Tangle - The Republican position on Ukraine.

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

On Monday, Fox News published the results of a questionnaire it presented to every leading Republican presidential candidate about their position on Ukraine. Specifically, the questionnaire asked, "Is opposing Russia in Ukraine a vital American national strategic interest?" We break down what Ron DeSantis said about Ukraine, and I try to answer the question that got everyone talking.You can read today's podcast here, today’s “Under the Radar” story here and today’s “Have a nice day” story here.Today’s clickables: Quick Hits (1:56), Today’s Story (3:35), Left’s Take (8:53), Right’s Take (14:06), Isaac’s Take (19:29), Your Questions Answered (24:55), Under the Radar (26:46), Numbers (27:34), Have A Nice Day (28:19)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Zosha Warpeha. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum. Some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about Ron DeSantis and some of the comments he recently made about Ukraine, what it means for the Republican Party, and some of the reactions to those comments.

Before we jump in, though, I want to give a quick heads up that after hinting at it for many months, tomorrow I am finally going to publish a piece about what might be my most extreme political view, my opposition to prisons and my disgust at mass incarceration. Obviously, to anyone who has been reading this newsletter for a long time, you know that I am not some kind of anti-police activist, nor do I think we should just release all the prisoners into the public. I don't believe that. But I do think our current

system for punishing crime does not work. I think I can prove that. And I have some ideas about how to maybe improve the system. So I thought it would be a fun thought exercise to write that article out, which I'm going to do tomorrow. A reminder that tomorrow is Friday. Friday editions are for paying subscribers only. So if you want to receive tomorrow's Friday edition and all future Friday editions, get ad-free newsletters and access to future potentially paywalled podcasts, you need to go subscribe. Readtangle.com slash membership. All right, with that out of the way, we're going to start off with our quick hits. First up, the Biden administration warned TikTok that it could be

banned in the U.S. if its parent company ByteDance doesn't sell its stake in the U.S. version of the app. Number two, after a years-long battle, Texas announced a state takeover of the Houston Independent School District, which suffered from failing test scores. Number three, U.S. officials arrested and exiled Chinese business tycoon Gua Wenwei in New York City, accusing him of orchestrating a $1 billion fraud scheme. Number four, former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, the Democrat, was confirmed as ambassador to India. The Senate voted 52 to 42 to approve his nomination after a two-year delay while he was investigated for how he handled allegations of sexual harassment by his

staff. Number five, the Pentagon released footage from a U.S. drone showing a Russian fighter jet dumping fuel on it over the Black Sea. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis now saying, quote, While the United States has many vital national interests, becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them. Tonight, with a battle still raging in Ukraine, Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is facing fierce pushback from within his party for his declaration that protecting Ukraine is not an urgent priority for the U.S. Responding to questions from Fox News is Tucker Carlson. He adds the Biden

administration's virtual blank check for as long as it takes distracts from our country's most pressing challenges. On Monday, Fox News published the results of a questionnaire it presented to every leading Republican presidential candidate about their position on Ukraine. Specifically, the questionnaire asked, is opposing Russia and Ukraine a vital American national strategic interest? Among the respondents, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis drew the strongest reactions and the most headlines. DeSantis is one of the most popular Republicans in the country and is widely expected to run for president in 2024 and challenge frontrunner former President Donald Trump. While many news organizations are quoting pieces of his response, we are going to share it in full. This is what DeSantis said,

quote, while the United States has many vital national interests, securing our borders, addressing the crisis and readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence and checking the economic, cultural and military power of the Chinese Communist Party, becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them. The Biden administration's virtual blank check funding of this conflict for as long as it takes without any defined objectives or accountability distracts from our country's most pressing challenges. Without question, peace should be the objective. The U.S. should not provide assistance that could require the deployment of U.S. troops or enable Ukraine

to engage in offensive operations beyond its borders. F-16s and long-range missiles should therefore be off the table. These moves would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world's two largest nuclear powers. That risk is unacceptable. A policy of regime change in Russia, no doubt popular among the DC foreign policy interventionists, would greatly increase the stakes of the conflict, making the use of nuclear weapons more likely. Such a policy would neither stop the death and destruction of the war nor produce a pro-American Madisonian constitutionalist in the Kremlin. History indicates that Putin's successor

in this hypothetical would likely be even more ruthless. The cost to achieve such a dubious outcome could become astronomical. The Biden administration's policies have driven Russia into a de facto alliance with China. Because China has not and will not abide by the embargo, Russia has increased its foreign revenues while China benefits from cheaper fuel. Coupled with his intentional depletion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and support for the left's Green New Deal, Biden has further empowered Russia's energy-dominated economy and Putin's war machine at Americans' expense. Our citizens are also entitled to know how the billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are being utilized in Ukraine. We cannot prioritize

