The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - On Joe Rogan and Ukraine

Episode Date: February 11, 2022

Guests: Tanael Joachim (TJ) and Fred Kaplan.  Tanael Joachim is a standup comedian who has made appearances on Gotham Comedy Live on AXS TV and on Good Day New York on FOX. He is based in New York City but was born and raised in Haiti and is a regular at the Comedy Cellar.  Fred Kaplan is is the national-security columnist for Slate and the author of six books, including The Bomb and the Plot to Change the American Way of War, which was a New York Times best-seller and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He was the Boston Globe’s Moscow Bureau Chief and the Globe’s defense correspondent for a decade before that, during which time he was on a team of reporters that won the Pulitzer Prize for a special magazine on the nuclear arms race. 

🎵 This is Live from the Table! Recorded at the world-famous Comedy Cellar, coming at you on Sirius XM 99, Rod Dogg, and on the Laugh Button Podcast. Network Dan Natterman here, along with Noam Dorman, the owner of the world-famous Comedy Cellar. Perry L. Ashenbrand is with us. She needs no introduction, and we'll get none. Noam Dorman, are we officially post-pandemic? It feels that way. I mean, I'm wearing my mask, but mostly just because I don't want other people to be upset that I'm not wearing it.

And also when it's cold out, it does provide some protection. Why would you wear it? You had Omicron. Well, like I said, I suppose one might wear it if there were other variants, or if you could possibly get it twice. But basically, I'm wearing it, as I've said, A, to keep warm, B, to keep people from looking at me funny on the subway. But I feel as though it's over in New York City. That's the vibe I'm getting.

I mean, even you walk around without a mask, which is a sure sign that things are, things are coming to an end. Yeah, I think it's over. I don't know. I mean,

I feel like, I felt like it was over before. It was before. And now, I think Omicron is over. The positivity rate has fallen by like 98%. And also,

the group of people who are testing are, I think, made up more by people who think that they might have COVID. So like before the holidays, everybody was just getting tested because they were going to go to gatherings and stuff like that, going to see grandma. So the rates were like 30%. And it was a lot of people who probably didn't have COVID, didn't suspect they had COVID. Now it's like 2%. And the people getting tested are people who are coughing and stuff who think they might have COVID for some reason. So I think, so it's even kind of less apples to apples. So I think that what's, what is that face, Perrielle? You think you got me on something? Go ahead. Let's see. Let's go ahead.

You just said that right before the holidays, everybody was just getting tested. Right? Did you just say that? I believe so. I believe I said that. Okay. And you raked me over the coals

when I said I was just getting tested just to get tested. And you were like, you don't get tested unless you think there's something wrong. And I was like, I didn't think there was something wrong. I just got tested. I never said people were getting tested just to get tested. They were getting tested because they were going to gatherings. That's what I said. Same difference.

No, it's not the same difference. Hi, TJ. Hi, TJ. I'm sorry to interrupt your dinner. Sit here. It's not the same difference. Point is that, oh, we're going to rehash the thing again. No, no, no. Terri-El came to our house, spread

COVID in the house. She thought she had strep, and she told us she had, like... I didn't think I had strep. You took a strep test, and I said, nobody takes a strep test unless they have some. That's what I said. I thought I was having symptoms from my flu shot, which I had gotten the day before. So you took a strep test.

Which came back negative. Along with two COVID tests that came back negative. Well, anyway, this is rehashing. This is so annoying because let me just tell TJ very quickly. Then we get on to things that people are actually interested in hearing. We were having a Christmas dinner and I had people in my family who were immunocompromised

and high risk. We have kids, whatever. So we had decided that for the 14 days or 10 days prior to Christmas, we were just going to lay low. We weren't going to see anybody. The kids were going to school with this kind of serious N95 mask. Because we really wanted to preserve

Christmas. We hadn't had Christmas in a number of years. And we wanted to preserve Christmas. So we get an email from Perrielle saying... No, no, not for me. Not for me. It was from Guy. From her husband. But it's the same thing. It's not. Are you going to hide behind that? Well, I would have never sent that email.

Do you not vet all your husband's emails before you send them? I know. I don't. I should. We get an email from her husband saying, we are sure we don't have COVID. We haven't seen anybody in two weeks. And Peril added, I've had three tests. They're all negative.

We are absolutely sure. Can we hang out? And I'm like and Juanita had sent an email saying listen if you have a cold or anything don't come because

she's like no no we are sure we don't have COVID so she came over so she's in our house she's like and she's at our computer Juanita's like

why what are you looking up she goes oh it's just a COVID test that I took and Juanita's like what so you know the end of She goes, oh, it's just a COVID test that I took. And Juanita's like, what? So, you know, the end of the story. She had COVID.

She's hanging out at our house, hanging out with our kids. She had COVID. So she wanted to murder your family. That was the plan? Is that what it was? So we had to cancel our Christmas. Oh, my God. Yeah, because the way the dates.

That was terrible. We couldn't be sure we had COVID. So what were those three tests that you took? First of all, I'm going to let it go. I let you take so many liberties with that story for the purpose. It doesn't matter, Noam. You invited her in the house. No, Juanita did.

If you wanted to be safe, then you shouldn't have had people. Well, yeah, if I fucked up, I trusted you. Yeah, that's exactly right. I took three COVID tests. They all came back negative. No, one of them you hadn't gotten. So that's the thing. There was one test she hadn't gotten back yet.

But that one, that one. And that one came back the day after she was at our house. I'm like, you had an outstanding COVID test. She goes, I only took it because I thought I had strep. Like, you thought you had strep. No, the only reason I took that one. Strep is pretty close to COVID, you know? My strep test came back negative.

I took two strep tests. They both came back negative. She had no symptoms, but she took two strep tests, three COVID tests. My throat hurt. A pregnancy test. She peed on a stick. Well, I'm not sure this conversation was interesting the first time we had it. Anyway, we have with us Tanil Joachim, I believe is how you pronounce your name.

Tanil Joachim, but I'll take that. Tanil what? Tanil Joachim. Joachim is Joachim, but I'll take that. Tana what? Tana El Joachim. Joachim is Joachim? Well, Joachim is the, I would say the Spanish slash some, I guess maybe German way to say it, but Joachim is the French way to say it. Joachim? Well, it's way better.

Joachim, yeah. Yeah, it's cool. But it's very hard for Americans. Joachim. Well, so he just said. Is that right? I say right? Joachim.

The M is silent. French is a very wasteful language. What's the last sound in the word? N. Joachim. Well, so he just said... Is that right? I say right? Joachim. The M is silent. French is a very wasteful language. What's the last sound in the word? Joachim. Tanael Joachim. Oh, I like the way you said Tanael. Well, in either case, we call him TJ here.

I did a bunch of COVID tests before that happened. TJ comes to us by way of the great nation of Haiti. Yes, sir. On the island of Hispaniola. Wow. Which I believe is the only European colony that freed itself-

At a slave revolt. By revolt. Indeed. Indeed. So it has that Toussaint Louverture, was that his name? That is right. Okay. In any case, we will- We're going to finish showing off, Dan. Let's. Indeed. Indeed. So it has that Toussaint Louverture. Was that his name? That is right. Okay.

In any case, we will- We're going to finish showing off, Dan. Let's go to the show. No, it's well-earned. He's a wealth of knowledge, Mr. Natterman. He's got a degree in Haitian studies. All the way from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The great TJ is here, a comedian that is a regular-

Now, last time you were here, I was looking forward to introduce you to Coleman Hughes. Yes. And he was on our show last week. Yeah, last week. Because I saw you guys, you played music on one of those Mondays. Oh, you were there? I didn't know he was a musician. Yeah, yeah.

It was really nice. And did you know that Coleman, before he became what he is, was a nationally known jazz prodigy? I didn't know that either. Okay, so he's smart on everything. He's a Juilliard dropout. I know he went to Juilliard. I know he was a fine musician, but I didn't know that he actually had national

attention as a teenager. That's very nice. I didn't know that either. I didn't know that either. He's quite good. Alright, but we're not here to talk about Colvin. Colvin. Colvin. Colvin 19. Colvin 19. I want Colvin. Colvin 19. Colvin 19. I want to talk about Joe Rogan.

