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1:02

Hey,

1:02

everyone. John here, and welcome to Helen High

1:04

Water. My podcast about politics and culture

1:06

on the edge of Armageddon. It's

1:08

determined if dubious, committed,

1:11

if Kukui for cocoa puffs wrong,

1:13

but rarely in doubt exercise in

1:16

elevated gas baggery. And

1:18

neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom

1:20

of night nor the toxic

1:22

rantings of the not house right, a

1:24

president attempting to invalidate legitimate

1:26

election and stage in auto coup complete

1:29

with an armed dissection of the United States capital,

1:31

nor more broadly and arguably

1:33

even more disturbingly. The capture

1:35

of a decent sized chunk of our political social

1:38

and civic spheres by a cadre of

1:40

incoherent insidious conspiracy

1:42

idled, photography craving, authoritarian

1:45

worshiping lunatics, hustlers, grookerters, nihilists,

1:47

and nint compoops. None of it. None

1:50

of it has kept us from our

1:52

duly sworn duty and obligations.

1:54

Giving you our listeners a fresh

1:56

episode of this podcast week after week

1:59

after week Maybe not without

2:01

fail because, you know,

2:04

hashtag epic fail is one of our many

2:06

models around here, but certainly without

2:08

a pause. We're doing

2:10

that for more than two years.

2:13

Haven't had a break. All of

2:15

which is to say that I

2:17

am plumb, shagged

2:19

out and desperately in need of

2:21

some R and R. And with the midterm

2:24

election now comfortably in the rearview

2:26

mirror, In our democracy, amazingly,

2:29

if I will admit a little unexpectedly, still

2:31

intact, it seems like a suitable

2:34

time. For the Heilemann Water home

2:36

office to give itself a fucking

2:38

break. And so for the next few weeks,

2:41

that is exactly what we are gonna do.

2:43

And we'll see you back here on the other side of the holidays.

2:46

Tanned, rested, refreshed, revitalized, and

2:48

raring to go. Ready to

2:50

get back to cranking out more,

2:52

tasty content. In the meantime,

2:55

don't despair. We're not leaving

2:57

you entirely in the lurch for

2:59

these weeks. To the contrary. Every

3:02

Tuesday morning, per usual, you

3:04

will find a hopefully unfamiliar

3:06

episode of the podcast doing

3:08

the backstroke in your feed drop

3:10

there by the able AI fact totems

3:13

who'll be mining the store while we're away.

3:15

And while these episodes come

3:17

over the next few weeks, may not be fresh

3:19

or strictly speaking new,

3:22

they will be piping hot, a carefully

3:24

curated series of high water golden

3:26

oldies, which those of

3:28

you who've been around from the start may remember,

3:31

I

3:32

hope fondly. And those of you who came

3:34

along sometime later may never have encountered

3:36

it all. Given our focus

3:38

on politics these past few months and our desire

3:41

not to take a dump on your mood of holiday inspired

3:43

good cheer, we've decided these encore presentations

3:45

will avoid that topic like the plague. And

3:48

focuses dead on culture, entertainment technology

3:50

and such with a run of some of our most favorite guests

3:52

in those realms over the past two years, including

3:55

this beauty right here, which

3:57

whether or not you've heard it before, you

3:59

will not want to miss. And so with

4:01

that, we leave it to it with a

4:03

hearty and heartfelt Nalaste. While

4:07

your most burning finance and investing

4:09

questions answered, here's a podcast

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5:21

Hi, everyone. I'm Christian Castro Rizzo,

5:23

executive producer of Helen High Water,

5:26

John Heilemann podcast about politics and culture

5:28

on the edge of Armageddon. John didn't

5:30

have time to record his usual introduction. He's

5:32

currently on a flight to Poland, where he'll be

5:34

reporting on the only story that anyone really

5:36

cares about right now, the war in Ukraine.

5:39

But before he left, he did have time

5:41

on Saturday night to talk to two brilliant

5:43

Russia

5:44

experts. Julia Yaffe, I

5:46

feel like the right is getting a lot of heat for

5:48

their criticism of Biden, but I think

5:50

the left has been fucking awful on this.

5:52

Like, This is not our fight.

5:55

Like, it's so classically

5:57

American. We want all the benefits and

5:59

none of the costs. It's been

6:00

Michael Butfall. Treatment is a assessed with

6:02

us. He wants victory. He wants

6:05

to show despite all of all of our

6:07

threats and all of our stuff, I can go

6:09

in and wipe them out and put in my

6:11

and you can't do anything about it. It's

6:13

all aimed at us.

6:18

Julia is a Russian born American journalist

6:20

who's a founding partner at puck news as

6:22

well as their Washington correspondent. Julie

6:24

is written for the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and

6:27

political, and she has a memoir coming out

6:29

next year titled Russia Girl, memoirs

6:31

of a Russian soul. And Michael is

6:33

former US ambassador to Russia and a

6:35

foreign policy adviser in the Obama administration,

6:38

a distinguished professor at Stanford University,

6:40

and the author of many books most recently

6:42

from Cold War to Hot Peace. Understandably,

6:45

both of them have been in high demand since invasion

6:48

began a little over a week ago.

6:50

You've probably seen them on TV and read their

6:52

social media posts and articles. And in

6:54

keeping with the craziness of their schedules, Julia

6:57

joined us a bit late and Michael had to leave

6:59

just a bit early. But we were lucky to get

7:01

a full hour of brilliant insights into

7:03

all aspects of the invasion, including how

7:06

we got here, where we're going, what

7:08

it's like in Russia right now, what Putin's

7:10

mindset is, and how the war will reshape

7:12

the world. Even though this is a lightning

7:15

fast story, the quality of Michael and

7:17

Joey's perspectives are enduring. And not

7:19

affected by the vagaries of the ever changing

7:21

news cycle. But however the situation

7:23

evolves, one thing is for certain. The

7:25

resistance determination and bravery

7:28

of the Ukrainian people have been extraordinary

7:30

and awe inspiring as they come face

7:32

to face with an unprecedented degree of

7:34

geopolitical, military, and existential

7:37

Heilemann high water. Good

7:43

morning, Ukrainians. Currently, there are a lot

7:45

of games appearing on the Internet. Like that,

7:48

I'm masking our army to put down arms and

7:50

evacuate. So I'm here.

7:52

We are not putting down arms. We'll be

7:54

defending our country because our weapon

7:56

is

7:56

truth. And our truth is that

7:58

this is our land, our country, our

8:01

children, and we will defend all of this.

8:03

That is it. That is all I wanted to

8:05

tell you. Glory to Ukraine.

8:07

Glory to Ukraine, McFaul. I saw you, I think,

8:10

yeah, on your Twitter feed. Yeah. Sitting here on Saturday.

8:12

We're talking about Ukraine. We have Mike McFaul from

8:14

our US ambassador to to Russia, and Julia

8:16

Yapia is gonna join us shortly. It's

8:19

day by day right now. Right? And by the time

8:21

this podcast comes out on Tuesday, God knows where we'll

8:23

be. But I want to start with you because

8:25

I know you're monitoring things very closely in ways

8:27

most of us can't even comprehend. I mean, seeing Zelensky

8:29

on video, that was a overdub version of Zelensky

8:32

early this morning, you know, if you like a

8:34

selfie video, basically saying, I'm

8:36

still on the street. Yeah. We're still resisting.

8:39

I think it's got probably twenty million views at this

8:41

point on Twitter. And I have not felt a swell

8:43

of admiration,

8:46

you know, at the heroism of this man in

8:49

a long time from anybody on the world stage. Talk

8:51

to me about what you've been feeling today, Mike. Well, so

8:53

I completely agree. Zelensky is

8:55

one badass. He has stepped

8:57

up. He is a leader of the nation. I

8:59

have the chance to host about here at Stanford. Five

9:02

or six months ago when he came to see president Heilemann.

9:05

And, you know, I followed his career. I I

9:07

know him. I I know his TV show, which

9:09

by the way, used to be really popular in Russia.

9:11

I found him to be very impressive. I

9:14

have lots of Ukrainian friends, John. Ukraine

9:16

is a democracy. It is a rough

9:18

and tumbled, rough and rolled democracy where

9:20

they are divided, and the

9:22

American foreign policy leads that

9:25

follows Ukraine. They also are very critical.

9:27

And there's been lots of people over the years

9:29

saying, Zelensky didn't do this, he didn't do that.

9:32

I've always been a a big admirer of him

9:34

after he came out to Stanford. I felt the same way.

9:36

I even wrote couple of pieces about it.

