The Daily Beast Podcast - Putin’s Own Soldiers Are Refusing to Fight in Ukraine

Episode Date: March 15, 2022

Putin may not realize how poorly the war is going for him, but his troops do. Ukrainian diplomat Olexander Scherba joins the pod to explain what he’s hearing from soldiers on the ground, including stories of them refusing to fight. Plus, The Nation’s Elie Mystal pleads with Biden to say the word “abortion” and hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy discuss whether Tucker Carlson can feel embarrassment and Molly actually sorta defends Mitt Romney when it comes to Tulsi Gabbard. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objective. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. What a fun show we have today. The nation's Elie Mistal is going to come and talk to us about his new book, Allow Me to Retort, along with some of the legal fuckery that's going on in Texas right now. Then we're going to talk to Alexander Sherba, who spent 26 years in diplomatic service, including as Ukraine's ambassador to Austria, an author of diplomatic thoughts.

And he's going to tell us about the situation in Ukraine from the ground. But first, let's have some fun. Andy Levy. Molly Jongfest. Today, it's another day. It's another insane day in our insane political world. I thought for sure that when Russia invaded Ukraine and the tanks rolled, I thought for sure the far-right industrial media complex would not be able to message Putin. Russian lives matter. I didn't know if they'd be able to sort of thread that needle, but

I am disappointed to report that Russian propaganda has once again taken over right-wing media. Are you surprised, Andy Levy? I am a little more cynical than you, Molly. As having worked at Fox. Yes, exactly. I'm a little less surprised, but what I find very interesting is that we now have Russian state media making people like Tucker Carlson a mainstay on their programs. They show clips of his show every night. They show clips of him bashing the American media for being one-sided in what is a, you know, one-sided invasion. How dare you not take Russia's side when they invade Ukraine? How dare you? I know. A lot of what they're doing is both sides in it, which is just as dumb. I mean, because, you know, you literally have

one country sitting there and the other country rolls. It's gigantic military across that country's border, and somehow both of them are due blame. What we've got here now is we've got Tucker Carlson on Fox News, and Fox News was pretty famously, you know, basically state media during the Trump administration for the American state. And now it's still state media, but it's just a different state. It's Russia. It's like they can't. help themselves, they have to align themselves with a state. And they've now decided that Russia is that state as opposed to America, because America is being run by, you know, the communist Joe Biden who wants to inject all your children with microchips.

Life-saving vaccines. Or life-saving vaccines. Tomato Tomato. I'm going to come back from way back when in 2016, Russia did an incredible job. And anyone who was on the internet knows this, of sewing these rumors about Hillary Clinton that were Hillary's health. Remember Hillary's health? Yep. Remember, you know, you would have these sort of like incredible spirit cooking that John Podesta and Hillary Clinton were cooking children. I mean, you know, they would be these crazy, crazy theories, but you would, but they would, you would see them everywhere, right? You'd see them on the sun. You'd see them on these far right, you know, newspapers, you'd see them. And maybe it wouldn't be the full story because that could be libelous, but it would be sort of tipping its toe into asking questions about maybe it was possible that Hillary Clinton had pneumonia and was in the hospital and maybe Hillary's body double? I'm just asking questions.

So anyone who's on the Internet sees that right now, the Russian invasion to Ukraine, you're starting to see the same kind of stories pop up that were the same kind of stories we saw about Hillary Clinton in 2000. You know, these kind of just asking questions. So this Russia propaganda has decided that the biolab theory is the kind of, you know, this is biolabs, right? And the idea here, it's pretty stupid, but that Ukraine, there are different variations on this propaganda, but basically Ukraine and America were making viruses to kill Russians. And that's why Russia invaded Ukraine. Okay. And the interesting thing is, like, at least when we, America made up weapons of mass destruction,

we had the good sense to do it before we invaded a country. Not mid-invasion. They're backfilling here. Like, they invaded the country, and now they're claiming these labs were never mentioned before the invasion. And now all of a sudden it's like, well, we had to invade because they have these bio-weapons labs, which they don't. But it's like, you know, at least use that as a pretext the way we, It just seems more logical to make stuff up before you do something than after you do it.

Well, I also think that ultimately with America, we're not as good at propaganda. They have weapons of mass destruction. Well, okay, maybe they don't buy. We're already in there. I do think it's important to say this because I've seen this floating around and I think Anna Navarro on the view said that she wants the Department of Justice to investigate Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard and people like that. as being, you know, basically Russian agents, paid agents. That's absurd. And let's just throw that out.

And it's incredibly unhelpful. And Anna Navarro, I'd like to say should know better, but maybe she shouldn't. I don't know. I don't know enough about her. But none of these people are being paid by Russia. They don't have to be. They're doing this on their own. And you can look at, like, Tucker Carlson is not a paid agent of Russia.

But the thing is, what would he be doing differently if he were? and the answer is nothing, really. So he's doing the work. Let's throw out being on the Russian payroll. Let's just get rid of that. The point is that he is doing the work in spreading these Russian fairy tales, and he's doing it on his own.

He doesn't need money from them. You know, he married into that. He doesn't need their money. And he brings Glenn Greenwald on every night who is... Right. Who may be paid. Yeah, I mean, that is certainly possible. I can't even.

I know. I don't think he's not paid for it. I know what you're saying, but no. But he's certainly more, he seems even more paid by. I mean, I think that it's important. I think you're right. And, like, ultimately, we need our DOJ, Merrick Garland, if you're listening to this, to fucking investigate Donald Trump.

God damn it. Like, this is what you should be doing. Like, no pressure, but come on. Like, fake electorates. Like, do that shit. We don't need you investigating propaganda. I mean, first of all, it will backfire mightily. I agree with Andy here.

But also the other thing is, like, they're just asking questions, and maybe they're doing it to be contrarian. I mean, it doesn't even matter why they're doing it. What matters is that there needs to be more just transparency in American media and more talking about, you know, whatever debunking of their talking points. Yeah, I mean, and you brought up the biolabs. And, you know, it's been made very clear why Ukraine had biolabs to look into infectious diseases, as most countries do have these labs,

and the fact that trying to make a big deal out of the fact that, well, Ukraine is trying to destroy these labs because they're trying to destroy evidence of weapons. No, they're trying to destroy these labs because there are incredibly dangerous pathogens in them. And that's the first thing you do, if you think there might be an attack on the lab, is you destroy this stuff that if it leaked out into the air,

could kill a lot of people. It's one of those things where your jaw just drops because the truth is so obvious here. And yet somehow Tucker Carlson can have people like Glenn Greenwald on and they can spin entire segments and talk for days about what this might mean. And clearly the American government is lying about this. And it is amazing to me. I am all for not trusting the American government and not taking anything the government says as gospel truth without investigation. It would be nice if they also applied that standard to Russia, a country which sort of has a worse history than us in terms of the government just outright lying, which is not to excuse any of the lies that our government has done throughout the years and decades and centuries. But to sit there and think that the way our government has lied is in any way comparable to what Putin does on a daily basis is insane.

but somehow he gets a free pass, and yet, God forbid, you say that these people are pro-Putton, they will jump down your throat, you know, even though everything they do is basically in defense of him. And it's just unbelievable. How are you not embarrassed if you're Tucker Carlson that your clips are being used by state media of any country, let alone one that just invaded? How are you not embarrassed if you're Tucker Carlson? You can just end the sentence there. I know.

I know. I know. But every once in a while you see something and you think, you know, maybe this should lead to some soul searching, even though you know it won't. Right. The top line of what you're saying is that a lot of these conservatives are not necessarily paid Russian assets. They're just assholes. And so they're taking the Russian propaganda line, not because of a paycheck, but because, you know, it's a little bit subversive and they hate the Democratic president. and the Democratic Congress and the Democratic Senate.

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. You're a lot more concise than I am, Molly. Well, I was just listening to you. So we have an interesting situation here where a theoretically Democratic congresswoman is it more with a theoretically Republican senator, and yet it's not exactly like that. Tulsi Gabbert is a Democrat, sort of,

from Hawaii, very beloved by the right-wing media has recently shown that she got campaign donations from a Russian asset. Confusing, perhaps. And she is being called out by Republican Senator Mitt Romney discuss. Yeah, I guess this sort of goes back to my Anna Navarro thing. So basically, Tulsi, this woman who turned out to be a paid Russian asset donated, I think it was like 50 bucks to Tulsi Gabbard. again, I think this goes back to the point of they don't need to buy these people.

I don't think Tulsi Gabbard, you say what you want about her. She's not cheap. You're not buying her for $50. It's going to cost you a lot more than that. And I think, you know, Mitt Romney is now calling her treasonous. And again, no, she's not. Like, she sucks. She's awful.

And she's a featured CPAC speaker. And nothing she has said is treasonous. It's just stupid. and we have to stop using these words. Treason has a very specific definition, particularly when you're a senator and you're hurling that charge at someone. Mitt should know better than that.

Anna Navarro may not, but Mitch should know better than that. He's a smart guy and he's been around. There's nothing that she has done is treasonous. That's treasonous. She doesn't read people well, I think. I think if we've seen anything in her life, she doesn't really read people well.

I just want to defend Mittens for a minute here. And I'm not saying this as someone who is pro-Mit because I have very mixed feelings about the man, and he did put his dog up on the roof rack. So I've never really gotten over that, but I just want to say, and look, you know, Mitt has had many opportunities. Like Madison Cawthorne is saying worse stuff than Tulsi Gabbur. And he should be calling out Madison Cawthorne, too. and Tucker Carlson.

I mean, there are many, many people that Mitten should be calling out. But Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda. That's indisputable, right? That first line, everybody, that's not even, like, opinion, that's fact. Yes.

Her treasonous lies may well cost lives. Again, treasonous lies, it's not the same as saying she should be hung for treason. Like, I just, I want to defend Mittens. I think he's mad, and that's how a very venerable and elderly statesman of Utah gets mad. But I don't think, you know, I don't think. Is that the Mormon version of cursing?

Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I think he's, you know, I think he can't curse. He's very kind of restrained. I think he was trying to say that the lies were, I mean, again, I am in no way defending him except a little bit. I don't think he was calling for her to be, you know, executed. I think he was more saying, you know, treason-ness for him is the same as saying an F-star-star curse for us. I hear you, Molly, and I see you, and I respect you. And yet.

And yet I find myself saying no. I mostly agree with you. I just think when you're a senator, you have to take a little special care and you can't use a word like treasonous. First of all, we're not at war with Russia, so I'm not sure the treason is against Ukraine, I guess, if anything. If he had just left the word treasonous out, I completely agree that her lives may well cost lives. If he just said that, I would have totally agreed. I just think you got to be careful. With a word like treasonous, when you are a powerful person in a government position, that's my only problem.

Other than that, I think everything Mitt said was correct. As opposed to our favorite Lindsey Graham, reason. tweeted about going to war with Russia. I mean, that was something. Like, again, like what he said about, you know, someone should assassinate Putin. I don't, I'm not saying I disagree with that. I'm just saying you're a sitting U.S. Senator. You're a member of the United States government. You shouldn't be calling for the assassination of a foreign leader. That was amazing stuff. I mean, that's like, yeah, yeah. Like, you're a senator. Like, you can't tweet stuff like that. I mean, It's funny, in a way, like, Trumpism has released everyone into just doing crazy stuff and thinking, well, it might help them with the party.

No, I think that's 100% true. I think this is all, you know, most of this is a function of what happened between 2016 and 2020. The word shit has become common on cable news and bullshit. I have, that is shocking to me. I mean, you know, I'm not, I'm not even saying I'm opposed to it, but it's just, it's a complete and utter sea change from where we. We were, like, I remember, you know, when I was part of the SE Cup on Filter Chill, when Trump said his shithole countries thing. And we had to sit there and we had to get from, you know, should we say shithole? Should we say s-hole? You know, what do we do? Basically, we asked for guidance, which is what we should have done.

And we were told that, you know, it's okay to use it when you're quoting him, but, you know, you don't need to keep saying it over and over again. And now I just see, like, there are guests that come on cable news and they're just like, this is bullshit. And this, I'm like, all right, but all of that. And again, I'm not. even opposed to it. I'm not, you know, I'm not quite old enough to be like, you kids with your language. But four years ago, if you went on cable news and said bullshit, you would never be asked on again. Like, that would be it. It would be the sign, a line in the sand. And now, Yep, I know. So I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right when it comes to, you know, what we see now with people in Congress and other positions like that and what they will,

the language they will use and the things they will tweet. And Lindsey Graham, of all, the guy's been a senator for 74 years, I believe. I think it's a hundred and seventy-four. It might be a hundred seventy-four. Yeah, I know, I guess that's right. And he knows that as a sitting senator, you're not supposed to say someone needs to assassinate a foreign leader. Like, he knows that. But he also knows, like you said, he knows, like he's, I mean, all he's doing, he's sucking up to, you know,

whoever he's sucking up to there. and he just, you know, because the lesson they took from Trump is people want this kind of talk. They want grab them by the pussy kind of talk because that's what makes you look like a tough leader. And that's the lesson they took and that's what we're seeing. So I think you're absolutely right. Incredible stuff. Ellie Mistal is a columnist of the nation and the author of Allow Me to Retort, a Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution. Well, welcome back to the new abnormal Ellie Mistal.

Yeah, thank you for saying welcome back. I'm like, ain't my first rodeo? Certainly not. We're always happy and thrilled to have you. First, I want to talk to you about your brilliant book. Allow me to retort. Talk to me about you write about everything. You're one of the people I go to for my Supreme Court hot takes.

And they're not hot takes. They're really substantive takes, but they are also hot. How do you write a book in the world of five-minute news cycles? Look, this is my first book as well, so the process was a virgin process to me. I didn't know what I was doing. And so that kind of freed me also from having to, you know, well, I'll do it like my grandfathers did, because my grandfather didn't write a book, and he certainly didn't write a book during COVID. I was lucky.

I write for the nation normally. They gave me a month sabbatical to really focus on the book. So it's like 70,000 words, and I wrote, you know, maybe like the first 10,000 just to make sure I knew I was doing, between, let's say, Memorial Day and Labor Day. And then I took a month off in December, and I wrote like 50,000 of them. Jesus. Once I know where I'm going, I kind of, I write pretty fast.

You know, I had the research, most of the research done by the time I hit September in terms of which cases I want to use and that kind of stuff. And so I pumped most of it out in a month, you know, as they say in the business and post-production in January. And then, you know, editing all throughout February, and then it was ready to go. It's almost like a series of long Atlantic articles.

Yeah. Well, that's what we do, man. Right? Because of the format that I chose to go with, kind of going amendment by amendment almost, it lended itself not only nicely to a chapter book, but also just from a 20 or so distinct essays. Right. More self-contained. So what's the best amendment?

No pressure. Oh, yeah. That's easy. 14th. 14. I doubt. I thought you were going to say the second because of that one. But yes, I guess that's a good.

As I write in the book, look, I can write a whole constitution. All I need is the 14th and maybe the first. I can get everything done that I need to get done to have a free, fair, equal, safe society with the 14th and the first. I mean, think about equal protection of laws, right? So that buys me out of so much of white male bull crap right there, right? Boom. Like, you want to have access to your reproductive rights? Well, does a man?

Yes. Well, guess what? Equal protection. We're done here, right? Yeah. You want to own a slave? No. can't do that. Why equal protection? You want to deny somebody housing? No, can't do that. Why equal

protection? If you don't like equal protection, we've got substantive due process in the very next clause of the amendment, right? Boom, substance of due process. That just means things need to be fair, y'all. Do you have to make a reasonable accommodation for a person who has a disability at work? Absolutely. Substantive due process. Boom, we're done, right? So, like, the 14th Amendment, like, does the things. it was written to do the things. If white people would just let it do the things, we'd have a better country. Yeah. What should we do to fix the Supreme Court?

I've asked you this like 50 times. I've asked you this on the podcast, I think the last time you were on. But I feel like we can't get enough of you on this topic. The court needs to be expanded. There is nothing that people want that can happen without Supreme Court approval in this justocracy that we happen to be living. it. The Republicans do a great job of explaining that to their base voters. So base Republican voters know that if they want to keep their guns, they got to keep the Supreme

Court, right? If they want to bully trans children and bathrooms, they need the Supreme Court. Like, whatever it is, these, you know, bigots want to do, they know they need the Supreme Court to do it. But liberals too often do not understand that you need the Supreme Court to do what you want to do. So, you know, take the kerfuffle. And I was going to say current, as if, you know, Biden and the Democrats still care, and I don't know that they still care, but let's pretend that it's a current kerfuffle over voting rights, right? And the desire to pass the John Roberts Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. What makes liberals think that the six three conservative Supreme Court will allow those laws to take effect? Right. It will not.

John Roberts already eviscerated the Voting Rights Act in 2013. What, did he go someplace that I'm not aware of? Like, he's still there to do the same thing with new laws, right? So if you seed control of the Supreme Court to Republicans for a generation, you seed voting rights to them for a generation, you seed LGBTQ rights to them for a generation, and you see climate rights to them for a generation, and there's no getting around that. That means they control what we do about climate until the 2060s. Yeah. And I think that's clearly. Or you put more justices on the court when you have the chance and you say, let's go.

You know, the usual conservative counter argument, well, Republicans will just pack the court. So what? How is that worse? They're up 6.3 now. We make it 13.6. And later they make it 16.30. How is that worse? Right? So I don't care about Republicans repacking the court. In fact, I think packing the court now makes it very hard. for Republicans to control all of government again. Because to control all in government, you need to win elections. And it's hard for Republicans to win elections when Democratic courts allow everybody to vote. So I'm not worried about repacking. You know, me, Molly, I've got to, in the book, I make an argument that we need to add 20 justices. I'm not even...

Well, the thing that I think is so interesting. And I mean, I think it's really an important thing to talk about is that you and I both sort of agree with this. Like, I want to say that we're young, obviously we're not young, but we're younger than the Biden administration. I feel like that older generation is like, well, we're Democrats. So we are, you know, we maintain the status quo and Republicans do crazy stuff. And then we, you know, go back to the middle. And I think that hasn't worked for us as Democrats. And I think it's really time for Democrats to be bold and to think in a bold way as opposed to a defensive way. Do you think I'm right here? Yeah. So one of the analogy that I've made is that if you think of a seesaw, you think about the fact that the

Republicans have put an elephant on one side of the seesaw, right? Yeah. You can't balance the seesaw by standing in the middle. Yeah. You're just going to slide towards the elephant if you do that, right? You balance the seesaw by putting an equal opposing weight on the other side of the seesaw, and you hope it doesn't break. What you don't do is stand in the middle and slide into the elephant's, you know, bosom.

That's silly, right? A big reason why I wrote the book, Molly, is because, you know, one of the criticisms I saw on Goodreads was that, this isn't going to change any minds. This isn't going to convince any Republicans. I wanted to be like, what makes you think that I'm writing for Republicans? I'm like, why are white conservatives convinced that everything in the world is like for them, right? Like, I'm not, I don't care about white conservatives when I write this book. I'm not trying to change their minds.

They're too far gone. And if they weren't too far gone, they're not listening to a black guy with crazy hair. Like, that's just not. Right. I'm writing the book for liberals, almost specifically for white liberals to show them how to fight for our shared values and our shared rights. Because Democrats cede entirely too much legal ground to Republican arguments, too much intellectuals bound ground to Republican arguments, and just too much space in general in our society to Republican BS. And there's no need for it. So, like, I articulate in the book different ways of fighting for things that most people on my side agree with, right?

You want a different way to fight against the Second Amendment than what they've been doing. A different way to fight for abortion rights than what they've been doing. A different way to fight against police brutality than what they've been doing. Stop ceding some of these arguments to these bad faith actors and start fighting for what we believe in because that's what Republicans do. Republicans never, don't miss a day to fight for their culture, war, value. you bull crap? Yeah, it's sort of amazing. And I feel like Democrats are constantly a little bit scared of, you know, expressing their true opinion that everyone should vote. The president of the United States right now cannot say the word abortion. He doesn't want to say the word abortion.

Yeah. Republicans are acting like they are on a crusade to stop a baby Holocaust. And the Democratic president doesn't want to say abortion. And just in case you're wondering, I have an entire chapter titled The Abortion Chapter. Because it's a word. It's a word that we have to fight for. And so, you know, Republicans, we got to stop killing babies, Democrats. It should be safe, legal, and rare. Right. I just, I just think that it's, it needs to be safely going rare. Can I say rare again? Like, what the, what the heck? Like, how is that joining the, you know, taking the field in the trenches against these people? It's not. Talk to me about the most recent conservative justice goes to speak for Republican audience and threatens them about ever-changing the makeup of the court.

Yeah. So Clarence Thomas, who most people know right now, is married to Jenny Thomas. Famous for her work during the January 6th insurrection. Right? Right? Yeah. Married to know the insurrectionist Virginia Thomas goes to the Oren Hatch Center Foundation in Utah to give a speech about how Supreme court justices aren't partisan, which, I mean, come on, dude. Come on, I know, right. You're talking at the Orrin Hatch Foundation, all right, man? Right. Yeah, exactly.

I'm not showing up at the Clinton Foundation to be like, I'm a nonpartisan, I'm just a regular guy. Like, that's not, that's not how that works. Come on. Remember when Amy Comey Barrett went to the McConnell Foundation, she went to the McConnell Center, I'm sorry, to discuss how she was not a quote partisan hack. I was like, oh, okay. Right. With Mitch McConnell sitting right

next to her, by the way. Right. That's right. So Thomas goes to the Orange Hatch Foundation. Let's talk about how Supreme Court is partisan and how we shouldn't expand the Supreme Court. And I'm quoting right now, by doing this, you continue to chip away at the respect of the institutions that the next generation is going to need if they're going to have

a civil society. This man fixed his mouth to talk about chipping away at the respect of the Supreme Court. When his wife is rent and checks all over town for insurrectionists. Like, that's what this man is doing, right? Jane Mayer and the New Yorker, and eventually the New York Times got a clue as well, have both done exposés recently on the 30 years-long career that Clarence Thomas's wife, Virginia Thomas has, working in partisan Republican politics, working for litigants who appear in front of

the Supreme Court, and even literally pinning awards and medals on certain litigants. before they show up to her husband's court. And he wants to talk about institutional respect. The dripping hypocrisy should outrage people before you even get to the stupidity of the statements, right? He says this is a cancel culture attack. I mean, that's another thing, right? Conservatives use this word, like, it can mean anything.

It's just, it's the new Coke, man. They use the word cancel culture to describe anything they don't like at this point, right? Right. I got arrested for stealing a TV. Cancel culture! It's true. I got canceled cultured for stealing the TV. Yeah.

I almost feel like cancel culture at this point is it's almost like a Republican dog whistle. Like it never means anything but a sort of straw man. They've taken any potential meaning out of the phrase. But the audience knows what they're talking about at the same time, right? Right. That's how dog whistles work. They know that they've lost something that they want for a story. some reason and that they should be against it. Right. God forbid, a male in American society ever

faces consequences. God forbid. Right. Exactly. I, again, I want to talk to you about Texas because there are two rulings I want to talk to you about, but what I think is interesting to me about Texas is they really have just decided they're going to make their own laws over there, and that's it. SB 8 went to the Supreme Court. They decided that if they like the substance of the law, they don't care how badly it's written. And so, Dianu, right? And now they kicked it down to the lower courts. The lower court said basically what we thought they would say.

And now that stands. And then we also have this other ruling with the Texas court bullying trans kids. What do you think the substance of what's happening in Texas is? Texas is a rogue state. I've written about this for the nation. it is no longer adhering to the constitutional order. It simply does not think that the laws of the nation apply to it. This is not the first time in society, in America in the history, that we've had a rogue state.

You know, South Carolina, circa 1857, 57, 58, getting pretty roguish. Right. I'm there. Right. Florida, circa 2000, pretty rogue. Yeah. And Texas is in their cups, as the kids say. and has decided that it's just not going to listen to the constitutional order.

When that happens, there are two options for the federal government. One, ignore it, which is what Biden has decided to do. Right. Two, send people to the rogue state to enforce the law. Right. Which Biden has chosen not to do. Now, obviously, I think we should do the latter. A Republican president would have done the latter.

No question. To a Democratic rogue state? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely, right? They would have relished that. It would have given them a chance to look strong and military, you know. Right. They would have goose steps.

Fundraised off it. Right. To Long Island City, if need be, right? Yeah. But we're not sending people to Texas to help American citizens who are being caught in a rogue theocracy. What I've written about for the nation is that we need to send doctors. The key thing that Texas is denying people is medical care. And again, the conservatives, one.

Oh, they want to talk about baby Holocaust. They want to talk about all these culture war issues. No, it's a doctor issue. It's a health care issue. Pregnant people and trans kids need doctors. And Texas won't let them have doctors. So send federal doctors. Right.

And send some police forces to protect those doctors and their patients, if need be, problem fricking solved. But Biden doesn't want to do that. Right. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much, Ellie, and it was great to have you. Thank you so much for having me. Alexander Sherba spent 26 years in Ukrainian diplomatic service, including as Ukraine's ambassador to Austria, and is the author of Undiplomatic Thoughts.

Welcome to the new abnormal, Alexander. Thank you. You have been a diplomat in Ukraine. You're not in Ukraine right now. I am in Ukraine right now. You're somewhere safe, though? Yeah. The last couple of days I'm in Western Ukraine, not in Kiev. What is it like there?

It's not safe anywhere in Ukraine, quite frankly. Today there were three times when the sirens were wailing. The other day, there was a big bombardment of a military object. He in the neighborhood, Russians shot 20 rockets in this direction, and 35 people were dead, 200. wounded. So it's the new abnormal in Ukraine right now. Yeah. I mean, are you surprised at how well the Ukrainian military has resisted the Russian invasion? Oh, everything about this war is surprising, starting with the fact that it began, because the reason why Ukrainians, including President

Zelensky, seemed to be skeptical about it from the very beginning. until the last day was that this war makes no sense. The goals that Putin is pursuing here are unreachable. He is trying to conquer a country that hates him, and during this war, he will only reach that this country hates him much, much more, plus people start hating Russia, which wasn't the case for at least half of the population. The day before it all started, I had a conversation with a member of parliament who said there is no chance. We will hold through at best 72 hours. It's one of the best armies in the world.

I said, well, we have 200,000 men with combat experience who are ready to fight. It can't be that fast. He said, you don't understand how formidable this army is to the north. And then this whole thing starts, and we see, A, that Ukrainians are extremely, you know, capable of stopping the enemy and extremely motivated. And the enemy is not as formidable as the thought. Yeah, that seems to me like a kind of humongous miscalculation on the part of Putin. Do you think that's true? I want you to understand the context of the Ukrainian-Russian relations since centuries. Russians always saw Ukrainians as a part of the Russian people,

just who for some reason choose to speak this funny dialect, who are peasants inferior to them. Yes, they have beautiful folk songs, yes, the women are beautiful, yes, the food is delicious, but other than that, they are not worthy of respect, they're hillbillies. This is the context. And then, of course, two decades of Putin's propaganda preaching that Russia is unstoppable, Russian army is the best. And it seems like Putin fell victim to his own propaganda,

seems he still is, quite frankly, because I'm not sure how much of the reality he is aware of right now. Yeah, let's talk about that because when this invasion started, I thought to myself, and again, I don't know, you know, this is very far out of my window of expertise, but what I was reading and what I was watching on television was this idea that this very well-trained army would decimate this country rather quickly. And I'm just curious, you have been involved in so much international diplomacy and international relations. How much do you think that Putin is actually getting of what's happening right now? So there has been this very revealing article in New York Times last week by Zieghar. That's one of the best experts on intimate circle of the Kremlin. He writes that basically Putin was never a very open person who received information from various circles.

He doesn't use Internet. He is very much a 20th century leader who receives only this debriefs on paper that is prepared by very close circle of his confidantes. and this became extreme during the pandemic where the circle of people who were accessible or had access to him became especially close and apparently there is only one of his friends from the KGB time Yuri Kvalchuk who is close to him and they spent weeks, months, talking to each other

and, you know, concocting these, you know, plans of world domination. It sounds more and more like insanity, you know. And quite frankly, he made this statement recently that he found out

that not only a contract soldiers, but also drafted soldiers were involved in this campaign and he will punish each and every one who is responsible for that, but probably something is leaking to him.

But there are thousands of these, you know, drafted soldiers. Maybe he doesn't understand how much, how widespread it is in their army. And this young boys, mostly they have no idea what they are doing in Ukraine. They come with this conviction that they would see two categories of people here, the Nazis, and people eager to be liberated. And he sees neither. They see neither of those two categories. These are people who have normal lives who are not Nazis and who are ready to fight. And they are extremely demotivated. So let's keep going on this thinking. Now we're seeing clearly Putin must know the war is going somewhat badly because he, I mean, if this reporting is right, Russia has gone to China for backups. And they want foreign. soldiers involved. So clearly, Putin must see some of this. Can you explain to our listeners

what the landscape looks like and who will help Putin and who you don't think will? Well, I think pretty much everybody outside this, you know, very, very close circle around Putin understands that this campaign is going down the drain. Just even Lukashenko, at least his generals, should realize, because judging from the reluctance of Belarus to send any manpower towards Ukraine, probably they understand that either. We received this report that soldiers from Crimea refused to be deployed in Odessa to fight for Adessa. Simply the ships, the warships approached the coast and then all of a sudden stopped and turned

away. And so we in Ukraine were clueless what was happening. And then it turns out that soldiers starting to realize where they are being sent refused to. So if even Russian or Crimean soldiers, the Russian soldiers, are refusing to get involved, why would China want to get involved to hitch their bandwagon to this campaign? The other day there was this article in one of the pundits in China published it, elaborating quite clearly that it would be extremely damaging for China to get involved with something so badly prepared and so badly organized and so badly motivated.

So what would be the reasoning? But again, there are so many things real about this whole events of the last almost three weeks. I wouldn't exclude in that that China for some reason would get involved. Where do you think this goes now? Putin has two ways ahead of him. Either he destroys Ukraine, and so turns Kiev and Kharkiv and all our beautiful cities to Aleppo, and then withdraws, or he withdraws without doing that,

because he cannot accomplish here anything. These people don't want him. The soldiers are ready to fight until the last drop of blood here, Ukrainians, and Russian soldiers increasingly are clueless about what they are doing here. So what remains to him is rely on. shelling on bombardments because it's much easier, easier, you know, they have absolute superiority in the air. So they would just bombard it.

It's easier to, you know, bombard cities without facing any risk or facing little risk or then go into face-to-face combat with big, big likelihood that you would be, you know, shot down, down, blown up. So these are two ways ahead of him. I hope I hope that he hasn't lost completely his sanity and would choose for some kind of diplomatic solution. But on the other hand, everything he has been doing so far is so insane that nothing, well, it's better to assume the worst. It's interesting because you are seeing in the Russian separatist areas, the cities that Russia has continuing to bombard, that the Ukrainian people are not having it.

What do you mean? The Russian separatist areas, the areas that Russia has occupied in 2015? Yes, that you're seeing they're sort of, from those areas, they're sort of pushing out into, like, Maripold. Do you want to explain to our listeners what's happening in Maripold? Well, Maripal is one of the most ethnic Russian cities, one of most Russian-speaking cities in Ukraine. so it's supposed to be an easy target for Putin's troops and all of a sudden they are fighting like hell there. Moscow says it's because nationalists are there. So it's not quite true.

There are some nationalists, you know, units there, but there are many people from eastern Ukraine who just understand that if Mariupil falls, then it would be big likelihood. that Ukraine would be cut off from big part of its considerable part of its Black Sea coast and Odessa would be under siege. People are fighting there and Putin unable to do anything about it. He is turning it into inferno.

I mean, we have, according to Ukrainian sources, there are over 12,000 dead Russians in this war. and people think it's probably overestimated. Naturally, nobody knows for sure how many dead people are, but when you listen to this intercepts from conversations of Russian soldiers with their parents or with their dear ones, practically in every conversation they speak about, my whole unit is gone, my whole regiment is gone.

Out of 1,500 people, there are 300 alive. It just seems like they are really, really losing a lot of manpower specifically there in Marie Uppel, also in other places, of course. But this is very important because of the Black Sea coast and because Russia wants to gain ground in proximity to Crimea. Yeah, it seems like it. So what do you think Ukraine needs from the United States right now? Give us the ways to defend our skies. I understand that you don't want to close the skies, but then give us a fight.

jets, give us air defense systems, modern. I mean, you are really the most sophisticated, advanced army military power in the world. You have supplied us with the anti-tank rockets, these famous javelins, and they were amazing. They really made so much difference in this war. And it's just one piece of modern machinery from the United States. If you give us more of what you have, we could really, especially to defend our skies, we could really beat Putin here. We could really turn around the flow of history here.

Just have a little bit courage. Help us with modern weapons. Thank you so much for joining us. This was amazing. Thank you for inviting me. What's crazier than QAnon, more outland. Bendish than Pizza Gate and scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz? The answer is what the American right wing has planned next.

Be one of the first to listen to Fever Dreams, new podcasts from The Daily Beast, tracking the conspiracy slingers, orange acolytes, and straight-up grifters pushing to retake power. Every Wednesday hosts Swin Subisang and Will Summer, checking in on the movement of the radical right. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts, or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed.

That's Fever Dreams, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Andy Levy. Molly Jongfest. Who is your fuck that guy? My fuck that guy is a titan of industry who reminds a lot of people

of the Marvel superhero known as Iron Man, aka Tony Stark. And they often forget that Tony Stark is a dick. But I'm talking, of course, of Elon Musk, who has taken a break from developing self-driving cars that will more than likely end up in a lot of deaths. Can I say that? He's doing his other, his non-paying job, which is shit posting

on Twitter. So he had two tweets in the span of two hours, I believe. One, he said, I hereby challenge Vladimir Putin. He used Russian, he used Cyrillic characters to spell out Vladimir Putin, by the way. He said, I hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to single combat. Stakes are Ukraine. So he wants to fight Vladimir Putin. And if he wins, I would like to think that means Ukraine is free. But what I think it means is that Elon Musk gets Ukraine, first of all. Second of all, he is basically taking it upon himself.

I know we're treating this with more seriousness that we should, but he's such an idiot that we just have to. So if he loses, Putin gets Ukraine. Should the Ukrainian have a say in this? Like, don't they get to pick a champion? And maybe they can pick, like, The Rock or John Senna or someone like that, as opposed to little mushy Elon Musk. Let's let the Ukrainians decide this one.

And his other tweet is just, because he's, you know, he's part of the anti-woke brigade. and his other tweet was sort of a meme type thing that had a, well, I'll read it first. It said, a mushy-headed guy. Yeah, it had a picture of a dude that looks, I guess, pregnant or something like that. I can't really tell. And above it, he described the picture as Netflix waiting for the war to end to make a movie about a black Ukraine guy falls in love with a transgender Russian soldier. and I'm just reading this and I'm like, by the way, that's 773,000 likes on Twitter.

Yeah. If you're one of those likes, it might be time for a little introspection. It might be. They sit there and they complain that, you know, oh, we shouldn't be teaching people about trans people and we shouldn't be trans people need to do this. That's all they talk about. That's all they talk about. Like, you know, no transgender person is calling for Netflix to make a movie about a transgender Russian soldier. This is all in your head, buddy.

You know, the fact that this guy runs major industries, including space X, which I sort of at least used to really like, because I do think we need to go to space. But it just bums me out so much because he's just such a horrible, horrible human being. On a very personal level, I would like to say, fuck this guy, Molly. I mean, he is really a candidate for why some people should never have Twitter. I went and did a tour of Tesla the company a long time ago and thought, like, this guy's a genius. And now, what, wow, blah. Maybe there should be, like, if you make a certain, if you're worth a certain amount of money, you're not allowed on social media. A modest proposal.

I did happen to notice this, that the news came on the same day that the mother of his children is dating a transgender person. And I know he's very good friends with one Kanye West now. I feel like that friendship might be rubbing off on him. and putting out aggressions in your personal life onto social media. You know what? I didn't even think of that. That's actually an excellent analysis, Jesse. So my fuck that guy is not a guy. She's a woman.

She's married to the worst Supreme Court justice. Is he the worst? I think he's the worst. Yeah, I guess he is. I mean, it's hard because Alito continues. But I still think maybe he's not as bad as Alito, but he's tied. One, Ginny Thomas, she's married to Clarence Thomas. There's been long speculation about what her involvement with the January 6th insurrection was.

Today, she just went out, gave an interview to the Washington Free Beacon, which is basically a Republican Oposhop. And she said to them, you know, I was there. I didn't give them any money. I didn't pay for the buses, which I guess is. good, but I was there. I got cold, and then I went home. Okay. I mean, talk about saying the fucking quiet part loud, you know, and she said, well, we have the same in this interview. She said, Clarence and I have the same opinions, but we don't, you know, we don't talk about her work together. I guess her work is insurrection and his work is Supreme Court. So, I mean, seems like

could be problematic. Again, I would hate to, Cassidy. aspersions, but she definitely gets a hearty fuck you from me. There's a couple of things I really like about this story. One is she got too cold to uphold her principles. I like that a lot. I was there to protest something I feel very strongly about, but I got cold. I enjoyed that. And then the fact that she says that they do not talk about their work at home, I'm not

married, but that strikes me as, A, not a common thing in a marriage, and B, not a good thing in a marriage. Well, I'm just saying that Matt Greenfield and I never talk to each other, but if we did, we would certainly not talk about the insurrection that I was involved in. So basically, he gets home from the Supreme Court and she says, how is your day? And he says, oh, fine. And he says, how about yours? She said, oh, fine. And that's the extent of their work, of their discussion of how their day was. My guess is that he comes home from the Supreme court and she says, how was it? And he says, I'm not at liberty to speak to you about this. I'm not at liberty to speak to you about this, but your clients will be very happy.

Exactly. Wink, wink. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from the Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science. will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studied the Daily Beast podcast at

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