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1:06

Welcome back to POD Save the World. I'm Tommy

1:08

Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben is back from the

1:10

Munich Security Conference. He brought a piece of the

1:12

blob with him. She's sitting

1:14

there kind of moving and Shakeshipping. I re-upped

1:16

my credentials. How'd it go? You

1:19

know, it's an incredibly condensed environment, and

1:21

it's crazy to walk into this kind

1:23

of old hotel in Munich and recognize

1:25

90 people in the lobby immediately. It's

1:27

nice to not be in government. I

1:29

actually don't miss it at all. But

1:31

you'll remember this time, you're like

1:34

20 people you know just steamrolling

1:36

by, trailing like Kamala Harris.

1:38

You're like, yeah, there's Derek Chollet, Dan

1:40

Kritenbrink. And everyone's harried and everyone's on

1:42

their phone. Everyone's harried. Everyone's looking over

1:44

everyone's shoulder to see if there's someone

1:46

more important that they should be talking

1:48

to. There's people

1:51

gawking at... It's funny

1:53

because it's like inverse celebrity culture. It's like...

1:57

Who's the Latvian foreign minister?

1:59

Exactly. Instead of like Dua Lipa,

2:01

it's like, oh my God, that's the

2:03

ex-president of Estonia. It

2:07

was good. Yeah. I

2:09

saw our buddy David Limey. Nice.

2:12

Yeah. He got the mayor

2:14

of Munich. I want to ask you about this

2:16

later, but I saw he put out a video

2:18

today talking about recognizing a Palestinian state. Yes. Especially

2:21

for Two State Solutions. I was very excited to do

2:23

that. Labor is definitely getting, after having been pretty close

2:25

to where the Tories were at the beginning, they're

2:28

definitely differentiating themselves, which is good. Yeah. And

2:31

labor just crushed into by elections. Crushed.

2:33

Crushed. Crushed. Yeah.

2:37

Equivalent. Yeah. So

2:40

good. Hopefully. Pretty soon we'll have

2:42

a labor government. Okay. Well, we got a

2:44

packed show today, Ben. We are coming up on the two-year anniversary

2:46

of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. So we're going to spend

2:48

a lot of time on that subject today. Also, it's been nearly

2:50

a decade since Russia invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014. So

2:53

nearly a decade of war for

2:55

people. All across Ukraine. We're

2:57

going to dig into the latest in the battlefield.

2:59

We're going to hear stories from Ukrainians inside and

3:01

outside the country about what life is like. And

3:04

then we'll talk about what might come next. And

3:06

then later in the show, you're going to hear my

3:08

interview with Mr. Slav Chernov, a filmmaker

3:11

and the director of an incredible documentary,

3:13

20 Days in Mariopal. Have you seen

3:15

this film, Ben? I haven't. I've read

3:17

about it, but I need to see it. Yeah. Like

3:20

emotionally prepare yourself. Yeah. Don't do

3:22

what I did, which was watch it a couple

3:24

hours before going out to Valentine's Day dinner with

3:26

Hannah and then just being emotionally vacant. Yeah. This

3:29

is not about me, but it's a very powerful film. Incredibly

3:31

powerful. He was like the only journalist, a couple of

3:33

these folks were the only journalists in Mariopal in those

3:35

first days of the war. And you'll watch it and

3:38

you're like, oh my God, all of the coverage that

3:40

I watched in those early couple of weeks

3:42

was from this one guy shooting

3:45

while getting bombarded and then desperately finding a

3:47

place to upload his footage. Yeah.

3:50

I think the one thing I'd say

3:53

about this is that in this age

3:55

of social media and short attention span,

3:57

the documentary's

4:00

or more and more valuable. So powerful. Just to be able

4:02

to sit with something for a couple of hours. So

4:05

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing that. Yeah, Alon and

4:07

I were talking about this. You can read a thousand

4:09

print stories. You can do the New Yorker deep dive,

4:11

but you watch 20 Days in Mary

4:13

Opal and you are affected for days in a

4:16

powerful way. Tough New Yorker hit.

4:18

Yeah. Well, listen. Love a good

4:21

New Yorker story. No offense to all our friends over

4:23

there. We're also going to cover

4:25

the latest news about the murder of Russian

4:27

opposition leader Alexei Navalny. We'll explain why Tucker

4:29

Carlson loves the Moscow Metro. I

4:31

do a quick update on Russian spake nukes, which

4:33

Ben thinks I like a little too much, I

4:35

think. Then we cover the

4:38

war in Gaza, Indonesia's recent election, what

4:40

Jared Kushner is whining about in mankinis.

4:43

So ranging show. I

4:45

didn't see mankinis on the list. Well, you're going to

4:47

be wearing one. Okay.

4:51

Another awkward pivot to our first topic, which

4:53

is two years of war in Ukraine. So

4:55

let's start with some grim statistics. So

4:57

Russia has taken 11% of Ukrainian

4:59

territory since February 24th, 2022. Obviously

5:03

at one point they had taken more than

5:05

that. Ukraine battled back and retook some territory,

5:07

but they still have lost over a tenth

5:09

of their country. 130,000 Ukrainian

5:11

troops are dead, severely wounded or missing.

5:14

More than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed.

5:16

Nearly a quarter of Ukrainian population has now been

5:18

displaced by the war. On

5:20

the Russian side, 200,000 Russian troops are dead,

5:23

severely wounded or missing, and 800,000

5:25

Russians have fled the country for

5:28

a variety of reasons, political, economic, et cetera.

5:30

So just existential for both countries. Stylizing number, yeah.

5:33

Stylizing numbers. In recent

5:35

months, the momentum in

5:37

the war has shifted pretty

5:39

decidedly against Ukraine. After

5:41

a month of brutal fighting, Ukrainian forces

5:43

fully withdrew from the city of Divka,

5:46

the Donetsk region. The New York Times said

5:48

that British and Ukrainian intelligence estimate that in

5:50

2024 alone, Russian

5:53

forces dropped about one million pounds

5:55

of aerial bombs on this 12

5:57

square mile area around Divka. while

6:00

the Ukrainian troops were forced to ration ammunition

6:02

like artillery shells and they also basically ran

6:04

out of air defense systems and interceptors, which

6:06

is why these Russian planes were able to

6:08

just fly over them and basically carpet bomb

6:10

the area. Russian and

6:12

Ukrainian troops have been fighting for

6:14

control of Dvka since 2014, but

6:17

this is really the biggest battlefield victory for

6:19

the Russian side since Bakhmout. Dvka

6:21

is one of about five places in

6:23

eastern Ukraine where Ukrainian forces are trying

6:25

desperately to hold defensive lines and

6:28

new Russian forces are just showing no sign of

6:30

letting up just by taking massive casualties. This,

6:32

your artillery shortage, I know Ben will talk about

6:34

this in a second, was a big topic of

6:37

discussions at the Munich Security Forum. Last

6:39

year the EU pledged one million shells

6:41

to Ukraine by March of 2024. They

6:43

say the efforts to ramp

6:45

up production are on track, but it looks like

6:47

they're only going to deliver half of those shells

6:50

by that March deadline they had set for this

6:52

year, so falling well short. As

6:54

we've discussed, Congress here pissed away months

6:56

in the Senate working on an immigration

6:59

bill that the Republicans walked away from

7:01

until the Senate passed a supplemental funding bill

7:03

that includes 60 billion for funding for Ukraine,

7:05

but the House of Representatives is dithering on

7:07

what to do about it next via Speaker

7:10

Johnson as a coward and he is worried

7:12

he might lose his speakership. Here's

7:14

a clip of President Biden talking about

7:16

the delays in the House last week

7:18

at a press event. Is there anything

7:20

you can do to get ammunition to

7:22

the Ukrainians without the government going to

7:24

Congress? No, but it's about

7:26

time they step up, don't you think? Instead

7:28

of going on a two-week vacation? Two

7:31

weeks? They're walking

7:34

away. Two weeks? What

7:37

are they thinking? My

7:40

god, this is bizarre

7:42

and it's just reinforcing all the

7:45

concern and almost,

7:47

I won't say panic, but real

7:49

concern about the United States being

7:51

a reliable ally. This

7:54

is outrageous. And here's

7:56

a clip of President Zelensky asking

7:58

for more support at the Munich security form.

8:01

First, we all

8:03

must do not do

8:05

not something but

8:08

everything possible to defeat

8:10

the aggressor. Please everyone

8:12

remember that dictators do not

8:14

go on vacation. Hatred

8:17

knows no pause. Enemy

8:20

artillery does not fall silent

8:22

due to procedural issues. Warriors

8:25

standing against the aggressor need

8:27

sufficient strength. We

8:30

should not fear Putin's defeat. Putin

8:33

is a threat to all three nations.

8:36

So Ben, you haven't

8:38

really gotten the shit together fast enough to

8:40

help Ukraine, at least enough. The

8:43

US is being held hostage by Trump and

8:45

the Mago Republicans. That was plan

8:47

A, was to get those bills through Congress.

8:50

You just got back from Munich. Is there a plan B being

8:52

discussed or is everyone just kind of waiting on us? I

8:56

mean, I think panic is an appropriate

8:58

word to describe actually the vibe that I

9:00

picked up in Munich. I think

9:02

that most every conversation you have, and

9:05

I'm met with a lot of different

9:07

Europeans, the panic

9:09

is about two things. It's about the supplemental and it's about

9:11

the US election. That's

9:13

kind of coloring the backdrop. That didn't work, yeah. Yeah,

9:15

it's kind of coloring the backdrop to all this stuff.