9:38

I think now the world knows what

9:41

an incredibly brave courageous

9:43

leader that he has risen to

9:44

be. I felt exactly the same way that

9:46

you just described your feelings. You know,

9:49

that video. I woke up about three in the

9:51

morning and I'm cruising Ukraine war,

9:53

Twitter. I saw right at the moment when

9:55

the AP dropped the story that had the reporting

9:57

with the US basically telling Zelensky. We'll

9:59

help you evacuate. You should leave the country in Zelensky

10:01

the quote which I think will be written history books. Yes.

10:04

You know what? The quote which was I'm staying

10:06

here, but, quote, I need ammunition not

10:08

a rod. That's a scripted movie

10:10

quote. That's something you see in a in superhero

10:12

film, not in real Heilemann, you

10:14

know, we all have our flaws. I'm sure his lens gives

10:16

his flaws too, and there's some plays in which, you know,

10:18

as like all politicians. He he said certain things

10:20

he probably regrets and would go back and change. But he's

10:23

under a lot of pressure And right now, at

10:25

the moment of maximum pressure, the guy

10:27

seems to be performing, not just

10:29

demonstrating individual heroism. And this

10:31

goes to the larger question I wanna ask you, because you were

10:33

the first person withstanding who

10:36

started ringing the bell in the middle last week when we

10:38

were talking on TV and you were like, sanctions really

10:40

matter. But what's gonna matter more is

10:42

the resistance on the part of the Ukrainian military

10:45

and the Ukrainian people. That's gonna matter most of all

10:47

in terms of if there's any chance of beating back this impatient.

10:49

And it feels to me like Zelensky understands that.

10:51

Yes. That part of what he's doing is not just demonstrating

10:53

heroism or machismo, but saying,

10:56

we gotta dig in

10:56

here. All of us have to dig in. I'm staying

10:59

because this is the only way through for us that's not

11:01

gonna and disaster. Exactly right.

11:03

This is a fight for, you know, for it's a fight

11:05

for his life. Let's be clear about

11:07

that. Let's make it very crystal clear. It's

11:09

a fight for freedom in his country.

11:12

He understands that. And it's a

11:14

fight. Let's just be honest that they're fighting

11:16

alone. Yes. The night that the campaign

11:18

started, I was in touch with lots of Ukrainian

11:20

friends, you know, politicians, elites,

11:23

got a big training program here at Stanford for

11:25

couple of decades, John. We've had about three

11:27

hundred Ukrainians through at an institute

11:30

I run here. So we have a pretty big network of of

11:32

people. We have a lot of calls. And

11:34

right as the bombing started, one

11:36

of my close friends said, I can't believe

11:39

we have to fight this bastard alone. Right.

11:41

And that's what they're doing. And I understand it.

11:43

I wanna be crystal clear. I support

11:45

president Biden's decision. There is not

11:47

a military option for the United States.

11:50

But we gotta come to grips with the fact that

11:52

all of our unity that we keep yelling about

11:54

and screaming about isn't it great? We're

11:56

all unified and we're all unified watching

11:59

on the sidelines as this

12:01

horrific evil dictator tries

12:04

to obliterate a free and democratic

12:06

country. And so the only thing left right

12:08

now is ammunition just as Zelensky

12:11

said and more patriots and more

12:13

stingers. Why the hell we haven't send more

12:15

stingers. It needs to be question for the future.

12:17

But right now, it's all about the fight

12:19

on the ground. And so anything we

12:21

can do to support that because we're not gonna

12:24

fight. We have to be all in. As I said, it's

12:26

day by day, and there's always a chance that we'll be overtaken

12:28

by events. But I'll say just to summarize

12:30

what I felt this morning, I thought you looked

12:32

at all the coverage and I talked to my

12:34

friends. My I the few friends not nearly as many as

12:36

you in Moscow and some in Europe and people

12:38

who are covering this and people were covering it from London,

12:41

people were covering it on the ground and Kiev and Poland and

12:43

other places. The story of

12:45

the moment is, Russia is

12:47

having a harder time. Militarily that

12:49

it thought it was gonna have. The resistance has been stiffer.

12:51

Their assault has not gone as well as planned.

12:54

The question of what that means going forward is

12:56

a large question. So that's a big story,

12:58

the heroism of the Ukraine. You know, there's

13:00

all the stories about the ghost fighters in

13:02

the sky who are probably apocalypses, etcetera, etcetera, but

13:04

there's this spirit of resistance there

13:06

and the fact of resistance slowing

13:08

Russia down. And that same time, the trucks

13:11

are rolling in with the thermoburic weapons. And

13:13

you know what that means? Yes. It means

13:15

Aleppo. It means Grosney.

13:18

It means maybe that the worst

13:20

thing that could happen in war, just short

13:22

of nuclear weapons, people being burned from

13:24

the inside out with bombs that suck

13:26

the air out of the air and put Heilemann

13:28

chemicals inside humans and buildings

13:30

and leave nothing but dust in their wake. That

13:32

could happen. By the time this podcast comes out, that

13:35

could be happening in Kiev. So guess I

13:37

ask you not to predict the future,

13:39

but whether you think that is where we're headed, but

13:41

whether you think that all

13:43

of this resistance

13:45

is just making Putin crazier and

13:47

that that kind of bararity and war

13:49

criminal behavior is becoming more likely in

13:51

some ways because of the fierce resistance

13:53

and the heroism of the Ukrainian military

13:56

and and citizens. That's a great question.

13:58

I I don't have a great answer, but I'd say

14:00

a couple of things. First of all, I'm glad

14:02

you pointed out the fact that mister

14:04

Putin has used these tactics

14:06

before in Grozny, in Aleppo, he

14:09

has slaughtered innocent civilians and

14:11

he seems perfectly fine with it. So I won't

14:13

be surprised if it happens here. It

14:15

does seem like their strategy initially

14:17

with some kind of shocking off. They thought

14:19

people were gonna run. They thought Zelensky

14:21

was gonna go to Lavee for Poland,

14:24

and then they would have a much easier

14:26

time. Now they're on to plan B. That didn't

14:28

happen. And over time, it's

14:30

hard to imagine that eventually, they

14:33

won't be able to seize the major cities.

14:35

They do have military asymmetries

14:38

here, particularly in the air, particularly with

14:40

rockets and planes. But that

14:42

said, I also am impressed with,

14:44

you know, the resistance so far what

14:46

I hear from Ukrainians reporting on it.

14:48

And, you know, by the way, they have a free independent press

14:51

in Ukraine, fantastic set of

14:53

journalist reporting on this war. Suggest

14:55

that it is not going as fast as

14:57

they want it. We're only in the early days we should

14:59

all remember. Right? Yes. Of course. And

15:01

I fear I fear that. I wanna I wanna

15:03

be clear. I fear exactly what you just described.

15:06

I've been watching Putin for a long time. I met him

15:08

in nineteen ninety one the first time. I've written

15:10

about him and I sat in the room with him, you

15:12

know, when I worked five years in the Obama administration,

15:15

whenever we had meeting with him. You

15:17

know, this is a a different man than twenty

15:19

years ago. I think he's even a different man than

15:21

just a couple years ago. The language

15:23

that he uses is crude. He feels

15:26

unhinged to me. He's calling him

15:28

fascist and drug

15:30

users. Yeah. By them, you mean, you could the Ukrainians

15:32

and and Zelensky, their Nazis, their you

15:34

know, he's he's off the deep

15:36

end. Yes. He's trying to demonize them

15:38

and it, you know, it's with vigor. Right? The

15:40

language he's using is very crude

15:42

Russian language. So, you know,

15:44

he's getting pissed But what I don't understand

15:47

if he would go to those horrific acts.

15:49

And I wanna underscore I won't

15:51

be surprised if he uses those kind of tactics

15:53

because he's used them before. He has no

15:55

regard for civilian life, and

15:57

he's convinced himself that these people are

16:00

evil. Right? And, you know, listening to his language.

16:02

But then what? What happens

16:04

a day after he put some puppet in place?

16:06

Med did Shuke or Yanukovic or something

16:09

like that. There's no way that

16:11

person can survive as a leader

16:13

in Ukraine without the Russian

16:15

military being there full stop forever.

16:18

By the way, I wouldn't I wouldn't wanna take that job.

16:20

Imagine John. Talk about a death wish.

