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- [00:00]
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Foreign.
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Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back one of our favorite and most uplifting guests. She's a staff writer at the Atlantic. Her most recent books include Twilight of Democracy and Autocracy, Inc. It's Ann Applebaum and hi there. Let's do it. We have quite the outline for today. Lots happening, even on heater. There's some news that Governor Pritzker made $1.4 million gambling out yesterday, according to his tax returns. And that is a real heater in gambling. And I'm upset I didn't get to ask him about it and see what his gambling of choice was on Tuesday. But you've been on a writing heater and I want to go through some of your recent articles, but we have unfortunately, some other news first. I want to start with I guess we'll start with the overseas stuff. The AP had this story earlier this week that I haven't got a chance to mention that is just brutal about usaid. That's title is Starving Children Screaming for Food as USAID Cuts Unleash Devastation and Death Across Myanmar. I just want to read a little bit from the lead here. Muhammad clutched the lifeless body of his two year old son and wept. Ever since his family's food rations stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April, the father had watched helplessly as his once vibrant baby boy suffering from diarrhea and begging for food. On May 21, exactly two weeks after the little boy died, Marco Rubio sat before Congress and said no one has died because of his government's decision to gut the foreign aid program. That Mohammed said is a lie. I lost my son because of the funding cuts. And it's not only me.
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Yes, obviously, when a program that sent hundreds of millions of dollars in food aid around the world is abruptly cut without making any provision for the consequences. Yes, obviously people died. People didn't get their food, they didn't get their medical treatment, they didn't get their AIDS treatment. And that's of course, not just in Myanmar, but all over the world. I was in Sudan earlier this year. I think we talked about it before. And I met people who were very directly aware that USAID had been cut and they were beginning to, you know, be very careful how they use the resources that they had. And this is an extremely poor country that's in the middle of the civil war and they were rationing what was available because they, because they knew what was coming. So I mean, it's absurd to imagine that that would have no impact. I mean, it was a monumental decision. And I think, as we also said at the time, it had all these knock on consequences because, you know, the USAID was responsible for something like 40% of the world's humanitarian aid, but a larger proportion of logistics. And so others who were delivering aid also suddenly found themselves blocked and the ships weren't running or the trucks weren't driving. And it was a real disaster in a lot of places.
- [02:56]
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In addition to the aid not going out, people that are suffering around the world are not coming in, which has been the American tradition. This is the New York Times story yesterday. The Trump administration is considering a radical overhaul of the US Refugee system that would slash the program to its bare bones while giving preference to English speakers, white South Africans and Europeans who oppose migration to the continent, according to documents obtained by the Times. This is another thing that just doesn't get like a ton of attention because of all the other horrors and acute issues coming to the country. But the degree to which the incoming refugee program has just been slashed to zero is pretty notable.
- [03:38]
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It was probably true that the refugee system needed to be changed, but it looks to me like what the Trump administration did was take that need for change or that need for reform and to radically reverse it and change it into something completely different altogether. Defining white South Africans and Europeans who disagree with their government's migration policies as being somehow victims of human rights abuse or political repression is a bizarre. I mean, I guess it's a kind of troll. It's a way of mocking the entire system of refugee protection and also of a whole long tradition of American support for people who are victims of real political repression. And it's just a way of redefining who we are and what we do.
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B
Troll is an interesting word because it brings to mind the text chain from Politico. People were reporting about the young Republicans that were texting each other a lot of racist stuff. And some of the pushback to that that you saw publicly from people on the right was like, these things were obviously a joke and everybody needs to chill out. Up to including the vice president took that position. And this policy is an interesting way where the troll overlaps with reality. Okay, maybe you're not really racist in your heart. I can't judge. But if you're making jokes about Nazis, making jokes about white nationalism, and then the people that are making those jokes get hired into the government, and then they get into the government and they do another troll, I guess. And the net effect of that troll is that Only white people can come into the country. That kind of doesn't matter what word you use to describe it. In effect, they're putting in place white race based policies.
- [05:24]
A
Yeah, I suppose the thing that makes it hard for people to understand is exactly, this is the tone. These things are done in the. Yeah, there is a, a weird, jokey underground tone that you now find, you know, in a lot of online conversation and that, you know, for people who are used to a different way of speaking where people say what they think and they stand behind what they say, it's, it's hard to understand. But as it, as it merges into policy and becomes U.S. government policy, then, yeah, I think it's time to take it really seriously. This isn't, of course not the only example. Of course.
- [05:59]
B
I want to kind of lump together a couple other topics here domestically under I guess what I'd call authoritarianism at home and the progress that's been made since we've last chatted with each other, three things jump out to me in particular. I want to talk about what's happening with ICE and this sort of show your papers culture. This is something I talked about with Pritzker on Tuesday. You're seeing this more and more particularly in Chicago now in this country where people, if they're brown, just have to show their papers or they're menaced by the government agents. So you've got that there's another Time story out about the IRS and how they're reorganizing that to use it to target political foes. Then the DoD, which is essentially every major media organization in America, is no longer badged to go into the Pentagon because of their new rules. As of today, I want to talk about all of them. And just at a biggest level, I was just kind of interested in your view on like all of those things taken together, like this attack on the suppress. You know, what we're seeing with immigration enforcement and the irs.
