Vali Nasr on the Ceasefires in Iran and Lebanon; Orbán’s Defeat in Hungary

Summary

Fareed Zakaria GPS – Episode Summary

Date: April 19, 2026
Main Guests: Vali Nasr, Anne Applebaum, Patrick Radden Keefe

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Overview

This episode of Fareed Zakaria GPS delivers a panoramic view of current global affairs, beginning with the Middle East ceasefires and shifting U.S.-Iran negotiations, the dramatic ousting of Viktor Orbán in Hungary and its implications for European populism, and a fascinating glimpse into London's underworld via Patrick Radden Keefe's new investigative book. With expert guests, the episode examines high-stakes diplomacy, shifting democratic tides, and the intricate realities of modern adolescence and wealth in London.

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1. Zakaria’s Opening Take: U.S.-China Rivalry and Global Instability

[01:02–09:00]

Key Discussion Points

• America’s Unpredictable Foreign Policy: Fareed criticizes recent U.S. actions as “reckless, erratic and lawless” (03:00), destabilizing allies and the global system.
• China’s Calculated Response: Despite opportunity, China isn’t denouncing the U.S., but rather focusing on self-interest—especially given its need for stable energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
• Strategic Anxiety, Not Morality: Chinese officials view U.S. unpredictability as bad for globalization and markets more than as a moral failing.
• China’s Economic Diplomacy: Beijing is leveraging crisis to gain technological and economic strength, dominating in green tech, AI infrastructure, and supply chains.
• Potential Global Financial Shift: The possibility of the renminbi challenging the U.S. dollar’s reserve status is flagged as a long-term threat.

Notable Quotes

• “It's less a moral critique than a strategic anxiety. In a globalized world, when the reigning hegemon becomes utterly unpredictable, it's bad for everyone.” – Fareed Zakaria [05:30].
• “China turns these industrial strengths into influence… It shows governments that America brings volatility while China brings equipment, credit and continuity.” – Fareed Zakaria [07:40].

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2. The Iran-U.S. Ceasefire and Diplomatic Breakdown – With Vali Nasr

[09:05–18:24]

Key Discussion Points

• Collapse of Trust: Both sides deeply distrust each other. Iran perceives U.S. threats as destabilizing and suspects negotiations are a ruse, citing earlier talks in Geneva that turned to war mid-negotiation. [09:05–10:55]
  • “What we see as Iranian intransigence is also Iran's deep distrust that this is all a ruse, that… the US is setting him up for something bigger to come.” – Vali Nasr [09:37]
• U.S. Negotiators Mistrusted: The involvement of Witkoff and Kushner, who “went straight to war” from negotiations, exacerbates fear of U.S. duplicity. [10:22–11:19]
• Iran’s New Leadership: Current leaders are unified, hawkish, and more aggressive, both in war and negotiation, as evidenced by shifting approaches to escalation and willingness to provoke further. [11:42–12:15]
  • “It's not an eye for an eye. It's an eye, a head, a hand, a neck. You know, as we sort of, if you provoke, will provoke even further.” – Vali Nasr quoting an advisor [12:15]
• Domestic Challenges: Iran’s regime must manage internal perceptions and sacrifices, making Trump’s public boasts of Iranian surrender domestically problematic.
• Lebanon Truce as a Test: The Lebanese ceasefire’s durability is reputationally significant for Iran and a “test for Trump” to control Israel. However, Nasr argues it's not a deal-breaker if relative calm prevails. [13:56–14:53]
• Iran’s Realism and Willingness to Deal: Nasr asserts Iran is pragmatic and knows it can't outlast the U.S. militarily—seeks a permanent deal over a temporary truce. [15:04–15:36]
  • “Maybe they have a stamina for another 2, 3 months, but end of the day, there has to be a deal.” – Vali Nasr [15:18]
• Illusions of Regime Change: The belief that bombing Iran would lead to popular uprising is, according to Nasr, a “fantasy.” Wars rarely spark regime change; instead, crises unite populations against an external threat. [15:36–17:37]
• Reza Pahlavi and Lost Opportunity: Nasr critiques Pahlavi for failing to unite Iranians and for supporting foreign intervention—“there's not a single Iranian king who has invited invasion of their country.” [17:47–18:24]

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3. Hungary’s Political Earthquake – With Anne Applebaum

[20:08–26:12]

