The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Appealing to the Swing States + How to Be a Better Negotiator

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

Jessica Tarlov joins us again to discuss what happens now that Biden is out of the race. We hear why we should be bullish on Kamala Harris, be sad about the way Biden had to bow out, and get excited about the election. Follow Jessica’s reporting @JessicaTarlov.  We’re then joined by Chris Voss, the former lead FBI hostage negotiator and bestselling author of, “Never Split The Difference.” He shares how negotiation plays a role in all aspects of our lives.  Algebra of Happiness™: separate the person from their politics.  Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice Buy "The Algebra of Wealth," out now. Follow the podcast across socials @profgpod: Instagram Threads X Reddit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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NMLS 1617539. Episode 309. 309 is the area code covering parts of illinois in 1909 conda nast was founded true story my wife called me in a panic and said i found these weird snm and bondage magazines under our son's bed and said what should we do and i'm like it's obvious what we should do and she said well what and i said spank them go, go! Welcome to the 309th episode of the Prop G Pod. In today's episode, we speak with Chris Voss, the CEO and co-founder of Black Swan Group and former lead FBI hostage negotiator. Jesus, that's a good rep. What do you do? I'm the lead FBI hostage negotiator. Jesus, that's a good rep. What do you do? I'm the lead FBI hostage negotiator.

Okay. We are massive fans of Chris and hear his take on how negotiation plays into all aspects of our lives, including politics, war, and relationships. But first, we're bringing back our favorite, our gangster, the emerging political voice, the leader, the pundit we need now, Jessica Tarlow, to hear what happens next now that Biden has officially dropped out of the presidential race. So, Jessica, kind of a slow news week. Not really. I'm not sure what we're going to talk about here, but let's start with I found this story that you might find interesting. And that is the president has actually dropped out of the race. And this woman named Kamala Harris has raised an astounding $81 million within the first 24 hours of announcing her bid for president. 60% of the donors are first-time donors in this race. I think actually that's the most impressive stat. Jessica, what's going on here? What's going on here? What

are your thoughts? I thought coming back from Milwaukee, I would get like a weekend, right? We had the assassination attempt and we had everything that went on in the RNC, Trump speaking, et cetera. And I thought, oh, maybe I'll just chill out. Like I made a couple of small people. I'll go with them. I hang in the park. The sprinklers are on. Very exciting in every two-year-old's life, and then Sunday happens. And it was this weird moment where I thought, does Mark Halperin actually know something again? Because he was the first reporter out on Twitter on Thursday, Friday, saying, it's Sunday. And we were all like, what are you talking about? How does Mark Halperin have information that Democratic-leaning reporters don't have, someone less disgraced doesn't have.

And I still don't believe that Mark Halperin necessarily had inside information. And the story the campaign is giving, that Biden basically decided on his own that he couldn't do this anymore and that it wasn't going to stop the kind of onslaught. but remarkable few days in American politics. And what's going on is we've all been coconut pilled now. I'm not a TikTok person. I have fear of the Chinese Communist Party being in my phone, though I'm sure they're in there for other reasons. And I just know that I'd spend hours and hours and hours on it. But I have taken a look, and the kids are going crazy for her. And amazing. And I do, as an awkward person myself, appreciate that online awkward people can be cool.

And you're seeing that really coming to life for her. But I think kind of writ large, what you're seeing is how desperate the Democratic Party was to feel inspired and alive again. And that this doesn't actually have a lot to do with Kamala herself necessarily. And she's still behind in the polls, about five points behind. She was running behind Joe Biden in national polls and in key swing states as well. But everyone needed this shot of adrenaline and it led them to their pocketbooks. And we've got a real election now. Yeah, it really is striking. And the I've kind of gotten swallowed up in a net is I thought Biden was going to drop out. And then I wanted a competition on a coronation. And I got to be honest, I've been sort of this Kamala mania has sort of swept over me. And I'm almost now like kind of on the Kamala train, like, let's get on it. And I have been really surprised and inspired. It's a little bit like living in London, and that is, it feels as if

it's been so gray, so depressing for six months, and then the sun comes out, and you realize just what an amazing city it is. I feel like the sun came out Monday morning, and we just realized what an amazing country, party. It just, all of a sudden, it feels like everything is better and looks better. It's like literally the sun came out. What are your thoughts? I'm loathe to make a comparison because we all know how it turned out. But what I'm feeling and what my text messages are indicating and what I'm reading online is the enthusiasm that women felt about Hillary Clinton in 2016. That I, you know, I walked around in my tank top that said a woman's place is in the White House.

I went to vote with my dad. You know, there was this belief that we could change as a country. And Kamala Harris represents an ability to change if we do take that route. And it goes in all sorts of different directions. She is meaningful to a ton of different demographic groups, and they've all really embraced her. And I'm not sure about how that manifests actually on election day, and she has 105 days or 104 days now, I think, to redefine herself. Because the

definition that the voters who determine these elections have is not good, right? This is not a woman that plays well naturally in a Pennsylvania, in a Michigan, in a Wisconsin. She's bringing new spirit and life to the board, right? Especially if she picks Mark Kelly out of Arizona, maybe that's on the board. In Georgia, they're going bananas for her. Maybe we'll talk about North Carolina again if Roy Cooper, who's the governor there, is her running mate. But you are seeing a joyfulness and a hope of possibility and change. And there's online, there's been a ton of incredibly creative memes that are out there, but there's one that has four boxes and it has Obama, you know, in the cool, I don't know what the term is, but the filter, right, that the hope and change poster was in, like the blue, gray, the red. So it says hope. And then it has hate over Donald Trump, and then it has heal over Joe Biden, and then it has

grow over Kamala Harris. And I think people are feeling the potential for that growth. And there's opportunity, I think, to ignore a lot of her past policy positions. And, you know, she has to get out there and just say, you've heard a lot from me before. I have talked about things that are impractical. I've talked about Medicare for all. I have talked about giving free health care to people who are here that are undocumented. I've talked about all sorts of incredibly liberal things and the Green New Deal, for instance. But I am part of the Biden-Harris administration, and Joe Biden's record is my record. And this is how I plan to continue to govern. Let's finish the job. I mean, it's amazing the infrastructure that went to her, you know,