Okay. Let's set the stage. Joe Rogan. First, he got into trouble because he allegedly was inviting on people to his show that- Alleged? Had different perspectives. Had bad information on- I guess it's not alleged.

Yes. I mean, Joe Rogan, he's not hiding this. He's very, he's kind of a conspiracy theory kind of guy. So whenever there's something that's mainstream, he tends to like try to figure out what's the opposite way of looking at this. And he seeks out those people. He does that a lot.

But now he's in trouble once again, because I guess it was, who was it? Somebody, India Ari. India Ari. That, that kind of stuff to me is just...

Well, she came, she, I don't know what she did. She rifled through old episodes, whatever. Those clips have been there forever. She found clips of him using the N-word that were chopped up. So you just heard him going, beep, beep, beep. No one would look good if you do that. Like over, what, 12 years of podcasting? Like she took every single moment where he said

the n-word and then put it together it's gonna look fucking horrible that's crazy and the one thing he also said which is i mean look we there's no context for his n-word comments and so we'll discuss that in a bit yes we also said something about going to see the planet of the apes yes that story was a was a bad story i mean he admitted after telling that story that that was a real thing. So he said he walked into the theater and he said it was like I was in Planet of the Apes. He went to see Planet of the Apes and he went to Planet of the Apes. In a black neighborhood in Philly. It was like, oh, I went there.

It was just all black people. It's like I was in Planet of the Apes. So that's obviously, I mean, that's a little bit trickier to defend that. Yeah, there's no two-webs about that. That's shitty. That's racist. He was trying to be funny, but that was a racist thing to say, for sure.

I mean, comedians like to say offensive things with their friends. Like a podcast is sort of like having a live group chat. You know, if we looked at all of our group chats, we'd be fucked, because the shit we say to our friends. I'm so happy you said that, because that's exactly what I said.

I don't interrupt you. No, no, go ahead, go ahead. I said that, first of all, just before I say that, the one thing that's been clear since the 70s, even when almost anything went, is that you could not compare black people to apes. Howard Cosell got fired for that

even though he didn't even do it. That's like racism 101. That's always been a third rail. So, just to say that. A lot of things have changed, but that has been around way before cancel culture. Absolutely, yeah. But, what I said was

if a comedian had sat down at the table among people who all knew each other, black and white, and made that comment that Rogan made, if we all knew each other's kind of essence and realized he was just making an outrageous joke or an irresistible joke, I think it would have been okay for most people. We would have assumed, because you know me and I know you, and you know that I know,

and I know that you know. There's a context. Hold on, hold on. To broadcast it is a very vulgar thing to do. Now, I understand as much as anybody that when you're in front of the microphone, you forget yourself and whatever it is. Yes. So I don't think it means he's a racist. No, he made a racist joke.

But it's a racist joke. Yeah, it's a racist joke but it's a it's a i mean he's racist it's a racist joke yeah it's a racist joke um and i mean i i wouldn't have made that joke but yeah it's interesting that but you're ready to forgive him for that oh i mean look if we wouldn't let anyone work if they've said anything racist nobody would have a job because everybody said something crazy or racist in the privacy of their own home. That's just what it is. So this purge that we're doing where you cannot ever, if we find out, doesn't matter how long ago, you said something that was tasteless or somewhat racist,

then you should not deserve to feed your children. That's crazy. There's no reasonable adult that could stand behind that. I agree with you. I see the wheels turning in your head, Dan. What do you want to say? I agree. I do agree.

I would also just add to that that I can't imagine anybody making that comment at the table downstairs. I don't know. Maybe they would. They probably would. Was there a black person when Rogan made that comment in studio? No, there wasn't. There was Joey Diaz, who's Latino, and there was someone else. I don't remember the name. That was a white guy.

Well, yeah, I mean, it is a comment. I just can't imagine myself making it. Yeah, me too. But most people wouldn't. It's a racist comment. But at the same time, you know, I don't want to see him, you know, drawn and courted for it. The thing is, okay, now let's ask the question, right? Because this is what people are trying to do.

Okay, because of this comment, let's say Spotify drops Joe Rogan. How does that help black people? What does that do for us? Because he said a racist joke, now he's out of it. Can I rewind? Just one thing about the racist thing. So, you know, the word racist,

it's hard for me to, I always have trouble with this, to use the word racist as opposed to racial or I don't know what other words there are, outside the context of a scenario that involves actual hate. Yeah. I never feels right saying that's a racist. It definitely has been weaponized. Yeah.

So, like, for instance, this is not an analogy to racism, but just to give an example. So when my father, you know, Nick DiPaolo, the comedian. Yeah, yeah. So when my father was sick and we knew he was about to die from cancer, I went to the comedian table and I said, yeah, it doesn't look like he has much longer to live. And DiPaolo says, who gets the Lexus? Like, because my father drove a Lexus. Like, who was going to inherit the Lexus? Like, you'd think this was the most fucking tasteless joke.

To his son, he makes this joke. And I could not believe he said it. Because, like, what a ballsy thing to say. But... Did you laugh? I did laugh. Okay. Did you think it was funny?

Well, if you laughed, clearly you thought it was funny. No, to be honest, I thought he took a liberty. I wasn't like thrilled, like, you go, Nick. But I didn't hold it against me even for a minute

because I knew he loved my... I knew there was nothing about it That's right. other than just going for the outrageous laugh. Yes. Like, what can I, what shouldn't I say? Let me say that because

that's how you get a laugh sometimes, you know? And that's what I think Rogan was doing. He was taking the fact that people, unfortunately, do make these kind of comparisons a lot and people do associate these things. And he was just like, you know, leaning into it, you know? And he's very aware of it.

In the same clip where he said, it's like I was in Planet of the Apes. Like, I think 20 seconds later, he's like, oh, that was a racist thing to say. He said that himself. Yeah. So it's not that he's unaware of it. He knows it. And those clips have been out there for a while. What year was this?

I'm sorry, dude. I don't know. Maybe 2013, 2014. I can't read Joe Rogan's mind, and, you know, so I have to fall back on his, his, kind of his, his resume, if you will,

in terms of what, what things he's done, and if, and if there's nothing that indicates racist intent, then I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. But he shouldn't have said it. But it was an awful comment. As far as the N-word is concerned, I didn't hear the context.

And nowadays, there is an outright ban on the use of the N-word for white people, but it wasn't always that way. No, it wasn't. They're saying a word and they're referring to a word. But nowadays, you can't do either without getting into trouble, whereas... Which I find pretty stupid. Whereas back in the day, you could say the N-word

in a certain way. You could say it like, you could quote somebody else that was saying it. Right, right. You could comment on it. And to assume that just referring to that word

is an affront to all black people, I think is kind of, it's infantilizing. Because we're grown enough to know the distinction between somebody calling you a nigger and somebody saying the word nigger. There's a huge difference. Do you think, TJ, as a Haitian, you're not what we call an American, an ADOS. Do you feel that you have a different perspective on the N-word?

Do you get that sense? Yes, but I don't think it's necessarily because i'm haitian because i know black americans who also feel that way obviously not the majority of them feel that way but maybe that plays a part but i think it's just the way you look at things very objectively but also in terms of what are we trying to achieve? Can I just ask you, in Haiti, is that a word that is used a lot amongst the black community there as it is here? Not really.

Not really. Just because, first of all, the language is different. So we have a version of it, but it doesn't carry the history that it has in America because there's no white people in Haiti, per se. There's like mulattos and people that are light-skinned. You're not supposed to say mulatto either, but we're going to let you go on that one. There's a lot of mixed-race people out there,

like maybe 3% of the population, but it's not something we worry about, no. So, I've read, I, first of all, I think it goes without saying that that's a horrible thing to say and nobody should say that. We're joined by Fred Kaplan, a columnist for slate magazine. Are we talking about foreign affairs expert? And this is TJ. And he's, he's telling us his, his take on the, on the Rogan thing. Oh, okay. And he's pretty forgiving of Rogan. And this is TJ. And he's telling us his take on the Rogan thing.