9:19

Look, I actually think that Biden's

9:22

tone, Zelensky's tone, what I think is right

9:25

about it is for

9:27

a while, I think the strategy was to be

9:29

really grateful. The Ukrainians, thank you so much for

9:31

all the support and kind

9:34

of courting the Republicans. Actually,

9:37

I think it's better to just kind of go right at

9:39

this and call it out as they're

9:42

doing because we're not getting

9:44

anywhere. We're not catching flies with

9:47

honey here. I think there

9:49

has to be an effort to just really just pound away at

9:51

the irresponsibility of this. There

9:54

are enough Republicans, by the way, who agree with

9:56

that, that maybe there's some procedural way in which

9:58

you can get a vote. That

10:00

be a sidelines. the mega people are If

10:02

not if you will go up or down

10:05

vote I bet you'd get three hundred plus

10:07

votes in the house. Me maybe more you

10:09

were in so that that's only thing you're

10:11

in a be able to take a shot

10:13

at In I don't know that you think

10:15

Mike Johnson whatever his name is Alex I

10:18

don't have it. You can count on that

10:20

guy. You pull your average of a hat

10:22

Necessarily not. So when the Marla on Monday

10:24

yeah as the plane be you know. I

10:27

think there are some things that

10:29

can be done and their been

10:31

already. Some reports around you know

10:33

the the Us could essentially replenish

10:35

European stocks in than than the

10:37

Europeans give their weapons into the

10:39

Ukrainians. It is a kind of

10:42

bank shot way in which you

10:44

can. Move. Stockpiles

10:47

of with bit spider were just

10:49

highlights. the in an idiot republican

10:51

opposition like there's a supply chain

10:53

of of of arms on the

10:55

world that new emanate from Us

10:57

defense contractors and instead of just

10:59

the more efficient way of like

11:01

spending the money here and United

11:04

States to manufacture arms a dagger

11:06

of Ukrainians maybe the off to

11:08

be some banks out where where

11:10

escalating ourselves to Europeans you then

11:12

are providing arms. The Ukrainian says

11:14

it's just stupid all because. Of

11:16

some kind of mag A Politics it is it.

11:19

A point six how dumb it is but I

11:21

do things yet to be looking that Plan B

11:23

I think that the Europeans near the there's a

11:25

lot of talk in Munich about their need to

11:27

be ah kind of re. Capitalizing.

11:30

Their own capacity to to

11:32

provide arms to the Ukrainians.

11:35

They're not for me. It was any kind

11:38

of immediate term time frame, but I think.

11:40

They're. Thinking about what happens if Trump wins

11:43

and remain need to have the capacity to

11:45

provide artillery and things like this. Shells. And

11:48

just because that's a year out. Or

11:50

two years out. even. like

11:53

i'd rather they're not be war i'm like not

11:56

suggesting that that's the best case scenario by as

11:58

a hedge i think do need to be doing

12:00

that because sometimes a year or

12:02

two can seem like a really long time. But

12:05

look, we're two years into this war. It's

12:07

a stalemate. There's no reason not to be

12:10

thinking about 2026, 2027.

12:12

Again, not because anybody wants there to be a war then, but just because

12:15

you need to have a certain

12:17

capacity to

12:19

deal with contingencies. Russia, despite

12:22

sanctions, has managed to dramatically increase

12:25

its own domestic production of those kinds

12:28

of armaments. They've managed to

12:30

find alternative supplies from the

12:32

North Koreans, particularly on artillery,

12:34

from the Iranians, on other

12:36

capabilities. So whether

12:38

it's un-sticking some stuff from

12:41

US politics or whether it's the Europeans

12:43

ramping their capacity up, again, that's not

12:45

necessarily going to close the gap right

12:48

away, but it's all

12:50

necessary. Especially because if the supplemental does get

12:52

through too, it's unlikely to be one at

12:54

the scale that the administration asked for. Maybe

12:56

they can get some skinny down version of

12:58

it done. But yeah, in

13:01

a war of attrition in which Russia is

13:04

a bigger country with a bigger pool

13:08

of people to draw from in its own

13:10

conscription efforts and

13:12

a huge military industrial complex

13:14

that's turning this stuff out, time

13:17

is going to work to their advantage. Again,

13:19

even if you want an end

13:21

to the war, and even if you're open to

13:23

a negotiated settlement short of

13:26

Ukraine taking back all its territory, which I think, as

13:28

we've said, is most likely going to be the case,

13:30

you want them to be in a stronger

13:33

position than negotiation. You don't want them in the

13:35

negotiation having run out of

13:37

weapons. Because then food is not going to negotiate.

13:39

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, to your point, it takes so

13:42

long to ramp up these supply chains and get

13:44

the infrastructure going. Think about how long it

13:46

takes to build a factory

13:48

to make more Patriot missile batteries. That's

13:50

not a fast process. That's why the Estonians

13:52

put forward a plan to win the war by

13:54

saying all the NATO allies should spend 0.25% of

13:57

GDP for the next- four

14:00

years and commit that to Ukraine and they think

14:02

that would be more than enough to defeat the

14:04

Russians. I did see some good news in sort

14:06

of like little bits like NBC

14:09

News reported the Biden administration is close to

14:11

giving Ukraine longer range attack on missiles that

14:13

could hit Crimea. So it seems

14:15

like some of the guardrails are coming off. I don't

14:17

know that that's good news, but I think it's what

14:19

I think Ukraine supporters would like to

14:21

see. Also, I saw that Japan announced

14:23

they're going to provide 12.1 billion in aid to Ukraine. So

14:27

you're seeing other allies stepping up. I was thinking about

14:29

how the 2024 NATO summit is

14:31

in July, in DC in

14:34

July. Trump's attacks on

14:36

NATO, the general state of the

14:38

war is really going to up the pressure

14:40

on that summit to deliver in a big

14:43

way for the Ukrainians or

14:45

to at least get all the NATO allies to commit to

14:47

the 2% level of defense spending that

14:49

they're supposed to hit. Yeah,

14:51

I think what was also kind of

14:53

evident at Munich is first

14:56

of all, there was some premature trampleism

14:58

at the early stages of

15:01

this war. So last year at

15:03

Munich, it was a lot of mutual

15:05

congratulation as if Russia had been defeated

15:07

and we'd saved democracy, and that wasn't

15:09

the case. Now I think there's some

15:11

premature defeatism. The

15:14

reality is somewhere in between. But to

15:16

your point, if there's nothing kind

15:18

of particularly consequential beyond the same

15:20

rhetoric about NATO standing together in

15:23

July, I think that would be problematic. So

15:26

between now and July, I think you need

15:28

to be building some sense of what the

15:30

plan is and what the vision is and how Ukraine can

15:32

be supported in the long run. As we've

15:34

talked about, I think it's all the more

15:37

reason to be accelerating things

15:39

like Ukraine

15:41

drawing closer to EU membership, kind of

15:44

a vision for where this

15:46

is going, what kind of security assurances

15:48

Ukraine might have. Because if

15:51

this seems to be moving in a direction

15:53

of some kind of frozen type conflict in

15:55

which Ukraine doesn't control a big

15:57

chunk of its territory, you at least want

16:00

to be showing that we're going to be

16:02

able to help Ukraine defend

16:04

itself with the territory it has,

16:07

rebuild, be

16:09

kind of woven into the infrastructure of

16:11

Europe, so that it's

16:13

not just a sense that they're dangling

16:15

out there to be incrementally cannibalized by

16:17

Russia. Yeah. One little bit of

16:19

good news on the politics here in the US. There's a

16:22

Pew poll that came out of the question that's informed policy

16:24

polling. 74% of Americans view

16:26

the war in Ukraine as important to US national interests.

16:30

43% describe it as very important,

16:32

and 59% of Americans describe the war

16:34

in Ukraine as important to them personally when

16:36

asked. So again, if Congress was responding to

16:38

the wishes and will of the American people,

16:40

we would actually be passing the supplemental. We

16:42

would have done it five months ago. But

16:45

again, we wanted to hear from people,

16:48

Ukrainians either living in Ukraine or forced to live

16:50

abroad because of the war. Many

16:52

of them who are still in Ukraine have

16:54

been forced to adapt to life living in

16:57

a war zone under a constant threat of

16:59

shelling. We spoke with Maria Abiyeva, a security

17:01

analyst based in Kiev, about what it is

17:03

like. Here's a clip. I have just

17:05

had a conversation this morning with a friend

17:07

of mine, and she said

17:09

that I would never imagine that we

17:11

will be in this war for two

17:14

years. And this is, I think, what a

17:16

lot of people in Ukraine, including myself,

17:18

feel. People can't live

17:20

in the basement or they can't

17:22

hide all the time. They need

17:24

to continue doing

17:27

their everyday jobs because if

17:29

everyone will move out or

17:31

will start sitting in the

17:33

basement, then nothing will work.

17:36

And this is actually this

17:38

remarkable resilience of

17:40

Ukrainians, which you can

17:43

see in many places, like

17:47

those teachers who continue teaching

17:49

underground in the metro

17:51

school or from their homes,

17:53

hiding somewhere in the bathroom

17:55

when there is an ASIRON,

17:58

continuing their online lessons. restaurants

18:02

that reopen after

18:05

they were destroyed for two

18:07

times. There is a restaurant in Kharkiv in

18:10

the city center that reopened after

18:12

the first attack and then another

18:14

strike. It was destroyed again and

18:16

I saw that the

18:19

owners are again cleaning everything

18:21

up and they will try

18:23

to reopen for the third

18:25

time. So this is something

18:28

very remarkable about Ukrainians and when

18:30

I ask people how do they

18:32

do it and why, it's because

18:35

they say that then who else will

18:37

do that? If we all abandon

18:41

what is important for us, who

18:43

else will do that? I

18:46

bet you also mentioned that the kids in Ukraine

18:48

are either doing fully remote learning for school

18:50

or they're going to school in literal bunkers.