Key Discussion Points

• Orbán’s Ouster and Opposition: Viktor Orbán, a global symbol of illiberal democracy, is voted out after 16 years. Peter Magyar, once part of Orbán’s party but now leader of a broad center-right coalition (including the left and Greens), emerges victorious. [20:08–21:15]
  • “I think Peter Magyar made clear that he was a center right politician, that he believed in the control of migration… all of those things can be debated … within the context of a normal liberal democratic system.” – Anne Applebaum [20:08]
• Undoing Constitutional Changes: Magyar’s 2/3 majority allows him to potentially “undo the kind of illiberal democracy that Orban put in place.” [21:15–21:37]
  • Magyar is moving assertively: firing propagandists, calling for the president’s resignation, and confronting oligarchic structures. [21:37–22:56]
• Populism and European Lessons: Orbán’s defeat signals the vulnerability of right-wing populism and could weaken similar movements across Europe and within the MAGA movement in the U.S. [23:06–24:22]
  • “He sold that idea. He created think tanks and fellowships and he sponsored other think tanks around the world, and he spread those ideas. And there was a lot of money behind it.” – Anne Applebaum [23:30]
  • Vice President J.D. Vance’s endorsement of Orbán “doesn’t seem to have helped him.”
• Lessons for the Left and Democratic Movements: Center-right parties can win when forming broad, cross-ideological coalitions and when focusing on corruption and real-world issues rather than polarizing culture wars or social extremes. [24:22–26:12]
  • “There’s a theme about not getting too far left, but there’s also a theme about building a broad, wide, diverse social movement.” – Anne Applebaum [24:55]

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4. London’s Underworld and the Allure of Wealth – With Patrick Radden Keefe

[27:22–38:45]

Key Discussion Points

• The Mystery of Zach Brettler: Keefe’s latest book, London Falling, follows the story of a teenager who posed as the son of a Russian oligarch, ultimately meeting a tragic end. The story uncovers broader social currents about modern adolescence and London’s cosmopolitan elite. [27:29–32:20]
  • “He starts pretending that he’s the son of a Russian oligarch. And he gets mixed up with some pretty dicey people.” – Patrick Radden Keefe [29:44]
  • “He thought he would fake it till he made it.” – Patrick Radden Keefe [31:42]
• Societal Change in London: The transformation from manufacturing port to “money town” and the deliberate cultivation of international wealth, particularly from post-Soviet Russia. Deregulation and targeted visa programs invited oligarchs and their billions. [33:09–34:56]
  • “All the factories close. … London reemerges as a preferred destination for cash and people who have it.” – Patrick Radden Keefe [33:24]
• Police and Untouchable Elites: Scotland Yard is portrayed as under-resourced and unwilling to investigate the violent entanglements of the ultra-wealthy. [34:56–35:56]
  • “At a certain point, the welcome to these oligarchs is so warm that Moscow starts sending assassins to British soil to conduct hits.” – Patrick Radden Keefe [35:12]
• Impact of the War in Ukraine: Recent sanctions and policy rollbacks target oligarchs, but new wealthy arrivals from other regions swiftly fill the void, ensuring London’s status as a global wealth hub. [36:05–36:50]
• Parenting and Adolescence in the Digital Age: Keefe’s personal reflections highlight the challenge of monitoring and guiding teens when technology can facilitate secret identities and dangerous liaisons. [36:50–38:29]
  • “For parents whose kids have a phone … in fact they're 100 miles away hanging out with people that you don't see and don't know.” – Patrick Radden Keefe [37:15]
  • “These parents had to become detectives… The things they learned about their son after his death made me want to hold my own kids that much closer.” – Patrick Radden Keefe [38:15]
• Memorable Fareed Endorsement: “My 18 year old stole the galley copies of my book and devoured them and loved it.” – Fareed Zakaria [38:29]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Fareed’s Take/U.S.-China Dynamics: 01:02–09:00
• U.S.-Iran Ceasefire and Vali Nasr Interview: 09:05–18:24
• Orban’s Fall and Anne Applebaum Interview: 20:08–26:12
• London Underworld and Patrick Radden Keefe: 27:22–38:45

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Tone & Language

• Fareed Zakaria: Analytical, incisive, and globally minded.
• Vali Nasr: Deeply knowledgeable, pragmatic, and contextual, with a focus on nuance in diplomacy.
• Anne Applebaum: Historical, future-oriented, and grounded in democratic values.
• Patrick Radden Keefe: Narrative-driven, reflective, and attuned to subtle societal realities.

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Memorable Quotes

• “It's not an eye for an eye. It's an eye, a head, a hand, a neck.” – Vali Nasr [12:15]
• “Everything that happens tomorrow depends on what people do today.” – Anne Applebaum [23:10]
• “For parents whose kids have a phone and the phone opens up these vistas… in fact they're 100 miles away hanging out with people that you don't see and don't know.” – Patrick Radden Keefe [37:15]

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Summary Takeaway

This episode deftly captures the currents shaping our era: high-wire global diplomacy, the rise and fall of populists, the powerful undertow of wealth and identity in contemporary cities, and the quotidian yet profound challenge of raising kids in a changing world. The conversation is rich, varied, and personal, offering viewers a nuanced lens through which to interpret today’s dramas, both far-flung and close to home.