Oh, okay. And he's pretty forgiving of Rogan. And now he's saying, he's talking about a white person using the N-word, just to refer to the word, which I think you said was stupid and infantilizing. Yes, because referring to a word, everybody knows what that is, as opposed to calling someone a word. Also, it's very strange to i don't know if that's even possible i don't know which words that has been done with before the notion that

if a word disappears from the language it disappears right yeah but there are words that we don't use anymore because we just give up on them but it's gonna be very tricky when you have a word where one group of people can say it and then no other group can say well i don't know if it's no other group because dominicans say the n-word all the time uh asian kids who hang out with black kids say it all the time so it's a very tricky thing where it's like everyone can say it but one group i don't know it's the the it's not very clear what we're doing with it i don't know what's happening so i think you said something so interesting which has never said that to me by the way but go ahead i'm sorry no this idea that this these episodes have been out there for so many years.

And no one cared. Right. I mean, it's like, what is the... First of all, I want to start by saying, I think no white person should say that. Why? Why? Why do you say that? No one can refer to it?

No, I don't know if nobody can refer to it, but I don't... I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm asking you why. Because I think that if there's something that the majority of a historically oppressed group of people find defensive, like white people should just accept that and like let go of like what do you have invested in like this one word that is hurtful and offensive and has such a horribly racist history. It's like don't fucking say it. It's not that big of a deal.

Give it up. That having been said, suddenly everybody's so horrified that Joe Rogan has said this word for like X number of years. It feels manipulative, right? Like everybody suddenly cares about black people in this way that they didn't. How many years are we going back these episodes? 2013. I mean, it feels like

a hit job. That's really what it feels like because Rogan has gotten a little bit too big, and I think mainstream media is somewhat worried about that, about his influence and who is influencing specifically, and they want to take him down. Yeah, they don't like the vaccine stuff.

I want to say something, too. Go ahead. Well, I mean, this latest episode started for a different reason. It was Neil Young objected to his COVID stuff. The anti-vax stuff. He said, I'm not going to do this anymore. And then you can focus on all kinds of other... Then he's attracted attention all of a sudden.

And this other stuff... I'm against podcasts just because they don't pay musicians anything. That's my problem with podcasts. You know, streaming, they pay very little. Oh, they pay like, you know, one-tenth of a cent for every... Oh, you mean Spotify.

Spotify, okay. Can I give you a few things on that? Just in no particular order. First of all, when I was... I can remember a time when I'd never heard the phrase, the N-word.

So there was a time when— You had to say the word. You just said the word. When Dick Cavett or David Susskind or Bill Buckley or whoever was discussing, or even Joe Biden, there's clips of Joe Biden using the word. Of course. Wait, would Bill Buckley and Dick Cavett use the word? I don't remember anything like that.

Absolutely. Oh, Dick Cavett definitely used the word in interviews. In interviews, discussing. Really? I can remember a time when if we had an incident. Back in 1971, maybe? In the 70s. Yeah.

But even much later, when we had an incident where somebody called one of our employees the N-word one time in the 80s or maybe in the 90s, I remember it being discussed, and we said the word. Right. See, you're discussing the fact that somebody called your employee that word. Yeah. So fast forward to now, I mean, I don't say it anymore. Even when I was reading To Kill a Mockingbird to my kids in the privacy of our own home, I didn't say it.

I couldn't say it because it's taken on a new thing. Like, you know, in the Arab world, if you hold a shoe next to somebody's it because it's taken on a new thing like, you know in the Arab world if you hold a shoe next to somebody's face, it's the ultimate offense. We look at it like, why are you so ashamed? But there's a visceral association that it's taken on beyond the rational

aspect of it. It's just like if you hear somebody say that word now, it's just impossible to take. We've overlaid that on it. And so if say that word now, it's just impossible to take. We've overlaid that on it. And so if you say it now, it's like you're fighting for your right to say it. And that's a little gross. But I think the stakes to you are very low, your right to say that.

The stakes to somebody else listening to it might be very high. I'm with you. You know, okay, I'm not going to make a big... If somebody's going to get completely bent out of shape about it, it's not really very important to me, and therefore, okay, I won't say it. But it's not quite that simple, because if somebody...

First of all, okay, I've asked a bunch of black people that I know how they all feel. Every single one has said what you said. Right. Comedians and non-comedians alike saying, I never really got that why you can't refer to the word. Right. Wait, this includes non-comedians? Non-comedians.

Because I can imagine comedians wouldn't give a shit. Not only non-comedians, but people I know who grew up in the deep south, who were visceral. As a matter of fact, people who were alive during Jim Crow never felt that you couldn't refer to the word. It's a new thing. But the next thing is, but also we all kind of agree, you shouldn't say it. No white person should say it.

Now the question is, let's say somebody does say it in an obviously innocent context. Do we think, after having said, we don't think they should say it, do we think, well, then they should get fired? That's an additional

craziness. Like, you know, you shouldn't have said that. You said a vulgar thing. No, no. You have to get fired. You can't work. That I'm sorry. No, I don't agree. I do remember, and we talked about this, Richard Pryor, who used to use that word like every sentence. Yes. Then he went to Africa.

Right. And he saw black professionals you know people and who you know there weren't that many back then in america you know airline pilots you know okay and he came back and he said i'm never using that word again right yeah now that suggests that there is something at least implicitly derogatory about the word. Well, he said, because when I went to Africa, I didn't see any N-words. Right. He's like, I don't see any. I just see a bunch of black people living their lives.

So I'm not going to use that word anymore. But every other comedian still does. Doesn't he think Joe Frazier owned the bank? Was that the bit where he goes, everybody looks like Joe Frazier manages the bank? He also told his most, he'd already milked it from all his words. They don't shoot cars. Right. That's his most famous joke,

right? But okay, the assumptions that people have that, like about a black person hearing that, what is also interesting to me because I remember

when I was an open mic, it must have been 2012, 2013. I was at an open mic and comedians like to be edgy. They try stuff. And there was a white comedian on stage, and he was trying to do a joke, and he said the word nigger. He didn't say the N word.

He said nigger. And then this other white comedian came to me, and he was like, are you going to fight him? And I was like, your assumption that I'm going to fight him is actually more racist to me than him saying nigger on stage. Because what makes you think, what am I, some appointed guardian of the N? What are you talking about? That you would think that, oh, my first instinct is to use violence because this guy said something that you assume automatically hurts my feelings.

Because you people are violent. It's insane that that's what he thought immediately. And I guess there's still some of that thing where people think, well, you know, a black person just, it doesn't matter the context. If they hear that word, then they're just going to lose their shit. I sent a comedian, I guess I'm not going to say his name,

but I sent a comedian, a very respected comedian, this clip of George Carlin using the word. Do you know the clip? Of course. I'm a student of George Carlin. And I said to him, what do you think about that? Are you offended by this? He says, that's the reason he's one of the top three comics of all time.

He was like, totally. Carlin wouldn't do it today. No, but it does tell you how He might. Louis was doing it as far as He would fight for his right to say it because he would make the point, listen, this is ridiculous.

Intention is what matters. Right. I mean, Lenny Bruce would do that kind of thing too. There's something about the DNA of a comedian, which is if you tell us we can't do something, that's what we exactly want to do. That's what we want to do. Also, what do you think of this?

George Carlin, he can say this. Let's say some guy who comes on the stage first time, he's trying out. Could he say it? There's no context. We all know who George Carlin is, where he's coming from, and now here comes Joe Schmo.

Honestly, the only thing that bothers me is to see people who not only didn't have bad intention, but some of them were actually engaged in conversations expressing their outrage at racism. To see people, someone in a conversation expressing his outrage at racism, discussing that horrible people said this word, and he says the word out loud, losing their jobs is so offensive to me I could see why somebody with courage would want to fight against that because it's wrong. It's deeply wrong.