18:52

Those are basically two options. Yeah

18:55

and I think what comes across in

18:57

that clip is that there's this

18:59

new normal of living through the war

19:03

and that it's open-ended and the kind

19:05

of uncertainty. This could go for a

19:08

year, three years, five years, there's this

19:10

kind of sense of an open-ended nature

19:14

to this. Now, in some way

19:16

that was always going to be the case because as we've

19:19

said, Russia's not going anywhere and

19:23

for the time being Putin's not. This is

19:26

what was wrong with some of

19:30

that triumphalism of a year ago, like

19:32

victories at hand and we're

19:34

one more op-ed about F-16s away

19:37

from... Right, yeah. You know,

19:39

it's just... More weapons. But

19:41

I think what comes across, there's been so

19:43

much focus on Zelensky. Understandably,

19:46

he did a lot right and he showed

19:48

a lot of personal courage. But

19:51

in a way, it almost

19:53

obscures that the

19:55

enormous courage of just everyday people in

19:57

Ukraine. It's not just Zelensky giving

19:59

speeches. and stuff. This is people adjusting

20:02

to unimaginable circumstances. And

20:07

there's a resilience to that. Because

20:09

what this war is ultimately to become about, I

20:11

think, is who does time work for?

20:14

Does time work for a

20:17

Putin who's just grinding and grinding and

20:19

grinding down the will of the Ukrainians

20:21

and the attention of Europe

20:23

and the United States and able

20:25

to their incrementally cannibalize more and

20:27

more of Ukraine? Or does Ukraine

20:29

become more resilient, more interwoven into

20:32

the security architecture of the United

20:34

States and Europe, more capable

20:36

of defending itself? And Putin is

20:38

the one who's starting to suffer from

20:40

people, the huge loss of

20:44

life on his end, the communities

20:46

that are hollowed out, the

20:48

longer term impact of having this

20:51

bizarre war economy? That's

20:54

the question, is who's going to be stronger

20:56

three to five years from now? And even

20:58

a frozen conflict center? Is it Ukraine or

21:00

is it Russia? And hopefully, we can help

21:02

it be the Ukrainians. Yeah. As we mentioned

21:04

at the top, there's also millions of Ukrainians

21:06

who have been forced to live outside the

21:08

country. Here's a clip from

21:10

our conversation with Daria Kostenko, a

21:12

Ukrainian refugee in Poland working for

21:14

an aid organization. I remember

21:17

when we first came, we

21:19

had a feeling that it will be for several months.

21:22

I came with my mom and my son and my mom

21:24

was here that by May, she will be home. It's

21:27

already second year and we

21:30

don't see that it's going to... I can

21:33

not talk to my son

21:35

and tell him that we will come back

21:37

soon because it is not

21:39

safe. We are from Kiev and

21:42

every day there attacks and the

21:44

people are killed. So,

21:47

being in a place where we

21:49

are at risk of dying

21:53

every day, it's very stressful. And this

21:56

is what I explained to my son, that we are

21:58

in a safe place. We need to

22:00

adjust to the situation and we need

22:02

to just accept what it is and

22:05

to find the best out of it, to

22:08

find the best solution. We

22:11

don't know. It's very difficult to

22:13

have long-term plans, to be honest, because

22:17

all my whole life plans

22:20

and then in one day it all disappeared.

22:23

I had a job, I had the flat and now

22:25

I live in a deeply strange

22:28

country and now I know

22:31

that maybe I shouldn't be

22:33

planning for long-term. I

22:35

should be just talking and the same with my

22:37

son. To be honest and to say that this

22:39

is what our life is now, let's

22:41

just make it

22:43

the best life for the

22:46

current situation. It's not

22:48

easy to communicate with children but it's very

22:50

important, I think, to be honest and to

22:52

say what it is. Of

22:55

course, to be hopeful, to return home one

22:57

day, but also to be realistic that probably

22:59

this is not going to be so long.

23:03

Another example of courage and fortitude

23:05

there after two brutal years. Yeah, and

23:07

a couple quick things on this. One

23:10

is comes across in her voice, some people

23:12

look at this and think, well, they're safe, they're in

23:14

these other European countries. But oftentimes

23:16

these are people that you can't do the

23:18

same job, that maybe you were a lawyer

23:21

or a doctor or a teacher or whatever

23:23

you were in Ukraine, you can't

23:25

just go pick that up

23:27

in some other country. And your welcome can get worn

23:29

out. Yeah, your whole ... That's the

23:31

second part is like ... In

23:33

this, I heard from some Europeans, there's

23:36

a kind of whiff in the American discourse

23:38

of why are we giving so much more

23:40

assistance? That never counts. A

23:43

German told me, for instance, that they spend something like $7

23:45

billion a year hosting just

23:48

the Ukrainian refugees. That number is

23:50

sometimes not counted. There's a fatigue,

23:52

but also this costs money too to support those refugees,

23:54

and you obviously want to see that continue. But the

23:56

third and most important thing I wanted to say is

23:58

that the longer this ... goes on, it

24:00

is a huge danger to Ukraine's future

24:03

about whether or not those people

24:05

return. Because if they lose

24:08

millions of people to just

24:10

permanent emigration, that's

24:12

going to make it much harder for them to rebuild. You

24:16

and I talked about that Masha Gessen piece I think last week. There's

24:19

some resentment growing up that the people that are in

24:21

Ukraine kind of resent the people who aren't there, and

24:23

that creates societal tensions. You hope

24:25

that the conditions emerge where even

24:27

if the war is not quote unquote over, that

24:30

people feel confident going back to at least

24:32

parts of Ukraine. Yeah, it's

24:34

not guaranteed though. Imagine you're a five year old kid

24:37

and you spend two, three, four years growing up in

24:39

some part of Poland, you're not going to want to

24:41

go home to a country you barely remember at that

24:43

point. I mean, impossibly difficult challenges for these families and

24:46

these parents in particular. Quick housekeeping

24:48

item before we go to break. On Friday,

24:50

February 23rd, the dissident at the

24:52

doorstep hosts Alison Klaman, Colin Jones and Yang

24:54

Lang Chung will be joining to answer your

24:57

questions about the making of their Crooked series

24:59

called Dissident at the Doorsteps. An excellent, excellent

25:01

series on the PODS Day

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code world. Pause

27:51

of the world is brought to you by the regime on Max.

27:54

Academy Award winner Kate Winslet stars in

27:56

the new HVU original limited series, The

27:58

Regime. Within the walls. of her

28:00

palace, the charming and terrifying chancellor,

28:02

played by Winslet, becomes increasingly paranoid

28:04

and delusional. With her nation on

28:06

the verge of greatness, she will stop at nothing to

28:09

prove her worth on the world stage or end up

28:11

in international disaster. From the executive

28:13

producers of Succession, HBO's The Regime premieres

28:15

March 3rd on Max. Okay,

28:23

so let's turn to Russia Ben, because last Friday

28:25

we recorded a bonus episode on the

28:28

death of Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption activist

28:30

Alexei Navalny. If you want to dig deeper

28:32

into his life and legacy and murder,

28:36

I recommend you check out that episode. We're going

28:38

to focus on events since Friday. So Navalny's

28:40

mother says that Russian authorities have told her

28:42

they won't hand over her son's remains for

28:45

at least 14 days, and on

28:47

Tuesday she released a video message appealing to Putin directly

28:49

to release his body. Hundreds

28:51

of Russians have been arrested for laying flowers at

28:53

memorials or otherwise trying to pay tribute

28:55

to Navalny. There's an awful

28:58

video of the police taking

29:00

one mourner and shoving his face into

29:02

a snowbank and just humiliating this guy

29:04

for no reason. But

29:07

perhaps most significant since Friday is

29:09

the fact that Yulia Navalny's widow announced in

29:11

a YouTube video that she is going to

29:13

continue his work. It was all in Russian,

29:15

so I'm just going to read a couple

29:18

quotes. One of them is, I'm going

29:20

to continue the work of Alexei Navalny and continue to fight

29:22

for our country by calling you to stand beside

29:24

me to share not only in the grief and endless

29:26

pain that has enveloped us and won't let go, but

29:28

I ask you to share my rage, anger, and

29:31

hatred of those who dared to kill

29:33

our future. She also said,

29:35

we know exactly why Putin killed Alexei three days ago.

29:38

We will tell you about it soon. We will tell

29:40

you their names and show you their faces by killing

29:42

Alexei. Putin killed half of me, half of my heart,

29:44

and half of my soul, but I still have the

29:46

other half and it tells me that I have no

29:49

right to give up. So Ben, I think

29:51

that starts to answer one question we

29:53

got a lot in the Discord questions last week,

29:55

which is whether anyone can fill the void left

29:57

by Alexei Navalny. Yulia also met

29:59

with a bunch of people. EU leader as well in Munich. So she's

30:02

serious about planning steps

30:04

to get accountability for his murder. So

30:07

Ben, a lot of Putin's

30:09

critics are hoping to use this moment to

30:11

galvanize support for Ukraine, to get

30:13

Western countries to, for example, use the

30:16

300 billion frozen assets for Ukrainian reconstruction.