intervention in an escalating foreign war over the defense of our own homeland, especially as tens of thousands of Americans are dying every year from narcotics smuggled across our open border and our weapons arsenals critical for our own security are rapidly being depleted, end quote. DeSantis' response comes at a time when American support for backing Ukraine remains high and steady, though Republican support appears to be falling slightly. According to Gallup polling in August of 2022, 65% of Americans said they, quote, support Ukraine reclaiming territory even if it prolongs the conflict, while 31% said end the conflict quickly even if Russia keeps territory. In January of

2023, those numbers were nearly identical. However, the percentage of Republicans who say they support Ukraine reclaiming territory even if it prolongs the conflict was just 53%. Some 47% of Republicans separately said they thought the U.S. was doing too much to aid Ukraine. Meanwhile, in an Axios-Ipsos poll, 59% of Americans said they supported providing weapons and financial support to Ukraine, but just 42% of Republicans did, compared to 79% of Democrats and 60% of Independents. In 2022 alone, the United States approved the cumulative $113 billion of military and financial aid to Ukraine. While no U.S. soldiers have become directly involved in the war, the United States has increased its military presence across Europe, and some U.S. soldiers are training Ukrainians in Germany. Today, we're going to

explore some responses to DeSantis' answer, as well as some commentary on the current state of GOP support for Ukraine. All right, first up, we're going to start with the leftist saying. Many on the left criticized DeSantis, saying he is playing to the MAGA base and parroting false Russia propaganda. Some argue he is being intentionally squishy about his position, trying to have it both ways after being a staunch Ukraine supporter in Congress. Others say his answer is a cave to the pro-Putin wing of the GOP. In New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait said DeSantis' answer thrilled Tucker Carlson. The updated DeSantis line is significant for several reasons. First, it is both more detailed than his previous comments and it's written out, thus excluding any chance he omitted a key element out of haste, Jonathan Chait said. Among the important signals it sends, the statement does the following. It argues that

stopping Russian aggression is not vital U.S. interests. It absolves Russia of blame for the war, accuses Biden of a blank check policy, defines the correct objective as peace, warns of Ukrainian aggression, warns of nuclear war, accuses the United States of plotting regime change, opposes sanctions, depicts aid to Ukraine as wasteful, and calls the war a distraction from the border. When DeSantis made his previous comments on Ukraine, some conservative hawks refused to acknowledge reality and instead pretended DeSantis was actually trying to outflank Biden, he wrote. This is a familiar pattern of behavior for traditional conservatives responding to DeSantis' constant forays into paranoid

authoritarian populism. They deny the obvious signals he is sending, which in turn gives him permission to continue, at which point they simply pretend it isn't happening. Supporters of Ukraine's independence can console themselves with some good news. First, because DeSantis adopted this position so recently, it is a transparent matter of pandering that he might well walk back if elected. And second, despite all his signals of disinterest in deterring Russia, DeSantis did not call for an immediate end to military assistance, giving himself a little more wiggle room. In MSNBC, Zeeshan Aleem said DeSantis is being a squirmy MAGA

candidate. DeSantis sounds as if he is aligned with Trump on the war, but the language is also designed to make him look more opposed to President Joe Biden's policy than he is, Aleem said. DeSantis wants to look like a MAGA candidate, but he's doing it in the squirmiest way possible. DeSantis issued the statement to Fox News host Tucker Carlson in response to a questionnaire. That in and of itself is clue as to how he likely wanted his statement to be received. Given that Carlson is a staunch nationalist and critic of aid to Ukraine, it only makes sense that DeSantis would offer a lengthy statement that Carlson would be congenial to. The statement ticks all the boxes on right-wing nationalist rhetoric. First, in

accordance with America First principles, DeSantis focuses on the U.S. border security and energy security and highlights only China as a foreign adversary worthy of challenge. Second, he signals extraordinary friendliness to Moscow when he refers to the war in Ukraine as a territorial dispute. The language implies that Ukraine and Russia might have equally legitimate claims to land in the war and obscures the reality that Russia invaded Ukraine in a war of aggression and is trying to annex Ukraine's territory in violation of international law, Lim said. That's not entirely surprising given his ambitions, but it is still striking to see a more buttoned-up, establishment-friendly politician like DeSantis