1,300 people working on this campaign, but also all of the mottos. Let's finish the job. And if she can stick to that, I feel like we could do it. We could pull off a total political miracle. You said something that I want to double click on, and that is she doesn't play well in some of the swing states. Why is that? Because my impression is she's actually more moderate or conservative than a lot of people, I think, initially think that they, I mean, it categorizes her as like a California Democrat, very liberal. She's actually, you know, she's an attorney general. I think on economic issues, she's pretty moderate. Why doesn't she play well? Well, she ran away from her attorney general background and more towards her liberal side

for the 2020 primary. And she just got boxed out by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who, you know, Bernie Sanders is, you know, he's the original thing, right? He's like the OG Democratic Socialist grump. So he has his constituency. And I think Elizabeth Warren is one of the more talented politicians we've ever seen. Yeah, ran an incredible race. I went to her rally in washington square park and her policies were always to the left of where i was i i wanted i was wearing her t-shirt i want to rip it off burn my bra do all the things right she just gets you going like that and so kamala didn't really have a lane and she couldn't get to where amy klobuchar or pete

buddha judge was right you know people I should say, people actually from the Midwest advocating for that kind of common sense stuff. So she hasn't run actually as a super cop before. She's only run away from it. And the kind of kudos that she's gotten the most from her time in the Senate was when she was leaning into, I'm the one who can prosecute the case. Her grilling of Bill Barr, her grilling of Brett Kavanaugh. So I think that's a lot of the reason that she hasn't played well in those more moderate places. I'm sure there is room as well for sexism and racism in this. I mean, we've already seen it bubbling up. And I was reading before we jumped on the line, a missive out of meeting with congressional Republicans and Republican

senators saying, do not call her a DEI hire. Do not do it. Talk about her policies. We can win this on policy. But you already have tape of J.D. Vance. He called her like a crazy cat lady. Alone with cats. Deeply unhappy. Alone with no kids and cats. Yeah. Okay. Right. When she has, I would say, one of the more vibrant-looking political marriages I've ever witnessed, you know, people kissing on the mouth and looking like they love it. And she has two stepkids. And, you know, if they're going to be running on a platform of, I'm not totally opposed to a national abortion ban, and you know what, we should look into IVF, and then you're calling her a lonely cat lady, that's not a recipe for success. When I heard the news, I was a mix of excitement,

sadness, relief, almost like a cathartic release. And the other emotion I had was one of intense gratitude towards Secretary Clinton. And while she didn't shatter the glass ceiling, I think she put enough cracks in it that America has finally decided. I think a lot of people look back and think, you know what? We should have voted for the woman. And I think that America really is ready. And I hate to go into identity politics, but it is going to play a role here. But I think it's going to be a positive here.

I think America has decided it's time, or a lot of Americans have decided it's time for a woman president. I think a lot of that is credited with from Secretary Clinton. Do you have any thoughts? Any opportunity to praise Hillary Clinton, I'm going to jump right on that. I think that she has created an environment where we are now so used to seeing a woman in a politically powerful position. Going back to even how she transformed, you know, being first lady and what she did for keeping the country together in the wake of her husband's affair. You know, we don't talk about that enough that, you know, she had every reason to just be able to say, you know, I'm getting up, I'm leaving, and I'm taking Chelsea with me. And the country would have completely crumbled. And there is strength sometimes in sticking it out. And I think she's owed a debt

of gratitude on a whole host of levels. She's also been right about every single foreign policy issue. But yes, I think that she deserves a lot of credit for that. And Elizabeth Warren would say that as well, that she could get 7,000, 8,000 people to come out to a rally for her. It's because they're used to the iconography of a woman in these kinds of positions. And Kamala Harris as well. And it's interesting because the candidate who had the most overlap in terms of donors in 2020 from Secretary Clinton was Kamala Harris. And a lot of Hillary's really big bundlers thought that she was the one to carry the torch. And they were looking across the field. And they had an Amy Klobuchar, who I think the world of, and frankly, is more kind of policy positioned like the rest of the country. But they went with Kamala. And there was tremendous

disappointment that she didn't translate to the national stage in the way that they expected, that her awkwardness was not embraced, and that her joyfulness felt like insecurity and inability to do the job. And I think that that switch has flipped a bit now and that we do actually really want to, going back to how you felt on Sunday, to be leaning into joy. Like, when was the last time that we felt politically joyful? But I do want to double-click on what you said about the feeling of sadness when you heard that Biden was out. I wrote about this for Fox and talked about it on air that day. I cried when I read that Joe Biden was pulling out of the race because I know that he still, he believes he can win this race. He didn't do this because he thought that he wasn't going to be able to do it. He did it because the pressure was mounting on him to an unsustainable level. And Nancy Pelosi had floated that she was going to go public with it.