30:18

We saw right before we started recording

30:20

the Biden White House said they're going

30:22

to avail a big sanctions package. Is

30:25

there anything you see that people

30:28

should be motivating around to seize this moment

30:30

and kind of force action on something? Well,

30:33

first of all, on

30:36

the body piece of this and

30:39

what Yulia said about releasing

30:42

information. Look, nobody should be

30:45

surprised that they're hiding whatever happened to

30:47

his body. And of

30:49

course they are. The reason that doesn't matter

30:51

though is you can kind of

30:54

open all these court cases, the

30:56

European Court of Justice or International

30:58

Justice. That's all worth doing

31:00

by the way, because you

31:02

want to show that there will be kind of

31:04

open ended efforts to hold people accountable from Putin

31:06

on down to whoever the people were at the

31:08

prison. I think that's a worthwhile

31:10

thing to do. I think she can

31:13

fill a lot of space in

31:15

terms of being a moral authority and

31:17

in terms of being a kind of

31:19

rallying point for the existing infrastructure, particularly

31:21

in people that are in exile. Navalny,

31:23

as we've talked about, has this

31:25

kind of essentially a media enterprise outside of

31:27

the country. It'd be good to see that

31:29

continue and get support. She

31:32

uniquely probably can get meetings with the

31:34

heads of the EU and

31:36

European government. So that's useful even

31:39

if she's not going to fill the same political

31:41

space that Navalny did. She's not a politician like

31:43

he was, but she can kind of keep that

31:46

kind of connectivity in a way that nobody else can. But

31:49

in terms of the consequences,

31:53

I really, and you and

31:55

I were kind of dark joking about this

31:57

in the way in, and it's not that it's funny,

31:59

but ... There's a

32:01

repetition of sanctions as

32:03

somehow being the tool that's the

32:05

punishment. It

32:07

doesn't matter. There's not some sanction that's really

32:10

going to really hit home here.

32:12

I do think that the transfer of assets though, that's

32:15

a real thing. I don't get what's holding that up.

32:18

I mean, it's setting a new precedent. It's

32:22

a norm breaking thing. So is invading Ukraine.

32:24

So is assassinating people all over the world

32:26

as Putin has done. I

32:28

do think that getting that money out the door,

32:30

getting it to the Ukrainians, shaming

32:32

the Republicans who are sending the wave

32:34

of assistance. Again, like I

32:36

was saying on our special episode, doing

32:39

some of the work that Navalny did in his organization,

32:41

exposing the corruption of Putin,

32:44

maybe the sanctions package, in addition

32:46

to sanctions, just more effort to

32:49

go after all the

32:51

money that's hit in all these places, the enforcement

32:53

side of it is important

32:55

too. We should not overstate

32:57

any of this. Part

33:00

of the message of Navalny being dead is

33:03

that it's the same thing as with the

33:05

war in Ukraine, barring some rapid collapse of

33:08

the kleptocratic house of cards in Russia, which would be

33:10

great if it happened. This is

33:12

a long-term struggle here. I

33:15

do believe that Navalny's example will be

33:17

powerful one year, three years, five

33:19

years, 10 years from now. It's worth

33:21

keeping infrastructure in place so that when

33:24

there is an opening in Russia for some

33:26

change, there are voices out there, there's organization

33:28

out there, there's international legal

33:31

procedures to hold people accountable that are out

33:33

there. But this isn't going to be

33:35

a light switch with some sanctions and a

33:37

new leader that just leads to change. No. See

33:40

Trump's comment on Navalny three days later. Basically

33:42

said it reminded him that America is bad,

33:44

and he seemed to maybe compare

33:46

himself to Alexei Navalny because he's being

33:48

prosecuted for breaking laws. Yeah.

33:51

I mean, just no bottom whatsoever.

33:53

No, no bottom. A couple of

33:55

things you should also know. Twitter

33:58

briefly suspended. Julian Navalny. account. They

34:00

were also blocking our ability to search

34:02

for her account, so God

34:04

knows what is happening at that company at this point. The

34:07

New York Times did a piece on some of them. Well,

34:09

you know, Putin flattered Elon a bit and

34:11

is talking to you. Right, that's true. So

34:13

maybe now all of a sudden, the all

34:16

in the PayPal brigades are turning their eyes

34:18

on Julia Navalny. Secretary of the Suck. The

34:20

New York Times did a piece, Ben, on Navalny's, some of his

34:22

most recent letters that I thought was very worth reading. That was

34:25

a great piece. You want to hear about him. And again, a

34:27

sense of humor just comes through all of them. The

34:29

Washington Post had a report

34:32

on how Russian disinformation has been

34:34

used against Zelensky and

34:36

against Navalny. That was interesting. And

34:39

then worrisomely, on

34:41

Tuesday, the FSB announced that they had

34:44

arrested a 33-year-old woman who is a

34:46

dual national and lives here in Los

34:48

Angeles. So apparently she was visiting her

34:50

parents in Russia. Her little sister lives

34:52

there as well. Her 90-year-old grandparents. The

34:55

charge is some bullshit that she had

34:57

supported the Ukrainian efforts. I heard it

34:59

was like a $50 donation maybe to some

35:01

charity in New York. But it's

35:04

worrisome that Putin seemingly is taking more

35:06

American hostages. And I think last week,

35:08

Tony Blinken spoke with Paul Whelan, who's

35:10

been detained in a Russian prison for

35:12

like five years now. Yeah.

35:16

And I saw this other report about

35:18

a potential assassination in

35:20

Spain of some...

35:24

A Russian pilot who had flown in like helicopter

35:26

out of the country. And

35:28

I guess the point between the detention you talk

35:31

about in St. Petersburg and the session in Spain

35:33

and Navalny, this

35:35

really is... What's

35:39

so intense about it is there's

35:44

just no boundary beyond

35:47

not dropping nuclear bombs.

35:49

Putin, there's just not

35:51

a lot of restraints. Even in the Cold War,

35:54

and I'm sure historians could at

35:56

me on this, it

35:58

felt like there was these kind of unwritten rules. about

36:00

assassination in third countries. I'm sure

36:02

that did take place, but

36:05

Putin keeps pushing the envelope. I guess the point

36:07

I'd make in response is just echoing what we're

36:09

saying earlier, but things like seizing

36:11

assets from oligarchs and giving it to

36:14

Ukraine, I think

36:16

in response to Putin busting all these

36:18

norms, there has to be a greater

36:20

willingness to do unusual

36:23

things in response and not obviously

36:25

killing people. Yeah,

36:29

and not just sanctions, but

36:31

literally getting creative. Again, blowing

36:33

the whistle on and

36:36

exposing the

36:38

kleptocracy flowing through

36:41

the international financial system, just

36:44

seizing assets and giving them

36:46

to the Ukrainians. There has to be

36:49

an asymmetric response to the asymmetric

36:51

stuff that Putin's doing. He's

36:53

whacking people in London. Yeah, and look, this is

36:55

not just about being on some ladder of permanent

36:57

escalation. I think there needs to be diplomacy. I

36:59

think there needs to be an openness to negotiation

37:02

around the war in Ukraine. There

37:04

have to be what we in

37:07

bad foreign policy parlance would call

37:09

off-ramps, but you also just

37:11

kind of can't ... this

37:15

guy's doing unusual stuff and

37:18

there has to be a sense

37:20

that there's creative ways to

37:22

respond to that, that are not just violence, that

37:25

are more about other

37:27

things that expose the nature of the

37:29

regime and what he's doing. One

37:31

more thing on the Russia point, and this is far

37:33

from the most important thing we'll talk

37:35

about today, but we did want to quickly underscore how

37:38

poorly timed and humiliating Tucker Carlson's visit

37:40

to Moscow was to interview Vladimir Putin.

37:42

Remember, Tucker did not ask Putin about

37:44

Alexei Navalny, of course, because he was

37:47

too busy trying and failing to get

37:49

Putin to blame the US for the

37:51

invasion of Ukraine, but Tucker did have

37:53

time to go film some propaganda videos.

37:56

Here's a clip from one of them.

38:00

Sky Metro station and there's a train station next

38:02

to it. And the Metro station was built by

38:04

Joseph Stalin 70 years ago. And

38:07

the question is, how's it doing now? After

38:10

70 years. So we went

38:12

into it to take a look and what we

38:14

found shocked us. It's

38:16

perfectly clean and orderly. And

38:19

how do you explain that? We're not even going to guess.

38:22

That's not our job. We're only going to ask

38:24

the question. And if your response

38:26

is to shout at us slogans dumber than the

38:28

slogans we used to call Soviet and

38:31

mock. Is that really an

38:33

answer? I

38:48

had to get the soaring strings there at the end. I will

38:50

cut it off. I

38:52

hope you all enjoy that. So

38:55

we'll take that from a little travelogue

38:57

vignette to just pure propaganda. Is Russia

39:00

Tucker saying how shocked he is at

39:02

how nice the subways are? The

39:04

reason he shouldn't be shocked is

39:07

because Moscow's Metro system is famously

39:09

beautiful. Google it. You

39:11

can buy books entirely about the subject because

39:13

the Moscow Metro was built to be functional.

39:15

Yes. But it was also built

39:17

for propaganda purposes. Stalin wanted to

39:19

show idiots like Tucker Carlson that

39:21

the Soviet system was superior and

39:23

to build it, by

39:25

the way, he diverted food from

39:28

rural areas to these construction workers

39:30

and left farmers to starve. Many, many

39:32

of them. So again, great leadership. Tucker

39:35

could learn this, what, he took 30 seconds of Googling. But

39:38

obviously he left it out

39:40

on purpose because we know how easy it would have

39:42

been to just figure out that the subway was nice.

39:45

Your thoughts on the subways? I

39:48

think we had to kind of keep coming back and

39:51

replaying some of these clips. I do too. I

39:53

want to watch these every day. They're so much fun. I mean,

39:55

first of all, like maybe he

39:57

should go to like Pyongyang next because...