- [06:59]
A
So I think what we're seeing is the United States moving away from a rule of law culture, meaning that the law is something that is enforced by courts and is written into the Constitution and all government officials are obliged to abide by it to a rule by law culture, which is what authoritarian countries have, which means the law is what the government decides it is. And you know, in that, in that world, the IRS is not a neutral agency with very, actually historically extremely strict controls over its data and who can have access to it and how it can be used into something like a tool of the government or you know, yet another thing the government can use to investigate you. And that's. I mean, actually, that is really. You know, I don't. I don't always like these direct comparisons, but that's really reminiscent of the beginning of Putinism. That was how Putin would get rid of his rivals. He would have launched tax investigations of companies. And this was in an era in Russia when a lot of people had violated all kinds of laws. I mean, it was a real free for all, which is not the case in the U.S. but even so, the threat of an investigation against you makes you behave differently.
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The story is really shocking. I mean, it says in here a senior IRS official involved in the effort has drawn up a list of potential targets that include major Democratic donors. Some of the people said the fact that they leaked that it's an intentional effort to try to chill donors to Democrats. One other kind of related element is Scott Besant was on Charlie Kirk's podcast, I guess, on Tuesday, and called Kirk's assassination a domestic 9, 11, and said that he wanted to use the Treasury Department to kind of root out the political opponents of Kirk and use the Treasury Department to do investigations of their finances. You take all that stuff together. I mean, it's. It's overt what they're doing.
- [08:55]
A
Yes, this is a threat to use the power of the government, which can investigate you and can look at your finances and can use the FBI to surveil you and can use all kinds of tools that have been historically really bound and constricted by law to use them against targeted political opponents. In other words, not criminals, not anybody who's broken the law, simply people that they don't like. I mean, this business of renaming normal political groups and organizations, you know, talking about the demonstrators who will be coming out this weekend as Hamas. No. Or as terrorists. I think that was Mike Johnson who said that. But Scott Besson also said something along those lines, renaming them as somehow threats or insurrectionists. As long as there have been dictatorships, this is what they do. And again, they haven't done it yet. And we have, you know, we still have a legal system that will fight back against it and so on. I don't want to give people this feeling of hopelessness, but, I mean, this is a absolutely textbook way of abusing the arms and the powers of the state that were set up by all of us to benefit all of us. You know, the IRS collects money so that we can have, you know, a federal government and an army and, you know, Social Security system. It's not set up to terrorize Americans. And the FBI exists to protect all of us. And the people who go to work for it swear an oath to the Constitution, not to the MAGA Republicans and not to Donald Trump. And so all these things were set up to protect us and keep our society safe. And it looks like what they're trying to do is reverse them and use them deliberately. And actually, as you're right, one of the weird things, very publicly they are leaking this stuff or talking about it against their so called enemies. And the point is to make Democratic donors afraid to give money, make people afraid to protest, make people afraid to engage in lawsuits, make journalists afraid to write. I mean, on and on and on. The idea is to create a kind of chill, an atmosphere in which people were, you know, are anxious about doing anything political. And that's, that's very ugly and it's very un American.
- [11:03]
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I'm not gonna be chilled. We all did see it coming. It was about seven minutes into the Biden debate that I texted my husband and I said, we're gonna have to upgrade our tax accounting services, I think for 2025. So we've done that. Is your sense talking to people in these circles, that the chilling effect is working?
- [11:19]
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Maybe you and I are lucky. I mean, we work for institutions that are gonna protect us. And so I'm surrounded by people who, to continue talking and working and writing and so on. I'm here at the offices of the Atlantic magazine in Washington D.C. and we're, you know, we're not hiding in a bunker. No, it's all pretty open. I hear from a lot of people who want to do things. I'm constantly being asked by people, how can I be more engaged, what can I do? What do you think? I pass out suggestions all the time. So I, you know, the speed with which they're moving and the aggression they're using is creating kind of backlash. I mean, what we need, of course, is for their supporters or even just the people who voted for them to begin to see this. And I don't have any way of measuring how, how effective the backlash is in that area, but I do think.
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It'S kind of effective with Democratic donors. The donor thing is interesting that they said that by name because I had Chris Murphy on about two or three months ago now, and he was, he said he was alarmed about it at the time. And my understanding is it's gotten kind of worse since then as far as the chill amongst big donors, not people giving 10 bucks. There are a lot of people out there doing that. But that's concerning.
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I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. A lot of those people, you know, if they have a lot of money, then they have some kind of dealings with the government. Maybe they're nervous in a way they didn't ever have to be before.