He was forced out. He didn't leave on his own terms. think that he really got, even though it was the right decision in the end, he really got a raw deal. And I know that he will be greeted at the convention, rock star levels, you know, at least Obama levels, and that we will remember his legacy for everything he accomplished, which is what it should be. But it is so sad the way that this ended with him isolated in Rehoboth with COVID, with people that he had worked with for decades, people whose elections were probably owed to him because he showed up and campaigned for them, whether it was in the 80s, 90s, 2010s, any of it, and just stabbing him in the back or in the front. And it's profoundly sad. And it will feel that way for a long time. And there are these incredible videos that are all over Instagram and TikTok of senior citizens talking about Joe Biden and that he was the greatest president that we've ever had, that he had. There's this one woman who's making the case that he combines all of the best qualities of these Democratic heroes that we've had over the years. And that it really hit home for me. And it deserves hanging on it for a while.

I had the same emotion, but here's the thing that if you think it through, and this made me feel better and I hope it makes you feel better. People won't remember how long it took him to make the decision. They'll remember the decision, right? They won't remember that he didn't want to leave and he was in denial and a lot of his handlers were sequestering him for obvious reasons now. I mean, I was starting to get physically angry at the staff of the White House and be like, you really think you could hide this from us? And then I was mad at myself for falling under this delusion that everything might be all right. But here's the thing, for the rest of his life, every room he walks into, he gets a standing ovation. And his life, can you imagine what his life would have been like the next four and a half years?

I think this is absolutely, in the short term, probably devastating for him. And over the medium and the long term, the absolute best decision for President Biden. I think this is, for him personally, the best thing that could happen. I totally agree. And I think it's like anyone who is kind of going into retirement, at least a little bit, not of their choosing, that within six to 12 months, they're feeling pretty great, right? And he has the last six months, he says that his, not sole focus, but his main focus is going to be getting the hostages back and negotiating a peace deal between Israel and Hamas. And if he can get that done, know people have won no bells for less and he will be an icon

and it wasn't guaranteed on a legislative basis i think he deserves it right you know i i think the comparisons to what an lbj was able to accomplish are reasonable but he wasn't a personality icon he wasn't a cult figure like an Obama, like a Bill Clinton, like a JFK. And I think that those aviators now will live on, right, in a way that we didn't expect if he had, A, continued on and ended up losing to Donald Trump in November, certainly. You know, Democrats love power as much as Republicans. I just think we have better ideas and we're kinder and more concerned with people who have less than the Republican Party. But of course, we're mad for

power. And Nancy Pelosi is an incredible testament to all of that. But I genuinely don't believe that people who have worked with him that long and love him as much as they do knew that the debate was how Joe Biden is on a more regular basis, and we're still trying to pass him off as a fine candidate. I take offense to that idea, and maybe I'm just trying to save my own butt because I was on TV telling people that Joe Biden could do this job. Look at him on the picket line with the United Auto Workers. Look at him in North Carolina. Look at him in Detroit. You know, the decline was precipitous. And I don't think that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,

Dick Durbin, people who genuinely love him, knew that. And it was some big charade to fool the American people. And what's interesting, and I'm curious to get your thoughts about this, is that age was the biggest issue in the campaign, and I think it's going to remain the biggest issue, but it's flipped from being a liability for Democrats to an asset. I think you put a woman of color who's 59 on stage with Donald Trump, he is going to look as old as Biden looked. at certain moments. You know, I was in the room in Milwaukee when he was giving his acceptance speech, and there were 9,000 words of ad lib and probably 6,000 that didn't make any sense. I worry, though, about Democrats kind of jumping into the deep end with that argument. I saw a lot of, and I smiled at them, but a lot of snarky tweets right away saying, oh my God, how could the Republicans have nominated such an old guy? Yikes. You know, we did do a bad thing for a long time and acted as if it wasn't going to matter for people. And the voters were continually telling us that, that it did matter for them. And I thought Ezra Klein pointed that out. And I thought it was such a smart point. He said, the narrative right now is that this was an elites cabal, right, that they got together and they just decided we want to get him out. But the truth is, is that the elites were late to this. It was regular people that were Democrats who said, we're going to vote for him. We're going to vote for a dead person over Donald Trump.

But in fact, it was those of us who were supposed to know it all that were late to the game. And I think that that dose of humility is important for people in, quote, elite positions to have in all of this and to say, you know, you might not like that there wasn't a mini primary. And I understand that. And it was obviously you might not like that there wasn't a mini primary. And I understand that. And it was obviously Joe Biden's wish that there wasn't. Right. He came out 20 minutes after the statement went out and said, I'm endorsing Kamala Harris, which basically cut everyone off. And had other endorsements lined up clearly, right? Oh, yeah. Well, they'd been prepping for ages, but she did it in the most elegant way

