that may need lead to any threats to national security, but just displaying certain slogans. so we could really see how harsh it is being implemented. And in Hong Kong now, the so-called division of power, judicious independence, and the accountability of the governments are now turning into the Chinese weight of governance. They are not existing anymore. And we've seen, you know, you came to global tension

during the umbrella movement, and you were very close, obviously, to Joshua Wong, who we've seen detained, we've seen him, you know, sentenced, you know, threatened with life sentence and we've seen him shackled. Do you have any sense of how he is doing, what his condition is, how he's being held, what his legal prospects are? Yeah, since I left Hong Kong, I'm unable to contact with my fellow activist that we have worked for years, but Joshua won because I don't want them to be endangered and the government could accuse them when they connected to me saying that they are colluding with my foreign activism.

So I just don't want to put them in danger, especially I'm now wanted by the Hong Kong government because they said that I have broken the national security law. So I don't really have firsthand information, but I know about his condition through France is doing okay in the cell, but the problem is, as I've already predicted, when he was convicted to 13.5 months because of participating in a peaceful rally in 2019, he was convicted last month to this sentence. We just don't know when he could come out from the jail, because the last mass arrest in Hong Kong,

he was one of them who got arrested under the National Security Law. When the police raided his home, he was still in jail. He didn't even know it. And afterwards, he was brought to a police station and to be inquired. So you can see the government is actually targeting these activists. They want to pile up all the charges and sentencing on them. Joshua is not only facing 13.5 months of six. sentencing, but possibly years afterwards when these National Security Law cases came out

a verdict. So I guess that is very terrifying and that kind of mental fear that don't know when he can get out, I think, torturing him a lot. Yeah, no, it's something, well, the eyes of the world need to stay on not just that case, but all these cases in Hong Kong. In terms of where the movement goes from here, you know, I remember the last time I was in Hong Kong was around the district council elections when there was this kind of sweeping, you know, validation of the fact that public opinion in Hong Kong supported the movement for democracy, the movement against the extradition law, the protest movement that captured the eyes of the world. And obviously we've now seen the response of the authorities in the national security law.

So what happens next? The mass mobilization, that we had seen throughout 2019, obviously was harder to do under COVID and is more risky to do under the national security law. Many people like yourselves are in exile. Where do you see, in the near term, at least, the movement for democracy, the movement for human rights and civil liberties in Hong Kong going? It's already been a year since the police force last approved a rally in Hong Kong. So for the last whole year, the government has not been approving any rallies

and the rights of people right for demonstration. It's gone and plus the COVID. It's much more difficult for people to protest and they will face huge risk under the national security law. So I guess the movement now has already stepped into a rather low-type. We all know that social movement has its own circle, has its own cycle that we've brought high points and low points. It's like a penthouse. So for now, the government has been manipulating all these nearly sweeping power to quash the movement. And for people in Hong Kong, it's just like a storm coming and they have to lie low and to seek opportunity in the future. So I guess for now, the floor is outside Hong Kong, which could really speak free from the national security law, became much more important than before.

That's why for now I could stay in this particular podcast talking to you without the fear that the police will raid my house on the next morning. And I could say demands like sanctioning the government officials, banning them from traveling from the world, putting more accountability to the way Chinese government acts globally in this podcast. Because if I were staying in Hong Kong and I spell up these demands and I would immediately be arrested. Yeah. Well, it makes sense that as you say, that things have been flow and the voices on these issues may increasingly for the time being outside of Hong Kong.

to that point, you know, this podcast will run tomorrow the day that Joe Biden is being inaugurated as president of the United States. What would you, what would be your advice to him and his team in terms of what the United States can do? Obviously, we can't solve this problem. But what would you like to see the Biden administration do to support the people of Hong Kong? I think that the Biden administration is keen to present. a rather assertive approach to China. And I'm really glad to see it. And I am really hopeful that a stronger cross-atlantic alliance could be forged and a much more