It's deeply wrong. And cowards, all of us, we let it go. But it's really wrong. It's really wrong. So that's nothing to say that I think anybody should be using the N-word. But that kind of thing is really angering, and it's disgusting, and that's what we've become. So that's why

I... So, speaking of the N-word, are we now going to talk about Ukraine? Yes, yes. Well, TJ's... By the way, do you agree with what I just said? Yes, I agree. I mean, the idea that somebody is fully on board and expressing their outrage at racism

could end up losing their job because they put it the wrong way. This is horrible. But what's an example of that happening? It happened a number of times. It happened to one of the heads of Netflix. It happened to McNeil at the Times. There's a number of occasions where this has happened. It's kind of

crazy to me how that word has become the focus of racism. it's the symbol of racism when really you can say something much worse without using the n-word oh my god you could do and say much worse than like and the n-word is maybe two percent of racism that happens to black people it has nothing to do with the real shit that we have to deal with it really is interesting when you think about like how, how suddenly now you guys have to be in charge of taking Joe Rogan down

because we've made this compilation. Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys know the comedian Chris Allen? I know Chris Allen. Yeah. Black dude from DC. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. He, um, it's the least black name I've ever heard. He's great. He's really great. And he was, he was in the military and he's, yeah. It's the least black name I've ever heard. He's great. He's really great.

And he was in the military. Yes, good dude. Yeah, great guy. Very funny guy. Very funny. He made a point today on his Instagram, and he was saying, as a black guy, we don't give a shit about Joe Rogan.

Like, you guys deal with this yourselves. Why are you, like, giving us this thing that now it's like our responsibility to like fucking take down Joe Rogan? It's just using him as a pawn. Well, they're using black people as a pawn in a game of we want to take Joe Rogan down and we've used all the stuff and it still hasn't been taken down.

So now the ultimate thing is white person using the N-word. So black people, now you take him down. Please help us. That now the ultimate thing is white person using the N word. So black people now, you take him down. Please help us. That's the move. And by the way, I wrote on COVID, he has been putting on guests saying

not everything these guests say is wrong. So for instance, he debated Sanjay Gupta and he wiped the floor with Sanjay Gupta on the risk analysis of giving the vaccine to kids. Yeah. I mean, Sanjay Gupta went out with his, you know, just crying. He's a medical doctor.

Well, but he's not that kind of a medical doctor. It's like my dentist is a medical doctor. Well, then he shouldn't be on CNN discussing COVID. You're right. But Malone is a huckster. And he gave him a few hours, right? He just makes shit up. And he always has a reason that anytime you're presenting with evidence,

it was like, oh, you know, they have a deal. The hospitals make money off this. And then Rogan would say, oh. Why do they give us so much? You know, Israel has a deal with Pfizer. But the guy has real credentials, so I could even give Rogan a pass for not in real time knowing that the guy was full of shit.

So he's an accredited conspiracy theorist. He's that kind of guy. I mean, I did some research, and I didn't send you the email, but I sent an email to friends right afterwards. I did a little research into what this guy was saying, and it just all fell apart. However, Rogan certainly knew that the week or two after that, there were a lot of very, very smart doctors doing videos on YouTube, just taking apart Malone point by point. And if he was actually the kind of guy, like I would be, you guys know me, who was really about making sure that all the legitimate sides were heard, Rogan would have

immediately had one of these other doctors. I saw you had that email, I saw you had that video on YouTube, you really took this guy to task. Why don't you come on my show and say, maybe have them both on, whatever it is. But if he says he's going to try to do better in the future, good. But between Rogan,

who is very difficult to hate, and Tucker Carlson, who is much easier to hate, a lot of people, I think, got sick because of the information they gave out. I think so. Free country or not, you know? I think on the one hand, you have a responsibility when you have a huge platform. But on the other hand, I mean, people are, like, if you want to be an idiot and take medical advice from Joe Rogan. Not from Joe Rogan, it's from

a doctor he had on who was one of the actual, even the Atlanta, one of the inventors of mRNA technology. I know who he is. I know who he is, but like... I also don't think you should take medical advice from a doctor on a podcast. Exactly. Doctors on TV, I don't trust.

You should be too busy to do that. It podcast. Exactly. If a doctor's on TV, I don't trust him. He's too busy. You shouldn't be too busy to do that. It's like, seriously, if you want to fucking listen to Dr. Malone on Joe Rogan's podcast, you're an idiot. If I were in the State Department, I wouldn't be coming on this show. Now I'm too fucking busy. Well, whether you're an idiot or not, it's still unfortunate if you die because you're an idiot. Okay, but there is one other thing I would say and then we go to Ukraine.

It's not quite fair to judge us in a vacuum because there have been a few other issues where the Malones of the world actually turned out to be 100% correct. They weren't allowed to post. They weren't allowed to do that. And all of a sudden, son of a bitch, he was right. So, Rogan

has every good reason to put an eye out. The theory about COVID sneaking out of a lab, a lot of people were. That's right. And Rogan said that, actually. He said some of the things that I said that were banned from social media, I was not allowed to say them, came out a few months later and was just accepted as

fact. Fred will tell you, I was freaking out when they were telling us we shouldn't wear masks, remember? And I did my own research. I said, Fred, did you see all this? Of course we should be wearing masks. The reason for that, supposedly, was that there weren't very many masks and doctors needed them. It would have been better to say, okay, and therefore

we're making a million of these masks next month, you know, and wear them when they come out. And in the meantime, you know, wrap yourself around your face. Yeah. Yeah. Which we now know isn't terribly useful, but we didn't know that for quite a long time. And it continues till today. We're talking about that. They this mask mandate, which I'm all for keeping people safe. But when when 60 or 70 percent of people wearing masks are wearing cloth masks and we know the cloth masks don't work.

Why we have't like, let's, let's stop the charade already. Like either have a mask mandate and make everybody wear that works or let people I'll wear this. It protects me just like it protects doctors in the hospital. They deal with people maskless with COVID all the time. And you can wear what you want,

right? Are you excited that it's over? COVID is over? No, it's over the mask mandate. Um, no, to be,

to be honest, there's part of me that likes the fact that my kids wear masks in school. It's not over in schools yet. Yeah, but it's going to expire next week. Just like this one. I thought they were making an exemption for schools. I just heard on the radio, I'm coming over here, the governor actually kind of spun this. These mandates have expiration dates. She chose not to renew it.

And the mask mandate. I guess now it's no longer a mandate, so it's not mandatory. But if you want it for your kids, you still have an option. I think most stores in my neighborhood are still going to be requiring masks. But I also am aware that I'm probably not being rational about this. There's a lot of PTSD associated with COVID. As I've

said many times in this show, if today were the first day of COVID and exactly the risks that we all face today were the initial risks of COVID when it first, we wouldn't do anything. Right. We'd do zero. You mean because of Omicron were the dominant? If the status quo today were the initial risk. Oh, I see. What would we do? We'd say, well, it's less than the Hong Kong flu was when I was a kid.

Like, be careful. There's a new thing going around. It's kind of dangerous. I don't know about that because we're still killing. A lot of people are like, what, a few thousand people are still dying every day. And it's mainly the unvaccinated. Right. But for people who, I'm saying our risk, we are vaccinated.

Well, so in other words, you would say, go get vaccinated and then have a good time. Is that what you would say? Do what you want. You want to get sick, get sick. But you would require a vaccine. I would not require a vaccine if people don't want to get vaccinated. Anyway, I think that it's my time to say farewell. So I think that's a good

segue into Ukraine. I assume, TJ, you're saying farewell because you do performing, not just because you've had enough. No, no, no. I would love to stay and talk about Ukraine. That would be funny. You don't want to hear about Ukraine?

He has a spot. He has a spot. I have to go tell jokes. What's going to happen if you're late? Tell me what happened with Ukraine. Probably somebody complained to you and you're firing. Take it easy, TJ. All right.

Thanks for having me. Thank you. Where can we find you? Where can everybody find you? At TJ fire him. Take it easy, TJ. All right, thanks for having me. Thank you. Wait, where can we find you? Where can everybody find you? At TJ Standup on Instagram and Twitter. Twitter is, oh God, I hate that one. But at TJ Standup

on Instagram. Please use that. Twitter is a cesspool. Are you in town on Monday? Yes. Come hang out on Monday night. All right, I'll come too. And your special?

Amazon Prime. It's called January 3rd. Look at Ariel here being a master marketer. All right, guys. I'll see you later. Thanks for coming. Frederick Kaplan.