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All right, y'. All. Traditional phone systems weren't built for how businesses work. Today, when you miss a call, you're not just missing a conversation. If you're doing this for your company, you're losing business. Our sponsor, Quo, is helping to solve that. They're designed to help you work smarter, build stronger relationships, and never miss an opportunity. Quo is the number one business phone system that streamlines customer communications. No more juggling two phones or being tied to a landline. Quo works through an app on your phone or computer so you can run your business from anywhere. Something that might be important. If I have to flee to Spain or Uruguay. Your team can share one number and collaborate on calls and texts like a shared inbox, keeping response times fast and customers happy. Whether you're a solo operator, a leading, growing team, Quo keeps you connected and helps you deliver standout customer experiences. Join over 90,000 businesses using Quo. Get started free plus 20% off your first six months@quo.com TheBullWork that's Q U O.com TheBullWork and if you have existing numbers with another service, Quo will port them over at no extra charge. Quo no missed calls, no missed customers. Back to the DOD. So this is a statement from the Pentagon Press association yesterday. The Defense Department has confiscated the badges of the Pentagon reporters from virtually every major media organization in America today. Today is a dark day for the press. This is all about having their accreditation revoked because they refused to agree to the Defense Department's new restrictions on news gatherings. Crazy.
- [14:09]
A
What's interesting is that as far as I know, as of yesterday, every single news organization refused to sign this, you know, this document that the Pentagon handed.
- [14:19]
B
Them, which I think OAN and the Federalists were the two. One American News, which is platforming the Matt Gates podcast. He's a competitor in the podcast space now. And the Federalist, which was just a right wing MAGA online outlet. Those are the two that I've seen. Yeah.
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A
Yeah, but that meant a lot of. I mean, FOX didn't sign it, right?
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Yeah, Newsmax, even Newsmax didn't sign it.
- [14:40]
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So a bunch of others didn't sign it. Even for Fox, it's dangerous to sign a piece of paper that says your journalists could be investigated. Or prosecuted if they ask the wrong questions. I mean, that's how some people interpreted what that said. I mean, what's disturbing to me is I'm worried that the purpose of this exercise was to get everybody out of the building. In other words, they didn't expect people to sign it. It's a little bit like these documents they give universities that no university can possibly sign. You know, they wanted everybody gone. And that will make, you know, One American News Network and the Federalist, in effect, state media, that all of the Pentagon press conferences will be just directed at them. And so official government. For official government statements, you'll have to go onto One America News Network. I think that might be the intention. Of course, it doesn't mean that Pentagon reporting will stop and people will just do it from somewhere else and they'll, you know, they'll use different kind of sources. Sure, I know, you know, the Atlantic has somebody who's going to continue, you know, what she was doing from somewhere else. But I, I, I do think that the purpose was narrow it down, you know, and make everyone use state media, and then that reduces the ability to report and, and, and use the news of others. I mean, it's very strange actually, because actually the US Military has mostly, I mean, there are exceptions. Find plenty of exceptions. Has usually benefited from its relationships with the press. I mean, you know, all the journalists who've been brought into battalions during wars to fight alongside the soldiers and take pictures of what was going on, I mean, that's something that has always been, I mean, the Army's worked with journalists for decades, forever, really. And I'm sure there are people in that building who are really upset about what's happening.
- [16:18]
B
Yeah, I think another possible reason here is just simply Pete Hegto's paranoia and that circle has kind of shrunk. Early in the administration, there were a lot of those kind of leaks and stories going out, profiles of how paranoid he was and how he's freaking out at people and how he's giving people people polygraphs and stuff. I don't really have any reason to believe that that has ended in the subsequent period of time. Right. And so this might be motivated by that, like he wants these people out of the buildings because he's so paranoid.
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Maybe, but it doesn't mean they won't report.
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Yeah, right.
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You know, and it doesn't mean people won't leak. So it's a very strange way to be paranoid. I guess if you're paranoid, you're paranoid.
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Paranoid people do paranoid.
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Weird mistakes I don't know, Pete Hexes. So I don't know whether I can't make any judgments about it.
- [17:04]
B
And then the ice. The show your papers stuff, I mean, just the parallels are pretty striking. I know you just said earlier you don't want to always make the parallels, but how can you not? I mean, this was another Time story out this morning. I saw that just, that reporter just witnessed this. This was not like one of the things got put out by a group. It was like an unmarked black car. Two people are running next to the lake. Agents jump out, ask them what their legal status is. They say they have H1BS, they're detained for a little bit and they're let. That's just a one tiny example. But this stuff is happening all over the city. I mean, all over the country, really, but particularly in Chicago.
- [17:42]
A
Look, I mean, it's a violation of how we've done law enforcement forever. I mean, at least in modern times, you know, approaching people without cause, you know, people who clearly aren't criminals. It's also this use of civilian cars and people wearing masks. And there's no tradition of that again, in contemporary American history.
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B
You know, again, East Germany.
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A
East Germany, our soldiers were named tags, you know, and our policemen wear name tags. And that's on purpose because that's part of how you build trust in the police. And the idea of having some kind of paramilitary force that wears face masks. I've talked a lot about other democracies that have declined and so on, and Viktor Orban's Hungary, I don't remember that happening there.
- [18:28]
B
What is the view on that? Is that the thing that is maybe the most striking in your conversations with people in Europe, people in Poland and elsewhere, that is the masked domestic agents, the thing. I mean, obviously that probably they have more acute interests about NATO, et cetera, but just kind of watching America from afar, you know, what is the. What is the reaction to that?
- [18:49]
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Remember that they hear news very selectively.
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B
Yeah.
- [18:52]
A
You know, they don't follow it day to day. They don't follow anybody on social media. I mean, they just hear the big news stories and they have all heard the stories about Chicago, and they all know who Governor Pritzker is. I mean, if they read the newspaper and they all know about National Guard troops being sent there and so on. And so, yes, the ICE stories and the police stories are having a huge play there, but it's not really separable. I mean, the idea of the US as the leader of the democratic world. This is the article that I just wrote that I know you want to talk about as the leader of the democratic world was connected to also what America was at home. America was often hypocritical and we often broke our own laws and so on, and that long tradition of that going back to the very beginning. But America was, especially in Europe and I think especially in the Asian allies in. In Japan, South Korea. America stood for a certain way of behavior and a certain kind of political leadership. You know, the American language about rule of law. You know, we've gone all over the world and talked about why rule of law is important for many, many years. You know, other people bought it and they tried to bring it to their. If they didn't have it before. And they tried to. They created constitutional democracies, not necessarily exactly modeled on ours, but with the idea of ours as a kind of lodestone, you know, kind of not a precise model, but an inspiration. And the idea that we are suddenly going back on that or we are suddenly creating all these institutions that they've all tried to get rid of. I mean, if you come from a formerly communist country or a formless fascist country, which is almost everybody, then you remember these kinds of paramilitary forces from your past. And you also remember that your country got out of that or escaped from that partly by aspiring to be more like America and by wanting to be part of an alliance with America. And so those things aren't really separable for people. And so the US Is doing a lot of damage. I mean, obviously it's more important what happens in America to Americans, but it's also doing a lot of damage to its standing and its image and its influence in the world by assaulting its own institutions.
- [21:06]
B
The title of the article you're referencing is Beacon of Democracy Goes Dark. I mean, the idea of the US As a leader of the free world just feels kind of silly at this point. It's just over. I mean, just functionally speaking. And a part of that is the abdication. And you get into this in the piece, not just of the policies, because we always had some. You can just ask black Americans, whoever. We always had people that were victims of our government's anti rule of law, anti democratic moves domestically. But. But there was always like this kind of aspiration, you know, a goal to reach. Right. And these guys just have basically stopped that part. Right. It is not as if, oh, we're being hypocritical at home. It's like their stated message to the world is basically that the US Is now open for business. We can do corrupt deals and like, that's fine. Now it is silly or boomerish or eye rolly to even talk about advancing democracy. That's some kind of neocon thing from the past. And just the premise that we're trying to promote democracy, rule of law is over.
- [22:16]
A
I don't know if it's over forever, but it's definitely over for the moment. And if I can have one second to go back a little in time, sure. That the US Was a model for other democracies has been true since 1776. And the Declaration of Independence was passed around and reprinted in all kinds of places. It was an inspiration for the French Revolution, inspiration for the Haitian Revolution not that long afterwards. That language has always been used and copied, even despite what good or bad we were doing at home or abroad. Since 1945, certainly since the Second World War, the language of democracy has definitely been part of our foreign policy going through, you know, many, many administrations which were not neocon or, or neoliberal. I mean, you know, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, you know, everybody, Teddy, everybody, Teddy Rizzo a little earlier. But every, everybody certainly in the last 80 years has used that language or 70 years. And one of the mistakes I think we made in thinking about that, this is one of the arguments I've come to actually over time was that we always thought that by promoting democracy abroad or having troops in Europe or in South Korea, that we were doing a favor to those countries, that we were somehow defending Europe to help the Europeans in retrospect, by putting that language, the defense of democracy, at the center of our foreign policy. For a long time, I think it had a unifying effect at home. It was a thing that people could be linked to, that could inspire people, even in times when bad things were happening here. The idea that this is what America stood for, this is our national identity and this is our international identity, I think it was really important for Americans. There's a famous moment during arguments about segregation where there's an amicus brief filed by the US Department, Department of Justice of the Supreme Court case in Brown v. Board of Education, where they make an explicit reference to this. They say, I don't remember. I don't have the exact quote in front of me. But it's something like, people abroad will question our, our devotion to the democratic faith. They use the expression democratic faith, you know, if we aren't treating all American citizens equally. And this idea that there was a thing called the democratic faith was really important for unifying a really diverse and, you know, very Heterogeneous, very, you know, enormous country with people from all different places with all different ideas and all different religions. And that was the thing that we were unified. That's the thing that kept us together. And it feels at the moment like the administration wants to destroy that abroad, obviously, and no longer have the US Be the center of a big series of democratic alliances. But the impact of that at home is also pretty big. You know, if that's not what we are anymore, what are we unified around? What is the national identity? I mean, is it white people? I mean, I don't think so. I don't think that's gonna work for everybody.
- [25:22]
B
Seems like JD Van Sing. So you're pretty good on this quote here. This was Dean Acheson in the Department of Justice had filed the Advocates brief, and it said, racial discrimination raises doubts even among friendly nations as to the intensity of our devotion to the democratic faith. In that brief, it's a famous note.
- [25:38]
A
And I know that behind the scenes in that era, that was part of the argument in favor of civil rights. The idea was that our failure to treat our citizens equally at home is damaging for us, you know, because people felt this, you know, this contradiction between what we stood for, what we said we stood for, and what we were doing. And that was part of how we got the Civil Rights act and the civil rights, you know, changes to rights for all Americans.
- [26:06]
B
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- [28:36]
A
Yeah. I mean, that's happening, although nobody says so in public. I mean, almost every European country is now looking at how to reconfigure their security in the event that the United States is no longer an ally. How to think differently about economics and trade. There were a lot of decisions, a lot of investments were made. On the assumption that the relationship, this is about Europe, which I know the best, although I'm sure it's true of other countries. On the assumption that the presumption the United States was a very stable ally and that there was a predictable long term relationship. I mean, if you're a, I don't know, you're a Dutch company or you're a Danish company, you want to make a huge investment in America, you do that because you feel like, well, the legal system is compatible and the trade rules are going to be predictable. And so I can trust it. And that has now gone. I mean, and you're right, that's not coming back. And so it just doesn't mean people won't make investments, but they will do so differently and at a different pace and with different kinds of safeguards. And the assumptions that were almost unspoken assumption, well, you know, about how, how America and Europe work together are all being questioned right now. I mean, I talk to a lot of different kinds of European audiences at different times. And this is what everybody says.
- [29:58]
B
I think about the younger generation coming up again, harkening back to that text chain, even though some of those guys aren't that young on the Young Republican chat. But I go to tpo, say things and hear from those young people about their worldview. I think you think about the worldview of the types of college student that was showing up to the protests about Gaza. I think a lot of them would listen to this conversation and roll their eyes a little bit like, you know, and just be like, ugh, this is all stupid boomer stuff. You know, it's out, it's out of date. This like democracy promotion, you know, on the left, people would say, well, this obviously was this huge failure. If you look at the Iraq war and stuff, we need to go a different route. And on the right you'd hear that Iraq war was a failure. But as I was reading your article, it's striking. And you kind of go through all the countries that like joined, you know, the democratic world over the past 70 years. Greece and Spain and South Korea and Taiwan and countries in central Europe and imagining the counterfactual world, right, where all those countries are varying degrees of authoritarian kleptocracies. That is bad for the world, it's bad for individuals that live in those countries, it's bad for us in America. But that argument feels like it's losing right now. Do you sense that?
- [31:16]
A
So Iraq is a very bad example. We invaded Iraq for a lot of different reasons. And later somebody got the idea that this was about democracy, but that was not. You know, that is actually, was actually atypical of the post war period. You know, most of the countries that became democracies and aspired to be part of an alliance with the United States did so peacefully or relatively peacefully. And there was a huge expansion of the democratic world after the Second World War and it was led or inspired or somehow encouraged by us. And so there is a long list of huge successes. I mean, as you know, I live part of the time in Poland and Poland is actually by any measure a success economically, politically and every other way. I mean, it was a basket case. It was a victim of other countries for 100 years and now it's not. So, you know, so we had this long experience of success. You know, we are at a moment where the pendulum has swung the other way and the forces of, you know, doubt and cynicism and also, you know, corruption and, you know, secrecy is a big, is a big inspiration for a lot of autocrats and money and corruption are pushing a lot of countries in the opposite direction. So I don't know how broad you want to look at it, but I mean, there is a, my other book topic. I mean, there is a coalition of autocratic states who have spent the last decade trying to push back, trying to find the propaganda and the tools to push back against the democratic world. Because our language, that language that the 35 year olds or however old they are, young Republicans make fun of our language was such a big threat to them. Since, you know, 2010, the Russians have been trying to find ways to find language that undermined democracy, that made fun of NATO, that reduced the power and influence of America and culminating in the invasion of Ukraine, which was designed to show that America is helpless and NATO is worthless. I mean, it hasn't, they haven't succeeded in that yet. But, but it's not a plot and it's not a, you know, it's not a conspiracy. But there is a, there's been a lot of pressure put on, on the scale from the other side. There are a lot of people in the world who don't like transparency and don't like the rule of law and want to have different kind of political systems. And of course they're, they're threatened by their own protesters, by, you know, by Navalny and Russia or Hong Kong.
- [33:43]
B
And the political memory of this stuff starts to fade. Right. Like the people that live through the greatest period of successes and where a lot of these countries became democracies are getting old or dying.
- [33:53]
A
Yeah, I hate to say it, but no, I was in Poland in 1989 when communism fell. And so that. I guess I'm one of the group of old people that.
- [34:02]
B
Me too, I'm on the younger, the younger side of it. I don't know. It's just something I think about a lot. You mentioned Ukraine. You had another article about that recently, talking about how Ukraine is targeting Russian oil and gas. You visited a company called Firepoint, talked about what they were doing since then, since you've written that, our president has had maybe a temporary, maybe permanent, who knows, change of hearts, it seems, on the war a little bit. And there's some discussion that more offensive weapons will be sent to Ukraine. What's your sense of the state of play?
- [34:36]
A
So Ukrainians are very sanguine. They, of course, they would like the American president to give them more offensive weapons. And if he does, they will use them and they will be very happy. There's no, no question about that. But they have also focused for the last year on building their own weapons. And the thing that they built, and this is them, not us, thing they built, that has been unusually successful, are different kinds of long range drones. And so the factory I went to makes these drones that are like little airplanes. They look like planes, they're much bigger than what you think of as a drone. They can fly for seven hours. They carry warheads. The factory I went to is, it's one of many, but it's one of the more advanced ones. And they make 100 of these huge drones every day. And I was told that they launch 100 of them every day. So as soon as they're made, they go up in the air. And there are several dozen drone attacks on Russian military facilities and, and in the last few months on Russian oil refineries and other other pieces of equipment to do with the oil industry. And that the goal is to deprive the Russians of money so that they can't keep the war going, so that the oligarchs suffer. One of the effects of it has been that the, there's been this massive gas shortage across Russia. You know, people queuing for, for gasoline and diesel. So, so it's having an effect. Of course, what the Ukrainians want is a US contribution, but they don't count on it. The idea that the Ukraine war can only be won by the US is one I think is an idea they want to fight back against. I mean, I suppose there is one important element were Trump to make this decision. This is also like all wars, this one has a psychological element. And one of the things that Trump did when he first came to office and he attacked Zelensky in the Oval Office and he had the meeting with Putin in Alaska was he gave the Russian leadership this belief that they could still win. It sort of reinforced their confidence, right, we can keep going. You know, we don't need to have a ceasefire. You know, the American President's not going to do anything. Nobody's going to do anything. So it was a. It was a reinforcement of their strategy, which remains the same as it always was. They've never changed their language. They're always. Their goal is to destroy Ukraine as a nation and to remove Zelensky and to expand the Russian empire. I mean, it's never, They've never dropped that. Despite all this talk about ceasefire. They never promised one. Were Trump to start using different language in a consistent way, that would help the inevitable process of the Russians coming to understand that they can't win the war. Had he done that in January, we might be closer to the end of the war now, but instead we've lost six months, eight months. It would be useful if he did that. But it's not like the Ukrainians are desperate for American weapons and they'll. The front line will collapse if they don't have them.
- [37:27]
B
What's your sense for how dire the straits are in Russia and all this? And sometimes it's hard to break through all of the messaging and counter messaging on all of this about the Russian economy. I mean, there have been some people saying the Russian economy's on his last legs for years now. And you have others that are, like Tucker Carlson or whatever, that spread misinformation about how great things are in Russia. They got the best grocery stores. What's your sense? The actual situation with their economic. The economic threat.
- [37:55]
A
This is partly an unserious answer. I was in a very large American grocery store recently and I thought of that Tucker Carlson comment, and I wondered actually whether he had ever been in an American grocery store. Maybe he hasn't.
- [38:05]
B
Maybe not. Not for a while.
- [38:07]
A
Maybe he hadn't for a while and didn't know how big they. And large they are. So the Russian economy is very hard. It's very hard to measure because we don't know how good the statistics are. There are some things we know. I mean, their oil imports are low. They're beginning to drop. This is because of the Ukrainian attacks. I mean, we know there have been gas shortages because we've seen the pictures, and I think even the Russian media was forced to report on them. We know that inflation is very high. We know there's all kinds of dislocations in the economy. You know, I think the piece that is missing and is really unknowable is what impact these kinds of things can have on the leadership. So in our country, when there's inflation or when the price of eggs is high, that can have an immediate political result. Right? Because it changes the way people vote in Russia. People don't really get to vote. I mean, they vote, but it doesn't count. So, you know, there's only one candidate. So there isn't a mechanism that translates economic hardship into policy change in any way. But there will come a point eventually in Moscow, and maybe we're close to it, and we could be closer depending on the actions of the. This administration, when enough people will say, this war isn't worth it, and we're. It's costing too much and too many people have died and we don't want to fight anymore. You know, this is a colonial war. And so you can compare it, for example, to the French war in Algeria or the Portuguese wars in Africa. You know, eventually the colonial power says, right. You know, it's not worth it. And very often that decision brings with it a lot of political turmoil. And so it may be that Putin is hanging on because he's afraid of the consequences of that decision, but it will be made sooner or later.
- [39:50]
B
I want to go to Venezuela. You wrote about Maria Machado and the peace prize that she won to Donald Chagrin. And the Venezuela situation is so interesting. On the one hand, I'm obviously extremely sympathetic to getting rid of Maduro and bringing freedom to Venezuela, and I want to hear more about Maria Machado and her work then simultaneously. It feels kind of crazy, I guess. Donald Trump said that he approved CIA agents going into Venezuela. It seems like a strange target for the US as far as regime change is concerned, especially given what we were talking about earlier about the broader rhetoric that the administration is using in other parts of the globe. So I guess just give us a sense for what exactly is the state of play there.