so blatantly downplay Russia's misbehavior. In the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin said DeSantis decided if you can't beat the pro-Putin wing of the party, just join them. He declared that Russia's brutal and unjustified war of aggression against the sovereign Ukraine is actually a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia, and that protecting Ukraine is not a vital national interest of the United States, Rubin said. His implicit agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine has no right to territorial integrity contradicts the view of 140 United Nations member countries and gives oxygen to the Russian propaganda effort. If Mexico invaded Texas, would it be a territorial dispute? DeSantis' betrayal of Ukraine, delivered in a statement read on Monday on pro-Putin propagandist Tucker Carlson's show,

no less, is an ominous indication of where DeSantis and the GOP base are heading on the defense of democracy and American foreign policy. DeSantis has chosen to cast his lot with the crowd that admires Putin's army as the antithesis of the supposedly woke U.S. military. In doing so, DeSantis has simultaneously flip-flopped on a major issue, betrayed a core U.S. national interest in defending Democratic allies against international aggression, and signaled that pro-Putin foreign policy rhetoric is an essential component of a MAGA candidate's identity. His move serves to divide the GOP. While MAGA voices in the House get a disproportionate amount of attention, the lion's

share of House and Senate Republicans, especially Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, strongly endorse support for Ukraine. The majority of Americans, more than 70%, favor our role in the defense of Ukraine, and more than 90% have a negative view of Russia. Alright, that is it for the leftist saying, which brings us to the right's take. The right is divided on the comments, with some supporting DeSantis and others criticizing his remarks. Some say DeSantis is flat out wrong that countering Russian aggression is not a vital interest, while others argue his views are in the mainstream. Some called out liberal critics of DeSantis, noting how wrong they have been about past conflicts. In the New York Post,

Dalibor Rohak said DeSantis is flat out wrong in his comments about Ukraine. DeSantis is correct to criticize the Biden administration's lack of clear objectives and its support for as long as it takes, which is a recipe for a long and intractable conflict, which Americans would be right to reject. He is also right to point out President Biden's energy policies have been lackluster, and much of the blame is to be placed at the door of the left's climate fixation. The rest, alas, is a hot mess, starting with a series of strawman arguments warning against deployment of American troops, which

nobody is advocating, and a policy of regime change, which would greatly increase the stakes of the conflict. The latter policy, no doubt popular among DC foreign policy interventionists, according to DeSantis, is in fact non-existent, either as an official position or even as a topic among actual foreign policy interventionists, among whom I may be counted, Rohak said. Most fundamentally, he fails to understand the stakes of the conflict, a territorial dispute, in his words, in the context of our long-term competition with China. He presents a false dichotomy between helping Ukraine and pursuing our vital interests. In reality, our military assistance to Ukraine puts the United States

in a far better position to confront China. A prosperous Europe at peace would be a far stronger partner in holding Beijing accountable than a Europe preoccupied with its own security. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease.

Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed.

Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. In the Washington Examiner, Byron York said DeSantis' view was in the mainstream on Ukraine. Read what DeSantis wrote. Are his positions somehow out of line with national security? Do they conflict with fundamental human decency? Do they side with Putin over the West? The answer to each question is no. In fact, DeSantis' answers to the Carlson question falls into the broad middle of American views on U.S. support for Ukraine. They are reasonable, York said. The national interest DeSantis lists as vital, borders, military readiness, etc., are unquestionably vital. There are others DeSantis does not list. His statement is not presented as conclusive. But DeSantis says that

becoming further involved in the Ukraine war is not on the list of U.S. vital national interests. The use of further is the first of several indications that DeSantis does not oppose U.S. military aid to Ukraine. He just wants well-defined limits on that support. Some will see his use of the phrase territorial dispute as belittling to Ukraine and the conflict. But Russia and Ukraine have been fighting over disputed territory for quite a while before Russia's 2022 invasion, York said. Supporters of greater USAID might want to describe the war in more dramatic terms, but DeSantis is not wrong. Finally, DeSantis' opposition to what he calls President Joe Biden's blank check policy and the president's as long as it takes commitment is another way of stressing the position common among Republicans that U.S. aid to Ukraine should be subject to limits. Perhaps those limits might

extend to a significant amount of military aid, but in the end, there are limits. Also in the Washington Examiner, Timothy P. Carney criticized liberal hawks who learned nothing from Iraq. Jonathan Chait was among a cadre of liberals who vociferously and consistently supported George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq. Twenty years later, he is making it clear that he wants the next president to be hawkish against Russia, a nuclear-armed superpower, Carney said. To this end, Chait is rolling out the same sort of bad arguments that Iraq hawks used 20 years ago, beginning with the accusation that if you express concern about the cost of the United States intervention, the potential for

blowback, or the dangers of regime change, you are a fan of the evil dictator. Those of us who publicly opposed the Iraq war 20 years ago were called terrorist sympathizers, Saddam supporters, and unpatriotic. Chait relies on that form of argument twice in his latest attack on Ron DeSantis. The specific DeSantis statement Chait suggests is pro-Russia is this one, quote, these moves would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the two largest nuclear powers. The risk is unacceptable. I agree with DeSantis. Chait, as 20-plus years has made clear, is less bothered by U.S. involvement in wars, and so his risk tolerance is evidently higher.