I could have expected anyone to. And I think it's such a credit to her and the type of person that she is. I mean, is there another human you could imagine to be a better team player going through the last month of politics than Kamala Harris? They all were. And I think that was smart. I don't think they had any choice but to be seen as team players. But just on this notion, I was, after I heard I was the quote unquote in the competition camp. And now I have fully now I've just been overwhelmed and I'm on board with a coronation. But what are your thoughts on this notion? And it's it's kind of a moot point at this point, because I do think it's a coronation. But do you think we would have been better off with something resembling a competition, debates and the like? Well, I think it would have made great programming, which is where my mind goes to all the time. You know, we were musing that he should, Biden should counter-program the RNC, right? Like, while Trump's about to go on stage, be like, you know what, I've reconsidered, I'm getting off, you know, I'm getting out of the race. I think that a mini primary would have served us well. And there are

a lot of people smarter than I am who have figured out how you'd be able to do it. I think if it was contained to just battleground states and to give the people who actually determine who's going to be our next president the chance to go see town halls and have the delegates vote, for instance, you know, have them listen to the people that they represent. I think it would have been good. And Dean Phillips, who was out front on all of this, you know, was musing that it would just give an air of appropriateness to everything. And odds are actually that Kamala Harris could have come out very likely, I think, as the winner. And I think if you look at who Kamala Harris has been the last three to four weeks, I would put my money on her for that. But the truth is just makes sense because she's part of that administration. You know, people say, oh, well, it's not fair. We voted for Joe Biden, not Kamala Harris. Well,

when he's running for reelection, you're voting for the Biden-Harris ticket. And she is the rightful heir to that ticket. Her VP choice will obviously be a huge part of this. I think all of the folks that they've asked for their papers, for them to submit their packages would be fabulous. And it was interesting to see that Governor Walz from Minnesota was on the list. He was someone that I didn't expect to be. But you can't really go wrong with those guys. And, you know, we have limited time to be able to do this.

We have Trump and his folks, you know, on the back heel. They are prepared for one candidate and one candidate only. And now Joe Biden is not that candidate. And so we just got to relish the moment and run full steam ahead. And it looks like everyone has gotten the memo, more or less, that this is what we're doing. So let's talk about who would you want to be VP? Who do you think is going to be VP? So like I said, I'm actually thrilled with all of the choices that are out there. I think my gut would initially be I want Governor Shapiro. I

think that he is just a beacon of light in all of this and has been since we— A beacon of light. That's a nice thing to say. A beacon of light. But I can't help but be concerned about him being Jewish. And at this particular moment, with such a high dose of anti-Semitism, especially within our party, which is something that I hate about us, that if you have a Black woman at the top of the ticket and a Jewish guy, that there are too many opportunities to be turned off. What about two women? What if you had a, do you think the same fear holds about having two women on the ticket? It does give me a little bit of anxiety. I hate to say it. I think she's fantastic. I think she'll be an incredible candidate. I'm sure she will run in 2028. But it feels like the top is such an unsafe pick at this moment that we should go for a bit more safety. Roy Cooper, I think,

is the safest one out of all of this. But Kelly has my heart, and he has the nation's heart. And I think that the strength of also having Gabby Giffords out there, who is such a hero to everybody, would be incredible. And Arizona, you know, we had basically relegated ourselves back to just the blue wall. But Arizona is ripe to keep if we have the right combination. And I think that Mark Kelly does that. So right now, my heart is in the Mark Kelly camp for sure. And I think it makes a lot of strategic sense. So your background is in data science and messaging. If you were advising the Harris campaign, which I imagine at some point you will be, what do you think are the core messages she should hone in on? That nothing changes. That we are here to finish the job and that she was proud to serve with Joe Biden.

I think that Joe Biden should be one of the most commonly used phrases out of her mouth. Because Joe Biden is personally a lot more popular than he is politically to people. They were never able to demonize him, right? They were never able to convince people that he was actually a mob boss. I'm sure James Comer has been crying for 48 hours straight since the announcement that he won't get to have his Hunter Biden investigations anymore. And all of that has evaporated. But the American public loves Joe Biden. And I think there's opportunity also to frame the economy, which you said, you know, who wouldn't like this economy, but to talk about the accomplishments of the Biden-Harris

administration out of a new messenger. And she has been tight. She has been pitch perfect in the last three to four weeks. And so I think that she's just basically got to take the playbook and she has the same campaign manager. She has the same campaign chairs as Joe Biden did. And she's got to go out there and do a Joe Biden impression with some coconut flair. Right. That's what people are looking for at this moment. And I think that she can define herself as different in a lot of the personal moments, certainly talking about reproductive health, where I did feel that he struggled to do that. And some of that is just that men talking about it doesn't really hit as hard. So her doing that, voting rights, galvanizing Gen Z and millennial voters. But be proud of what you've accomplished. And Joe Biden picked her out of a huge field of possible VPs. And he did it for a reason. And if the listeners haven't heard Joe Biden's call into now Kamala HQ from Monday, they should go back and listen to it. But there's this very sweet exchange where Kamala says, You guys heard it from Doug's voice.

We love Joe and Jill. We really do. They truly are like family to us. And we do everybody here, though. It's mutual. I knew you were still there. You're not going anywhere, Joe. I'm watching you, kid.

I'm watching you, kid. I love you. I love you, Joe. It felt like it was supposed to. Yeah, it, Joe. I'm watching you, kid. I'm watching you, kid. I love you. I love you, Joe. It felt like it was supposed to. Yeah, it felt real. Yeah, totally. Yeah, the positioning I would go with is I'm a prosecutor, he's a felon, and I would just be relentless. I would say, as Attorney General of California, I put 740 pedophiles in prison, and then I would just show, overlay that with the voiceover with a ton of images of Trump and Epstein. And then I'd move on to, as AG, I stuck 300 people in for white-collar crime, and I would show Peter Navarro being sentenced. I, you know, for racketeering, I put, and then I'd show my, I would just literally go.

The for-profit college scams. Oh my gosh. He's done everything. I shut down all these degree mills, but had I been in New York, I would have shut down a degree mill called Trump University. I would just, I'm the prosecutor, he's the felon. I think it's absolutely going to deposition, put them on their heels, and they just won't know how to respond. So I want to add to that quickly because I know that we have gone over as well. I totally agree with you.