Transcript

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This is GPS, the global public square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria coming to you live from New York. Today on the program I bring you the latest on the Middle east conflict, the ceasefires, the Strait of Hormuz and more peace talks between the US and Iran, all with Vali Nasser, a top scholar on the region. Then Orban is out. The Hungarian authoritarian was voted out of office seven days ago. His soon to be successors already making major waves. What might this ouster mean for other illiberal regimes? Anne Applebaum, the Pulitzer Prize winning historian weighs in. Finally, a body of a well off teenager is discovered on the banks of the Thames. Unraveling this mystery exposes London's shadowy underworld and much more. The New Yorker's Patrick Raden Keefe tells me all about his fantastic new book, London Falling. But first, here's my take. Something puzzling is happening on the world stage. The United States has been infuriating much of the world by being reckless, erratic and lawless, launching unilateral military actions, roiling the global economy, upending alliances and and treating long held norms as inconveniences. And yet China, the world's rising superpower, has not piled on with thunderous denunciations and proclaimed itself the responsible alternative to an unreliable America. Understanding why will help us better grasp Beijing's long game. I spent the last week in China and was struck by how many people there for felt differently about this latest American war in the Middle east compared to the last major one. During the Iraq war. Chinese strategists seemed almost gleeful at the spectacle of America mired in the desert. This time, officials, think tank scholars and business leaders were mostly bewildered by America's chaotic policy, worried about it, and deeply uncertain about what Trump might do next. Some of this is self interest. China needs the oil and gas that pass through the Strait of Hormuz. More broadly, the country is not a rogue state like Russia. It understands that its growth depends on open sea lanes, functioning markets and steady rules of the game. Chinese officials repeatedly told me, echoing Xi Jinping, that the United States was taking the world back to the law of the jungle. It's less a moral critique than a strategic anxiety. In a globalized world, when the reigning hegemon becomes utterly unpredictable, it's bad for everyone. Chinese officials claim their country does not want to replace the United States. Its business leaders insisted that America remains the more innovative economy. Even though America has soured on China, those leaders continue to admire Silicon Valley, American America's great universities, and the scale and sophistication of the US Market. China's strategy is to use this crisis to build its economic strength and global influence. China is doubling down on the frontier technologies that it believes will define the next era of growth. Green energy, robotics, artificial intelligence applied to real industries, advanced manufacturing and services. Its dominance in some of these sectors is already staggering. It produces 80% of the world's solar panels, about 60% of the wind turbines and 75% of the batteries. It supplies 70% of all electric vehicles on the planet. China has used the last three economic shocks to further its dominance. During the pandemic, Chinese firms surged to supply much of the world with medical equipment. As the artificial intelligence boom swelled, China became central to its physical buildout. The metals, electrical equipment, batteries, cooling systems and industrial components needed for data centers. Now the Iran war has produced a global scramble for new energy. Here again, China is the indispensable power. It's it dominates the green technologies. Solar, wind, batteries, electric vehicles that countries will need to reduce dependence on imported oil and gas. Beijing turns these industrial strengths into influence. It offers financing infrastructure and supply chains. It locks countries into Chinese made systems. It shows governments that America brings volatility while China brings equipment, credit and continuity. From 2000 to 2025, Beijing financed projects and ports in 90 countries around the world. Last month, Beijing even offered Taiwan a deal of sorts. Accept peaceful reunification and the mainland will guarantee your energy security. China's next expansion of influence is crucial. Xi recently made explicit Beijing's ambition to turn the renminbi into a global reserve currency. One former official explained how China would steadily expand its bond market and financial infrastructure so that if investors came to see America as risky, they would have an alternative. Recent weeks have brought an obscure but ominous sign. Institutions like the World bank and the European Investment bank have been able to issue debt at rates essentially as low as as those offered by U.S. treasuries. This threatens to end what has been called America's exorbitant privilege of having the world's reserve currency. If that erodes, America will get a very painful shock when its government and its households can no longer borrow so much, so cheaply. China is using this moment to burnish its reputation, but mostly to build its power. If the correlation of forces moves steadily in its favor, if America continues to squander its global influence, one day Beijing might decide that, after all, it does want to take on the mantle of the world's leading power. And at that point, it will be too late for Washington to do anything about it. And let's get started. On Friday, Iran announced it was reopening the Strait of Hormuz. But on Saturday, it said the Strait was closing again due to breaches of trust by the United States. Just hours ago, President Trump responded with fury on his Truth Social account, calling it a total violation of our ceasefire agreement. He also said that a U.S. delegation will be in Pakistan tomorrow evening for a second round of negotiations and said that if Iran does not accept a deal, then the United States is going to knock out every single power plant and every single bridge in Iran. Now, there are only three days left before the U. S. Iran ceasefire is set to end. And Iran's top negotiator says the US And Iran are still far from a final agreement. Joining me now is Vali Nasser. He is a professor of international affairs and Middle Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University and has author of an important book, the Grand Strategy of Iran, which in many ways, I would argue, predicts a lot about what has happened. Why is Iran being so intransigent in the face of these extraordinary threats that Trump has made?