39:59

That's the poorest fucking country in the world. And

40:02

there's like some amazing parade grounds. Like Tucker's the

40:04

kind of guy who'd go and be like, wow,

40:06

look at these goose stepping North Koreans. Big missile.

40:08

They seem to really love Kim Jong-un. You know,

40:10

like I stayed in a nice suite, you know,

40:12

with a stocked minibar in Pyongyang. They don't have

40:14

any shortages here. Like this guy should be doing

40:16

like a tour through like the gut-wrenching,

40:19

hollowed out, industrial heartland

40:21

of Russia, or

40:23

like the war decimated, you

40:25

know, agricultural villages, you know.

40:28

I mean, what a fucking

40:30

idiot, you know. Like I- It's

40:32

embarrassing. It's humiliating. Well, either, because this

40:35

is the thing. Either he is the

40:37

stupidest person alive and is like, wow,

40:39

I'm in a beautiful metro stop that

40:42

Stalin built. Or he

40:44

knows full well it's propaganda and

40:47

he's literally just making himself the

40:49

most useful idiot ever for Putin,

40:51

who's simultaneously like killing his main

40:53

oppositionist. Because that oppositionist

40:55

exposes the lie of Russia being,

40:58

you know, not being a hollowed out, corrupt country

41:01

in which most people get totally screwed over by the

41:03

regime. Like either way, and I just can come back

41:05

one more time, Tommy. I know I did this early

41:07

with Tucker. The

41:09

royal we really- It drives me crazy. Like

41:12

we were shocked. Who was this we? Yeah, who are these people

41:14

that are with him? Again. Are they

41:16

imaginary friends? Like is Stalin- They

41:18

work at tuckercarlson.com. Yeah, I know.

41:21

It's not some big organization. Yeah,

41:23

then he also did one where he said he

41:25

was radicalized by lower prices at the supermarket. He

41:27

didn't mention that, you know, there's lower prices, but

41:29

also per capita GDP in Russia is one fifth

41:32

of that in the United States. You'll like this,

41:35

Ben. He flew, Tucker flew from Russia to

41:37

a conference in Dubai where he

41:39

spoke to some group of autocrats and said, if you

41:41

can't use your subway, for example, as many people are

41:43

afraid to in New York City because it's too dangerous,

41:45

you have to sort of wonder, like, isn't that the

41:47

ultimate measure of leadership? I don't know. Maybe

41:50

one other measure is like not killing your

41:52

political rivals. Yeah, yeah. It's

41:54

like a measure of- Just like a- Um. Yeah.

41:58

Did you see that Putin later complained that- his

42:00

interview with Tucker was too soft and he was

42:02

hoping that he would be aggressive in that stuff

42:04

question. Yeah, that was like, yeah, that was like-

42:06

A plus. It just shows you

42:08

that Putin can't like, like, he's going to troll

42:11

you in the end, you know, like you're not

42:13

going to be his friend. Ah,

42:15

such a fucking asshole. Quick update

42:17

on the Space Nukes story then. So we

42:19

talked about this quickly in the bonus YouTube

42:22

I did. Last week, Congressman Mike Turner, the

42:24

chairman of the House of Permanent Select Committee

42:26

on Intelligence released this cryptic statement calling on

42:28

President Biden to declassify information about what he

42:30

described as a serious national security threat. Obviously,

42:33

reporters freaked out, called every source they

42:35

had and quickly figured out that Turner

42:37

was referring to intelligence that Russia is

42:39

developing a nuclear weapon that could be

42:41

used in space to destroy satellites by

42:44

releasing an electromagnetic pulse. If

42:46

you want to go deeper on this, check out the interview I

42:48

did with an expert named James Acton. It

42:50

is available exclusively on the POD Save the

42:52

World YouTube page, but here's a quick clip

42:54

of him explaining how nuclear weapons might work

42:57

in space. So, I mean,

42:59

the answer is the nuclear explosion itself

43:01

works differently in space. But

43:04

the effects of the nuclear weapon are different

43:06

in space from Earth. I mean, one of

43:08

the things that you mentioned is if you

43:10

have a huge explosion in a vacuum, you're

43:13

not creating this massive shockwave, this huge

43:15

amount of pressure. On

43:17

the other hand, there are still effects of

43:19

nuclear weapons that happen

43:23

with space-based detonations. I

43:26

mean, you're still creating intense amounts of

43:28

energy, these gamma rays, which

43:30

basically if you're close enough could fry

43:32

satellites. It turns out

43:34

you can generate an

43:38

electromagnetic pulse in satellite, which

43:40

is actually generated in the

43:42

body of the satellite itself

43:45

rather than by interactions of the nuclear

43:47

explosion with the atmosphere. So, the physics

43:49

of this is quite different. You

43:51

know the fucking Space Nukes PDB piece was sweet.

43:54

Well, nothing like a nuclear weapons

43:56

nerd because they talk about nuclear

43:59

weapons like, We may take

44:01

what sports I never yikes was you

44:03

draw the play the Lab at Zebra

44:05

If you're in the red zone of

44:07

the opponent than of use and know

44:09

you get lulled into thinking it's this

44:11

is kind of normal maman. lot of

44:13

a written second degree of them and

44:15

storm and aiding and targeted. by the

44:17

way, maybe this accounts for you. He

44:19

earned Vanya as account being suspended that

44:21

a Starlink my guitar number of for

44:23

these space nukes was born on December

44:25

so Ben doesn't uses. I'll add this

44:27

have an interesting debate about why Eggs

44:29

Carson. Turner like freaked out and release

44:31

crazy state minutes. The de facto declassified

44:33

Owls information so on are under two

44:35

theories: Bio: The first is Turner saw

44:37

this intelligence might light a fire of

44:40

the ass A Speaker Johnson get him

44:42

to schedule vote on Ukraine funding Plausible

44:44

Guests are the second Us to do

44:46

a surveillance. Authorities to the Washington Post

44:48

reported that Be Space Nuke intel was

44:50

collected using authorities granted by section Seven

44:52

oh two of the Pfizer Amendments Act.

44:54

That provision allows the Us government to

44:56

conduct surveillance and porn person's outside the

44:58

Us who are using you as technology.

45:00

So for Hamas leaders using email, us

45:02

government can force Google to give us

45:05

access to that information. Congress is currently

45:07

debating whether to reauthorize Six and or

45:09

to some people think Turner might have

45:12

been trying to use this moment to

45:14

push for reauthorization. You buy their those

45:16

theories. I mean

45:18

this sooner guy doesn't seem my keys

45:20

that three dimensional chess type but ah

45:23

they both seem like like this probably

45:25

some truth about Christmas or he just

45:27

come back from Ukraine. And

45:30

so he may have been thinking like i'm

45:32

gonna come back and show them your push

45:34

my party in like you know, glad he

45:36

wanted to do that. Much of this is

45:38

right way and it is The case is

45:40

wherever it is like the chair the and

45:42

document is usually like and huge evangelist for

45:44

things like section seven or two so these

45:46

may have been in his brain. But

45:49

why that led him to? Start.

45:51

ago when his new day long washing

45:53

frigates over space weapons and that sure

45:55

those cryptic same other at we should

45:57

dig into this section seven as you

46:00

authorization debate soon because I think it

46:02

expires in April. Yeah. It's

46:04

going to be a big fight. Yeah, it's going to be a big fight.

46:06

There's strong feelings on either side. We can

46:08

even talk about the P-club. Remember the P-club? Yeah. President's

46:11

Civil Liberties Advisory Board. Yeah, I was

46:14

long familiar with the P-club. I feel

46:16

like the club actually has a good

46:18

middle ground between the ACLU position and

46:20

the Biden position. P-club

46:22

is one of those things that sounds like the kind of disease you want to

46:24

be told that you have. Maybe

46:27

Washington did invent an acronym as bad as the P-club.

46:29

It was the Obama administration that did it. I know.

46:32

I played a role in the origins

46:34

of the P-club, Tommy, as yourself. It's very the

46:36

story about P-club. Okay, let's turn to

46:38

Gaza. The focus area is entirely

46:40

on the city of Rafa, as we talked about the last

46:43

couple of weeks. There's 1.4

46:45

million people are now living in Rafa. Most

46:48

of them are in tents or temporary structures. It's

46:50

like four or five, maybe six times the

46:52

population that it was before the war. The

46:55

Israeli government has been threatening a military

46:57

assault on Rafa for weeks now. They

46:59

say it's necessary to take out the

47:01

remaining Hamas fighters. The Jerusalem Post

47:03

reported that planning for the Rafa invasion has

47:05

been done for a while and that the

47:07

holdup is just diplomatic pressure from Egypt and

47:09

the West, mostly the US. But

47:12

still, I mean, it's not at all clear where the

47:15

evacuated refugees would go before this

47:17

military assault. The options are basically

47:20

push everyone into an already overcrowded corner of

47:22

southern Gaza or you just start sending people

47:24

back into parts of northern Gaza that have

47:27

already been cleared by the IDF. These are

47:29

all terrible options. The most

47:31

recent military operations in Khan Yunus took nine

47:33

weeks. A Rafa operation would almost certainly take

47:35

longer if you count the

47:38

time it would take to evacuate civilians and

47:40

then search the Hamas tunnel network for hostages

47:42

and fighters, et cetera. This

47:44

would be a while. An article in

47:46

Vox said that the Israeli government thinks

47:48

they've killed about one-third of Hamas's fighters,

47:50

destroyed half of Hamas's rocket supplies and

47:52

demolished 20 to 40 percent of its

47:55

tunnel network, so a lot more work to do. Channel

47:58

12 News in Israel. Reported that

48:00

Israeli military intelligence believe that even if the

48:02

idea of dismantle some Us as military units,

48:05

the old survive as quote a terror group.