I think if there is a debate, that contrast, old versus young, convict versus cop, is important. But you need to also keep in mind that we're talking about swing voters. So those are base plays. But swing voters are going to vote on the traditional stuff. So they're going to be voting on the economy. And there are some of them who are very concerned about the border. And she was in charge of our relationship with Central American countries. You know, we're not supposed to call her the borders are, but that is what she has been framed as. So I think that if we move too hard into what folks in the heartland feel are ancillary

issues that we risk coming off as unserious. So I want all of that, but I really want her to go hard on the stuff that they've accomplished. Like, tell them your insulin costs $35 because of me and Joe Biden. And also, I'm a cop. And I would have put this guy in jail. So it's a line to walk carefully, but it has to be balanced. Jessica Tarloff is a political analyst and co-host on The Five, Fox's weeknight news program. She joins us from her home in Tribeca. It's great to have you back on the ground, Jessica, back in New York, and we'll look forward to catching up soon.

Perfect. Thanks for having me. We'll be right back for our conversation with Chris Voss. Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Chris Voss, the CEO and co-founder of Black Swan Group and former lead FBI hostage negotiator. Chris, where does this podcast find you? I'm at my house in Vegas. You live in Vegas? I'm willing to admit that. So let's jump right into it. You tweeted recently, as a lead former hostage negotiator in the FBI, I will say with certainty that the level of manipulation by the mainstream media should not be overlooked when we look back wants to go. And sort of across the board, it's really become accepted in any interviews. Somebody sticks a microphone in somebody's face and says, can you believe so-and-so said this about you?

And it's a little bit like, I remember doing this when I was in college, trying to instigate a couple of my friends into getting into a confrontation. Can you believe that he said that? Are you going to take that? You know, this instigating that comes from the side. And if we have some reliance on the media overall, we don't think of them as instigators. You know, then just like when I was listening to my friends here, people say to themselves, yeah, you know, yeah, that's right.

And it's an incitement. Unfortunately, they're instigators. When I was with the FBI, we were preparing for a gathering in the G20 in Canada, I believe it was at the time. And they're talking about the preparations for the predictable demonstrations. And so in preparation for the crowd, they said, for the gathering,

they said, you put a thousand peaceful demonstrators someplace, a thousand. And then you just put six professional instigators around in strategic locations. And it'll take a peaceful demonstration to turn them into a violent mob. Six people. And I've really been thinking about this a lot. Unfortunately, the media's professional professional instigators and they look for the opportunity to pull gasoline on smoldering coals and hopefully turn it into a flame. And point of fact, it's a contributing factor. I like the framing there that they're in the business of instigating or taking the heat up, not taking it down. I would say that's the same is true online, but even worse.

If I look at my comments in my feed on social media platforms, it feels like it's a bunch of people in the third grade surrounding two kids who are barely even having words and then screaming, fight, fight, fight. And I wonder, and I'm curious what your thoughts are, that if I were a bad actor, a foreign entity, the GRU or the CCP, I would absolutely employ this strategy to just get us fighting with each other.

Yeah, well, we'd do it. It's kind of the, there are no Marcus of Queensbury rules on international combat. I mean, the intelligence agencies globally are always trying to stir up discontent within the camps of the enemy to keep them confused so that they don't get rallied against us. So let's get back to how do you think the U.S. government should be negotiating with nations at war? What advice would you have? Biden has essentially said that he's going to focus a lot of his energy on his remaining time on trying to end the war in the Middle East and

bring the hostages home. What advice would you have for him, or generally speaking in the U.S., as it tries to negotiate with nations that are at war? Everything you've been doing up to now has been stupid. Unfortunately, argument has become a synonym for negotiation. And it's a horrible synonym. It shouldn't be there. People just want to make arguments. And that's advocated principally by lawyers.

Lawyers want to make arguments. They call themselves negotiators. We don't have any better models in many cases other than lawyers that make arguments. And great negotiation is invisible, so you don't see it. The only time Biden ever did anything foreign policy-wise that I was really impressed by, and he did it very early in the administration.

So what a government should do is not let the other side get caught off guard if you're going to say something they don't like. And Biden was going to make a statement recognizing the genocide of the Armenians, I believe, which is largely placed at, the blame is placed at the feet of the Armenians, I believe, which is largely placed at, the blame is placed at the feet of the Turks. And what he did was he let the leader of Turkey know it was coming. You know, we're going to say this,

you're not going to like it, don't want you to get caught off guard by it. And the president of Turkey's response was remarkably muted. There were professional instigators in the media said, can you believe he said that? You know, what do you think about Biden saying this, placing his blame on him?

And he'd been warned that it advanced. So he wasn't upset about it. It didn't turn into a flame that the media was trying to get it to turn into, the argument, you know, the kids around the other kids in the schoolyard going, fight, fight, fight. So, and very few politicians have really taken a cue from that to at least, if you're going to say something that your counterparts aren't going to like, then don't let them get caught off guard. At least don't blindside them. And I think that's probably the first move internationally. People want to be warned when bad news is coming.

It's one of the basic tenets of the Black Swan method day to day. I might have something negative to say. I want you to be able to brace yourself before I say it in advance. How do I do that where you don't feel attacked? How you feel is that I'm just trying to tell the truth. Again, to make analogy to what's going on in the media and social media today, there's a great seeking for truth.

