The Daily Show: Ears Edition - From the Archives: Julia Ioffe - Figuring Out "What Putin Really Wants"

Episode Date: August 24, 2018

The Atlantic's Julia Ioffe discusses why Russian President Vladimir Putin may be having buyer's remorse about Donald Trump's election. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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And don't try to tell me you don. There's no excuses. Just download it and watch it. My guest tonight is a journalist who covers politics and foreign policy for the Atlantic. Her upcoming cover story is titled, What Putin Really Wants. Please welcome. Julia Yaffe. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Let's get straight into it. What Putin wants? It feels like Vladimir Putin got what he wanted, or is Donald Trump not what he wanted? Well, he was what he wanted and now he's having a little bit of buyer's remorse.

The thing about Vladimir Putin is we think of him as this omniscient omnipotent supervillain mastermind who's very detail-oriented but actually he thinks in very short-term ways and then he a lot of his victories are actually Pyrrhic victories and like you saw what happened with the Olympics today. Right, you know we find out that Russia basically had this elaborate plan to get every single one of the athletes duping and get their their their, like their, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, their, their, their, their, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, their, their, their, their, and, and, their, and, and, and, their, their, and, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, Russia basically had this elaborate plan to get every single one of their athletes doping and get them into the Olympics and now they're going to be banned because of it or could be banned because of it. Is this basically how Russia rolls with everything?

It's like cheating elections, cheating Olympics, everything they do? Is that a Putin though? Is that a Russian thing? It's like a cultural thing. Is this like a cultural thing? Yeah I mean you live in a society where everything is kind of stacked against you like the laws are all written in a way that there is a law to contradict every single other law and you can get in trouble at any point so you have to survive by constantly kind of getting around things and at the government level I don't

know this Olympic thing reminded me of of talking to an old CIA guy who used to work on Russia stuff. And he was like, the Russians were always playing three-dimensional chess and devising these elaborate operations. And we were off being the US. We're like, well, whatever, who cares about you guys. But you had to kind of let them know that you saw them doing the 3D chess. , the chess, the chess, the, the, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th. you had to kind of let them know that you saw them doing the 3D chess, otherwise they'd get really upset and do worse stuff.

You just have to be like, wow, that's really nice. Good job. So these sound less like spies and more like toddlers. Wow! Look at you rigging our elections. Wow. Good job. Yeah, that's all you got to the Russia as teenage boy theory. Oh, interesting. So they're just like, how do they see it though from their side?

Because I mean, everyone absorbs the story from the side of the world. What do Russians think about what Russia may or may not have done in America's election? I think the way they see it, they think that we've lost our damn minds, which we have a little bit. So even the people who acknowledge that the Russians interfere in in our elections, which they did. We know they did. Right. Even those Russians are like, come on, we didn't, I mean, we didn't throw your election. You guys created Trump.

You created Fox News. You created Steve Bannon. You created a stupid electoral college. You created a racist backlash to the first black president. And they're totally right, you know? Donald, the Russians didn't create any of that, and the Russians didn't make, you know, 60-some million people vote for him.

And we have to take a hard look at ourselves and ask ourselves why he's our president. It's interesting you say that because it feels like there is a disconnect at times between print journalism and television, but it is difficult to get people into a story that is the weeds of what percentage of which tax cut will go to which person. Do you think people could do a better job of that? Do they have to ignore the Russia story and go, Michael Flynn's not a big thing? Oh no, no, it is a big thing. We have a hostile foreign government who interfered in one of the most sacred things, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, thiii, thi, thi, thi, thi, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, theyy.e, is, is, is, theyymea, wo, is, wo, woomome, wo, wo, is, wo, is, the, is, is, is, one of the most sacred things we do as a country, right? And we have to get to the bottom of that, we have to figure out who did what that was illegal, especially if there was then an obstruction of justice.

And we have to think about it as a national security issue as opposed to, will this story, will this headline make Trump resign tomorrow? Interesting. Looking at it as a national security story, and not, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we th. th. th. th, th. We th. th. thi, thi, we have, we have, we have thi, we have thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, tho, and thi, we have thi, and tho, and tho, and we have tho, and we have tho, and we have tho, we have tho, we have tho, we have tho, we have tho, we have th. We have th, we have th, we have th, we have th, we have th, we have th, we have th. We have th. We have th. We have thi, thi, thi, thi, and we have thi, and we have thi, and thin thin, and thin, and thin, and thin, and thin, and thin, and thoooooooooooooooomorou thi thi thi thi thi thi th headline make Trump resign tomorrow? Interesting. Looking at it as a national security story and not as will he resign tomorrow. You don't think he'll quit? Mm-hmm. After the tax cuts? I don't think he'll quit if he's not reelected. Oh wow.

Wow, that was terrifying. I just got goosebumps in a bad way. Thank you very much for that. Thank you so much for coming to the show. Please come back and there once again. What Putin really wants is in the January, February show of the Atlantic, which will be out next week. Julia Yaffe, everybody. The Daily Show with Kevnoa, ears edition. Watch the Daily Show, weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central and Comedy Central app. Watch full episodes and videos at the Daily Show.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and subscribe to the Daily Show on YouTube

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