multilateral approach could be deployed in order to effectively constrain China. I think the problem is, first of all, when we go back to problems issues like climate change and public health, and it's undoubtedly we need certain interaction with China. Will these interactions become such a kind of leverage for China to escape those accountability and monitor by the global community and the US in specific? I think this is something that posed certain worries. And on the other hand, the Biden administration would rejoin a lot of cross-international organizations. And China, of course, they know how to play the game in these organizations and they have taken a lot of advantages by pooling a lot of,

for example, third world countries together and to become a very significant playmaker in this organization to alleviate those monitoring and tension in it. So is it, well, is the Biden administration ready to bring some reform proposal back in these. organizations in order to build up stronger monitoring and holding China accountable by being situated in these international organizations and I think these are well for for for for Hong Kong and 10% people who really do hope that the world could do more to hold China accountable to urge them to play by the rules and respect human rights

internally and externally would love to see much more sophisticated, multilateral ways of dealing with China and understanding how China is manipulating the system and try to fix it. And do you think one way, I mean, obviously, you know, President Trump's administration was very belligerent towards China, took a lot of actions on Hong Kong, particularly over the course of last year. But there was a sense, you know, that it wasn't quite a very important. coordinated with other countries particularly. I mean, do you think that part of what needs to, you know, and this may be a leading question, but that the U.S. needs to try to multilateralize this attention on Hong Kong and this pressure on Hong Kong,

do you think the Chinese government would listen more if it wasn't just, say, the U.S. doing it alone, but trying to build coalitions of countries and businesses and others to do this? Definitely. I think coalition is the key point. For now, China sees... the US as the red zone, which means the enemy. They're not going to, well, pay efforts to try to pull them closer. But, for example, in EU, they sit as a great zone, which there is a possibility to pull them as friends.

So I guess in the upcoming and suing times, China will spend a lot of energy in putting European countries, especially those their economic ties. closer to China into their camp and try to resist that kind of a force of holding them accountable in the future. And I think that's exactly the region that we have to get the help, get their attention and deploy orchestrated measures and tactics to combat that authoritarian expansion from China. So unity and our alliance, I think, is a crutch. is vital in terms of combating the growing authoritarian regime. And I think this is not only

for the people in Hong Kong, not only for the people in Xinjiang, in concentration camp on the Chinese soil, it is about global democracy. When we have been talking about the resecks of global democracy, I think the major reason is we actually affect those authoritarian regimes. We thought that they were by opening up the democracy, interacting more with a globalized world, they would eventually become open. But I think the history proves us wrong. They are actually being spoon-fetched and walk up into a growing legitimacy, growing power, and the world seems reluctant to react to it. So I think for now, if we want to safeguard our democracy, if we want to rebuild the legitimate, of liberalism and democratic values, the first step to do is to be united to say that

outlaw that authoritarian regime is not something that we will let them do whatever they want and we should hold them accountable because they have violated our basic human rights and freedoms. So I guess that kind of like coalition and very orchestrated weight of combating with authoritarian regime should be seen as a global challenge and it needs global leadership and I really do hope that the Biden administration could take up that role and to be very strong towards the expansionist CCP authoritarianism. Well, and just a couple more questions. There's also the global movement against authoritarianism.

And I've been struck on this podcast, we had a woman on, you know, who's been following things very closely in Belarus, saying that the protesters in Belarus were surprised to get a flood of support from people in Hong Kong. on social media. When I was in Hong Kong, I got a sense that the people there were following things in Chile. Now we see Alexei Navalny, obviously, returned very, you know, courageously to Russia to confront Vladimir Putin. As you've gone on this journey of fighting authoritarianism, you know, where you're from in Hong Kong, do you feel like there's now this global movement that you are a part of that Alexei Navalny is a part of and that, you know, people in Belarus are part of and,

you know, basically people anywhere fighting authoritarianism, is there a global movement and can it be better kind of coordinated in a way to overcome all the obstacles that faces? I think for now, on the grassroots level, there are a lot of communication in between resistant and camps in authoritarian regimes and those who are fighting for democracy. I've had dialogue with, from Thailand, and I've been keeping my eyes on the resistance in Belarus and some other places. I think it's important that we have to share an idea that democracy and freedoms are globally shared values and we have defended together instead of being scattered.