- [40:35]
A
So it's really important when you think about Venezuela to be able to keep two ideas in your mind at the same time. And I know that's very difficult for all of us.
- [40:43]
B
I'm good at that. I got that.
- [40:44]
A
You can do it.
- [40:45]
B
Yeah, I've got a lot of flaws, but that one I can handle.
- [40:47]
A
Okay. On the one hand, it is a brutal and ugly regime in Venezuela.
- [40:52]
B
Yeah.
- [40:52]
A
Maduro held a presidential election last year, which he lost. He lost it following a really extraordinary election campaign in which the Venezuelan opposition, which had been notoriously divided for a long time, managed to unite. They united around a single figure, and that was Maria Karina Machado. The regime barred her from running. And so the actual presidential candidate was someone else was a retired diplomat called Edmundo Gonzalez, who's now in Spain. And they came together, people voted. There was enormous pressure on the opposition. People were arrested. People were killed during the election campaign. And yet people still voted. I mean, we think, you know, we think that voter suppression is bad here. This is it, this is at a different level. And then not only did they win, but they had constructed a system before the election of a way of keeping track of the tallies, the sort of bits of paper that, you know, produced by each or the computers produced at each polling station. So then not only did they win, they could prove they won. Nevertheless, the regime announced, you know, we're staying in power. They never just, they never produce their own tally sheets, they never produce their alternative numbers. But they, but Maduro refused to leave. A lot of people wound up leaving the country. Machado herself is in hiding. I, I've actually spoken to her twice, but I don't know where she is. The people are, you know, the very high level repression. I actually met a group of Venezuelans who were here in Washington a couple of days ago and they were, one of them had a mother in prison and one of them had a boyfriend in prison. So, you know, it's very, very, very repressive and ugly regime. And I think the Venezuelan opposition would do pretty much anything to see it gone. And some people have been offended by Machado saying on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, she mentioned Donald Trump and her acceptance and, you know, dedicated it partly to him. And that bothered a lot of Americans. But of course, you know, their concern is Venezuela and if, you know, if Trump can do any, I mean, I put her in the same category as the NATO leaders who say obsequious things to, to Trump or the British Prime Minister inviting Trump to London.
- [42:59]
B
Yeah, it's not their fault we elected this fucking moron twice, you know. Yeah, I'm glad you got to live in the real world. It's our, it's our problem. We can't get mad at them.
- [43:07]
A
And I'm just, I'm not imposing purity tests about what she said and differences to say on somebody who's in exile in, not in exile, excuse me, in hiding. So that's, that's one story then. The second story is what the administration plans to do in Venezuela. You know, I'm not sure exactly what they're going to do, but there is talk of so called kinetic actions. So some, it's not just the CIA, but maybe some strikes, I don't know on Venezuela. There's a lot of US military assets being gathered in Puerto Rico and around the area. There's clearly some planning going on. I mean, I would be amazed if there hadn't been CIA people in Venezuela for a long time. I doubt they showed up this week, but there's clearly some military action planning. There have been these strikes on boats, which, by the way, whether those were drug dealers or fishermen, those were extrajudicial murders. You know, we're already in the realm.
- [44:00]
B
Of war crimes, which does cut against the whole peace prize desire. Right, Doing the war crimes.
- [44:05]
A
It cuts against the peace prize desire. It does, it does. I mean, I have another fear about the action. I mean, obviously it could backfire in different ways. It could create a backlash or, you know, I mean, the Venezuelans don't think this would happen, but maybe, you know, nobody likes to be invaded by America and Latin America, so there, there might be a, you know, rally to the flag. Again, my opposition doesn't think that would happen, but who knows?
- [44:29]
B
We did give him a PR win. It's just worth saying with the El Salvador prison camp, I mean, Maduro did get a nice little PR victory there, bringing back the people that we had interned in El Salvador, and he got that deal, which maybe we were involved in with Bukele, and those Venezuelans came home and there was a lot of coverage of that. So. And it's possible that it could backfire. Yeah.
- [44:54]
A
And believe me that the Venezuelans in Venezuela know that their relatives and countrymen are targets in the US and they're targets of ice. And that's also, you know, that's horrible. I mean, these are people who escaped this very vicious and brutal dictatorship and then they become targets inside the United States. So that's created a huge amount of desperation and fear. So I don't think they have any illusions about Trump. There's one thing that worries me, and this is maybe I don't have any proof of this. What I'm worried about is that I don't know if it's going to be an invasion or some kind of military action, some kind of something attack on Venezuela. I worry about how it will be used in the US as part of the domestic narrative. You know, we're fighting a war against terrorism and drugs and crime, and we're doing it in Venezuela and we're doing it here. And that therefore it requires extra measures, greater crackdown and greater crackdown and more police. That's my fear about it, is how it will be used inside the United States. And of course, that's of no concern to Venezuelans. You know, this is our problem, not theirs. And I understand why they want their regime gone. So those are the two ideas I want you to hold in your head at the same time.