We invited him specifically to talk about the Ukraine, so let's get it on. So, Fred, why don't you just take it? Tell the audience. We don't have the smartest audience sometimes, so I'm kidding. Ukraine? It's not a political one. Is it now Ukraine and not the Ukraine? It's been Ukraine, not the Ukraine

for quite a long time. How long has that been going on? A long time. Since the end of the Soviet Union. I think so, yeah. They've dropped also you notice they've re-spelled Kiev. Yeah, with a Y now. P-K-Y-I-V. Well, listen. People, I was a Moscow correspondent in the 90s

and when I got back people said, so how do they pronounce it? Is it Moscow or is it Moscow? I said, well, actually, it's Moskva. Just like Germany is Deutschland. And I think China is Chang'e. And Chang'e. And Peking is apparently Beijing. We've known that for a while.

I didn't realize for a while. There was a time where I thought there were two different cities. See, that was always how the Chinese pronounced it. I get it. And isn't there one of the- And Mumbai. It was Mumbai.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was Mumbai. We went through a great dictionary. Is Bombay pronounced Mumbai, or is that actually a different word altogether? You're out of my geography. No, Bombay is pronounced Mumbai or is that actually a different word? Probably. You're out of my geography. No, Bombay is pronounced Mumbai. How can a Bombay

like, I can understand how Beijing and Peking, I can see how that is similar. You don't see how Bombay and Mumbai are similar? No, because one starts with an M and one starts with a B. No, but if you're some imperialist going there and you hear one of the swarthy people talking, you hear whatever you want to of the swarthy people talking and you hear

whatever you want to hear. Swarthy people. From the imperialist point of view. Careful. I'm just referring to it. So give us a problem. Why don't we call Germany Deutschland? I don't know. It's a good question.

No idea. I don't know where Germany came from. Because the Germanic people are from Germany. Yes, but they call it Deutschland, and it's not a big tongue twister. Yeah, it's not that foreign to our ears to say Deutschland. I don't know. I don't know. So give us a primer on Ukraine, and then I have some questions for you. Go ahead. Why don't you have the initial question first? That might be a better way to start. What's going on in Ukraine?

Okay. Well, look, let's... Okay, there's a hundred and something thousand troops on the Ukraine border. What do you think he's up to, and do you think he has, Putin I mean, do you think he has real provocations

that we're not understanding from his point of view, or do you think he has... By the way, this segment is called, You're Darn Putin. Or is he just doing something opportunistically with a pretext? Okay, now, when is this going to air? This isn't live, right? Tomorrow. It's not live, yeah.

Okay, good. Because I was going to say, if it's like a week from now, and if I say, I think he's not going to invade, and then he invades, you could take the not out of... No problem. We got you. But I don't think he's going to invade, and then he invades, you could take the not out of... No problem. We got you. But I don't think he's going to invade, actually. I think that this has been a horrible miscalculation on his part. I think he thought that he would put all this pressure on, the NATO allies would crumble, they wouldn't want to stand up to him because Germany depends too much on natural gas and oil and Biden has messed up this and that and NATO is in disarray. He knows this stuff. And the people who work for him know it too. And they've done a very good job of kind of keeping everybody together.

And now everybody in the alliance except Germany is shipping arms to Ukraine. And, you know, Finland and Sweden are talking about maybe we should join NATO now. I mean, Putin's entire strategy from foreign policy is to strengthen Russia by weakening those who might limit or contain Russia. The idea is to exploit the fissures within the European Union and drive a hard wedge between the U.S. and our transatlantic allies. And under, you know, our last president, as Biden likes to say, he had a field day. I mean, he should have done what he's doing now. Then we wouldn't have done anything. But at the same time, you do have to look at this from Putin's point of view. And what I'm about to say

in no way is meant to justify, support, or excuse what he's doing. But you have to look at it in this way. So Putin, he grows up within the KGB. He has said one time that the crackup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. He is nostalgic for the great Russian empire. He's in East Germany with the KGB when the wall comes down. He's helping them burn documents. He's Yeltsin's prime minister when we're putting forth the final steps of the enlargement of NATO. We are able to do this because for many years, including the years I was there, Russia was flat on its back. You know, they would say, OK, we want a Czech Republic and Poland or Romania want to join NATO.

I'll tell you what, here's $15 billion. Don't put up too much of a fuss over it. Or, you know, now the Baltics want to join NATO. We'll let you in the G7. Don't make a big fuss about it. And they were so supine. What's the G7? It's a group of seven industrial nations, the great democracy.

We kicked them out after they annexed Crimea, but they became the G8 for a while. Now it's back to the G7. In other words, we kind of bribed them into accepting this. And now Putin's in a position, you know, Russian economy, it's not great, but oil prices are high, so it's doing okay. He's brought back the military to a pretty decent military. And so he's saying, okay, I've had enough with this humiliation. And now, 2014, what happened when he annexed Crimea and took a slice out of eastern Ukraine? What had happened that year was that Ukraine got rid of a pro-Russia president. They started making very strong moves to join the European Union.

Ukraine is like, I mean, to Putin's mind, he has said this. He said Ukraine isn't a real country. He regards it as part of Russia. For centuries, it kind of was. You know, it's the buffer state between Russia and encroachments from the West. It was the breadbasket of Russia for many years, the cultural ties, the political, economic ties. And so here they're trying to join the European Union, show everybody else in my little circle that there's an alternative way to organize yourself politically, and now maybe

joining NATO. You know, to him, it's an existential threat. I don't think he's making it up. I think he's quite genuine about that. And so he says, look, it's really massive troops on the border, and he thinks that we'll cave. And we haven't caved. And now he's kind of in a spot because, quite honestly, look, if he wanted to invade Ukraine, take over Kiev, you know, throw out the – he could do that. But then what? You know, when Russia, when the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia in 1968, they did it with 250,000 troops, five tank divisions. And they had in Czechoslovakia a whole Communist Party regiment that was very pro-Moscow. The army was basically didn't like what was going on in the reform tendencies.

And it still took a quarter million people. 100,000 people to occupy Ukraine, which is three times as large when you've got a Ukrainian army that is feeling its Ukrainian nationalism, when you have these civilian resistance forces going up, when you have even in a city in eastern Ukraine like Kharkiv, which used to be a pro-Russia standout, there are now marches in favor of Ukrainian nationalism, tens of thousands of people in the streets. He's going to get stuck there. It'll make the resistance in Afghanistan look like nothing. So when you say he feels it's an existential threat, what do you mean by that term existential threat? He views Ukraine as part of Russia and the idea of making Ukraine

part of NATO would be like, you know, and what is the purpose of NATO? Well, for a while, everybody was saying after the Cold War, what is the purpose of NATO? Now the purpose of NATO, that's the irony of this. He has revitalized NATO. He has realigned it to its original purpose as an alliance that provides security in the face of possible Russian encroachments, right?

He's brought that back. But does he think existential would mean that he, Russia, or he, it's not the same thing, cease to exist does he think that the West this was always hard to process

like as a little kid during the nuclear era, like do they really think that we would go and do they really believe that we would look to try to take over Russia in some way? We did invade Russia at the end of World War I But invade Russia at the end of World War I. But that was in the context of World War I.

But nonetheless, no, no, the communist government had taken over. It was a brief and futile and idiotic attempt to overthrow the government. No, you think about this all the time. I mean, it does seem paranoid. But one reason why, you know, even in the enlargement of NATO, as it was called, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, and 30 countries now, five presidents always stopped short of Ukraine for several reasons. First, there are qualifications you have to fill. You have to have some level of democratization, no corruption, civilian control of the military, the ability to integrate within the NATO military command.

Turkey meets those requirements? It did for a while. Once you're in NATO, you can't get kicked out. You can get kicked out of the EU. Kind of like Harvard. That takes a lot. But the main reason why we never added on Ukraine was this would just be a little too provocative for Russia. We really shouldn't do this. And even now, Biden and many others have said, look, we're not going to send troops to

Ukraine. And Ukraine, they're not going to become members of NATO for quite a while, if ever. But we don't think that you have the right to tell us what countries can and cannot join. I mean, it's very abstract. And I think what should happen at the end of all this, and I don't know whether it will, but there must be a way. And Putin, I think at this point, Putin is looking for a face-saving way out. And the question is, can we do this without sacrificing principles? There must be a way to have a big assembly where we take into account Russia's legitimate security concerns. And there are some legitimate.