48:07

Any guerrilla groups or what we are private

48:09

of yeah I can solder were here aren't

48:11

to bend the biden immigration. Keep saying that

48:14

Ruff operation will be a disaster knit Israel.

48:16

First need to present a credible plan to

48:18

the accurate civilians the obviously haven't done yet

48:20

yet. I want to get your your and

48:23

y one theory is that Netanyahu believes that

48:25

you know he's a credible threat of a

48:27

rough invasion to get leverage in the ceasefire.

48:30

Negotiations are ongoing. Another is that

48:32

he just. Doesn't. Give a

48:34

fuck what the U S or anyone else

48:36

says. Ah, and that his political incentives are

48:38

gonna push him to keep the were going

48:41

for as long as possible. Maybe it's a

48:43

combo that on, Have you ever had a

48:45

thought? I nod. The political motivation here from

48:47

that yahoo ends. You know what's likely to

48:50

happen or idea. I mean it's more likely

48:52

the latter would then. yeah, no, that is.

48:54

And and look, I think this is an

48:56

absolute. Catastrophe. I mean that they

48:59

they're not going and she their military objectives

49:01

by going around because they can achieve their

49:03

military objectives there and she will. We talked

49:05

about this. The Am

49:07

Os is gonna be stronger is a movement

49:10

no matter how many times they blob. I

49:12

mean, it's so obvious that that's the case.

49:15

Like literally you, you will strengthen, amassed a

49:17

gun, and referred Doesn't matter, I mean you.

49:19

You kills more people and you have a

49:22

higher body count as Hamas fighters you can

49:24

claim. and you blow up with twenty percent

49:26

more tunnels. Amasses

49:28

is. Is

49:30

so obviously going to survive a

49:32

Roth Assaults. Meanwhile the cost is

49:34

gonna be further incalculable loss of

49:37

Palestinian life. The the dead, the

49:39

lack of assistance getting in could

49:41

be oh again. Continue have this

49:43

exponential increase in Palestinian suffering that

49:45

the ability to rebuild anything the

49:47

after destroyed it all the dirty

49:49

and all this to the point

49:52

is it's Rafa at. monday's

49:54

should have already happened and yeah we've

49:56

been for a ceasefire for very long

49:58

time and his podcasts for

50:00

conditioning military assistance. I

50:03

don't see how the US can possibly support

50:05

Israel. This is really government if

50:09

they go forward with this. I mean, that's

50:11

the bottom line. Yeah, we're still pushing for a

50:13

supplemental funding bill in Congress. Which is crazy, like

50:15

why? It has no conditions. And then

50:17

just the other day, there was another weapons

50:19

shipment to the IDF that just kind of happened

50:21

through that other process where we keep... Periodically,

50:23

there's just reports of hundreds of millions of dollars

50:26

of weapons sales. Why can't we do that

50:28

to Ukraine? If you

50:30

can just do these things. I too can do that. The

50:33

one piece of pressure... Look, I mean, you and

50:35

I, we've been frustrated for five months now that

50:37

there's a carrot but no stick approach when it comes

50:39

to VB and Yahoo. And you could see all this coming. When

50:42

I see these reports like, wow, they've done an

50:44

analysis and found that they can't rescue the hostages

50:47

militarily. I know. They've done analysis

50:49

and found that you can't defeat... Wow, Hamas seems to

50:51

be getting stronger in Palestinian society with... What do

50:53

you think is going to happen? It's like you say

50:55

it's the obvious, you put it into an intelligence report

50:57

and it carries more weight. Yeah,

51:00

it's worth mentioning. The one sort of stick I've

51:02

seen is Al Jazeera broke the

51:04

news that the US has drafted a

51:06

UN Security Council resolution calling for a

51:08

temporary ceasefire as soon as practical that

51:10

involves all hostages getting released, lifts all

51:13

barriers to humanitarian assistance in the Gaza

51:15

and opposes a ground offensive into Rafa.

51:17

Now, we're still vetoing every other UN

51:19

Security Council resolution... Including today. Including

51:21

today. But, I mean, that would be

51:23

a pretty big change in terms

51:26

of our posture at the UN. Yeah.

51:29

I think that... I support that. I

51:31

think that... So what does it mean for the US to

51:33

shift beyond just kind of rhetorical criticism of Netanyahu? I think

51:36

it means supporting a ceasefire

51:38

resolution at the UN. It

51:40

means conditioning military assistance.

51:44

It means being

51:47

much more willing to break from

51:49

the Israeli government in terms of how you

51:51

articulate your commitment to a Palestinian

51:53

state, maybe recognition of a Palestinian state. There's

51:56

a spectrum of options available here. Yeah, and

51:58

she's got to take it. And then because

52:00

the more Netanyahu drifts to this far right

52:02

direction, the more space I

52:05

think there is to, once you do the break,

52:08

you actually want it to matter. Yeah.

52:11

In the not helpful department, Brazilian President Lula

52:13

da Silva compared the war in Gaza to

52:15

the Holocaust while speaking to reporters at the

52:17

African Union Summit in Ethiopia. The exact quote

52:19

was, what is happening in the Gaza Strip

52:21

and to the Palestinian people hasn't been seen

52:24

in any other moment in history. It

52:26

did when Hitler decided to kill the Jews. Pretty

52:29

outrageous, inaccurate, unhelpful comment there

52:31

from Lula. Exactly the kind of thing too that

52:34

Netanyahu used to rally political support around

52:36

from the right wing. Yeah. And

52:39

it's just stupid too because even if

52:41

you think that this is the absolute worst case,

52:44

why is that the analogy? There

52:48

have been other horrific things that

52:50

have happened in the last hundred years that you

52:52

could draw upon. This

52:55

does bother me. We should call

52:58

this out because this happens a lot. Why

53:00

does this have to be compared as

53:03

an apples to apples? There

53:07

are no horrors that have happened in human history between

53:09

the Holocaust and what's happening in Gaza now. I

53:13

don't want to go through a list of horribles,

53:15

but this is strange psychologically and it seems

53:18

designed to, I don't

53:22

know, trolls not even a

53:24

strong enough word, but I don't

53:27

understand it. There's like

53:29

a rhetorical piece which is to take away your trump

53:31

card and your argument and say, actually, this is just

53:33

as bad as the Holocaust, which is not. Six

53:36

million people is an unimaginable scale

53:38

of death. There's also a

53:40

piece of it like picking at your

53:43

most deeply held insecurity

53:45

and fear and temptation.

53:49

I'm not doing any comparisons

53:51

here for the record, but it's not

53:53

like you couldn't pick other atrocities that

53:55

have happened even if you think that's what this is.

53:58

There's just something. come

54:00

up with different analogies. You know, like,

54:03

it, yeah, this is a weird

54:05

one to me that people feel the need to do

54:08

this. Me too, and like Lula, you probably hate Netanyahu

54:10

and you're trying to say something really harsh and mean,

54:12

but you're offending millions and millions

54:14

of people, you're hurting them and

54:16

you're just wrong. Yeah, well, yeah,

54:19

you're taking, and here's the other thing I'd say, you're

54:23

taking what should be moral high ground and

54:26

you're kind of cheapening your own moral

54:28

high ground. Absolutely, absolutely. The other thing we wanted

54:30

to talk about is, Semaphore

54:32

reported that a DC based public affairs

54:34

company with close ties to the Biden

54:36

administration is working behind the scenes

54:39

to discredit journalists that they view as biased

54:41

against Israel. So it's called the 10-7 Project.

54:44

The 10-7 Project staffers share daily memos

54:47

about what they perceive to be unfair

54:49

press coverage over the war and

54:51

have gone after specific reports that they think are

54:53

biased. So one example in

54:55

this Semaphore story was a

54:57

five page dossier was compiled on a

54:59

Washington Post reporter named Louisa Lovelock. This

55:03

dossier noted some errors or corrections to

55:05

her stories and even got into tweets

55:07

she sent in college back in 2009.

55:09

Here's like the relevant part. The tweets

55:12

included tweets from 2011 saying

55:14

former president George W. Bush's memoir made

55:16

her angry and former president Barack Obama's

55:19

silence in Egypt's post Arab Spring elections

55:21

was deplorable in post noting that she

55:23

watched Al Jazeera with her mother. Ben,

55:26

I have a few thoughts about this. Some

55:28

stupid, some serious. First of all, if you're a

55:30

college kid and you're tweeting that a presidential statement

55:32

or nonstatement is deplorable, you should seek help because

55:34

that is terminally lame. You know, the only people

55:36

who say deplorable with a straight face work in

55:39

the fucking State Department and we should think about

55:41

whether they should be doing that. Or Hillary Clinton.

55:43

Or Hillary Clinton. Basket of

55:45

nonstatements. Second, like

55:48

on some level, this kind of oppo research is

55:50

not new. None of us should

55:52

be surprised in 2024 that like stuff you

55:54

tweet or post on social media could be used against you.

55:57

But big butt here. I do think

55:59

this shit is. a huge problem when

56:01

it comes to this

56:03

issue in particular and Washington in

56:05

particular. So listeners know, Ben

56:07

and I have burned the boats when it comes

56:09

to potential future and government

56:11

service because our comments about Netanyahu alone

56:14

would make us unconfirmable in some State

56:16

Department job. I don't say that because

56:18

I think it's a pat on the

56:20

back. It's just to show you, when

56:22

you wonder why journalists, staffers, former staffers,

56:24

people who want a life in foreign

56:26

policy or public service are so cautious

56:29

when they're talking about this. It's

56:31

because of efforts like this to

56:33

find everything you say into police

56:35

speech and police language. And yes,

56:38

comments like Lula da Silva's call

56:40

that out, right? There's bias, there's anti-Semitism,

56:42

there's unfair press coverage. Some

56:45

of that is fair game, but digging up

56:47

this girl saying she watched Al

56:49

Jazeera with her mother, what the

56:51

fuck is the point of that?