But I think that kind of understanding, it is not being grasped by upper-level politics. We still see a very fragmented weight of dealing with authoritarian regimes, even though grassroots activists we are talking to each other, we're respecting each other. But I think for this to be successful, it has to be with the cooperation of the governments, the democratically elected and democratically. governments to really work on very coordinated strategies and also being really loud that we stand with the people who fight for democracy and we stand with these values. So I guess that is a bridge that has to build and I've been outreaching to all the government officials and trying to get the support to Hong Kong and it has been doing I think quite well.

I think even though for now we're still not yet to a stage that we we a very consolidated alliance. But I think we're building up that momentum, making it as a global issue and making a global effort on it. And just from, you know, obviously we're, you know, in the United States, we've lived through a pretty interesting, you know, a couple weeks here.

What is, when you see something like what happened at the Capitol, what does that look like to someone like you who's obviously recognizes how precarious democracy is and what's your advice to us? about getting our own democracy together. A lot of Hong Kong people witness Hong Kong fall from a free city. We were praised as one of the freest city in Asia, even though we've never had democracy and been praised as a Pearl of Orient for that case.

And we've fallen to a position that people are no longer, they can no longer speak freely, people will be prosecuted because they exercise their constitutional rights to participate in election. A slogan, displaying slogan can be seen as threatening national security then face possible lifelong imprisonment. We're falling into this place and is a painful lesson that experienced for past few years teaches us. We should not take freedom for granted. We should be really vigilant towards the injustice in the society. I think that is the lesson learned. Many of the people in the US or UK, they are born in a democratic country, and they seem not to realize that how quick it can fall when the power is handed to people who do not respect

democratic values. So I guess I really do hope that by actually mobilizing a movement into an international level, it is not only raising awareness to China's global aggression and threats, not only to the miserable conditions of the Xinjiang concentration camp and the courageous fight of Hong Kong people, but also as an unalming signal to the Western democracies to the people there, that we should not take freedom for granted. The cost of freedom is our responsibility and our eternal vigilance towards injustice.

So I really do hope that, well, of course, in recent weeks there are the storming to the capital, it's really devastating for people witnessing outside. But we can also see that checks and balances in the US system still exist, although people say that it is fairly existing, but it still exists. We're stepping into a transfer of power rather peacefully. And so I guess that's something that I learned from the past few weeks by following very closely to U.S. politics. Yeah. Well, look, I really appreciate this conversation. I've admired you for some time. And I frankly look back at 2014 during the umbrella movement, you know, you're right.

We were focused on the Obama administration getting a climate change agreement, right? And obviously we spoke about the umbrella movement, but, you know, that, that, there's always some big issue you want to work with the Chinese government on. And I think the message from you that people like me and hopefully my former colleagues who are going back in the government take is this is the highest priority. because if we lose democracy, you know, we're not going to deal with climate change and we're not going to deal with the economy. And I've learned that from activists like you that what needs to change in the U.S. is not just one policy. It's not a sanction or this.

It's a mindset of your hierarchy of interests. And you have to care as much about what's happening in Hong Kong or to the Uyghurs as you rightly care. You should care about climate change. And so I just wanted to say that to you as somebody who's followed your career for a while. And thank you for talking to us. And, you know, you've got a welcome invitation to keep spreading the message here. Thank you so much. I really do hope that in the future that the administration and activists like us, we could keep contact

and to really explore ways to strengthen the support to Hong Kong democracy and also ways to combat the authoritarian expansion from China. That'd be great. I really hope that that. I hope that those links are strong in the Biden years and that we can start making some progress. So thanks so much for joining us. Great. Thank you so much. Thanks again to Nathan Lomper for doing the show. Thanks to Mike Pompeo for being the most annoying schlubh, huckster fool in the administration. And thanks to you, Ben. Well, I just want to thank everybody for putting up with a couple more rants. It's the last chance. So I kind of had to take the opportunity. Trump is gone until impeachment brings him back and it rips all the scabs off and we all have to deal with that again. But we won't talk about it. Joe Biden's going to be president. It's going to be great.

It's going to be great. That's all I got. Pazade of the World is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Segglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melconian, and Milo Kim, who film and share our episodes as videos every week.