For example, they think that the missile defense systems that we've put in Poland, Romania, that Tomahawk cruise missiles can be fitted into these launchers. So I think we should say, okay, look, come on over. Inspect the hell out of us. We'll set up a little office for you guys. You can go out and look at any time, see what's going on. I think, you know, things like transparency and military exercises.

I mean, this used to go on quite a lot. Come join us. Watch what we're doing. To climb down all this ledge, doesn't he have to have some way he can declare victory in some way? Well, if not victory, something where he hasn't given in. I mean, for example, I think Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. To me, he's being— He was a comedian, by the way, right?

He is. He played— He's a Jew as well. He played a president in a sitcom. Yeah. And then he becomes the president. But he's— He's a Jewish guy, isn't he?

Yeah, yeah, he is. That is so insane. Yeah. it'd be like if al franken became president of the united states or ronald reagan well there you go but uh but to me he's you know he keeps saying i want to join nato i think he has to be shut up i mean to put it bluntly we have to give him something to say you know know, Volodya, stop talking about NATO for the next 10 years. And then my idea, I think somebody should do it, there should be some document that's written up completely aside from this, like an estimate of when Ukraine might be eligible to join NATO, which basically concludes between quarter century and never. And then this is kind of slipped to, you know, Sergei Lavrov or some, here, take a look at this.

This has nothing to do with what's going on now, but here, this gives you an idea of what the actual chances of this are. May I just say that this entire thing just sounds like a huge ego trip? Well, there's a lot of personality fucking crazy ego that like that's why this country has to be careful on the mail because mrs thatcher and a certain small island off the coast of argentina were uh that's my venus it's okay to be sexist

or racist as long as you gore the correct ox. That's been my theory. Oh, I don't really think you can be sexist against straight white men. Like, sorry. If a man says something about the nature of a woman, that can't be true. Only men have natures. Women don't. No, no, no. This is such a specific thing.

I don't disagree with you. Wait, did you hear what Fred said? He said you're right. I said there's a lot of personality in these politics. A lot of egotism. Yeah, I mean the whole idea of a face-saving

way out. But you know, there's a parallel to this, like during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Wait, and the other, just one more question. How did this guy, how did this comedian become president of Ukraine? He was very popular. His show was popular. Also, but he ran on an anti-corruption ticket. Okay.

And Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And he's got a great act. Yeah. And so he was elected to many people's surprise. Why can't a comedian be going into politics? I mean, he can. It just isn't necessarily. No, it's unusual.

Yeah, it's unusual. The precedents are limited. Well, but I mean, there haven't been comedians for that long. But anyway. Yeah. You are from Kiev. We used to have all sorts of backgrounds among American presidents, farmers, businessmen, I... Yeah. You are from Kiev. We used to have all sorts of backgrounds among American presidents,

farmers, businessmen, whatever it is. And we didn't... It was not to our detriment to have people with various... There were even some members of the Supreme Court who weren't lawyers. Who were not lawyers. That's right. That's interesting.

Yeah. So, go ahead. Before Perry will interrupt you. Women tend to do that. Go ahead. He had a great bit about Kremenshchug. About what? Kremenshchug. About what? Kremenshchug.

What's that? Isn't that a city in the Ukraine? Fred, help me out here. That's my grandmother was from, and I think it was the Ukraine. It might have been a very small village. It might have been Russia. They all kind of went in and out of each other over time. I don't know how to spell it, so I can't Google it.

My grandfather came from a part of Russia that's now Poland. Bialystok. Bialystok. Here, Dan. Kremenshchuk. Yeah, all right. See, I'm not saying. City in Ukraine, Kremenshchuk.

Okay. Right, about a very deep issue, which is that ego or sentiment and emotions have a huge effect on international relations. I mean, China is very concerned about looking as important, and Japan and Korea still haven't forgiven each other, and the Turks and the Armenians. This is all emotional stuff. This is particularly true when you basically have one man ruling. Putin, this is his decision. I mean, he has a security council, but there's not even like a Politburo like in the old day.

I got Khrushchev, the Politburo threw him out. There's nobody right now who could legally throw out Putin. It would be a coup. When Khrushchev was thrown out, it wasn't a coup. It was the Politburo, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union decided they had enough of his harebrained schemes and they threw him out. So it's 100% Putin's decision. He can do whatever he wants. Pretty much. I'm also reading his book Catch 67 now that I recommended to you where he makes the interesting point. I'm also reading this book, Catch 67, now, that I recommend to you, where he makes the interesting point. I can't believe I never thought of it this way, that the things that Israel rationally needs for its security

are the very things that the Palestinians can't give them because it's humiliating. You know, can't have an army, can't have this. This is an emotional thing. It's humiliating. Somebody must be able to find a way. I mean, I'll give you an example. This is a parallel in part, but then I'll say the reasons why it's not so much a parallel. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev sends missiles to Cuba secretly.

Now, the reason for that is because he knew that we knew that he didn't have any long-range missiles. We'd been fooled by the missile gap for many years. Then we had reconnaissance satellites flying over the Soviet Union and said, oh shit, they don't have anything. And so he feared an American first strike against the Soviet Union. He knew that we knew that he had nothing to retaliate with. So he put medium-range missiles in Cuba as a kind of a in the meantime thing until he built up his long-range missile force. We spot them because we have satellites and spy planes. We saw them.

Before satellites, right? No, we had satellites, but these were spotted by U-2 planes. U-Tube? U-Two. U-Two. And the U- YouTube, anyway. So then, about by the fourth day of the crisis, and Kennedy, by the way, tape recorded all their 13 days of meetings with him and all of his advisors, which he secretly tape recorded,

and which you can now go listen to, if you have any doubts that John F. Kennedy did not personally prevent the world from blowing up. But on about the fourth day, he said, OK, I think Khrushchev needs a way out. What could be a way out? And then he says to himself, nobody cares. He says, well, you know, we have these missiles in Turkey, which are kind of like the missiles in Cuba. Maybe if we took out the missiles from Turkey.

Nobody listens to this. Next thing you know, Khrushchev, on the last day of the crisis, says, we demand that you take out the missiles from Turkey. And the cover story for many years was that Kennedy rejected that idea and went with an earlier proposal just to promise never to invade Cuba again. But what really happened was that he took the deal. And he only told six people around him, one of whom was not Lyndon Johnson, who went into the Vietnam War thinking that Kennedy won the crisis by going in tough, you know, eyeball to eyeball. But then he told the Russians, he goes, look, I'm going to take this deal.

We'll have those missiles out of there in six months. But nobody's saying anything about this. If you say that this happened, the deal is off. So I can imagine, except for one thing, Biden telling Putin, look, Ukraine is never going to join NATO. Tell me what I have to do to tell you this. But you can't say anything about this ever. Otherwise, they're coming into NATO the next day. Won't happen because you can't keep a secret like this anymore. Kennedy and his cabinet met for 13 days to consider what to do about the missiles in Cuba. Not a word leaked out. Can you imagine something like that today?

I mean, it would be out all over the place. In other words, they kept it secret until they could come up with a plan. Wasn't this one of Putin's beefs that he said that Baker had promised him? Well, that's interesting.

It is true that when James Baker, the first George Bush's Secretary of State. Rosebud Baker's grandfather, by the way. Another comedy-seller connection. Oh, is that right? Yeah, yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Anyway, when he met with Gorbachev, it must have been. Or maybe it was

Yeltsin. Yeltsin. It was Yeltsin, yeah. He said, promise you, NATO will not move. They were talking about what to do about the unification of Germany. You know, will all of Germany become part of a NATO? I mean, there were Soviet troops in the eastern part of Germany. There were nuclear weapons in, you know, in West Germany. And he goes, NATO won't move one, not one inch to the east.

Well, Bush hears this, George H.W. Bush, and says, that's not our policy. That's not our policy at all. Baker had to walk it back. It was never official U.S. policy. However, it is true that under Bush and Clinton, there was an expressed view that we will not do anything that makes you, Mr. Yeltsin, feel insecure. But they did. In fact, Clinton initially had an excellent policy. He came up with something called the Partnership for Peace. And the idea was, okay, all you countries in Eastern Europe, you're not going to become a member of NATO right away.