16:22

I can take that job But

16:24

what is this plan? Ukrainian people

16:26

are just not gonna say, okay, that was too bad that

16:28

we lost that war. Now let's listen to this

16:30

guy. That's not gonna happen. And

16:33

and by the way, talking to Russian, you

16:35

know, strategist types because

16:37

I talked to all kinds of Russians, but the the

16:39

ones that are pretending to be neutral

16:41

experts. So I think it's kind of hard to be neutral

16:43

in times like this, but they

16:45

can't answer that question either. And neither

16:48

can my friends in the Biden miss tracing. That

16:50

is the big

16:50

mystery. Nobody understands what will

16:52

be his plan if that moment comes.

16:55

We'll come back to Biden a second. We're gonna walk Julia

16:57

Duffy who came in couple minutes late and we're so glad

16:59

you're here. Thank you for being here, Julia. The thing you

17:01

got to miss or you're unfortunately not gonna get comment

17:03

on now because I think Mike and I did a pretty

17:05

good job, keeping praise on Zelensky and and talking

17:08

about his heroism. And we just talked about the

17:10

extraordinary resistance that we're seeing on

17:12

this Saturday. Twenty sixth

17:14

of February on the par of Ukrainians.

17:16

And I guess the question I wanna open with

17:18

you is picking up that thread talk

17:21

about what's going on in the streets of Russia, which is also

17:23

kind of an incredible thing, you know. And and not

17:25

just in Russia, but in in the Baltics and

17:27

in not just in one place in Russia, and

17:29

there's dozens of cities where we're seeing protests

17:32

in the streets. What do you make of that?

17:34

Which impressions are of it? Character

17:36

of it, the intensity, and so on, but what

17:38

you think the implications of that might be going forward

17:41

when it comes to Putin's

17:42

calculus? I think the protests

17:44

in Russia are both notable and not notable

17:47

or significant but not significant. It's

17:50

significant because it's happening after

17:53

a year of Putin kind

17:55

of carpet bombing the opposition. So

17:57

many people have been driven out of the country

18:00

or put in jail for ridiculous made

18:02

up things -- Yeah. -- like posting

18:04

music videos on their social

18:06

media, like just being

18:08

related to somebody who's in the opposition.

18:11

For example, a sixteen year old boy

18:14

was a couple weeks ago

18:16

given three years in a penal colony because

18:19

he blew up something labeled the FSB

18:22

headquarters on Minecraft. Sixteen

18:26

year old child, I mean -- Yeah. -- for Minecraft.

18:28

So that's the context in which these protests

18:31

are happening. This is no longer

18:33

twenty twelve. It's not twenty fourteen

18:35

and it's not even twenty twenty one.

18:37

The price of protesting and

18:40

opposing Putin has gotten much, much

18:42

higher. It's become much, much more dangerous.

18:44

And so the fact that anybody came out at all,

18:46

the fact that people are posting no

18:49

to war all over their social media

18:51

is significant. And you're already

18:53

seeing a crackdown. So

18:56

nine hundred people were arrested in Moscow

18:58

alone. That first night when

19:00

people came out on spontaneous protest, but

19:02

also an eighteen year old woman was arrested

19:05

in Moscow for hanging

19:07

a bedsheet from her balcony

19:09

that said no to war. At

19:13

the same time, you know, I've spent

19:15

a lot of watching Russian TV. Last

19:17

night, I was watching it. And the picture

19:20

people are getting is very different.

19:22

It is a totally different universe. The

19:24

offensive is going really well. It

19:26

is about dencertification, whatever

19:29

that, you know, that means. It is

19:31

about liberating people from Ukraine

19:34

war crimes. There are zero casualties,

19:37

apparently, which we now know is not true.

19:39

Russia has lost at least three

19:41

thousand to three thousand five hundred soldiers

19:43

in the first three days alone. And everything's

19:46

gone great. Oh, and Russian

19:49

soldiers, according to Russian state, too, are

19:51

being greeted as liberators. And

19:53

though people are there

19:55

are fewer people watching Russian state

19:57

TV than there were a decade ago,

20:00

you know, there's still the older kind of

20:02

more rural population is watching this.

20:04

And that if you're watching that, that's the

20:06

image you see. I

20:10

think Americans like to put a lot of hope

20:12

in Russian protests, and every time

20:14

Russians come out into the streets, I get asked,

20:16

you know, are they gonna topple Putin? And

20:18

I don't think they are because Putin

20:21

still has a monopoly on force and a monopoly

20:23

on violence in Russia. And in

20:26

the last ten years since those

20:28

big predominantly protests we saw

20:30

right before his returning to office for

20:32

a third presidential term, he has

20:34

created ever more security

20:37

organizations and has

20:39

invested more and more heavily in cracking

20:42

down on dissent and investing in,

20:44

know, security infrastructure to keep him

20:46

in place. I think the

20:49

real danger to Putin comes as

20:51

always from the

20:52

elites. And if you look at the last

20:54

two revolutions Russia has had. It was

20:56

because of a crisis in the elites -- Mhmm. --

20:58

and splintering of the elites. And

21:01

wrote on Twitter yesterday, I think the only way out

21:03

of this is going to look like something out of

21:05

clue. Like, Sydney Narishkin, the

21:08

SVR head, ahead of foreign

21:10

intelligence in the conservatory with

21:12

candlestick. Yes. I don't think it's gonna be

21:14

street protests that get Russia out of this

21:16

and get Putin out of

21:17

Russia.

21:17

By before I I turned this the question

21:19

of sanctions in a second.

21:20

I wanna talk about this.

21:21

I was literally about to

21:23

say. Thank thank you. I was about to say, before

21:25

I turn to the question of sanctions, which Julie

21:27

talked about the swift sanctions, and and there's obviously

21:30

other debates going on. would you wanna talk about that? But

21:32

before I get to that, I wanna give you a chance to reply to

21:34

that whether you think Julia has it right? Or

21:36

whether you're more optimistic about the possibility of

21:38

a popular protest in

21:39

Russia? Mike

21:39

is always more optimistic than I am. Well,

21:41

that's okay. Lal, we give him a chance. He's he's

21:43

rising about like a fish out of water going

21:45

for a big hunk of bait. Well, just let me say couple

21:48

of things. And I I yes. Social

21:50

scientists try to figure out causation. Julie's

21:53

right, I am optimistic and the causal mechanism

21:55

there is I was born in Montana.

21:58

And

21:58

I was born in Soviet Moscow. Exactly.

22:01

Mhmm. I wanna put on my professor hat if

22:03

I can, John. Just for a minute, and I'm happy to

22:05

then put on my sanctions form policy

22:07

hat in a second. Yep. Just a couple of

22:09

things. I'm actually right now as we speak,

22:11

I just taught on Friday. I'm teaching

22:13

a course on social mobilization and

22:15

democratic breakthrough or not. Right?

22:18

So both. And by the way, I'm teaching it with

22:20

a professor who was one of the activists

22:23

in the Egyptian revolution, three year square in

22:25

two thousand eleven. And every week,

22:27

we have an activist from the

22:29

various cases. Right? And I hate to use the

22:31

word case to talk about people's lives and histories.

22:34

But we have somebody. We had somebody from South Africa.

22:36

We had somebody from Serbia two thousand.

22:38

We just did the Soviet Union, and then we

22:40

did Egypt yesterday. And

22:42

what I would say is Julia is right

22:45

and wrong. It's a combination of these things.

22:47

It's a we do not have one unified

22:50

theory of democratic breakthrough. Right. There

22:52

are multiple pathways. Usually, including

22:55

all the cases I just mentioned, it is

22:57

a combination of splits between

22:59

elites and popular mobilization.

23:02

That's what happened in South Africa. That's what happened

23:04

in the Soviet Union. Okay. That's what happened in

23:06

Serbia in two thousand. That's what's happened

23:08

in the orange revolution in two thousand four.

23:10

First, let's understand that. I think it's

23:12

really important the other point that Julia said

23:14

about the nature of this regime.

23:17

Julia, I was just on Eco Muskie, like, four or five

23:19

days ago. Mhmm. Radio station, you know,

23:21

well, and, you know, we were talking about these very

23:23

things. This is before the war started.

23:26

And and I was saying, why aren't there more protesters?

23:28

That day, there were six, John, and they got arrested.

23:31

And there said You've been gone for

23:33

eight years, man. This is a different Russia

23:35

than when you were ambassador. And I think that's

23:37

a really important thing. I don't think it's a coincidence.

23:40

That all that cracking down on opposition

23:42

took place before he invaded. But

23:45

third third, autocrats

23:47

make mistakes. They make mistakes

23:50

all the time. We treat them like they're

23:52

ten feet Heilemann then we wake up the next

23:54

day and they're not ten feet tall.

23:56

Right about revolutions. And I said before

23:58

revolutions, they seem impossible after

24:01

revolutions, they seem inevitable. Inevitable. Yeah.

24:03

I just think we need to understand, we're

24:05

not good at the social scientists is predicting

24:08

these things. Believe me, I work five years

24:10

in the Obama administration. The CIA

24:12

is horrible at predicting these things. They didn't

24:14

predict the green revolution in Iran. They

24:16

didn't predict the Arab spring two thousand

24:18

eleven. They didn't predict the

24:19

protests.

24:20

I I believe they missed the downfall of the Soviet

24:22

Union rather rather famously. Need to

24:24

be humble about what we know about the future.

24:26

Yeah. But if I'm impressed, here's the mistake

24:28

that I think Putin's made. He's been on

24:30

a run You know, he's four before in the last

24:33

four, he's spot. He is in

24:35

complete control. He has a incredibly

24:37

sophisticated autocratic regime

24:39

in place. And I think he overreached.

24:42

I really think this is the beginning of

24:44

the end of Putin and Putinism. I

24:46

don't know if we're gonna measure that in years

24:49

or even decades. But I think he

24:51

overreached. You'd be surprised of

24:53

the kind of Russians I interact with. They're not

24:55

just the opposition leaders, you know,

24:57

the cartoonization that Putin wants you to believe.

24:59

I just was talking to an interlocutor of one

25:01

of the biggest billionaires, oligarchs

25:04

in Russia today. And,

25:06

you know, without naming names, Nobody

25:09

supports this stupid war. Nobody

25:11

supports this. Yeah. And that doesn't

25:14

mean they're gonna protest. But it does

25:16

mean that over time, you know, there's this great

25:18

piece by a guy named Timrikura

25:19

on. It's about preference falsification. I'm

25:22

sorry for sounding like an you say

25:23

you're gonna put your professor's head on.

25:25

I have my professor's head on. I

25:26

didn't say you could use your

25:27

professor's head on. Right. I did

25:28

not get permission for that. It's a great piece

25:30

about nineteen eighty nine and where

25:33

right before everybody said these regimes are

25:35

strong, blah blah blah blah. And then overnight, we

25:37

saw what happened. And he writes about

25:40

preference falsification. You have no incentive

25:42

of what's soever, living in Putin's

25:44

rush in a day to tell people honestly what

25:46

you think, you're a fool if you do that.

25:49

Yep. But we have to be careful that we don't

25:51

misinterpret

25:52

that as being support for what he's doing

25:54

today. Can I just chime in here? Yeah. I

25:56

tease Mike for being optimistic, but

25:58

as usual, I agree with him on all three

26:00

points. And -- Mhmm. -- people

26:03

often throw around Putin's impressive

26:06

popularity ratings or approval ratings,

26:08

which have, by the way, fallen by something like

26:10

twenty points. And they're still super

26:12

high, but it doesn't really tell you

26:14

all that much. You know, if you're

26:16

an older person with a landline who

26:18

remembers the Soviet Union, And

26:20

somebody from an official sounding organization

26:23

calls you and asks you, do you like Putin? What

26:25

are you gonna

26:25

say? We have problems with public opinion polling.

26:28

With accurate political polling in America. I just

26:30

imagine what it is

26:31

if, like, you answer wrong in your fears that you're gonna

26:33

be throwing the gulag. I remember, you know, a decade

26:35

ago when it was a much more permissive

26:37

political climate. I remember a

26:39

pollster at the very respected independent

26:42

Nevada center saying, you know, we don't really measure

26:44

public

26:45

opinion. We measure how well propaganda

26:47

works.

26:47

Yes. Right. It's something that Mike said

26:49

about revolutions seeming impossible

26:51

before they happen and seeming inevitable

26:54

after the fact is something

26:56

Mike has been saying for a Heilemann it has really

26:59

burned into my brain and I think about it all

27:01

the Heilemann I quote Mike

27:03

to people on this all the time. Because

27:05

I do agree with it having, you know,

27:08

obsessively studied the revolution of nineteen

27:10

seventeen and of nineteen ninety one, if

27:12

you can call it a revolution. I

27:14

think, you know, in nineteen ninety one,

27:17

when the elites carved up the Soviet

27:19

Union and undid the

27:21

whole thing, when it

27:23

fell, I think this is where the lack

27:25

of support even if it's passive

27:27

matters a lot. When it fell, nobody

27:30

gave a shit. And nobody tried

27:32

to undo it and nobody nobody

27:34

was sad to see it go. Right? You

27:36

know, it fell on very kind of fertile

27:38

soil. And in nineteen seventeen, and

27:41

this is one I've been thinking about a lot,

27:43

revolution came after Tsar

27:45

Nicholas the second who was

27:47

very informationally isolated and talking

27:49

to his wife and Rasputin got

27:52

into World War one, a stupid

27:54

war that Russian soldiers didn't know they were fighting,

27:56

And three years later, he was out, and another

27:59

year after that, he was shot in a basement.

28:01

Again, he abdicated the throne.

28:03

Right? It was a change from the top. But there

28:06

was so much unrest in the country because

28:08

of the poverty and the stress

28:10

that the population was feeling after three years

28:12

of war and you had soldiers deserting to go

28:15

home and help their families with the harvest because

28:17

they were starving. And

28:19

it's something I've been thinking about a lot in the

28:21

run up to this war that, you know, is this

28:23

going to be Putin's nineteen

28:25

fourteen? I also think this is the beginning

28:28

of the end for Putin. If it takes a

28:30

few months or a few years, I think this

28:32

is his, like, tragic

28:34

mistake -- Right. -- where he overreaches, believes,

28:37

the very bad information he's getting inside

28:39

his

28:39

bubble. If you look at the security council

28:42

meeting, that was very indicative.

28:43

Yeah. Today, for example, There was

28:45

a video that went around of the

28:48

young man, a Russian soldier captured

28:50

by Ukrainians. Ukrainians filmed and

28:52

they asked where he was from and his date of birth, you

28:54

know, whose parents were, and it turns out he's from a

28:56

little village in

28:59

the Smolensk area. Which had

29:01

become famous for adopting a lot of orphans

29:04

in the late nineties, early two thousands. And

29:06

he said, I'm adopted, and he

29:08

was born in March two thousand. So he

29:11

was born the month and the year that

29:13

Vladimir Putin was first elected to

29:15

the presidency. And it struck

29:17

me for two reasons, like, you have the

29:20

people who are already the most socially vulnerable.

29:22

They first sent in a wave of conscripts,

29:25

right, as cannon fodder almost. The casualties

29:28

are much higher than they expected. Yeah.

29:30

And, again, the most socially vulnerable, but

29:32

also like people who literally

29:34

were born with Putin's presidency. Right.

29:36

I don't think that's a coincidence, and don't think

29:38

that's going to I think that's going to have

29:40

major consequences for Putin. Alright.

29:44

We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back on

29:47

high water.

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31:03

Welcome back to Helen High Water. I

31:11

wanna play a piece of sound now that relates

31:13

to the US response, but then I I'm gonna

31:16

use it to come back something that Mike said a little

31:18

earlier. So let's play right now

31:20

Brian Tyler Cohen talking to Joe Biden about

31:22

sanctions, you have two

31:23

options. Let's start a third

31:25

roll war, go to war with

31:27

Russia, physically. Or

31:30

two, make

31:32

sure that a country

31:35

that acts so contrary to international

31:37

law ends up paying a

31:39

price for having done it. These

31:42

sanctions are the broadest

31:44

sanctions and history. And

31:47

economic sanctions and political

31:49

sanctions. And my

31:51

goal from the very beginning was

31:55

to make sure that

31:57

I kept all of

31:59

NATO and the European on the same

32:02

page. Because the one

32:04

thing I think that Putin thought he could

32:06

do was split

32:07

NATO, creating a great aperture

32:09

for him to be able to walk through. Right.

32:11

And that hasn't happened. If

32:13

you notice, it's been complete unanimity.

32:16

So Michael McFaul, I want to go back to the thing

32:18

you said earlier. Which is you're with the Biden

32:20

administration, you agree with the policy, which is

32:22

sanctions and no US troops

32:25

on the ground, and that's been they've been very clear about

32:27

that. But you also made the point that I

32:29

swear, man, I hear from more people, normal

32:32

people, not people like us, not people who are in this

32:34

racket of ours in any way, who just

32:36

oh, man, someone texted me after I was talking

32:38

about incredible heroism of the Ukrainians and

32:40

then the prospect of of Thermo

32:42

Barrick weapons being inflicted on Kiev.

32:44

Someone just wrote to me a very smart person who's

32:47

not connected to this world who just wrote

32:49

the following sentence to me in a state

32:51

of total despair, which was

32:53

there is no one to help them.