[D]

I mean, first of all, Iran thinks that through the 40 days war, they did make some strategic gains, that they want to consolidate. And they also think that they can actually get a final deal with President Trump if they. If they stand their ground. But the most important thing here is an issue of trust. I think in Islamabad, the opportunity was for the two sides to build trust that then would allow them to resolve things. But after the talks ended, I think trust has actually collapsed even further between Iran saying it will open the straits, the United States not lifting the blockade, and then President Trump issuing a series of tweets that Iranians say were false and portrays an image like Iran has already surrendered, even before there's a final deal. So I think what we see as Iranian intransigence is also Iran's deep distrust that this is all a ruse, that, like what had happened in Geneva, the US Is setting him up for something bigger to come.

[C]

The Geneva point is important because my understanding is the Iranians thought they were negotiating in good faith in Geneva. And in the middle of it, Trump starts the war. And so there is specifically a lot of lack of trust with the two negotiators, Witkoff and Kushner, correct?

[D]

Yes. Those two in particular, and especially in Geneva, the last round, because Iran did put forward very new things that it hadn't done before. It went much farther than it had gone before, and what it got instead was bombing. In other words, it's not like the US Said, okay, these are great concessions. I want you to concede even more, and I'm going to be tougher until you concede. He just went straight to war. And he had done this once before when a war happened in June. They were also in the middle of negotiations with Witkoff and Kushner. Witkoff and Kushner. So the Iranians are extremely suspicious that maybe this whole Islamabad exercise is theater. As the United States build its forces in the region, sort of learns the lessons of the first 40 days, and Trump may go back to war again. And also, this whole talk about Iran has made concessions is a way of actually creating confusion in Tehran and breaking ranks within Iran.

[C]

My own view on that is that Trump is just talking down the stock market. He knows that every time he says things like, we're close to a deal, they've surrendered. The stock market doesn't collapse, which is one of his goals. Is there new leadership in Iran? And how to think about that issue of these new people? Are they divided? You know, are they more hardline?

[D]

There is a. I believe there is a cohesive leadership. In other words, the top four or five people are all. Have known each other, have worked together, are from the same ilk in Iran. They are all Mujtaba Khamenei's people, and he included. So it's not like you have a coalition at the top. You have you have the same ilk there. They're much more hawkish leaders in Iran. They are not restrained in waging aggressive war. But they've also shown that they are willing to lean into negotiations and deploy.

[C]

What does a more hardline mean?

[D]

Means that they are willing to take actions that perhaps the previous supreme leader was not willing to take. For instance, attacking Iran's neighbors in the way they have done, be willing to escalate with the United States. And as one of the advisors to Mushtab Al Khamenei said, it's not an eye for an eye. It's an eye, a head, a hand, a neck. You know, as we sort of, if you provoke, will provoke even further. And so this is a very different approach than the previous Supreme Leader who responded to an American attack on Iran's nuclear facilities with a symbolic sending of missiles into Qatar. But at the same time, I think they've been willing to go further than perhaps the previous supreme leader was willing to go in terms of negotiating with the U.S. but domestically, you know, the factions in Iran are still the same. The regime still has to manage its base, has to manage public opinion in Iran. It has asked Iranians, in particular its own people to sacrifice enormously for this war. So when President Trump says, oh, Iran has already given up everything, even before there's a signature, it actually creates a crisis for them about how do they manage perceptions within Iran, which is quite significant.

[C]

All right, stay with us. We are going to talk about Lebanon. We're going to talk about the fate of Iran's democracy movement when we come back. And we are back with Vali Nasser, professor at Johns Hopkins University and the author of the Grand Strategy of Iran. Lebanon, will this ceasefire hold and is it important to the Iranians? Do they really feel a commitment to their allies, Hezbollah?