But it's facile and dumb to say that a strong aversion to a U.S.-Russia war is a pro-Putin position, Carney wrote. The second time Chait deploys the for-war or for-the-bad-guy argument technique regards, and I'm not joking, regime change wars. DeSantis knows that regime change wars are a bad idea. This is not a novel idea. It is pretty obvious that deposing Hussein and deposing Muammar Gaddafi did not approve things in Iraq or Libya. Yet, when DeSantis rightly argues that regime change war would be bad, Chait sums it up this way, quote, DeSantis is so convinced Putin is the best possible leader for Russia.

All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. I thought about doing a normal my take today where, you know, I examined DeSantis' statement and the arguments above for which there was plenty of meat on the bone. It's straightforward to note that DeSantis' top points like opposing sending offensive weapons to Ukraine or F-16 jets or U.S. soldiers, opposing blank checks and opposing regime change, they're all identical to Joe Biden's position, so it's disingenuous to frame them as different. I can, like Timothy Carney in What the Right is Saying, criticize the record of liberals who have all supported disastrous wars in the past. I can also, like Zashim Alim in What the Left is Saying, note the absurdity of framing the war as

a territorial dispute, or call out the things DeSantis got right, like our lack of clear objectives and the prioritization of avoiding a nuclear conflict. I can also throw Fox News some credit, after tearing them down for the last few weeks, for getting answers from candidates to these very important questions. But I kept coming back to the question that prompted all this. Is opposing Russia in Ukraine a vital American national strategic interest? And rather than criticize what everyone else said, I decided to try and experiment. I'm going to put on my pretend presidential cap. How would I answer this same question if I were running in 2024? It's not easy, but this is what I came up with.

Yes, opposing Russia and Ukraine is a vital interest for the United States. Americans are rightly skeptical of our involvement in foreign conflicts. Every generation of voting American today can point to a war they lived through where we spent too much, did too little, or made things worse. From Iraq to Vietnam, America's record on foreign policy intervention has plenty of scars. Ukraine, though, has many distinctions. For starters, there is a clear, undeniable moral line in this conflict. Ukraine, though imperfect, is a sovereign nation that has been invaded. Over 40 million people live there, and until a little over a year ago, they were living freely. Now they are fighting for their autonomy against an authoritarian leader,

a full-scale invasion, with many of the most populous areas under the constant threat of bombings and attacks. This is not a territorial dispute. Putin is not defending Russians from a grave threat. He is the threat. He is attempting to take over a country that he wants to rule by force. Even with our help, tens of thousands of people on both sides of this conflict have died, millions have been displaced, and victory in this war rests on a knife's edge. Without our help, Ukraine almost certainly would have fallen by now, and millions would have suddenly been subjected to force rule, expulsion, oppression, or death. Which brings me to my second point. Ukraine's security is Europe's security, and a strong Europe strengthens our country. You can fly from Rome, Italy, to Kiev,

Ukraine's capital, in less than three hours, about the same distance as traveling from Philadelphia to Miami. We are not talking about a tiny battle over 100 square miles of oil-rich land between warring factions in a country with few historical or diplomatic ties to the United States. We are talking about a European nation whose economy and security are already deeply tied to ours, and therefore we benefit from peace and stability in not only that country, but in all of Europe. Look no further than the current cost of food and fuel here in the States to understand our interconnectedness. Finally, if Ukraine were to fall, few believe Russia's leader would stop there. Putin sees

the fall of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. He has not been coy about his intentions, and Ukraine is just one of several former Soviet states he'd love to bring back under Russian rule. Successfully overthrowing Ukraine would put Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Georgia all on the block. Some of those are NATO nations, with whom our president and Congress have mutual defense treaties. That would mean stepping into the conflict, not just with cash and weapons as we've done in Ukraine, but with soldiers, fighter jets, and navy fleets. An attack on a NATO ally would almost certainly mean all-out war between the United States, Europe, and Russia, and

potentially China. A Putin loss in Ukraine lowers the chances of any American soldier ever dying in this conflict, as well as reducing the risk of this conflict spreading across Europe and the planet. All of this, the moral and strategic calculations, makes opposing Russia and Ukraine not just a vital strategic interest in 2023, but the most pressing and most vital strategic foreign policy interest that we currently have. That does not mean we write blank checks or put boots on the ground or recklessly spin up more conflict or allow our European partners to sit this out. That does not mean we ignore our own domestic issues. That does not mean we blindly wade into this conflict or repeat mistakes we've made in the Middle East. But it does mean it is in our interest to remain strongly invested in