56:53

What's the relevance? There is this

56:55

relentlessness to this effort to discredit

56:57

and attack anybody that ...

56:59

I remember

57:03

one of my last interviews in the

57:05

White House was PBS NewsHour and

57:08

we'd supported or

57:10

allowed the resolution to pass condemning Israeli settlements.

57:12

I'm not asking anybody to remember this. PBS,

57:14

look at you flashy. No, but here's the

57:16

thing. The point is, I said the number

57:18

of settlements that have been constructed and what

57:20

I meant was the

57:22

settlement units. How dare you? Think

57:26

of it this way, it's the number of apartments, not

57:28

the number of apartment buildings or something. You

57:31

would have thought, there was this huge

57:33

fucking fact check and they forced Judy

57:36

Woodruff to read a hostage statement condemning

57:38

me the next day. I had

57:40

thousands of people tweeting at me, probably

57:43

state sponsored and otherwise, people were hounding

57:45

me about this for months and I'm

57:47

like, this is fucking crazy, guys. This

57:49

would not happen on any other issue. That's the guy Josh Block

57:52

who used to attack them on. This

57:54

has not been on any other issue. There's this

57:56

level of minutia and what I will say

57:58

also is it's really disappointing. when you see kind

58:01

of democratic firms like this doing this

58:03

kind of garbage because do I expect

58:05

this out of like some a pack

58:07

affiliated like right wing mean

58:09

venal like if you are the staff. Yeah,

58:12

exactly. If you are the staff putting together

58:14

this kind of dossier on like a good

58:17

journalist, the Washington Post, be better. Back to

58:19

the bureau chief, like a brave reporter doing

58:21

really hard work in dangerous conditions. Yeah, it's

58:23

up going through college tweets. Like we all

58:25

know, like we've done stuff in politics that

58:27

we don't love. But if you're literally sitting

58:29

there, like trying to discredit a Washington Post

58:31

journalist over what she's in college, you've

58:34

gone way too far. You straight way too far

58:36

from what is something you

58:38

should be able to look yourself in the air.

58:40

Be like us cut ads about how John McCain

58:42

can't do some underwear ads here. Okay. Deep cut

58:47

from 2008. Two more three

58:50

more quick things. Okay, Ben. So

58:52

unfortunately, we had another tough blow

58:54

for democracy in the latest election

58:56

in Indonesia. So initial data shows

58:58

that Praboa Subianto is likely to win with

59:00

over 60% of the vote, which they

59:02

landslide victory. Subianto is the

59:04

defense minister. He is a 72

59:07

year old former Army general who was once

59:09

banned from entering the US because of alleged

59:11

human rights abuses. He was the leader of

59:13

a special forces unit that was the use

59:16

of killing hundreds of people in East Timor

59:18

and also kidnapping torturing and killing pro democracy

59:20

students who imposed the former dictator of the

59:22

Suharto regime. So he is also

59:25

married to the Suharto family is considered

59:27

part of the inner circle. Subianto

59:29

chose the son of current president Yoko

59:32

Widodo to be his vice president, even though

59:34

this guy is only 36 years

59:36

old. And the rules say you have to be 40.

59:39

Some I got around that one. Subianto

59:41

also portrayed himself as a cuddly cat

59:43

loving grandpa, which I guess appealed to

59:45

the younger voters on TikTok. Half the

59:47

population of Indonesia is under 40.

59:49

So we don't have final election

59:52

results yet because Indonesia is a country

59:54

of 270 million people. It encompasses over

59:56

17,000 different islands. So

59:58

elections are a massive logistical undertaking. But

1:00:00

they do this thing called QuickCount data.

1:00:02

They poll like a couple thousand polling

1:00:04

locations, like exit polling. And it

1:00:07

made clear that it's not going to be a runoff election

1:00:09

in June. Ben, I saw Subianto

1:00:11

held a press conference earlier this week while

1:00:13

swimming laps in his pool. So that was

1:00:15

a first. How are you feeling

1:00:17

about this cuddly human rights

1:00:20

violating grandpa running Indonesia? Not

1:00:23

great. And I think there are a couple

1:00:25

things that are depressing about it. One

1:00:27

is the outgoing president, Jokowi, he

1:00:31

got elected. He was kind of this outsider man of the

1:00:33

people guy. He'd been a mayor. He'd been a worker. He

1:00:39

didn't come from one of these dominant

1:00:41

ruling cliques or the military. And he

1:00:43

beat this guy twice, by the way.

1:00:45

And this guy did a Trump both

1:00:47

times and said he was rigged and

1:00:49

everything. And so, but

1:00:51

Jokowi is like, you know what, what can

1:00:53

continue my legacy? And what's pretty clear is

1:00:55

he made some deal with this guy. Take

1:00:57

my kid, make him the running mate. I'll

1:00:59

be the power behind some throne. Jokowi

1:01:02

has this like plan to build like a $40 billion

1:01:05

new capital of Indonesia in the middle of

1:01:07

the jungle, kind of a weird legacy thing.

1:01:09

This guy's promised to continue that. God knows

1:01:12

what corruption is involved in that, by the

1:01:14

way. Billions of dollars

1:01:16

in contracts to build some capital. So

1:01:18

it just has this whiff of, you

1:01:20

know, this guy Jokowi was supposed to represent a

1:01:22

different kind of politics kind of turned into the

1:01:24

standard politics, right? Jokowi is what people call wudodo.

1:01:27

Wudodo, yeah. It's kind of like the... They call

1:01:29

him Abu Mazen. Yeah. Yeah. He's talking to Boston,

1:01:31

Palestinian authorities, Abu Mazen, cool kids. That's true. Like

1:01:33

we got to be in the know here on

1:01:35

the parts of the world. But

1:01:37

then the other thing I'd say is that just, man, like

1:01:40

the year of elections continues to

1:01:42

really deliver thus far. Naturally fucked up

1:01:44

the election. I kind of give,

1:01:47

you know, the other autocratic team has got

1:01:49

a good seem, you know, Bukele,

1:01:52

Crushes, you've

1:01:54

got Jokowi, like, you know, they've got this kind of

1:01:56

autocrat. Oh, you're doing a draft? Well, I'm

1:01:58

just saying... Autocrats. Basically, every

1:02:01

election is confirming this negative

1:02:03

trend. We got India looming

1:02:05

on the horizon. I'm sure the BJP will crush

1:02:07

there. The

1:02:10

coup de gras is going to be obviously the US

1:02:12

election, but you can see, I don't want

1:02:15

to be too pessimistic here, but there is a narrative

1:02:17

that could build that by the end of this year,

1:02:19

it's like, is there democracy anymore?

1:02:21

I know. We need the Labor Party in the

1:02:23

UK to say that. Yeah, that's the only one

1:02:25

that seems like it's a- Come on, fellas. ...

1:02:27

trending favorable. Yeah. I think

1:02:29

Ben, Jared Kushner, spoke at some conference in

1:02:31

Miami, I think it was hosted by Axios. He

1:02:34

was asked about the $2 billion kickback he

1:02:36

got from the Saudi government's sovereign wealth fund

1:02:38

to his private equity firms. Some call it

1:02:40

an investment, I call it a kickback. Here's

1:02:43

a quick clip of the question and

1:02:45

Jared's response. As you said, lots

1:02:48

and lots of private equity firms, other folks are trying to

1:02:50

raise money from Saudi Arabia and are raising money

1:02:52

from Saudi Arabia. Some however, stopped

1:02:54

after the Jamal Khashoggi murder. Some either gave

1:02:56

money back or stopped. At the time, you

1:02:59

didn't really ... You said you wanted to

1:03:01

wait for the DNI report, for the official report,

1:03:04

for the State Department report, before talking about

1:03:06

it. You only give very glancing mentions in

1:03:08

your book to it. The DNI report came out

1:03:10

a couple weeks after you left the White

1:03:12

House. It says that MBS

1:03:14

personally was responsible. Do you agree with

1:03:16

the DNI? Do you or do you

1:03:19

believe that report? Are

1:03:21

we really still doing this, Dan? The questioner

1:03:23

there was Dan Premack from Axios. We're

1:03:25

sparing you his whiny little shit answer

1:03:27

about how MBS is a visionary leader

1:03:29

and he adducts the question of MBS's

1:03:31

complicity by saying he didn't see the

1:03:33

Biden DNI report. But Jared, you had

1:03:35

access to all the intelligence at the

1:03:37

time. You know exactly what happened, you

1:03:40

lying little fuck. Here's

1:03:42

the thing about Jared Kushner. He wants

1:03:45

to be taken seriously

1:03:47

as somebody who has

1:03:49

any capability or capacity

1:03:51

whatsoever. He wants to

1:03:53

be taken seriously as his diplomat,

1:03:55

as his businessman, and he is

1:03:58

a fundamentally unstable. serious

1:04:00

person. Dison us and corrupt. Right? Like,

1:04:03

and dishonest and corrupt, and everybody knows no

1:04:05

matter how rich this guy gets, everybody

1:04:07

knows that the only reason is because

1:04:10

he's corrupt and because he's Donald Trump's

1:04:12

son-in-law and because he did the bidding

1:04:14

of a dictator who killed people like

1:04:16

Jamal Khashoggi and had Aaron boys like

1:04:18

Jared Kushner cover it up for him.