32:55

Exclamation point. And I thought

32:58

when you said basically those same words

33:00

earlier, it raises this question.

33:02

Right? You know, the Germans are now saying they're

33:04

gonna send arms. There's discussions in in

33:06

the European Union, there's obviously all the NATO

33:09

action. Beyond, like sanctions,

33:11

I think at the beginning of last week, you said, you know,

33:13

things aren't really bad, sanctions are gonna seem pretty thin.

33:15

And even hearing Biden, you hear

33:17

him defend what we're doing, and you're saying, oh,

33:19

as matter of logic, it all makes sense. But

33:21

as we see all these things, how long the sanctions are

33:23

gonna take to bite and all of this, there is

33:25

this moment of like, these people are defenseless and

33:27

no one is gonna help them and they may very

33:30

well be on the way to slaughter. So what should we be

33:32

doing? What should the world I this

33:34

is the most basic question I can ask when you parse it

33:36

twenty five different

33:36

ways, but what should the world be doing right

33:38

now to help Ukraine and to hurt

33:41

Vladimir Putin?

33:41

Today. Right? Not what we should have done. No.

33:44

Today, for the next week going forward, I know we could debate

33:46

the past all, you know, for months, and we will probably.

33:48

But I'm just talking about right now going

33:49

forward. We're in the middle of a war here. More

33:52

javelins, more stingers. It's just

33:54

as simple as that. And I I

33:56

mean, I can go on. Yes. I'm using those as metaphors,

33:58

but that what they need? I mean, literally

34:00

yesterday through an into lock

34:02

a tour. I heard from a a leader in

34:04

counter chief saying, we are running out

34:06

of javelins. Help us get javelins.

34:09

That city is under attack. By the time

34:11

this podcast goes live, it may be taken.

34:14

Now, you know, it begs the question, why

34:16

didn't I have more javelins before, by the way?

34:18

Right. Why didn't they have more stingers before to

34:20

the best of my knowledge? The United States has

34:22

not Bots. We haven't provided

34:24

any singership. We're asking other allies

34:26

to do that. But right now, more singers,

34:29

more javelins. And then second, I was on

34:31

this Zoom call with all of our colleagues

34:33

in, you know, the seventy

34:35

or eighty Ukrainians who have been in

34:37

various programs at Stanford yesterday. You

34:39

know, we were asking your question too, John. He said

34:42

knee pads. And that was that was

34:44

very jarring to us. And I said, what do you

34:46

mean knee pads? He said, we're running

34:48

out of knee pads here. And I said, what do you

34:50

need knee pads for? And he says, you need to have knee

34:52

pads when you're on your knees shooting.

34:55

You know, in other words, they need this

34:57

kits for territorial defense,

35:00

civic defense. And so that

35:02

kind of very basic stuff. And by the way, he

35:04

said for his gear, it was two thousand

35:06

dollars. He bought two thousand dollars

35:08

worth of of equipment. You know, he's

35:10

a businessman. Most Ukrainians can

35:12

afford that. So anything that can help

35:14

fight the war That is the most important

35:17

thing. I'm glad they're doing sanctions, but sanctions

35:19

takes years to have any impact. It's

35:22

all about making this as costly

35:24

as possible for Putin to

35:26

fight this

35:26

war. In the short term, it's basically

35:29

in my short term, I don't mean just today, but Heilemann,

35:31

while this war is high, and while there's still

35:33

stuff to fight for and Ukraine is not yet

35:35

a wholly owned subsidiary of Russia, it's

35:38

armed the Ukraine. It's basically like do everything we

35:40

can militarily to put guns in their hands to help

35:42

them defend else and fight this That's number one.

35:45

Juliet, to your point about what

35:47

can we help do to bring Putin down, your

35:49

argument before was part of, like, the way you guys

35:51

were in the interplay between, you know,

35:53

how protests in the street versus other

35:55

kinds of pain that can be brought. It

35:57

does go back to kind of speaking about sanctions because

36:00

in the medium to longer term, And this

36:02

is what I think Joe Biden, you know, when he

36:04

says, look, he acknowledges sanctions

36:06

are a long term thing. And just like McFaul just

36:09

said, Like, when you think about the oligarchs,

36:11

when you think about the elite class

36:13

that has either tolerated or supported Putin

36:15

because it's been there in their economic interest do

36:17

so. What does it feel like a global

36:20

strategy would look like to

36:22

inflict enough pain on them where

36:24

the thing that McFaul said earlier, which is they're

36:26

not for this war, but they're just not gonna be against

36:28

it. What's the thing that turns that

36:31

tide as a matter of practical policy or as

36:33

a matter of international, a program how

36:36

do we do that? How do we get the oligarchs

36:38

to say, we've had to fuck enough with this guy. We

36:40

gotta withdraw and let the guy do the clue

36:42

candlestick in backroom thing and

36:44

we'll be fine with

36:45

that. I think a lot of

36:47

what we're doing, you know. First, the

36:49

UK, and then pretty much all of Europe has

36:52

closed their airspace to

36:54

Russian planes. A lot of these

36:56

oligarchs have family and

36:58

property in London, Paris,

37:01

Spain, Italy, etcetera. For

37:03

example, what I keep seeing in Russian media

37:05

is freaking out over

37:08

the EU ban on Airbus

37:11

and any technology exports

37:13

to Russia related to aviation and space

37:16

which covers Airbus exports

37:19

and Airbus spare parts and

37:21

something like forty percent. I saw forty one

37:23

percent of the Russian domestic fleet

37:26

is Airbus. So that means they won't

37:28

able to service forty percent of their domestic

37:30

airlines. The Ruble has tanked. It has reached

37:32

an all time out. It is almost ninety

37:34

to the dollar. A decade ago was thirty.

37:37

So that means as a further chipping away

37:39

of Russian spending

37:41

power, prices have been going up

37:43

steadily since twenty fourteen. They're going to

37:45

spike now even as the ruble

37:47

can buy less and less of it. That means less food.

37:50

You already see Russian stores reacting

37:52

with hiking their prices on tech products

37:54

and even domestic appliances. I

37:56

think this tech export ban

37:58

is going to really really hurt Russians.

38:01

would say the first fifteen years of Putin's power,

38:03

the thing that was really the most effective

38:06

were pocketbook issues. And you would get

38:08

much bigger protests when

38:11

things like, for example, all of the Russian

38:13

Far East was up in arms and, like, thousands

38:15

and thousands of people came out into the street much

38:17

more than had ever come out in Moscow or

38:19

Saint Petersburg, for example, because

38:22

the Kremlin declared they could no longer

38:24

import cars with right side steering

38:27

wheels from Japan, which is what the entire

38:29

Far East drives. It's these things that you

38:31

can't necessarily expect, but

38:33

I think that's going to hurt people

38:36

just regular Russians. already seeing

38:38

Russian friends saying, you know,

38:40

people are canceling contracts, payments

38:43

are getting canceled, dollar transactions are

38:45

basically impossible. I mean, the biggest retail

38:47

bank has been sanctioned. It's like

38:49

sanctioning Bank of America. I

38:51

think that's going to hurt the elite too.

38:53

The only issue is I think it's how

38:56

many people can you peel Ioffe? Because I think

38:58

a lot of them like Putin's childhood friends,

39:00

they will probably go down with a ship.

39:02

You know, if the US tried to peel them off in twenty

39:04

fourteen, But, you

39:07

know, they moved some assets around. They registered

39:09

them to their kids or their wives. But

39:12

now we're sanctioning kids as well.

39:14

And family members, which we weren't willing to

39:16

do before. And I think that's really good. But

39:18

again, I think that's going to take a

39:20

while. Toward the end of last week.

39:22

The the fact was reported that admits

39:25

of all of this and, you know, the Europeans are all sticking

39:27

together and we're gonna do swift and we're

39:29

gonna hit all we're gonna do all these economic

39:31

sanctions, etcetera, etcetera. And then I

39:33

read about how European

39:35

utilities are buying more Russian

39:38

natural gas through Gazprom

39:41

in the days ahead than they were in the days prior.

39:43

Like, the one place that could really cripple

39:45

the Russian economy ambassador McFaul, I

39:47

believe you'll agree with me, is on energy. And it's the one

39:49

place where the west is like, we wanna

39:52

be as tough as we could possibly be with Vladimir Putin.