- [46:10]
B
Yeah, okay, I've got that. You know, it's hard sometimes, but I can handle it. We're running out of time. Is there anything else you want to pop off on? I have two non politics topics for you.
- [46:21]
A
Ask me the non politics topics.
- [46:23]
B
Okay, we're ready to move on. We have an informal Ann Applebaum Book Club that's been created. The listeners like it. You suggested the Captive Mind, the Oppermans, and the Director. In past podcasts. I want to say I read the first two people ask me. This is going to be a humble brag, which I didn't mean it to be, but it's already halfway up my mouth, so I'm going to say it. They're like, how are you doing so many podcasts? And how are you doing so much stuff? I see you everywhere. And, like, the answer is kind of sad, which is like, I'm not. There are things I've cut out of my life, which is like, I'm not reading. I'm not going to the movies, you know, and so I've not read the Director yet, which I feel bad about. And so I'm trying to, you know, do better myself this winter at actually reading and learning things besides reading, you know, the news, besides reading the Atlantic, reading things with a little bit more distance. Anyway. Some of our listeners don't have that problem, though. So do you. Do you have a fourth book for them for the Annaplebaum Book Club?
- [47:17]
A
First of all, the Director is a really great book.
- [47:19]
B
It's sitting down there. It's been right on my kitchen counter for about two months now, or whenever you're last down here.
- [47:25]
A
And it has parallels with the current. So the book. I have just read another novel. I find novels actually help me a lot because it's, you know, you enter a different world and that's. It's like a relief. It helps you deal with too many contemporary events. This one is called what We Know, and It's by Ian McKeown, who's one of the great British novelists writing today. It has a lot of different themes, and one of the things I like about it is it's written from the vantage point of someone who lives in the future, but not that far in the future, like 100 years from now. And it's about the central figure as an academic looking back at our time.
- [48:00]
B
This must be going around the Atlantic, the water cooler, because Frank Foer recommended this book as well three days ago.
- [48:06]
A
Oh, really?
- [48:06]
B
Yeah.
- [48:06]
A
Oh, really? Oh, I didn't no, no, that's great, though.
- [48:10]
B
It, like, verify validates his. I take your advice a little bit at higher accord than his. So it validates that suggestion.
- [48:18]
A
No, I wouldn't do that. The initial surprise of the book is that he looks back onto our time as this wonderful, amazing, happier era, when things were so much better than they are now. And so it's kind of. There's a lot more to the novel than that, but it's a welcome kind of corrective if you think. Think everything is terrible.
- [48:39]
B
Okay, great. That's a good one. And also, as per my husband's request, he wants to know what brings you joy. Last night I saw a Magdalena Bay concert, which brought me joy, so I was able to do that, which maybe I could have been reading during that time instead. So we'll take people out with an uplifting Magdalena Bay song. But you offered your flowers on your Instagram, which we shared, so people could see the flowers in Poland. I guess the flowers are probably going down for the winter now. So without flowers, do you have any other joys in your life?
- [49:08]
A
I think for me, the real joy is still having dinner with my friends and spending time with people.
- [49:15]
B
Do you talk about authoritarian creep?
- [49:17]
A
Sometimes we do, and sometimes we talk about other things. This is another reading assignment. It's a shorter one. There's an essay by an Italian novelist called the Choice of Comrades. And he's this long story, Ignacio Salonian. At the time he wrote it, he was very disillusioned. He'd been a communist. He had lived through the war. All the ideologies had failed. And so what is there? And it's a long, sort of long essay, but the conclusion is the only thing there is, is your friends. So find people whose values you admire and who you like and who you care about and stick with them. And so when you're choosing, don't choose people because they're right wing or left winger. So they did this year that. Choose the people who you instinctively know and like, and those are your political comrades and your personal comrades. And I. The more I, you know, the more things happen and the more politics changes, the more I think that's true.
- [50:15]
B
I love that. What we know, the Choice of Comrades. I appreciate you and Alpha. You always take my job easy. I was going back through your recent articles. I was like, this is great. I'm just gonna bring up a country and let you cook for 10 minutes. So I appreciate it very much and hope you can come back again soon.
- [50:32]
A
Thanks. Thank you.
- [50:33]
B
Everybody else, we'll be back tomorrow for another edition of the podcast. See y'.
- [50:36]
A
All.
- [50:36]
B
Then look inside through holes in the sky the fallen days bring tears to my eyes Dreams so big of a half like mine Sunny side up and ready to fly.
- [51:39]
A
Stop thinking about the.
- [51:40]
B
Bad and the good. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown. Its CyberSecurity Awareness Month, LifeLock is here with tips to help protect your identity. Use strong passwords, set up multi factor authentication, report scams and update your software. And for comprehensive identity protection, Lifelock is your best choice. LifeLock alerts you to suspicious uses of your personal information and fixes identity theft guaranteed or your money back. Start your protection today with a 30 day free trial at LifeLock.com use promo code NEWS terms apply.