You're going to join this Partnership for Peace. And Russia can join too, by the way. And we kind of guide you know, we kind of guide you through, if you want to be guided, the adoption of these Western institutions, you know, capitalism and democracy. And they're a step by step. And then the last step, if the rest of us say so, you can come join NATO. And Clinton outlined this to Yeltsin. He goes, that's a brilliant idea, which it was. But then what happened, countries like the Czech Republic and Poland, led by Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa, when Havel was just a philosopher, he said, I envision a united Europe from Vancouver to Vladivostok, one without any lines. When he became president, he goes, I'm feeling insecure out here in no man's land. I want to join NATO. The real world. Since when is Vancouver in Europe?

Well, it was from the United States to, from the west coast of the United States to all of Europe, including Russia, it would all be one part of. But then he gets in office and he goes, I feel kind of lonely out here. You know, somebody wants to find a small country as a country that could disappear overnight. And we did expand with Lithuania and Estonia.

What are the countries right on the Russian border? All the Baltics, yeah. They're in NATO, right? And that was when Yeltsin said, oh, please don't do that. And that's when Clinton said, I'll let you into the G7. And there's also, I heard that Putin claims that he had offered to join NATO. Well, they did initially. But did they mean it or was he looking just to eliminate NATO by, you know, by bringing the Trojan horse?

What kind of NATO would be? Oh, there is something called, and it hasn't met lately. I forget what it's called. It's the Something NATO Council, which is a council of members of NATO and Russia to talk about security interests. I mean, I think that should become a much more live enterprise. It was for a little while. I mean, serious issues. He's like a real cowboy, Putin, huh? And by the way, there are still a lot of issues

where the U.S. and Russia have converging interests. I was just going to ask you that question. Do we actually have any natural adversarial interests with them? Keeping nukes out of the hands of Iran. You would think we have a lot of common interests. I don't see why we'd even be fighting with Russia under...

Like, what's our beef with Russia? Our beef with Russia? You think we'd unite against China? Well, I mean, they've done certain things, like interfering with our election and screwing around with this, that, and the other thing. But look, I think this is something, a serious problem with both Trump and Biden, I think it is a serious mistake to make enemies of both Russia and China. You know, it's a mixed up anarchic world now. There aren't any more power blocks. Alliances are alliances of convenience. There are lots of countries where we're aligned with

them on certain issues, not on other issues. If we want to have influence in the world and you want to play countries off one another, you can't be enemies with both Russia and China. I heard somebody say the other day, well, Jesus, Kissinger has lived a long time, but it's good that he had his worst dream come true, seeing the heads of Russia and China sitting down together. His whole point of going to China was to do an alliance with China against Russia. We're going to have to wrap it up,

but what do you think Kissinger would advise on this subject? No idea. No idea. Also, he's in the pocket of the Chinese. Is Kissinger at the tender age of 98 still compus mentis? People still talk to him. They bring him in and say,

what do you think about this? I don't know. Has he been publicly... Has he publicly said anything? On this? No. No, just in recent... Oh, no.

On anything. He's co- just in recent... Oh, no. On anything. He's co-written op-eds with various people. Well, but Betty White was tweeting up and... So that doesn't mean that... I need to see him in front of a camera. I've never seen that in a while. When they took Crimea, he wrote a column, I remember, saying in some way that Ukraine should stay,

not in NATO, as a transition state between the East and the West. Well, there are lots of models for this. I mean, Finland is a model. Austria is a model. But now they're all ginned up and they don't know we want to be in NATO because that way. And, you know, the thing about Crimea that I remember is that it's not even the same narrative as Ukraine because Crimea was actually always Russia. Well, here's the Crimea.

Always was Russia. Crimea, look, in 1954, on the 300th, I think it was 300th anniversary of the declaration of the sovereign republic of Ukraine, which Khrushchev gave Ukraine Crimea. Now, it didn't mean anything because they were both parts of the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union was the relevant entity. Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, it was all crap.

It didn't mean anything. So it was totally unserious. And you might notice that Russia took back Crimea without a shot being fired, without any resistance. They're mainly Russians in Crimea. Well, I was always very, like, you weren't supposed to say it out loud. It was one of those things where you're just not supposed to say, but I was always very thrown off by that historical fact. Like, this

has always been Russian. Why are we fucking around in Russia's backyard in territory that was always Russian? We were never fucking around in Crimea. But then, see, even then Putin went too far. He chopped off, you know, a couple provinces of eastern Ukraine. All right, you know. I'm kidding.

But then what's going on? By the way, a lot of people there are also, they would like to be part of Russia. Some of them, I mean, they vote in Russian elections. But what he's done, even in many parts of eastern Ukraine, he has aroused this long, latent Ukrainian nationalism. I think this is, he's,

as I say, I think he's looking for a way out, and I hope we can find a way. And is it true that the cliche dynamic of a strongman dictator looking for a conflict in order to shore up his home is part of this or not? Well, I think it's part of it. I mean, he is having problems at home. The economy is really going down.

He's got a lot of protests. And certainly this makes him more popular. He's mainly able to contain them. And he controls most of the media. He's convinced a lot of Russians that this is all NATO and U.S. and Ukrainian aggression. But, you know, it's one thing to put 100,000 troops and tanks on the border. It's another to send them across the border, and then thousands of body bags start coming back. Things can change awfully fast.

Now, Fred wrote a great book about, it was called The Bomb? Is that what it's called? Yeah, The Bomb. The Bomb. Just laying out the whole history of nuclear weapons and the close calls and how our strategy changed and how many times we almost had nuclear exchanges that we averted.

Do you... Also, Tom Lehrer wrote a great song, Who's Next? Where do you see... About nuclear proliferation. When we were kids, it used to be the doomsday clock. It's still there, which I think is... Is it closer, further away? It's a public...

I've always kind of detested the doomsday clock. But just as a... Really? It's like at two minutes to midnight. Are you shitting me? Really? Are we going to really... It was seven minutes. In comparison to where the world was

the day that the Berlin Wall fell. Yeah. Is a nuclear exchange, including an accident, more likely now or less? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's your comparison. Yeah, more likely now. More likely now. But one reason, I think, is because other countries have their,

you know, there's seven countries that have nuclear weapons. If you— What's more likely, an accident or an intentional usage? Miscalculation. Maybe poor intelligence. You know, there are lots of incidents where, you know, we saw what looked like ICBMs coming over the horizon or vice versa. And it took out to be a flock of geese or a computer mistake. And luckily, there was never any political crisis going on at that moment. I mean,

imagine if there had been a computer error like that in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yeah. That might have been a computer air like that in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yeah. That might have been a different... Now, what do you think, in terms of the human race, going extinct is more likely, a nuclear war or a meteor? Nuclear war. Well, it depends on the size of the meteor. And it might depend on the size of the nuclear war, too.

Yeah, I don't think a nuclear war would make the human race extinct is the thing. Well, you know, there are these theories about nuclear winter. And I've seen some calculations which suggest that even a hundred hydrogen bombs going off at a particular place could wipe out most life on the planet. Carl Sagan. Through smoke, not just the blast, but the smoke, the fire, the radiation. Through the nuclear winter. But, and you know, even, look, at our peak, the Russians, Soviet Union and United States each had 30,000 nuclear weapons. We now each have about 2,000.

Great progress, right? But if it's used... Isn't there a story about a lone Russian who... Yeah. Tell that story before we go. Well, I mean... This is an amazing story. Actually, there was a lone Russian who, it was a similar kind of thing. He was on duty

with air defense. He sees what looks like 50 ICBMs coming across. The radar shows intercontinental ballistic missiles coming over the horizon. Now, his order was, if you see anything like this, call upstairs, right? He didn't. He figured, well, this has got to be bullshit. Because, again, nothing was going on. Why would the United States be doing this? Why would they send 50 as opposed to 5,000 or whatever?