39:54

But really need that energy. And so we're

39:56

not gonna do a fucking thing about that. And I guess

39:58

I ask you whether that is another one

40:00

of the unfortunate economic realities

40:03

that is just we have to live with because it's

40:05

like a law of physics? Or is that also

40:07

in some way an indication of a lack of genuine

40:09

political will about doing what it would really take

40:12

to not in this war because

40:14

that again is a long term solution, not a short term

40:16

solution, but to really show Vladimir

40:18

Putin the

40:19

door. Well, I'd say a couple of things. I mean,

40:21

first the more strategic thing.

40:23

John, you'll remember worked in the Obama administration.

40:25

So as part of the transition team, I wrote the

40:27

main memo for our transition

40:30

and we had five major strategic objectives

40:32

we wanted to get done. And number

40:35

four was end European

40:38

energy dependence on Russia. That

40:40

was the winter of two thousand eight. Yep.

40:43

And I just I I underscore that because

40:45

there is ways to do it. It is not impossible.

40:47

There just has not been the political will to

40:49

tackle it. It's better than it was in

40:51

two thousand eight, but you can just look up the numbers

40:53

and and you can see the dependencies. By

40:56

the way, I bet you a lot of your listeners will be

40:58

shocked to know that we import

41:01

more oil from Russia than we do from

41:03

Saudi Arabia. So the political

41:05

will is not here. That market has been disrupted

41:07

in the last couple of days, but that was going

41:09

on through this entire time. So,

41:12

yes, we could. And and by the way, there are

41:14

some creative ideas out there. One of

41:16

them is an import tax. On Russian

41:19

energy. So we're not cutting it off. We're just

41:21

gonna make it more expensive than other markets.

41:23

And that would have a major disruptive

41:26

impact on their ability to earn

41:28

money from what they export. But I

41:30

don't see the political will for that yet.

41:32

I hope that that debate changes. Right? You

41:34

already see it. Like, three days ago, I was told

41:37

by some administration official, we

41:39

can't do it. We can't do it. now we did it. Right?

41:41

Right. So maybe that'll come. Central

41:43

Bank sanctions. The former finance minister

41:45

of Ukraine, an incredibly savvy

41:48

person who knows these markets well.

41:50

Natalie Eresto's her name that's what she's

41:52

calling for. You wanna talk about disruption, that

41:54

would be disruptive. So there is more

41:56

we can do on that

41:57

front. If we want to, we just do not

41:59

have the political will yet. I wanna play another

42:02

quick clip here. This struck me

42:04

because it starts to ask questions. Obviously,

42:06

if there's a lot as you said before, Mike,

42:08

it's early days, but people are already

42:10

starting to talk about what comes next here. If

42:12

it's right, that eventually despite the difficulties

42:14

are having despite the difficulties the Russian

42:16

military is having, the slower going than

42:18

expected, despite the fierce and heroic resistance

42:21

of the Ukrainian resistance and military that

42:23

eventually keeps gonna fall and and Russia's

42:25

gonna own Ukraine. On British

42:28

television, the Latvian deputy

42:30

prime minister and defense minister, Artis

42:32

Pabriques, was on TV saying something

42:34

that struck me about the stakes here,

42:37

not in the long

42:37

term, but in the short term. If you don't feel

42:39

just to watch like we are doing now, If

42:42

you will not engage fully in supporting

42:44

Ukrainians. If Ukraine fall,

42:46

believe me, the strategic situation

42:49

of Europe. And transatlantic alliance

42:51

will be totally different. And I can

42:53

use all my authority and experience to

42:56

tell this to you Because when we in the

42:58

Baltics and in Poland, we were

43:00

warning the western leaders about

43:03

what will happen with Georgia in two thousand

43:05

eight. We were right. In two thousand

43:07

fourteen, we've warned about Ukraine and

43:09

Crimea. We were right. Mhmm. When we

43:11

were warnings that Belarus will be invaded

43:14

and followed by Russia, Three years

43:16

ago, we were right. Please,

43:18

believe us today and act now.

43:20

So, Julie, that goes to both a backward looking

43:22

question, a forward looking question. You know, all of these

43:24

Baltic Republic and and all of these other

43:26

Central and Eastern European countries. That's

43:28

a very common refrain, which is, first

43:31

of all, we'd like an apology from all of you

43:33

people who doubted us about what Vladimir Putin

43:35

would do. And second of all, once we get the

43:37

apology, please, understand the implications,

43:39

which is not going to stop at Ukraine. We're

43:41

all gonna be under threat, and we need to do much

43:43

more than we're doing right now. Talk to

43:46

me about that and about the way in which the

43:48

region that you're very familiar with, the former

43:50

Soviet Union, is looking at these

43:52

moves and their degree of concern and

43:54

what might arise in the coming

43:56

days and weeks because of that

43:58

concern. Well, I think if we're gonna look backward,

44:00

we should start with,

44:03

you know, a lot of people are criticizing the

44:06

west for expanding NATO too

44:08

far. I would criticize the

44:11

west and specifically the George W. Bush administration

44:13

for doing it sloppily. So

44:16

in two thousand eight at Bucharest, George

44:18

Shelby Bush and Condelez Arise

44:21

pushed for over a French

44:23

and German objection pushed for this open

44:25

door policy for Georgia and Ukraine

44:27

to basically invite them in.

44:30

And there were people, you know, the French and the Germans

44:32

and also people inside the US government

44:34

who said this is a terrible idea because you're

44:36

just going to inflate Putin.

44:38

These two former Soviet republics are

44:41

so core to Russia's sense

44:43

of self as an empire. So

44:46

the US did it anyway, but then

44:48

didn't let them in. So what ended

44:50

up happening is we got the worst of both

44:53

worlds. We infuriated and

44:55

taunted Russia. Right? It's like bringing out

44:57

the red cape and moving it around

44:59

front of the bowl. But then we left them

45:01

twisting in the wind. We didn't give them the protections

45:04

that infuriating Putin, you know,

45:06

would protect them against. You saw that

45:08

frustration with Zalenski's statements

45:11

and the lead up to the war where he

45:13

was throwing shade at Biden and people

45:15

in other countries in NATO, he

45:18

said, you know, you keep talking about

45:20

how, no, we will never officially close

45:22

the door to Ukraine. We can never do such a

45:24

thing. But then at the same time, you're not letting

45:26

us in. And I think that one

45:28

of the ways actually to have avoided this

45:30

war with them. And to avoid the war in Georgia

45:33

would have been to just let them in. I

45:35

think that even back then, And

45:37

even now, I think that's an extra step even

45:39

for the clearly even more

45:41

deranged Putin. I think it would

45:43

have offered some protection and I don't know that he would

45:45

have dared to invade a Ukraine that

45:47

was in May though. We're gonna take

45:49

one more break and we'll be back on Heilemann High Water.

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we're back.

48:12

Here's the question I wanna ask you to close out your

48:14

time with us. Yeah. I'm gonna take up some domestic stuff

48:16

with Julia. But here's my question for you. Like, when

48:18

III was looking for the earliest Mike McFall

48:20

on on video. And I found a thing,

48:22

the earliest thing we could find was from nineteen ninety nine.

48:25

And you were at a at a conference, and the US

48:27

is to the peace panel. And what you said at the

48:29

end, you said Russia has two

48:30

choices. US, Russia, and US

48:32

Soviet relations have gone from being the core

48:35

foreign policy concern for both countries.

48:37

To being Russia now on the periphery

48:40

of our concerns and really on the periphery

48:42

of the international system in general. They're

48:45

dependent on us and that's why they resent us

48:47

and that's why they wanna poke us in the eye anytime

48:49

they can. If you accept this

48:51

core periphery model,

48:53

Russia has two choices. One

48:55

is to continue to try to

48:57

do things, to be reintegrated into

49:00

the core. And I believe it's still

49:02

possible. I'm an optimist on that front.

49:04

But the other option, of course, is to be a rogue

49:06

state. How do you get the attention of the

49:08

corps you're down and

49:09

out, well, if you got ten thousand nuclear weapons,

49:11

you'd be pain in the ass,

49:14

frankly. think pain in the ass

49:16

is one way describe what's going on right now in a

49:18

very cheeky, understated way.

49:20

But the nuclear thing is really on the table, and it

49:22

freaked me out this week. I will say,

49:25

Dear Vladimir Putin, talking about nuclear weapons,

49:27

threatening to use them. And then the French

49:29

foreign minister saying, you know, yes,

49:31

I take that as a threat. He should remember

49:33

that NATO is nuclear armed alliance also.

49:36

Again, it's obviously correct. That's true.

49:38

And yet, nuclear saber rattling right now

49:40

has my teeth on edge. Is that have your teeth

49:42

on edge? Or do you think that this is all sort of play

49:44

acting? And we don't really have anything to worry about here.