[D]

I think Lebanon does matter to the Iranians for reputational reasons and also for reasons that they've been with Hezbollah for a very long time and they don't want to see it go down, especially with enter this war to support the Iranians. But more importantly, Hezbollah and the ceasefire is a test for Trump in Iranians eyes. It's a test as to whether he can control Israelis. And, and if they enter into a final negotiations with the U.S. will Trump be able to control Bibi Netanyahu and Israel? And so for that reason, it's important to them to see what happens in Lebanon. But I don't think that Lebanon ultimately is a deal breaker between the United States and Iran, especially if Lebanon stays relatively calm. I'M not saying an absolute ceasefire, an absolute deal, but if you're having 160 bombs dropped in Lebanon in 10 minutes, Iranians don't think that that provides a context in which they either can trust the United States or actually be able to sign a deal with the United States.

[C]

But you think there's a deal to be had, The Iranians are willing to make concessions. I mean, my reading is Trump wants something where he can claim this is better than the Obama nuclear deal.

[D]

I think so, because the Iranians understand that this war has to end with a deal. If not today, in two weeks time, in a month's time. They're not going to defeat the United States on the battlefield and they cannot fight forever. Maybe they have a stamina for another 2, 3 months, but end of the day, there has to be a deal. So I think they are resolved to the fact that they will have to. They will have to arrive at a deal with the United States. They want it to be a permanent deal, not a small ceasefire. And that's what they're fighting for, a permanent deal that gives them real security and real sanctions relief.

[C]

What happened to the idea that you bomb Iran, the regime gets weakened, people will bethere will be genuine regime change. I mean, Trump uses the phrase now, but obviously it's the same regime. Was that a fantasy?

[D]

I think it was a fantasy and a hope that actually was never tested. With evidence of history everywhere else. People don't usually rebel in the middle of a war when bombs are falling on their head. There was no love lost for the Islamic Republic when the war started, given the massacres that happened in Iran in January and the unhappiness of the people. But first of all, Iranians are not organized around a political movement that can keep their rage going, can channel it into politics. Secondly, the war basically created a crisis for Iranians on a daily basis. And then as the war went on, it became very clear to the majority of the Iranians that war is not liberating. The Islamic Republic is not going to go anytime soon. And the United States and Israel are not there to look after their safety. They're actually bombing their neighborhoods. They're bombing their hospitals, their universities, their historical sites. This is increasingly a war against Iran. When President Trump says, I'm going to destroy every single bridge you have, what you saw was that the Iranians political reaction was, was not to go into the streets and demand the departure of the Islamic Republic, but to create human chains around power plants. And so the head of the country is somewhere else. Right now, potentially, when there is peace, when the guns fall silent, you can go back to politics. And we shouldn't forget that the January protests came six months after the June war. So I think this idea that Iranians would basically serve as America and Israel's boots on the ground and finish the job for them was an idea that was concocted as a hope, but it was not really a solid policy at any time.

[C]

I don't have a lot of time. But what about Reza Pahlavi? Was he, could he have been the leader of a new movement?

[D]

He could have been. He had his high point in January. It required him to put his shoulder to building a proper movement, but also he had to stand with the Iranian people and Iranian nationalism. He said nothing when President Trump said I'm going to erase your civilization. He said nothing when he said I'm going to send Iran back to the stone Age. In fact, he and his followers went on the streets and he and proclamations that he gave supported the war and thanked President Trump, thanked Bibi Netanyahu for bombing Iran. In 2,500 years of Iranian history, there's not a single Iranian king who has invited invasion of their country.

[C]

Vali Narsar Always, always get smarter. Listening to you next on gps. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was ousted from power one week ago. What could the end of Orban's rule mean for Europe and other populist leaders around the world? I will talk to the Atlantic's Anne Applebau.

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[C]

has been one week since Hungarians voted to oust Prime Minister viktor Orban after 16 years in power. The right wing populist was a self proclaimed champion of illiberal democracy, aligning closely with Russia and Trump while shunning the EU and Ukraine. Tisa, the party that defeated Orban, won in a landslide and now the leader, Peter Magyar is set to be Hungary's next prime minister. What does Orban's defeat mean for Europe, for Maga, for the fate of democracy? Joining me to discuss is Anne Applebaum, the Pulitzer Prize winning Historian and staff writer for the Atlantic. And should we be celebrating, given that Peter Magyar was for 20 years a member of Orban's party? Is it just a way of getting a bit of change without really getting changed?