There's truth seekers and truth tellers. And a lot of people disguised as truth tellers are really just leveling accusations. But some of the people who have been around for a longer time are really just, you know, let's stop the accusations. Let's start thinking about what's the truth. Let's try to speak the truth. And if you can say it in a way the other side is not offended by, then you're probably on the right track. Something you said sort of resonates or I think has relevance with relationships.

I've always thought that the thing that really puts a strain on relationships is not bad news, but surprises. Like it's one thing when, all right, the investments have gone really bad and you're in charge of the investments. But what I think people get really upset with is they've been bad for a year and they've been getting worse. You waited until now to tell me. Do you think a lot of this can be as relevant with personal relationships? Yeah, absolutely. I see all this is relevant to personal relationships. Negotiation is relevant to personal relationships. We hear all the time, Never Split the Difference is a great parenting book. I hear back from women that for the first time, my husband, it feels like my

husband's listening to me. And then, so first of all, what does it mean to actually listen? And then secondly, like, how do we eliminate the surprises from the other side? People are remarkably resilient and they're not getting caught off guard. And it doesn't take a lot. And fortunately, people blindside other people not out of bad intent because they don't know how to tell the truth or they're trying to fix the problem so that it never hits the other person. So it's never as rarely as a result of a bad heart, if you will. These are mistakes of the head, not of the heart, because people just don't know. If I could just warn you it was coming, then you could brace yourself.

I want to put forward a thesis. I want to get back to geopolitics and have you respond to it. I think that not only when you're negotiating, you have to recognize you're not just negotiating on the current situation, but you're setting a tone or atmospherics or incentives for future negotiations. And the thing that just really bothered me about the Brittany Griner deal was I thought, I personally believe the moment we cut that deal and traded, it was loosely called or accurately called the merchant of death, Victor Boot, that basically that day, Evan Gershkovich was taken prisoner, that we created an incentive structure that we would trade, quite frankly, someone more, I don't want to say valuable, but that had more, should have been in prison a lot longer, that we just set up an incentive such that we guaranteed more Americans would be falsely imprisoned. What are your thoughts? Well, so first of all, Brittany Greiner was absolutely entitled to have the U.S. government come to her aid.

When I was the lead international kidnapping negotiator, and Brittany Griner's thing was an illegal detention as opposed to kidnapping. There are differences. But in any event, no American citizen should be abandoned overseas, no matter how they got themselves into it. In international kidnapping,

people were mostly just doing ill-advised behavior. They were putting themselves in really bad positions, trying to trade on a form of camaraderie internationally that was never there. And I don't believe that Brittany Grunner, she may have made a minor mistake, but she's entitled to have the government come to her aid and do everything it can for it.

So first point there, I'm absolutely in support of the government helping her. So now let's get on to the stupidity of the trade. Once the instigators got going in the media, then increased pressure on the Biden administration, cut a deal, cut a deal, cut a deal. Then it's a matter of patience. When the other side is more patient than you are and the instigators are putting the heat on you, then they can lay back. And I don't think the, I think it was a poor trade. I think, you know, and I don't think the Biden administration

has got the market, is holding the monopoly on bad trades. The Obama administration made bad trades. The Trump administration made bad trades. You know, I thought it was horrible that, I thought they beat us in the deal when the AWOL soldier, the Obama administration, swapped out five members of the Taliban who were being held in Guantanamo for an American soldier to don AWOL. Now, that American soldier deserved help regardless of how he went AWOL. It was a bad trade. The Trump administration outdid the Obama administration when they put 5,000 Taliban back on the battlefield because they were in a hurry to make a deal.

Anytime a government is in a hurry to make a deal, all the other side has to do is sit back and let time work against them. And so the Brittany Griner thing was no different. It was a bad trade. And then the nature of the bad trade, not the nature of the fact that a trade was made. The nature of the bad trade is what encouraged the poor negotiation, which sets up further negotiations. You know, one of my favorite movies, Bridge of Spies, Tom Hanks.

Love it. We engage in the same kind of trades. And as portrayed in the movie, the American negotiator depicted by Tom Hanks got the better of the other side and got the better of the other side in the Russians. Same type of trade. It wasn't that the negotiations were bad. It was how good were the negotiators at the table. Tom Hanks character, and forgive me for not remembering the real-life name of the guy, who I have tremendous admiration for, he turned around and cut great deals with Cuba,

getting massively. We beat the hell out of the Cubans in the negotiations after the Bay of Pigs. So it's not negotiation itself that's the problem. It's the level of ability of the negotiators at the table.

The negotiation everyone's talking about is the negotiation with Putin and the negotiation with Hamas, right? If I think of the two highest profile negotiations, maybe that's true in American-centric lens. But one with Putin, you have an autocrat who's not worried about not being reelected, and you have a nation that has just, as a competence, an incredible ability to endure hardship and suffering. You know, it's just, I find in terms of Russian history, it's shown it's pretty difficult to put pressure on Russia. They don't scare easily. They're willing to put their own people through a lot of pain and suffering here. So I'd love to get your thoughts there. And then as it relates to Hamas, I even see a bigger challenge, and that is you're not even

sure who you're negotiating with or how you even open lines of negotiation and who can even enforce the rules or outcomes of that negotiation. I'd love to give your thoughts or get your thoughts on both of those dynamics. I would agree with some of what you said about Putin and Russia. I mean, I think the guy does worry about getting reelected, which is why he puts so much effort into it. I don't think that Russians would agree if you said that the elections were rigged. You know, they support him openly. He's a nationalist. and globally, nationalists are getting a lot of influence. Populist nationalist leaders that are 1,000% in favor of what's in the best interest of our country. It's sweeping Europe.