49:46

I that one went in with you in a two apocalyptic

49:49

place, but how much does this

49:51

feel potential not like a new cold

49:53

war, but a new hot war that could really escalate

49:55

and get out of control. I'm worried.

49:57

Of course, I'm

49:58

worried. And I wanna say two things about

50:00

it. First of all, this war is mostly about

50:02

us. Ukraine just happens to be

50:04

the place that's being far. Putin is obsessed

50:06

with us. He wants victory. He

50:09

wants to show despite all of all of

50:11

our threats and all of our stuff. I can

50:13

go in and wipe them out and put

50:15

in my puppet and you can't do anything about it.

50:17

It's all aimed at us. And

50:19

by the way, I'm afraid of that. Because

50:22

if he wins, people all over

50:24

the globe are gonna be looking at us. I

50:26

don't touch with people in Asia and the Middle East,

50:28

and they're gonna be wondering who do I line

50:30

up with? You know, if we are back in the

50:32

jungle -- Yeah. -- where there's no multilateral

50:35

institutions, there's no liberal and international order,

50:37

it's just the jungle, then you gotta make

50:39

a decision. Are you lining up with him, or are you lining

50:41

up with us? So the stakes are very

50:43

high. And when he throws on top of that

50:46

nuclear weapons, we should be

50:48

serious about them. I can't tell you how many

50:50

conversations I've had over the last several weeks

50:53

with, you know, armchair Geostrategists.

50:56

I hate to be flipping, but everybody's an expert

50:58

on Putin these days. By

51:00

the way, I wrote my first anti Putin piece

51:02

just because we're going back in history in March two

51:04

thousand. Saying we need to be worried

51:06

about this guy as an autocrat because

51:09

autocrats screw up the world.

51:11

But I can't tell you how many times I heard,

51:13

oh, he's not serious, oh, he would never

51:15

do that. Oh, this is just about

51:17

native expansion. If we could just sit down

51:19

and give him that listen

51:22

to the guy. He is serious. Listen

51:25

to his words. When he says denotification,

51:28

he means he is going to kill mister

51:30

Zelensky. Listen to Heilemann when

51:32

he threatens, that is a threat

51:34

that we have to take seriously. Now we don't want to

51:36

overreact. Right. You know, it would be

51:39

nuclear holocaust where he would die

51:41

too, but think we've just so

51:44

underestimated this guy for so

51:46

many years. These intentions By

51:48

the way, I think we've underestimated their capabilities

51:51

too. That's for another day. But on the

51:53

intention piece, we keep thinking oh,

51:55

we're gonna pivot to China and we gotta focus

51:58

on this. This is just a distraction. People

52:00

literally wrote that ten days ago. This

52:02

is just a distraction to the real fight

52:04

which is about Asia. No.

52:07

Right now, and I'll I'll leave with this

52:09

thing from one of my friends who

52:12

sometimes we've had some radical disagreements

52:14

over the three decades. His name is Gary

52:16

Kasparov. Gary and I, you know,

52:18

we agree on most things. And during

52:21

the transition, John, he said this to me. And

52:23

I was working with my friends in the Biden

52:25

administration where it's all about the Asia

52:27

pivot. And we just want a stable

52:29

and predictable relationship with Putin.

52:31

And, you know, you can imagine what Gary thought

52:33

about that phrase. And I don't use that kind of language

52:36

that Gary uses. Juliet is more comfortable

52:38

with

52:38

that. I'll let I'll go fuck

52:40

you. I think I'll go fuck yourself. We've probably been the

52:43

first things out of Gary's mouth. Yeah. You know how Gary

52:45

rolls. But he said something profound

52:47

and I think he's, you know, he's been right. He

52:49

said, yeah, for the long fight, yes,

52:52

dealing with the threat of China in the twenty

52:54

first century is right. But we gotta

52:56

get to that long fight because the immediate

52:58

fight is gonna happen in Europe and it's

53:00

with this guy Vladimir Putin. And I think

53:02

he was dead right about that, and I hope

53:04

we're up to the challenge. With that, I gotta

53:06

run great to talk to you

53:07

guys. You and I and and Mike

53:10

McFaul and others, you know, have spent one

53:12

one subdivision of our discussions around

53:14

all this over last week and inevitably

53:16

has been the kind of US domestic

53:18

front and what Putin has done to the Republican

53:21

Party or what he helped to accelerate the Republican Party.

53:23

And the Trump thing has a whole other podcast. Like,

53:25

we could spend a lot of time on it. Mhmm. But I do

53:27

kind of wanna ask you in the

53:29

context of what Michael

53:32

McFaul was just saying, it feeds into

53:34

one question that we can focus on, which is what's

53:36

in Putin's And Seeing

53:38

Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo and Tucker Carlson

53:40

and Lori Ingram and JDV. Accent. The

53:42

Josh Holly with his little tiny birdhands

53:45

out in Missouri, the shakes his

53:47

fist for the interaction. Seeing all those people

53:49

providing him with the words of either

53:51

praise or warm praise or non

53:53

condemnation. People say, well, well, that's

53:56

a propaganda metric for Putin. I'm sure you agree

53:58

with that. But as Putin

54:00

filters information how

54:03

does that victory that he's

54:05

clearly won in the United States? How

54:07

does that feed back into do

54:09

you think on the basis of your all

54:11

of the psychoanalyzing you've done of him, hasn't

54:13

feed back into the way he thinks about

54:15

things like further territorial aggression.

54:18

In Central Europe about the possibility

54:20

of actually using nuclear weapons, Mike that

54:23

we have taken seriously. So let's take it seriously.

54:25

How much does he look at that and say,

54:27

when he sees the former president of the United States talking the

54:29

way it does. Say, hey, you know what? You know, I'm getting criticized

54:31

in large parts of the world, but I got a lot of backers out

54:34

there too and some pretty powerful ones in the United States.

54:36

That Republican party's not against me. Does

54:38

that play a role? And does that

54:40

make you even more concerned about

54:43

how potentially bad this all

54:46

could go under some nonimplausible

54:49

scenarios that we could both sketch out. Yeah.

54:51

I think I think you're exactly right.

54:54

And what I wanna point

54:57

out is that well, first of all, I wanna

54:59

say Mike is totally right that nothing

55:02

annoys me more than American

55:04

editors and TV anchors who are like, okay. But

55:06

what does Putin really want? I'm like, he do he

55:08

sound it? Straight out. He wants to fight with

55:10

the US. In declaring war

55:12

on Ukraine, he talked about the

55:14

US the whole time, not even NATO. NATO,

55:16

he was like, oh, they're just you know, America's bitches.

55:19

My fight is with the US, and if you try to meddle,

55:22

I will use nuclear weapons like

55:24

he said it. It's not about Ukraine,

55:26

and there's no reason he will stop there. He just

55:28

threatened Finland for fuck's sake. You know?

55:31

But then getting back to your point, I think it makes

55:33

it easier for him. For example, you

55:35

know, what happens when there's a Republican

55:37

house in senate, so in January, right,

55:39

after the November elections? What

55:42

happens if there's a Republican president

55:44

in twenty twenty four or

55:46

after the elections of twenty twenty

55:48

four? It gets sworn in a few months

55:50

later.

55:52

And what I wanna point out to

55:54

people like, people, you

55:56

know, the horseshoe has become such a,

55:58

you know, not just a circle, but a snake

56:01

eating its own tail. You seek people on the hard

56:03

left and the hard right, you know,

56:05

cheering for Putin. And

56:08

Putin doesn't respect you. Like,

56:10

he doesn't respect Trump, he

56:12

doesn't respect Tucker, Carlson,

56:15

he doesn't respect

56:16

Glenn Greenwald or Heilemann Assange. He

56:19

sees you as They're

56:20

all they're all his bitches, basically.

56:22

They're used to have his e took the course.

56:24

No. But

56:25

not away with that a second time. Yeah.

56:26

No. I'll do it for you. That's alright. I saw where we go.

56:28

He doesn't want to be friends with America.

56:31

Like, this whole Trump talking about how we

56:33

have to be friends with Russia and affect

56:35

Russia and respect its secure

56:37

you know, as you're hearing from the left, none of this

56:39

would have happened if we had taken Russia's

56:41

security concerns seriously. That's not

56:43

what he wants. Like, he wants to own you

56:45

and you're just owning yourself for him.