[B]

No, I think Peter Magyar made clear that he was a center right politician, that he believed in the control of migration, that he's a social conservative, but that all of those things can be debated and indeed are debated in other countries within the context of a normal liberal democratic system. In other words, you can discuss migration without telling Hungarians, as Orban did, that there's a secret plot to bring migrants into Hungary to dilute the Hungarian nation and it's controlled by George Soros. And only if you vote for me will we be able to protect the future of Hungary. And Magyar, who was, remember, supported by parties on the left, parties on the center, Hungary's Green Party, all of whom dropped out of the campaign in order to make sure that he won, was really focused on the corruption of the Orban regime and on the distortion it had wrought into Hungary's democracy. So I think on that issue, which was for Hungarians, the main issue, I think he's for the moment trustworthy.

[C]

He has the 2/3 majority you would need to amend the constitution to undo a lot of the kind of illiberal democracy that Orban put in place. Orban himself used a 2 3rd majority to amend the constitution to make all those changes. Do you think Magyar will undo those constitutional changes?

[B]

I think he will. He's already made some pretty bold statements. He's told he went on to the national, Hungary's national television, which he had not been allowed on for the previous year and a half, and told the presenter that he was planning to fire the worst propagandists and bring back, bring back independent news. He called on the president of Hungary to resign. In Hungary, the president is chosen by the parliament, so it may be that he can make that happen. I think that because he's a member of the former ruling party of Orban's party, he understands pretty well how the system works. He's well aware, as are people around him. And I heard this from some of them when I was in Budapest a couple of weeks ago, that they know that Orban empowered a group of oligarchs who were funding the party and funding a lot of its members and leaders. They know, you know, they know that Orban has captured a whole series of institutions, universities, foundations, and they at least know that's what they have to do. They have to begin to unravel that. I wouldn't discount Orban because precisely because of his party's infiltration of so much of Hungarian life. I'm sure he will try to make a comeback, and he's already said so. But the opposition is certainly aware of the scale of what they have to do.

[C]

Do you think we are at kind of peak right wing populism? Is this some kind of a turning point in the west in general?

[B]

I wouldn't want to say that, because history doesn't work like that. History doesn't go in one direction or the other. Everything that happens tomorrow depends on what people do today. But there is one very important point about Orban, which is that he styled himself as the original leader, in other words, the original person democratically elected inside a country that was part of the European Union and NATO, who nevertheless took his country in an illiberal direction. And he sold that idea. He created think tanks and fellowships and he sponsored other think tanks around the world, and he spread those ideas. And there was a lot of money behind it. Maybe in the next few weeks and months we'll learn just how much. And so losing him as a source of funding and of advocacy does make a big difference to certainly the European far right and maybe even to the American Maga movement. I think it's also, and I've heard this even, even here in Poland, I think it's also a lesson for a lot of parties on the right that it's very risky to be too closely aligned with Trump and Vance. J.D. vance, the American vice president, came to Budapest days before the election and endorsed Orban. And that doesn't seem to have helped him. And I think others have taken on that lesson as well.

[C]

And what do you think it says for the left? You know, I mean, here you have finally, after many efforts, Orban is defeated. But he was defeated because, as you say, it was a center right candidate. Tough on immigration. It feels like, you know, the Danish liberals who are in power and have managed to stay in power are also tough on immigration. That there is a. There's a theme here, you know, don't get too far left on some of these social issues.

[B]

There's a theme about not getting too far left, but there's also a theme about building a broad, wide, diverse social movement. That's what actually you had to do in Hungary. You had to create a new movement in order to, in order to remove Orban. And also the way the election was focused on, or rather the election stayed away from culture war issues. In other words, they didn't go down the road of getting into arguments about life and death issues about migration or about Ukraine. Orban was trying to use Ukraine as a kind of scare tactic to frighten Hungarians. Maybe Ukraine will invade Hungary, maybe war will come here. And they just didn't go there. They stuck to real issues that affect people, the economy, the health care system, the educational system. And they, and they connected Hungary's recent failures, it's been doing quite poorly economically in the last several years. They connected them to the corruption of the ruling party, to the lifestyles of its leaders. And I think that's a crucial link. You know, there's a, it's not an accident that they were very, very wealthy and the rest of the country got poorer. And I think there's a lesson there for how other democratic movements could convey their messages as well.

[C]

Anne Oppelbaum, always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you. Next, Patrick Raden Keefe on London's underworld, Russian oligarchs and a murder. In 2019, 19 year old Zach Brettler's body was discovered on the banks of the River Thames in central London. Frustrated by Scotland Yard's lack of progress on the case, Zach's parents happened to meet investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe, who took it upon himself to try to untangle the mystery. What he found revealed much not only about Zach and his family and about adolescence, but about the city of London and the decades long influx of wealthy foreign nationals, particularly Russians, into that city. Radenkieff first published his findings in the New Yorker and the story is now the subject of a fantastic new book, London Falling, A Mysterious Death in a Gilded city and a family's search for truth. Patrick, welcome. Pleasure to have you.