And so he just decided this has got to be wrong and just ignored it. And what if he had called upstairs? Well, they would have gone – maybe they would have retaliated as they saw it. There are several incidents like this. I mean, you know, I mean, an example of where this didn't happen, when Korean Airlines Flight 007 drifted across the border. Earlier that night, there had been a spy plane near the border. That came out much later. But the air defense people on duty that night, they had their orders. If something comes over the line, shoot it down. It had a very similar

profile to the spy plane. And so they shot it down, killing everybody on board. And for the next nine months, American and Russian diplomats, officials didn't even talk to each other. And this was around 1983. There were genuine war scares due to misunderstandings of intelligence information. For example, we were playing a very big NATO war game, which involved transitioning from conventional to nuclear use and going through all the procedures that we would go through. Well, the Russians were watching all this, and as a big study conducted by the CIA years later concluded, they really thought that we were about to launch a first strike.

And, you know, in the end, the exercise ended and it was over. So this dovetails to what we said earlier. So just the fact that they could think that we would launch a first strike, it's just remarkable. It's hard to process that they could think that because from our point of view, like, of course we'd never launch a first strike. Listen, I remember when I was getting into this field in the early 80s, there were a lot of scenarios where the sentence would begin, in the event of a Soviet first strike, and you look at it, a Soviet first strike would have involved firing 2,000 warheads against 1,000 missile silos in the U.S. because you need two to one to make sure it actually works. Now, our missile silos were away from cities, but still the estimates were

this would kill at minimum 2 million people, at minimum Americans. And the idea that they're just kind of cavalierly, in the event of a Soviet first strike, is if they would actually do this and expect that we would do nothing. The whole thing was insane. It's the whole, listen, if we make through all of this shit and come out of it, okay, 50 years from now, people will be looking back at this entire era, the nuclear era, as if the leadership of the world

had just gone fucking insane. Yeah. It's impossible for people under 30, I guess, or 40, of the world had just gone fucking insane. Yeah. You know? It's impossible for people under 30, I guess, or 40, to really understand how much the nuclear issue was front and center, the most important issue in presidential debates and Carter and the MX missile and the hiding the missiles and the... Listen, it still is in a way. There has been no president. Nobody votes on it.

Yeah, but hold on. Nobody votes on it, but no president has declared that we will never use nuclear weapons first. Obama came very close. There were two debates within the NSC. I talk about it in the book, talking should we declare a no first use policy.

And he decided not to, mainly because he was convinced that the allies would go berserk. And why is this? Because even now, even now, with all of our conventional military might, countries like Japan, South Korea, and now probably increasingly in Europe too, think there's something called the nuclear umbrella, or it's formally called extended deterrence where we say if you're attacked, we will come to your defense even if it takes nuclear weapons to do so and even if the other side hasn't shot off nuclear weapons. Obama in this meeting would ask like the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He goes, can you imagine any president really going first? He goes, no, no, Mr. President. But you can't say it out loud because then people say, I can't count on the United States anymore. I'd better build my own nuclear bomb, which Japan and several other countries are perfectly capable of doing. And then that leads to arms races of all kinds and so we we kind of

in fact really when you get right down to it if they attacked us would we fire back i don't know what's the point but that's something that you absolutely cannot talk about because then that erodes deterrence because the only thing deterring them is that you hit us, we'll hit you. If you raise any doubts, you know, we might not hit you. Then it's not just that that means they're going to attack you with nukes the next day, but they might, you know, what are Israeli nuclear weapons for? You know, they don't think, let's say if Iran gets a nuclear bomb, the reason why they're panicked about that, it's not that they think Iran is going to nuke Israel, which has somewhere between 150, 200 nuclear weapons. No, it's that they will

use the nuclear weapons as a cover to engage in conventional aggression, and Israel won't be able to use nuclear weapons because then Iran could fire back. So, I mean, it's very complicated. So on one level, you can actually have a very, like, graduate-level seminars on the intricacies of nuclear strategy. But again, from 30,000 miles up or 50 years in the future, fundamentally, it's all insane. Let's leave it there. By the way, that's a great ending. I could just end. Very good, Fred.

Well, I'll just end with a joke that Ronald Reagan told about, that he heard in Russia. You ever see that? There's a video of Ronald Reagan telling jokes that the Russian people. Tell me which one. I don't know. Well, the Russian guy goes to get a car, and there's a long waiting list. He says, okay, well'll have your car you can come and pick it up in 10 years and the russian guy says well in the morning or the afternoon no it's

not a bad joke it's actually true and uh used to be the car the car salesman says well in 10 years what do you care he says well the plumber is coming in the afternoon that's actually pretty good i mean i lived in russia in post-soviet times and that's a pretty good I mean I lived in Russia in post Soviet times and that's a pretty good joke so I went to Russia on a Soviet Union on a high school trip in 1978 or something

79 and it was an amazing thing to see first of all there was no drinking age and I got drunk there in high school and everything was black market I exchanged dollars oh you probably had a great time.

Did you bring jeans? I always used to tell you to go to... Did they ask you for Beatles? Do you have Beatles records? No, we had Star Wars toys. Oh, man. And they went crazy for the Star Wars toys. And we saw a guy on the subway reading a book,

and it had a Russian book jacket. And he saw who we were, and he showed it to us. He was reading all the president's men in English. There was a lot of that. Can I tell one more story about Reagan? This is a true story. So this is how... I don't know, but he was pretty important. Gorbachev was his driver.

This is the... This is how the big detente between Reagan and Gorbachev started. So, you know, Reagan had wanted to meet... Reagan finally, when his second term started, he realized that he'd overdone it with the threatening rhetoric. He wanted to dial it back, but the Russians, you know, they kept dying. Then here comes Gorbachev, who seems like he might be a real guy. They meet in Geneva in 1985, and they have some very harsh words about things,

and then they decide to go for a walk, and they duck into a cabin where there's a fire blazing, and only with their interpreters. And Reagan says, let me ask you a question. If we were in, if the United States were invaded by aliens from outer space, would Russia come to our defense? And Gorbachev, keeping a straight face, says, absolutely. And he goes, I think the same thing about you. And then they walk back into the main conference room, laughing like they're old friends. And even George Shultz, who,

Secretary of State, who hadn't been in on this conversation, is wondering, what the hell happened here? And that's when they started agreeing on all these radical arms control proposals. Well, we have to end with that. We want to thank her. I think Reagan was a good man. Ronald Reagan. Reagan gets a bum rap. Oh, yeah. All of those hundreds of thousands of gay men who died of AIDS

under him. Yeah, he could have saved them. Yeah, he could have. Okay, that is... Maybe he could have. I shouldn't have been so glib and flippant about that because clearly they were slow to respond to AIDS, but... I mean, that's putting it very... That's very generous. He became kind of

a nuclear abolitionist in his second term. Yeah. In my book, I found out some things about Reagan, at least in his Cold War evolution, that were very interesting, that surprised me. Well, I remember I read a book of his speeches that he had in his handwriting.

Yes, he actually did a lot. And I said, this is, you know, they told me this guy was an idiot. I don't know if any of our current presidents could write speeches like that. Well, he was never an idiot, but he, listen, when he met- They said he was an idiot. When he met Gorbachev at Reykjavik, will amaze you there are transcripts of their conversation seven hours of conversation about nuclear doctrine and nuclear weapons and he knew what he was talking about I mean he had some weird ideas about things but basically he knew what he was talking about he'd been well

briefed I mean can you imagine Trump Trump talking about this for five minutes? And unfortunately, I can't imagine Biden in a different way now. Biden's well-versed in this stuff. I saw Biden on enough Meet the Press interviews to know that he's but certainly Obama and Clinton and George

H.W. Bush. I don't even know about George W. Bush. I don't know. He might get a bum rap also, but definitely those other guys would know. Thank you for listening to Live from the Table. That was great, Fred. Thank you. Podcast at ComedySeller.com

for all your comments, questions, and suggestions. Nicole, wake up. Fred Kaplan, follow him on Twitter at Fred Kaplan. No, at FM Kaplan. At FM Kaplan. Or my column in Slate.

Or you can go to my website, which is fredkaplan.info, where you can read just about everything I've ever written. Get the book, The Bomb. It's really good. It is really good, and it's very important. It's very important. And the New York, and it's very important. It's a great title. It's very important. And the New York Times said it was, quote, surprisingly entertaining.

No, no, it is. Explosive, said the New York Times. Okay. Thank you, everybody. We'll see you next time. Nicole, rate the show. Definitely explosive. We'll see you next time at Live on the Table. Thank you.