56:48

And I'm not saying this, you know, conflict

56:50

for conflict sake that we should just

56:52

be against Putin and the people around

56:55

him just because they're against us. But I remember

56:57

when I moved back from Russia a decade

56:59

ago in meeting some of John McCain

57:01

staffers who were like, oh, Russia is

57:03

just, you know, a nuclear arm gas

57:06

station or like China's gas station. I don't

57:08

think that's true anymore. And

57:10

obama said that Russia is just

57:12

a regional power. I don't think that's

57:14

true anymore. think it's kind of, you know, super

57:16

power is as super power does. And

57:18

Putin is not afraid to flex those

57:20

muscles. And, you know, it's

57:23

it's like it's not gonna be better for you a fresh

57:25

wins.

57:25

Right. Hear these arguments on the left

57:27

as well. I feel like the right is getting a lot of heat

57:30

for their criticism of Biden.

57:32

But I think the left has been fucking awful

57:34

on this. Like, This is not

57:36

our fight. Like, it's

57:38

so classically American. We want all the

57:40

benefits and none of the costs. We

57:42

want to not touch Social

57:44

Security, and we want our Medicare, but we

57:46

want lower taxes, and somehow that's supposed

57:48

to work. And we want

57:51

like cheap shit made in China, but we still

57:53

want it all to be manufactured here and people

57:55

to be paid fifty dollars an hour to make those t

57:57

shirts. Right? And we want all the benefits

57:59

of being the world's superpower and

58:02

policing all those shipping and

58:04

air highways all over the world,

58:07

and we wanna be the world's reserve currency,

58:09

but we don't wanna spend any money

58:11

or blood or doing that. And we don't wanna be the

58:13

world's policeman thinking that

58:16

if we stop being the world's policeman, there will

58:18

be no more policeman and the world will live in

58:20

peace. But you know who wants to be the policeman? Russia,

58:23

China. And if we're living in

58:25

a world where they are the Heilemann

58:27

and they are more powerful than the US, especially

58:29

if Russia is more powerful than the US, believe

58:32

me, it's not gonna be better for you, including

58:34

in the US. And it's

58:37

just the height of, like, being spoiled

58:39

and privileged. And having

58:41

two friendly neighbors as our

58:43

north and south border and two oceans

58:45

as our borders on the east and west.

58:47

Not all countries have that. And eventually,

58:50

shit will come to our doorstep as we learned

58:53

in World War one, as we learned in World

58:55

War two. And you can stay

58:57

out of things and decide that it's not our

58:59

but these people will make it your

59:01

fight. They are intent on it. It's

59:03

like it's such a US focused view

59:06

that it's all because of us. And that

59:08

we're aggravating Putin or he

59:10

came to like

59:13

obsessed with the US, obsessed with

59:15

NATO, It's about us, but it's not about

59:17

us. And the isolationism on the

59:19

right and left is very nice and very privileged.

59:22

But

59:22

eventually, he will make

59:23

it a problem. He has declared

59:25

that he will. So you might as well get in

59:28

you know, it's like with World War two. Like,

59:30

we could have gotten in, for example, in Europe at

59:32

a much earlier phase. And saved

59:34

everybody a

59:34

lot, including ourselves, a lot of bloodshed,

59:37

and money. Yeah. I mean, I'd say raises a lot

59:39

of questions and I just will say, first of all,

59:41

just only because I once had

59:43

the opportunity when I was thinking about snake snaking

59:45

in its own

59:45

tail. It turns out that in Greek mythology, that's called

59:48

it a Roburos. A Roburos?

59:50

A Roburos. Yeah. Because I had to look it up.

59:52

I've now remembered it forever. So whenever he says, I'm always

59:54

like, hey, you know what that's called? And then second thing

59:56

is just to to put the cap on this. Right?

59:58

I think one of the things that I know you've talked

1:00:00

about this a bunch this week. People say, you know, as

1:00:02

Putin is irrational or is irrational, you

1:00:05

know, that that debate, which always strikes

1:00:07

me as kind of a weirdly, a kind of false

1:00:09

binary because, you know, there's

1:00:11

a kind of rationality or at least the kind

1:00:13

of logic that even really delusional

1:00:15

people have. Right? It's not it's not

1:00:17

like when you say someone's irrational, people

1:00:19

think, well, as the British the Fed minister said apparently,

1:00:22

you know, he's gone full tonto, which is not

1:00:24

only weird, but kind of racist, but it's

1:00:26

like that notion that he's these bunkers.

1:00:29

Right? He's not unhinged. There's

1:00:31

a rationality and a clarity. But it's just

1:00:33

not the logic that we Heilemann the reason

1:00:35

I raise it is just because it does seem to me that,

1:00:37

like, you know, you're being very selective

1:00:39

when you're desperate and and really

1:00:42

any leader any country about what information

1:00:44

you look at. You're always picking and choosing. You're always

1:00:46

saying, well, the condemnation, that's

1:00:48

just over there. Can I find some approval?

1:00:50

And if you can find some approval out there, especially if you can

1:00:53

find the United States on the part of like Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo,

1:00:55

and other people, you can very easily convince

1:00:57

yourself that the world's not against

1:00:59

you, and that can lead you to do some very

1:01:01

fucked up shit.

1:01:03

Look, again, I've spent

1:01:05

way too much time watching shitty.

1:01:07

Rush now that Mike has gone. It's just whatever.

1:01:12

Rush and probably Amanda, which is

1:01:14

Just their, like, evening newscasts. Right?

1:01:16

Because all of television is controlled by

1:01:18

the Kremlin.

1:01:20

And guess who they're quoting? All the time.

1:01:22

Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson and Tulsi

1:01:24

Gavin. They play Tucker on RT at this point. They just

1:01:26

make chunks of Tucker and put it on. Literally, put

1:01:28

it on RT. You see it there? I'm not here.

1:01:31

Yeah. And I don't know how much people watch

1:01:33

RT inside Russia, but on their

1:01:35

domestic news, there's a lot of Tucker.

1:01:37

Yeah. And I agree with you. I

1:01:39

think when people say rational, irrational,

1:01:42

they mean this person doesn't think the way I

1:01:44

do. Right. And I think for

1:01:46

the first time we have an administration

1:01:49

that gets Putin and sees him clearly

1:01:51

in part because so many people

1:01:53

handling foreign policy in the Biden

1:01:55

administration, including Biden himself, dealt

1:01:57

with Putin during the Obama administration.

1:02:00

Right. And they understand that. But

1:02:02

before, there was always this

1:02:04

And I remember so many arguments I had with

1:02:06

people in the US about this, like, he would

1:02:08

never do x because it's irrational. It

1:02:10

doesn't make sense. Like, it doesn't make

1:02:12

sense to you, but it makes here's how it makes perfect

1:02:15

sense to him. It's like we're

1:02:17

operating in base ten and he's operating

1:02:19

in base

1:02:19

twelve. And you have to do some

1:02:22

conversion for those things to line

1:02:24

up. Sorry. A little math throwback. Yeah. Really

1:02:26

seriously. I first the bathroom back. And then, also,

1:02:28

I I have to say it's the most charming thing I've ever heard, which is that

1:02:30

you restrain yourself from using profanity, but out of some

1:02:33

respect for Michael McFall. think that's an admit. You're like,

1:02:35

well, now that Michael McFall is gone. I just dropped f

1:02:37

bombs. Left right in the center. But before I felt like

1:02:39

I should probably, like, watch my mouth. Listen,

1:02:41

thank you for taking the time. I really could talk to you and

1:02:43

to him really for narrows up. But you guys are, like,

1:02:45

the busiest people on planet Earth right now. Because

1:02:48

you're Heilemann, and you know what you're talking about. And

1:02:50

this is really, like, the most important story in the

1:02:52

world right now, and so you're in

1:02:53

demand. But thanks for taking a little time to

1:02:55

chat with me and him and be with us.

1:02:57

Thank

1:02:57

you so much, John. Thanks for having me. This has been

1:03:00

really fun. You know, for

1:03:02

all things considered. Given

1:03:03

that we're talking about award, right? Yeah. Helen

1:03:06

I Water is podcast from the recount. Thanks again for

1:03:08

being with us. If you like this episode, please subscribe.

1:03:10

Helen I and share us and rate us and review us

1:03:12

on whatever app you happen to use to mask in

1:03:14

the splendor of the Podcast universe. I'm

1:03:16

your host and the executive editor of the recount. John

1:03:19

Grace Weinstein is a cocreator of Heilemann Water.

1:03:22

David Wilson engineered the podcast. Justin

1:03:24

Chumo handles the research. Margo Dray

1:03:26

is our assistant producer, Stephanie Stender,

1:03:29

is our post producer and Christian Beadell.

1:03:32

Gastro

1:03:32

Rizzo. Is our executive producer.