It's the reason that Trump is as popular as he is. He's pro his homeland. Russia has shown the ability to endure what have they had to endure? They've been invaded more times than they've invaded other countries they've been invaded by Japan multiple times, they've been invaded by various European countries multiple times, they've been invaded

more than they've invaded other countries they don't have the natural land barriers, geographical protections the United States had. We've got the most envious geographical setup on Earth. You cannot come at us without us either seeing you or you having to cross some ridiculously difficult terrain. You can't come at us from the north, the east, or the west. If you want to try to come at us from the south,

you've got to work your way through Latin America. It's not, it's not, there aren't great ports down there. Russia, on the other hand, has got land bridges that makes it extremely easy to get out of. Their natural resources are not high. I once saw, I read at the beginning of the Ukraine war, that somebody dismissively of Russia said, Russia is just Europe's gas station. All right, empathy. How does that look to the other side?

I think that was McCain. It might have been. All right, so if that's true, you're the leader of a country, that your principal way to feed your people is an industry the entire world is trying to stop using. So empathy is about not necessarily agreeing with the actions of the other side, but understanding where they're coming from and being able to say it to them out loud. Nobody has, you know, the Western European leaders, the president of France

showed up and had audiences with Putin. I promise you that all that guy did, if they got a direct meeting with him, was tell him why he was wrong as opposed to, was wrong. So here's what your problems are. You get invaded. You got no national defenses. You're worried about whether or not you can feed your people. You're worried about your people starving in the cold and the dark. Let's talk about what the problems are on a different solution, but nobody's approaching him like that. So I think what he's done, what Russia's done in regards to Ukraine, is absolutely wrong.

War is an environmental catastrophe, let alone a humanitarian catastrophe. But a little bit starts with, all right, so here's your motivations. Here's why you're doing what you're doing. Now let's potentially talk about a different course of action. Because as soon as you start talking to somebody about what their motivations are, getting it out in the open air, it helps them clear their head. And maybe see war is a short-term catastrophe, whereas economic collaboration is a long-term solution. So that's kind of my take on Russia. Now, as I continue to babble on, there's a massive amount of influence on Hamas who cut it. All the negotiations are currently

going on through there. Some of the Hamas leaders are hanging out at Qatar. And if you really want to talk to Hamas, even if you're an American diplomat, you're going to Qatar. So there's ways to influence them. The real difference, in my view, and I was listening to Jared Kushner giving an interview about the Abraham Accords, and

the problem with Hamas, and why they didn't participate in the Abraham Accords, and pro-Palestinian peoples were saying, well, we weren't given a seat at the table. You could have had a seat at the table if you'd have paid table stakes. And table stakes for that negotiation was everybody that comes to the table gets to keep their job. You cannot come to the table saying, I'm going to put you out of business. You have to agree that the other side gets to keep their job.

Hamas has not been willing to say the Israelis get to keep their job. All the Abraham Accords, all the Sunni Muslim countries that signed off to collaborate with Israel, they all said, you know what? If you're willing to negotiate with me in peace and look for an economic settlement where we can all thrive, you get to keep your job. And Hamas has not been willing to say that. And it's not that they haven't been invited to the table. It's they

refuse to pay the table stakes. And in this case, the table stakes are, when you say get to keep your job, you mean saying that we're not gonna we're we're not going to be totally 100 committed to exterminating your people is that what you're referring to as table stakes yeah yeah you know and even in even larger terms that's the first time the united states has been willing to make that agreement. When the second Iraq war started, and it's easy to criticize it in hindsight, it's a bad moment, and I'm not going to go there. But I do remember President Bush giving an address to the American people and saying, this is the opportunity to bring democracy to the Middle East.

And what he didn't know that he was saying at the time was, he was saying to all the Middle Eastern leaders, none of whom are democracies, my goal is for you to lose your job because you're not a democracy and you're going to have to subject yourself to the whims of the votes, just like all the Western European countries do and everybody else. And if you want to collaborate with us, we're going to bring democracy to your country, and you're going to lose your job.

And that was a mistake. So the other thing about the brilliance of the Abraham Accords and the accords in that particular negotiation was the agreement, you get to keep your job if you come to the table and negotiate with us in good faith. And so it's obvious with Hamas, but America has made this mistake a number of times in the past. We didn't realize what we were saying. I want to bring democracy to your country, your monarchy. The person on the other side is

here and I'm going to lose my job. Why should I do that? Well, let's get back specifically to Biden has said he wants to bring the hostages home. My understanding is there's still five Americans being held hostage. I'm not even sure we understand there's proof of life or not, but obviously it's a priority for the American government to get those five hostages home. Let's go back to that. What advice or what are the atmospherics here to try and successfully bring these folks home? So first of all, if I could say, when I was a hostage negotiator, our opening principle is war. You can't negotiate in the middle of a riot or a gunfight. And it looks very much like the gunfight's still going on.

So to expect effective negotiations in the short term, in the middle of a gunfight, you've got to get the gunfight stopped. Now, what's the inducement for supporting them the economic harm of violence as opposed to the economic prosperity of peace and Hamas continues to stay in the gun fight because of the support they're getting globally

they're winning the PR war they're intentionally putting their people in harm's way I don't think we'll get an accurate reports in the media of how upset how tired the Palestinians are of being human shields for Hamas and getting their people killed you know they got a hostage rescue in a residential area and all sorts quote, innocent people are killed by the Israelis that come in on the hostage rescue. Well, how did those innocent people get placed in harm's way? You know, Hamas is sacrificing Palestinians by the tens of thousands to gain world support.