[A]

Great to be with you.

[C]

So how did you come to write this book? Because it starts with the death of this teenager.

[A]

It does. So I had written an essay for the New Yorker magazine shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in which I talked in a kind of more discursive way about the awkwardness for London after the invasion and realizing how many Putin cronies had kind of settled in and been offered the welcome. Matt so it was a subject I'd been thinking about and I was living in London in the summer of 2023, not long thereafter shooting a television program, a dramatic series based on my book, say Nothing. I was on set one day and I got to talking with a stranger, a guy who was just visiting the set that day, and he said, I might have a story for you. And he said, there's A family in London that I am very close with who've had this tragedy. They've lost a son. Their teenage son Zach, died in 2019 in mysterious circumstances. He went off the balcony of a luxury building overlooking the Thames in London. And after his death, his parents were trying to figure out what had happened to him. Was it a suicide? Was he pushed? Did he fall? And they made this startling discovery, which is that unbeknownst to them, their son Zach had been leading a secret double life. He had an alter ego and he had been posing in London as the billionaire son of a Russian oligarch. And so there was this grieving family who had lost their son. They had kept the case very quiet up to that point, and they had actually sort of trusted the cops to get to the bottom of what was going on. And right around the time they met me, they had realized that Scotland Yard wasn't going to get them answers. And the official investigation had kind of run its course into what happened to Zachary. So I started talking with them and learned about how their son had basically grown up as a teenager in London. In a period of time. He was born in 2000, in a period of time when the whole culture of London is changing. It's becoming more of a kind of hustling, blingy place with a lot of ostentatious wealth, a lot of it international, a lot of international money, and Russia indeed. And he goes to this, a private school, fancy private school just north of London, where he's surrounded by the children of oligarchs. And so Zach himself was an upper middle class kid, came from a very comfortable family, lived in Maida Vale in West London. But he's exposed to these kids who are just rich in a different way. And he was very taken with that as an adolescent and actually taken specifically with the Russian oligarchs. He was obsessed with Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club. And so at a certain point, unbeknownst to his parents, he starts pretending that he's the son of a Russian oligarch. And he gets mixed up with some pretty dicey people.

[C]

How is he able to do that? You need real cash to do that?

[A]

Well, he. It's interesting. So you need to be quick witted, for one thing. And Zach turns out to have been extraordinarily good at lying and sort of selectively, almost like a magpie kind of plucking some little detail of real life and then reincorporating it. He would tell people that he lived in one Hyde park, which is one of the most expensive real estate developments. It's in Knightsbridge. And people would come and meet him there and pick him up at one Hyde Park. And he was always outside the building. They never saw him walking out. They always assumed he'd just come down in the elevator. But in fact, he was always just kind of showed up and he would meet people out front. That got him entree. But it also meant that he ended up surrounded by some pretty unscrupulous people who were really chiefly interested in his money.

[C]

And why did he do it? I mean, it's hard to analyze a teenager's psychology, but.

[A]

Well, part of what this book turned out to be, in a way that kind of surprised me, was it's in some respects a kind of a book about the challenges of raising an adolescent. Today, where Zach was on Instagram, I think he was very seduced by. By a kind of image of wealth and kind of buccaneering wealth. And I think he wanted in. I think he wanted that. That was the life that he wanted. He wanted to live in a mansion in St John's Wood. He wanted to drive a supercar. And.

[C]

And he thought in a way, that he would bluff his way into this world with that little.

[A]

He thought he would fake it till he made it. And I have to say, there's a part of me, you know, he didn't survive that night. He ends up in that apartment with a very dangerous man, a man who turns out to be a really fearsome gangster. He pulled this ruse on people who, in retrospect, you realize it was suicidally dangerous to have tried that with. But I think if he'd survived that night, there might be a chance that today he'd be some successful real estate impresario in London. If you look around the culture, there are all kinds of people who do sort of fake it until they make it. Con men who actually achieve the highest levels of success.

[C]

To find out how the mystery unravels, you'll have to buy the book. But next on gps, I'll ask Patrick how London went from the working class manufacturing town of Charles Dickens to a hub for international wealth and a haven for Russian oligarchs. More now of my interview with Patrick Raden Keefe, a New Yorker staff writer and the author, author of the new book London Falling. So now let's get to the part you were talking about, the broader issue. Why did London become populated by these Russian oligarchs? I mean, there are obvious reasons, but they could have gone to Geneva or Zurich or you know, Dubai, and many did. But what do you think was the. What made London special?

[A]

You get a fascinating confluence of factories here in this history. And I tell this story in the book, but, you know, if we were to go to London in, say, 1955, London is the city that you would recognize from Dickens, right? In some respects, it is a port city. It's one of the biggest port cities in the world and had been for hundreds of years. And it's a manufacturing town. There are huge factories lining the Thames, kind of belching smoke into the air. And what happens is in a period of about 25 years, really from the late 50s into the early 80s, both of those things go away. All of the docks close. London ceases to be a shipping city, and all the factories close. It ceases to be a manufacturing town. And when Margaret Thatcher comes in, the city kind of has to reinvent itself, figure out, what are we going to be? And there's a decision made. They deregulate the banking industry in 87, and London reemerges as a preferred destination for cash and people who have it. It becomes a money town. Then you get the kind of birth of the oligarchs, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, these huge fortunes which are accumulated practically overnight. Russia during the collapse of the USSR was a great place to be making money if you were a capitalist. But once you've accumulated those billions, not a great place to hold on to the money. You want to get it out of Russia, Russia, and possibly get yourselves out. And so you have this generation of oligarchs who find safe harbor in London and London, I think, kind of getting the sense of where things are going rolls out the red carpet. There is this recognition that we want this kind of money. There's a golden visa program. It's interesting, you know, the United States now introducing its own golden visa program. Well, London did that a while back. And actually, this was a big thing that brought in a lot of oligarchs and their billions.

[C]

And you said that one of the things you realized was that the police was not really that interested in delving too deeply into the underworld of this Russian oligarchy. The oligarchy, plus the crime that went with it. Why?

[A]

I think for a couple of reasons. One is that if you look at the Metropolitan Police, it's interesting. I mean, Scotland Yard still has great branding. We still think of it as one of the great police police forces in the world. I think in reality, it's not really fit to purpose at this point. You've had decades of cutbacks and so forth. But I think there's something else going on here too, which is that at a certain point, the welcome to these oligarchs is so warm that Moscow starts sending assassins to British soil to conduct hits. There's a kind of learned behavior on the part of the authorities to just say, you know, we don't want to look too close closely at this. You get the whiff of international intrigue and what you find is that the Metropolitan Police very frequently will say, looks like an accident, looks like a suicide.

[C]

Has there been a reckoning with all of that after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, particularly the 2022 full scale invasion?

[A]

I think that to some degree there has. At least rhetorically, there has. I mean, I think that there is lip service to the idea that changes need to be made. I think some of the features that made London so compelling, for instance, non dom status in which people don't have to pay, wealthy internationals don't have to pay taxes in the UK on money made abroad that is now getting rolled back. There's a little bit more transparency in the housing market than there was before. So there have been changes that I think will be significant. But the thing that's really interesting is when some of these oligarchs got sanctioned after the invasion, there were other wealthy people from places like the Gulf or places like China who essentially saw this as an opportunity. Suddenly these mansions come up for sale and the new generation of rich Aravistes swoop in.

[C]

And what did you learn about raising an adolescent?

[D]

A lot.

[A]

I mean, it was, you know, I have two adolescent sons myself. I think this is. I spent a lot of time talking to this family, the Brettlers. And I think that, you know, it's interesting, they grew up in the 1960s and their parents took an approach to parenting that was sort of typical of England in the 1960s. Laissez faire, to put it mildly. Really hands off. And then they're parenting, Zach, in the early aughts when the whole approach is much different. But it was, you know, it was kind of humbling in a way to see the way in which for parents whose kids have a phone and the phone opens up these vistas and exposes them to people who they could be sitting on the couch right across from you and you think you have an eye on them, but in fact they're 100 miles away hanging out with people that you don't see and don't know. And part of what was shocking for the Brettlers was that after Zach died and after the police kind of failed to get to the bottom of this, these parents had to become detectives. They had to actually go out and investigate themselves. And this journey kind of took them into London's underworld, talking with people, interviewing people, tracking down people he knew. I think that the things that they learned about their son after his death made me want to hold my own kids that much closer and try and find a way to kind of keep them in my orbit without smothering them to a point where you don't allow them to grow up and become their own people, which is an important part of adolescence as well.

[C]

Well, the best recommendation I can give for your book is that my 18 year old stole the galley copies of my book and devoured them and loved it.

[A]

I'd love to hear it. This is theft.

[C]

I approve of. Patrick Raden Keefe, Pleasure to have you on.

[A]

Thank you so much.

[C]

Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

[A]

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