Ukraine's success. It does mean it's imperative we come forward with a willingness to sacrifice our own money and resources to help them, understanding that their failure would not just be a great injustice and tragedy, but that an emboldened Putin would also pose a major threat to the security of Europe, our closest allies, and our own economic and national security. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to our reader question. This one is from Michael in Carson, California. Michael said, while the decision to approve the Willow Project is a broken promise on Biden's part, should we consider this kind of thing a broken promise or even a bad thing? Don't we elect people and not political platforms so that course corrections like these can be made? All right, Michael, this is a fair question.

Obviously, you're plucking at my heartstrings a little bit when you make an argument that people should be given the space to change their minds about issues. That is a core tenet of Tangle and something I believe in quite strongly. issues that is a core tenet of Tangle and something I believe in quite strongly. Still, I think every promise could either be a soft or a hard promise. This was not a soft promise, like I'm going to reach across the aisle and work with Republicans. That's something that's hard to measure and in many ways intangible. This was a hard promise about a specific policy. We are not going to approve any oil drilling on federal lands. The challenges of that promise were well known at the time he made it, yet he made it over and over. Could Biden have known that inflation was going to rock the United States,

that Russia would invade Ukraine, and that two years into his term we'd be facing some major energy constraints? Of course not. But he served for eight years as vice president and decades as a senator. I'm sure he knew there would be global conflict and economic ups and downs during his presidency. He certainly understood how our energy dependencies abroad were positioned. And despite that, he made a very explicit promise not to drill on federal lands. So yes, I think there is a world where you can reframe what happened as a course correction Biden had to make to new circumstances. But I think it is still true that he broke an

explicit, specific promise. All right, that is it for our reader question, which brings us to our under the radar section. On Wednesday, a U.S. judge in Texas questioned lawyers for President Biden's administration on whether federal regulatory approval for an abortion pill was proper. The pill, Mofepristone, is under threat of being removed after a request by an anti-abortion group to ban sales of the drug nationwide. The judge asked the groups to explain how he could reverse approval of a long-established drug, though he seemed sympathetic to many of their arguments. Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, such drugs have become increasingly significant in both maintaining access and attempts to regulate

abortion. Reuters has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The amount of aid the United States and Congress have sent to Ukraine so far is $75 billion. The amount of aid that has been military assistance is $46.6 billion. The amount of combined military assistance sent to Israel, Afghanistan, and Egypt in all of 2020 is $7.4 billion. The amount of combined military assistance sent to Israel, Afghanistan, and Egypt in all of 2020 is $7.4 billion. The amount of military aid sent to Ukraine in 2020 was just $284 million. The amount of military aid sent to Ukraine by the United Kingdom since the war began was $5.1 billion, the second most of any other country. The amount of financial aid sent to Ukraine by the European

Union was $29.7 billion. All right, and last but not least, our have a nice day story. Outcomes for cystic fibrosis patients who are children have improved so much that having the disease will no longer automatically qualify someone as a Make-A-Wish candidate. For years, the Make-A-Wish program has automatically accepted all children who apply with cystic fibrosis. But in their regular evaluation of their eligibility criteria, 19 physicians from diverse backgrounds who guide the program made the determination that life outcomes have improved so dramatically that having cystic fibrosis alone should not automatically qualify someone for the program. In the last decade, life expectancy for patients has risen from 38 years to 53 years of

age. You can read the Make-A-Wish update with a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. Like I mentioned at the top, if you want to hear from us tomorrow and my thoughts on prison stuff, you can subscribe to the newsletter, retangle.com slash membership. Otherwise, have a great weekend and we'll see you on Monday. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by Zosia Warpea. Our script is edited by Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and Bailey Saul.

Shout out to our interns, Audrey Moorhead and Watkins Kelly, and our social media manager, Magdalena Vakova, who created our podcast logo. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, check out our website at www.tangle.com. We'll be right back. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,

a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.

The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca.