The Daily Show: Ears Edition - David E. Sanger Unpacks America's Delusion About Russia and China

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

David E. Sanger, White House and National Security Correspondent, sits down with Jon Stewart to discuss his new book, "New Cold Wars," and how America miscalculated Russia and China's power after the fall of the Soviet Union.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Finding great candidates to hire can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. You might get a lot of resumes, but not enough candidates with the right skills or experience. But not with Zip Recruiter. Zip Recruiter finds amazing candidates for you fast. And right now you can try it for free at Zip Recruiter's smart technology. Sip Recruiters' smart technology identifies to the talent for your roles quickly. Immediately after you post your job, zip recruiters powerful matching technology starts showing you qualified people for it, and you can use zip recruiters pre-written invite to apply message to personally reach out to your favorite candidates and encourage them to apply sooner.

Ditch the other hiring sites and let zip recruiter find what you're looking for, the needle in the haystack. Four out of five employers who post on zip recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free at this exclusive web address. Zip Recruiter.com slash zip. Again, that's zip recruiter.com. Zip recruiter, the smartest way to hire. Hey, everybody, John Stewart here. I am here to tell you about my new podcast. The Weekly Show. It's going to be coming out every Thursday. So exciting. You'll be saying to yourself, TGID. Thank God it's Thursday.

We're going to be talking about all the things that hopefully obsess you in the same way that they obsess me. The election. Economics. Earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're going to be talking about ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. And I know that I listed that fourth, but in importance it's probably second. I know you have a lot of options as far as

podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? I mean, talk about innovative. Listen to the weekly show with John Stewart, wherever you get your podcast. You're listening to Comedy Central. The Daily Show is taking a break this week, but don't worry. We have some specially selected episodes from the archives just for you. The Daily Show will be back with brand new episodes next week. In the meantime, enjoy today's episode. Welcome back to the Daily Show, Mike, it's tonight. A White House, a national security correspondent for the New York Times.

His latest book is called New Cold Wars, China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's struggle to defend the West. Please welcome back to the program. David Zanger. Sir. You wrote another paper. You wrote another paper. New Co-Warce. David, first of all, thank you. It's nice to see you again. Good to be here.

Is the premise that the United States did a poor job of managing risk after the fall of the Soviet Union? Well, we certainly made a lot of false assumptions, bad assumptions. That doesn't sound the way. No. Nah, wouldn't be us. Wouldn't be us. And the fundamental argument of the book is that we believed somehow, we deluded ourselves, John, into believing that China and Russia, each for their own different

reasons, would like just sign up to the Western world. But we were going to go say, look, we got this whole thing figured out. All you guys do is come in here and sign on the dotted line. Right. We're going to do a rules-based democratic foundation order and everybody would be cool with it. And that was supposed to be the end of history. And that was supposed to's the end of history. Western liberalism is triumphant and we can all just skate on the glorious booty that we get from it. Right now you can't blame just him because there were a lot of other people who believe it.

Okay and I signed on to a little bit of this myself so I confess but I got to tell you this basically went on for but I got to tell you this basically went on for 30 years good 25 anyway because we were busy doing the wars on terror you were just talking about those a little while you talk about in the book there's a lot of stories of how George Bush thought that there would be a great reproachment with Putin over their shared dislike of of terrorism and the two of them I mean there's stories in there that that th. th. th. th. th. th. th. their their their their their their their their their their their their their. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the the the the the the to the the the the the the the the the the the the the the. terrorism. And the two of them, I mean, there's stories in there that come out of James Bond. You're on a yacht with George Bush and Putin, and they've just seen a very dark version of the nutcracker.

It's the dark nutcracker. You're like, I bet Bush really enjoyed that. I'm sure he loves anything, hi. So this was 2002. We were in St. Petersburg. We were floating down the Neva River. They're in a great party boat. There's this guy certainly. Wait, you were floating down the river with him. I was floating down in the boat behind it. We weren't even as well. What are you like tubing? They're in a y' the tubing. The White House reporters do, isn't it's th. th. th. That's, th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. reporters do, isn't it? We too. No, no, no, we were in the pools, just this side, the pool was a river.

All right, okay. So, so we're following him down. And there's this guy serving dinner. He's kind of big and hulking. It turns out it's Progosion. Okay. Pregosian, the head of the terrible army. Well, at the time, he was Putin chef. OK? His only job was make sure the meals were good.

And he had really glowering look. Wait, wait, wait. So he's like Bobby Flay. And then he turns into the head of a mercenary army. Well before he did that, he ran the Internet Research Agency and tried to fix the 2016 election with disinformation. You know, they really are Renaissance men. It really is.

That's talent. That's talent. So now, this appears to be going along until George Bush wants them to go after Islamic terrorism and then at that point Putin wants them to go after Chechnya. Right, or at least Putin wants to use the excuse to go after Chechnya. That was the beginning of Bush beginning to think, you know, maybe this guy isn't the one we thought he was. He looked into his soul. Yeah, well, you know, he may have looked at the wrong soul. So, so in 2007, Putin shows

up at this thing called the Munich Security Conference, and he says, you know, there are parts of Russia that have been separated from us that really belong to us, that to the Russia that Peter the Great created. And remember, Putin isn't trying to recreate the Soviet Union. He thinks the guys who ran the Soviet Union were idiots were tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho to recreate the Soviet Union. He thinks the guys who ran the Soviet Union were idiots. You go into his office, he's got a big bust of Peter the Great there. So who do you think he thinks he is? Forgozion. No, no, no, Peter the Great. How do we miss all of this? And even if we had been on to it, what would we have done

differently? So first it was a combination of sort of bad intelligence, wishful thinking. Oh sure, he's going to be troublesome, but at the end of the day he cares about his oil exports, his gas exports, more than he really cares about this. And look, up until the weekend before, the invasion happened, there's a story of Crimea. No, the invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine. Okay. In 2022. So this is not, this all past 2014. Yeah, 2014 comes. He takes Crimea. Obama says, I'm not going to war for something that used to belong to Russia. Nobody does sanctions for a year, right? And the next year, the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, signs the Nord Stream 2 agreement.

It creates this pipeline that runs from Russia around Ukraine, so it doesn't get any revenue from it, and straight into Europe. And he says, she says, you know, Putin's a reliable supplier. He's realistic. Yeah, right. Okay. Reasonable assumption, maybe, because he really hadn't cut off gas supplies. So what happens next? Seven years later, he goes after full-on Ukraine. The US reveals the intelligence in starting in the late fall.

They get this remarkable intelligence. They send Bill Burns, the CIA director, who used to be ambassador to Russia to say, this would be a really bad idea. And Bill Burns, the CIA director, who used to be ambassador to Russia, to say, this would be a really bad idea. Putin says, oh, I'm not, you know, I'm not doing anything. And the weekend before, everybody's back in Munich, and there are a bunch of Europeans saying to me and everybody else, oh, he's not really going to invade. He's just bluffing.

He wouldn't risk his oil revenues. Four days later, he invades. The intelligence chief for Germany was in Kiev the morning of the invasion. They had to evacuate him, because he didn't believe they would invade. So what did he think that noise was? He got out of town kind of fast. So, this is all hindsight though.

In truth, what could we other, when someone is imperialistic in that way, what can other powers do short of an actual shooting war to prevent these kinds of things? There's no guarantee that tougher sanctions after Crimea would have deterred him? It sounds like this is kind of his destiny, and he's fulfilling that destiny, come hell or high water. So that's the other piece of this, which is we impose our values on Russia, China, and we think, well, we're not going to do something that would get in the way of our economic interest.

Neither would they. So China's a really interesting example. Xi Jinping comes in more than 10 years ago. Joe Biden spent a lot of time with him, traveled around with him, but the intelligence reports of as she are, this guy's not going to challenge the West. He's going to tend to his economy, make sure all is good, right? We now discover, and you read about in the book, there are these secret speeches that he gave almost as soon as he came into office saying, we're going to build up our nuclear forces to the size of the Russians and the Americans. We're going to make sure that we take our claims in the South China Sea.

I was out in the Rose Garden of the White House when she came to visit and promised everybody he wasn't going to militarize these islands. They're building in the South China Sea. A year or two later, you look on satellite photographs, there are fighter jets showing up on the islands. Kind of looks like military resistance. Well, that's just convenience. Yeah.

Are we lying to them? Or are we lying to ourselves? I think more to ourselves. So you know, we did not want to conceive of a world in which we were back in superpower conflict. We wanted to live in the world in which the U.S. was the predominant power. We finally calmed down the Middle East, or doing real well with that. And that we could go and focus on competing with China, some containment of Russia.

And you know, Biden happened to be the one sitting in the office, sitting in office, when this all fell apart. And most of the book is a story of what happens when that fell apart. It's the story of how there's operasia nuclear plant in Ukraine, the biggest nuclear plant in Europe, suddenly everybody's afraid is going to become the Zopo-Resa nuclear plant in Ukraine, the biggest nuclear plant in Europe, suddenly everybody's afraid is going to become the world's biggest thirty bomb. Yeah, right.

And there's an amazing story right from New York City two years ago, October of 2022, when President Biden shows up at a fundraiser at James Murdoch's house. They're nice New Yorkers. Not familiar with the last name, but go ahead. Yeah. He's actually sort of the black sheep of the family. He's the Democrat who raises money for for Biden, among others. So they're, you know, nice New Yorkers walking around with their wine looking at

his art collection. The president comes in and says, by the way, we're going through something that is the closest to nuclear war we've had since the Cuban Missile Crisis. They're all looking at each other like he drops that at a cocktail party? I'm sure they all thought that it was really the moment to get out to the Hamptons, don't you think? He drops that and then is like, do you guys have brie? Like what? He does actually, people in the White House were amazing? th... th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the, the their, th. the, the, their, their, their, their, their, their their their their their all all, their their all, their all, their all, their all, their all, their all, their their their, their, their, their, their, their, their, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. their their their their the He does, actually, people in the White House were amazing. They now call it his Armageddon speech, because he had, it just said the same thing in the Oval Office. Right. Then that he turned everybody and go,

and my word is, don't. That's his big thing now. He tells, he trying to find a needle in a haystack. You might get a lot of resumes, but not enough candidates with the right skills or experience. But not with Zip Recruiter. Zip Recruiter finds amazing candidates for you fast. And right now you can try it for free at Zip Recruiter's smart technology identifies top talent for your roles quickly. Immediately after you post your job, Zip Recruiters' powerful matching technology starts

showing you qualified people for it, and you can use Zip Recruiter's pre-written invite to apply message to personally reach out to your favorite candidates and encourage them to apply sooner. Ditch the other hiring sites and let Zip Recruit find what you're looking for, the needle in the haystack. Four out of five employers who post on Zip Recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free at this exclusive web address, Zip Recruiter. the smartest way to hire.

It's been said that Nice Skies Finish last, but is that really true? I'm Tim Harford, host of the Cautionary Tales podcast, and I'm exploring that very question. Join me for my new miniseries on the Art of Fairness. We'll travel from New York to Tahiti to India on a quest to learn how to succeed without being a jerk. We'll examine stories of villains undone by their villainy and monstrous self-devaring egos and delve into the extraordinary power of decency. We'll face mutiny on the vast Pacific Ocean, blaze a trail with a pioneering skyscraper and dare to confront a formidable empire.

The art of fairness on cautionary tales. Listen on the IHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. John Stewart here, unbelievably exciting news. My new podcast, The Weekly Show. We're going to be talking about the election, economics, ingredient to bread ratio, on sandwiches. Listen to the weekly show with John Stewart, wherever you get your podcast. Haven't we sowed the seeds of this with our own arrogance and cavalier approach to a lot of these foreign

policy conflicts. A, we always frame things as, this is a battle between democracy and the free world and liberation and authoritarianism. But the truth is, we're fighting for trade channels and resources. Like, this is all a function of competing capitalist powers, and aren't we the ones, I mean, we've invaded more countries than Russia and China combined. So, how do we give ourselves somehow the past as the white hat guys when a lot of our policy has created a lot of the chaos that they're

taking advantage of. It's... I'm done, I'm out of here. So, there's been a lot of that going on in American history for a long time. Teddy Roosevelt, you know, took over his fair share of territory. But I think in the Biden administration we've had to sort of face these contradictions. Because at the beginning of the administration, the president was saying, just what you said.

This is a battle between democracy and autocracy. And everyone says, OK, that's pretty clean. Then he goes to Saudi Arabia. Does the fist bump with MBS, right? And I was on that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's th. that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's their that's that's their their their their their their their their their. their. their. their is is their. their. their. their. their. theirse. theirse. theirse. theirse. theirse. theirse. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thiiiiiiii. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th Saudi Arabia, does the fist bump with MBS, right? And I was on that trip, they weren't quite sure how that was going to. Are you ever home? No. When you cover the White House, you've got to go where the president goes, as part of the job. And then, you know, we move on to what's been happening in Israel and the Israel Hamas war. And as you said earlier, we are in the very odd position of both providing aid and providing

the arms that are being dropped on Gaza. And I think this administration has had the hardest time trying to go right that, and obviously is causing a lot of pain not not only for Gazans, but for people in the administration who are having a hard time living with it. Would it simplify our position if we stopped pretending our morals were beyond the reproach of all these other countries? Would it help us to not have to scold everybody for failing to live up to principles that we very clearly do not uphold. Well, at least we have some principles, okay? That's the one thing to be said.

But we say that, but you know, you can't invade a country. What happened in Iraq? That's right. You can't call for regime change. What did we do in Libya? Every time we say these things, we undercut our own position with, I mean, for God's sakes, Iran is an enemy today because we overthrew their democratically elected government in 1953. So at what point do we just admit that this is how we're behaving? The odd thing is, at the moment that presidents do admit that, they get chewed up for admitting to American error. Obama went and apologized to the Iranians. I'm not saying apologize.

I'm just saying, like, take off the mask and go, you know what this is, it strikes me as, it's colonialism and imperialism in a more modern form. China is in Africa, trying to extract, we're trying to extract, we're militarizing economic rivalries and creating all kinds of chaos and death over what is ostensibly trying to get better deals. Well some of it's better deals, some of it is protecting technology and I argue in here that with China as opposed to Russia, this is, first of all, this is an incredible competitor, and it's a competitor in the military sphere, in the

technology sphere, in finance, in economic... And we're their best customer. And they are ours. And that's really what makes this different from the old Cold War. So a reason there's new in new cold wars, and there's a reason there's an S at the end. First of all, we're fighting two simultaneously. The old Cold War, that wasn't the case.

Is fighting the wrong terminology, because isn't that, look, the only people that never lose a war are the military industrial complex, are the people that sell the weapons. And if we continue to, if we continue to push that, you know, weaponization of these economic rivalries, aren't we just playing into that cycle? We are playing into the cycle, but if you're in a world in which vacuums happen, if we say, okay, we're done with this, you're going to go back and build our big walls and sort of recede from it, someone fills that space. And that space is going to get filled largely by China, some by Russia, some by other authoritarian regimes. And so we've got to make a really hard and bad choice, which is do we want to be

the one trying to fill that void with our technology and our principles, understanding that we violate them all the time. Or do we want to let an authoritarian regime go fill that space, which we know how that's going to look? It seems like what we should do is be honest about what our aims are in the way that China went into Africa and did Belt and Road, knowing that really it's about cobalt and lithium, and rather than us going into Africa and just building up all these small military

hunters that end up creating all those dictatorships that create so much chaos and pain for those countries. Well I'd argue that now we're not doing it with cobalt, we're doing it with semiconductors, right? So the big story that that th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, that th, th, that th, th, really, th, th, really, th, really, th, th, really, really, th, really, thi, really, really, really, really, thi, really, really, thi, really, thi, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, thi, really, thi, thi, thi, thi, really, thi, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really th, really th, really th, really th, really th, really th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi thi thi thi thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi. thi. the thi. thi. they. they. thi. they's thi. they's they's thi. the the the the the thi. thi for those countries. Well, I'd argue that now we're not doing it with cobalt, we're doing it with semiconductors, right? So the big story that we tell in here, went to Taiwan, spent a lot of time at Taiwan semiconductor, which is the biggest producer of the most advanced semiconductors in the world, and looked at the question, does that create a silicon shield for the United States and for Taiwan? In other words, that the Chinese would not dare take over Taiwan because they would

lose access to Taiwan semiconductor. When are we going to learn? Any sentence that begins with, would they dare? Yes. They would dare. And so would we. And so, and so my argument here is, it's a Silicon Shield for a little wild, John, but eventually the Chinese are going to learn how to make everything Taiwan semiconductors making.

And at that moment, we've got a real Taiwan crisis. And so the book is sort of a warning ahead to what these next 20 or 30 years are going to look like. Because this is not a world in which these new Cold Wars are going to look like. Because this is not a world in which these new cold wars are going to end sometime soon. They are going to be the dominant theme of the next 2030, 40 years. Long after Putin and she are gone, and long after Joe Biden and Donald Trump are gone.

I don't believe that last part. The Trump's never leaving? I think the two of them, honestly, it'll be like 2084. And they'll be like, it's another Biden-Trump rematch. I can't believe it. Two heads in a jar. New Cold Warms. It is available now.

Explore more shows from the Daily Show Podcast Universe by searching the Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Fairmount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast. John Stewart here. Unbelievably. Unbelievably exciting news. My new podcast, The Weekly Show. We're going to be talking about the election.

Economics. Ingredient to Bread Ratio on sandwiches. Listen to the weekly show with John Stewart. Wherever you get your podcast.