And they're getting that world support. So, you know, what are the kids standing around them shouting and yelling? There's the Biden administration. Their challenge in getting hostages back is to calm the rancor that's blaming Israel for a current bloody conflict that they didn't start. That begins to change the perspective of the leadership. Are they winning the PR war? Hamas is winning the PR war right now.

That's what's keeping them engaged in what they're doing. I'd love your thoughts on how to take some of these skills and apply them to your relationship with your spouse. And then I'd love to hear, do you have kids, Chris? I got grandkids. You got grandkids. Okay. I would love specifically to hear, do you have kids, Chris? I got grandkids. You got grandkids. Okay. I would love specifically to hear lessons to your younger self or a new father on how you can apply these skills to enhance your relationship with your kids.

Wow. Okay. Where do we begin? There was a lot of good stuff. It goes from Hamas to more unreasonable third parties when we're talking about teenagers. But let's start with using this as a means of establishing better rules of engagement with your spouse.

Well, here's a problem with spouse and children. We've conditioned them that we're not listening. So parents and spouses, we want to flip over to either continue to ask our list of questions to make it sound like we're listening and interested or give an advice. And a lot of moms start to report that the use of the mirroring skill got their teenage daughters to talk to them for the first time in years. So what's a typical interaction? Kid comes home from school.

How was your day? Kid answers. Parent goes immediately to the next question. Well, what that makes a kid feel like is that they weren't listened to. Now, a parent is taught show interest. You know, I got a checklist to show interest so I can get back to my life. It's like a person in the media doing an interview. They got a list of questions. They're going to run through the questions. They're not going to pay attention to the answers. And then they're going to move on.

So how was your day? Kid's been conditioned that mom or dad ain't going to listen. So they're going to either say, fine, or I forget. Because they're not going to get interrogated over that. I forget is the best one. I forget. What are you doing? I forget.

And then you move on. And the parent is like, why won't my kid talk to me? Well, you got your list of questions. You ain't listening. You've conditioned them that you're not going to listen. The people in our family, we've conditioned each other that we're not listening. So the tiny little two millimeter shift

that moms are telling us constantly, how was your day? I forget. If you're going to mirror that, what'd you say? You forget. Not accusatory, but to just repeat what the person said confirms that you heard and you listened. And suddenly the child's shocked, like, wait a minute. You actually paid attention to what I said?

And by the second time they do that, suddenly the kid's opening up. All mom or dad is doing is merit. And just as we wrap up here, Chris, what do you think are the two or three things that young people should keep in their back pocket as it relates to negotiating, whether it's for a salary or for a different type of job responsibilities, whatever it might be? Are there any sort of go-tos you'd say, look, this is where young people get wrong a lot and they should remember whenever they're in a situation that involves some type of negotiation? inefficient. But just repeating back to them what their perspective is, is breaks logjams. And you don't even, here's the thing, you don't even got to get it right. If you just make the attempt, the other side

is going to feel you're collaborating and they'll correct you. They'll help you get it right. You go into instantaneous collaboration and it doesn't matter what the negotiation is. they'll help you get it right. You go into instantaneous collaboration, and it doesn't matter what the negotiation is. It could be with your boss. It could be with your parent.

You know how they see things. Saying how they see it is not a dream. And you're going to find that a lot of your logjams are just going to disappear. Half of them, half of them, I promise you, will go away the minute you start trying to repeat what you think the other side's perspective is. Chris Voss is CEO of the Black Swan Group and the author of the national bestseller, Never Split the Difference, Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It. He previously served as the lead international kidnapping negotiator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, as well as the FBI's hostage negotiation representative for the National Security Council's hostage working group.

Before becoming the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator, Chris served as the lead crisis negotiator for the New York City division of the FBI. He joins us from his home in the great and underappreciated city of Las Vegas. Chris, I really enjoyed this conversation. Thanks for your good work. Andrew Sherrush. Scott, thank you very much. We'll be right back. Algebra of Happiness, how to make sure you don't accidentally lose 50% of your friends. My primary residence for the last decade has been in Delray Beach, Florida. And I would say,

it feels like a half, but it's probably a third because they stand out to me. But somewhere between a third and a half of our friends down there are not only Republicans, but Trumpers. And I really have a tremendous amount of disdain for President Trump. I don't think he's a good person. I think he's a terrible role model for men. And I think he has tangibly made America much weaker. Not great again. But at the same time, there's a lot of smart people, good people. It's so pedantic and arrogant and quite frankly, just exclusionary to immediately write them off because they support Trump. But that's not what this is about. What this is about is you have to separate or I would suggest you separate the person from the politics in your own relationships. I remember when I was younger, I was trying to think back when I was dating, when I was a young man, I couldn't tell you what the politics were of anyone that I dated. We just didn't care. And you know what? Those were simpler, happier times. It was one less reason not to find opportunity to form a relationship. And this is what I'm going to suggest you do and what I started doing about 10 years ago. Separate the person from

the politics. Do you want to be friends with them? Do you enjoy their company? Do you think they're smart? Do you have things that bond you, whether it's kids going to the same school, whether it's an affection for a certain sport, whatever it might be? It's so difficult to maintain relationships and it's so important. We don't want to alienate 50% of the populace just because they don't have the same political views as you. Separate 50% of the populace just because they don't have the same political views as you. Separate the person from the politics. This episode was produced by Caroline Shagrin. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer, and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropGee Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will

catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn. And please follow our Prop G Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.