1:04:20

So everybody knows that no matter how much money he makes,

1:04:23

it has nothing to do with his own capacity. It has

1:04:25

to do with his corruption. Just like

1:04:27

everybody knows that nobody would even be

1:04:30

pink. This guy, Jared Kushner, like, owns

1:04:33

like the pink newspaper, the New York Observer,

1:04:35

and his

1:04:37

whole life has been this desperate quest. His dad bought

1:04:39

his way into Harvard. Yeah, his whole life has been

1:04:42

this desperate quest to prove that he's a person of

1:04:44

substance, and the more he does, the more he confirms

1:04:46

the opposite here. And like, the serious point I make

1:04:48

too is that like, the Jamal

1:04:50

Khashoggi's the election of all needs, like,

1:04:53

these people are going to be remembered,

1:04:55

right? And all the Jared

1:04:57

Kushner's are like, can't we get past this already? Like

1:04:59

why are you bringing this up? Like why can't you

1:05:01

just ask me about how much money I have? And

1:05:03

like, the point is, is it like the world tends

1:05:06

to remember people like Jamal Khashoggi and Alexei Navalny for

1:05:08

a good reason. And the fact

1:05:10

that it annoys Jared Kushner is reason enough

1:05:12

to do it. And to

1:05:14

like keep asking reporters, don't ever let this

1:05:16

go. Don't ever let this go. Everyone

1:05:19

knows that this guy would not have gotten a $2 billion,

1:05:22

quote unquote, investment from

1:05:24

the Saudi sovereign wealth fund into a private

1:05:26

equity firm that he had like just started

1:05:28

that moment, if not for favors he had

1:05:30

done for these Gulf autocrats. That's sort of

1:05:33

all his money's coming. Isn't there a better

1:05:35

way to be an annoying rich kid? Like

1:05:37

can't you just like buy a place into

1:05:39

penga and do drugs, you know, like, yeah,

1:05:41

like, like, like, there's got to be something,

1:05:43

you know, like, like, then then

1:05:45

then trying to like just take it

1:05:47

out on the rest of us. Yeah, like do like,

1:05:50

try rapping. Yeah. Yeah. Like

1:05:53

Tom Hanks' kid. You know, just

1:05:55

whatever the thing is, you know, like

1:05:57

be a judge on a reality show.

1:06:00

or something. I launch

1:06:02

a new line, write a screenplay, right? I'm

1:06:04

trying to do all these things.

1:06:07

You actually have an interesting story though. You have

1:06:09

the worst father-in-law in the world. Write about that.

1:06:12

Write about your pain, Jared. Yeah, like share your

1:06:14

pain instead of like redirecting your pain on the

1:06:17

rest of us. Take the bone saw to the

1:06:19

pain. You have to treat the world the way

1:06:21

your father treated you. Anyway, I hate that kid.

1:06:23

Last but not least then, the Mancini story heard

1:06:25

around the world. Of course we have Australia. I'm

1:06:27

popping a niquerette lozenge because of that Jared. This

1:06:29

one, good. Another one. Okay,

1:06:31

so Shane Rose, who was

1:06:33

on Australia's equestrian Olympic team

1:06:36

made headlines throwing a G-string

1:06:38

Mancini. They had an equestrian

1:06:40

event recently. Those who

1:06:42

know the G-string Mancini would probably know it

1:06:44

from Borat. It sounds like harmless horse play,

1:06:46

right? Well then, his trips to the summer

1:06:48

Olympics was almost derailed due to

1:06:51

this little cheeky stunt. The costume

1:06:53

sparked an investigation by the equestrian

1:06:55

governing body of Australia, which no

1:06:57

surprise Australians like loved. They rallied

1:06:59

to the sky side. A

1:07:01

bunch of Australian Olympians came out and said that Shane is

1:07:04

not allowed to compete because of the Mancini. Well, they also

1:07:06

are wearing them as well at events. Rose

1:07:08

was quoted as saying, it's a dress-up competition.

1:07:10

I thought it'd be funny to go into

1:07:12

Mancini. I've never worn a G-string before and

1:07:14

I can't recommend it to anyone. So great

1:07:16

advice from someone with a sense of humor.

1:07:20

Let me just once again credit the

1:07:22

people of Australia who've delivered a lot

1:07:24

of content to this podcast. I'm going

1:07:26

to join these two segments that we

1:07:28

just said. On the one end, you've

1:07:30

got this kind of angry, rich kid

1:07:33

trying to prove himself by taking money

1:07:35

from MBS and covering

1:07:37

things up. Then you got a guy

1:07:39

who's just like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm

1:07:41

going to wear a Mancini or my

1:07:43

equestrian thing and become a folk hero.

1:07:46

I have a great time. This is

1:07:48

why the Australians, they don't take this

1:07:50

shit too seriously. Come on. They're

1:07:53

like, we need more of this in the world. Not

1:07:56

necessarily Mancini's, but the mentality

1:07:59

behind. the man, you know, I

1:08:01

cuz nobody wants to see me and

1:08:03

Mancini But

1:08:05

Kobe had mamba mentality you're doing Mancini mentality. That's

1:08:07

what I'm talking about. We need a little Mancini

1:08:09

mentality And I like that a lot. Yeah, I

1:08:11

like that a lot Well, that's

1:08:14

a really hard pivot to our interview with mr.

1:08:16

Slob turn off unbelievably

1:08:19

brave documentary maker filmmaker who crowned this time

1:08:21

in Mariupol at the beginning of the war

1:08:23

but there it is I just did it

1:08:25

is you did a quick break. We come

1:08:27

back as

1:08:34

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1:08:53

I use made-in cookware shop chef quality

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pots and pans at made-in-cookware.com Support

1:08:58

for Ponce the world comes from the international

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rescue committee the IRC works in more than

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and displaced families are amazingly resilient But

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1:09:40

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for the love of home. Mrs.

1:10:42

Flop Chernov is a journalist, filmmaker, and the

1:10:44

director of the new film 20 Days in

1:10:46

Mariople. Thank you so much for joining and doing the show. Thank

1:10:49

you for inviting me. So you

1:10:52

directed, you narrated, you shot

1:10:54

this just unforgettable, incredibly affecting

1:10:57

documentary film 20 Days in

1:10:59

Mariople. It has been

1:11:02

nominated for an Academy Award for

1:11:04

Best Documentary Feature Film. Congratulations for

1:11:06

that. I hope you win. I

1:11:08

cannot imagine any other film topping

1:11:11

this film in terms of just like the impact

1:11:13

on the world. Mariople, for those who don't know,

1:11:15

is a Ukrainian city right on the border with

1:11:17

Russia. Can you explain

1:11:19

how you ended up in Mariople

1:11:23

as the invasion started two years ago and what

1:11:25

happened to the city while you were there? Well,

1:11:29

that this war, this invasion started for

1:11:31

me as for most of Ukrainians 10

1:11:33

years ago. And at that point, it

1:11:36

was eight years ago. So this

1:11:39

escalation was not a surprise that the size

1:11:41

of the escalation, the scale of it was

1:11:45

astonishing, but we kind of expected

1:11:47

it. And all

1:11:49

these years we thought where Russia would

1:11:52

strike, where would they attack? And Mariople

1:11:54

was obviously always a big target

1:11:56

for them as they tried to occupy it. I

1:12:01

was there too at that moment. So

1:12:03

when it was already understandable that

1:12:05

Russia is going to attack the day

1:12:08

or the day after we were in

1:12:10

Bakhmout, that's another city that doesn't

1:12:12

exist anymore because it was destroyed

1:12:14

by Russian bombs. We

1:12:17

were there and we were discussing where would

1:12:19

we go and the decision was to go

1:12:21

to Maripol because it seems to be so

1:12:24

important and it probably was going

1:12:26

to be surrounded just because of

1:12:28

the location. It's very near to

1:12:30

Russia. It's on the way to Crimea. So

1:12:33

we went there and within

1:12:35

Russia attacked the whole

1:12:37

country and within days the city

1:12:40

was surrounded and the civilian

1:12:42

infrastructure was targeted. There

1:12:44

was no electricity, no water, no

1:12:48

food, supplies

1:12:50

and the most importantly no

1:12:52

communications. So the city was cut off

1:12:55

completely from the outside world. We

1:12:57

found out that we were the only

1:13:00

journalists at that point who remained in

1:13:02

the city under the siege and we

1:13:04

were the only ones who were reporting

1:13:06

miraculously. We were still finding very little

1:13:09

signal to be able to

1:13:11

send what we saw and owe what

1:13:13

we saw. The

1:13:16

indiscriminate bombardment of the city was

1:13:19

more and more intensive. More people

1:13:21

were dying and ultimately

1:13:24

Russia bombed maternity hospital.

1:13:27

The images that shook the

1:13:29

world that everyone saw and

1:13:32

probably the images which became become

1:13:35

a bitter symbol of Maripol. So all

1:13:37

that I was recording and of course

1:13:39

I could send only very, very little

1:13:42

of what I shot at

1:13:45

hours and hours of footage which were never

1:13:47

published. When we

1:13:49

miraculously escaped from the city and

1:13:52

carried all this with us, of

1:13:54

course I wanted to make a film because

1:13:56

so much wasn't published and the story

1:13:59

was so symbolic. And so important.

1:14:02

And and that's what we did. Yes

1:14:05

or as you mentioned years with only journalists

1:14:07

in in Europe. During this time and been

1:14:09

watching the documentary I was. Amazed

1:14:11

at how many of your photos and

1:14:14

videos that I remembered seeing at the

1:14:16

time on every single broadcast in the

1:14:18

world and United States with you as

1:14:20

really were the only window into what

1:14:22

was happening into that city for for

1:14:24

the rest of the world. I wonder

1:14:26

what that responsibility felt like and if

1:14:28

you were aware at the time that

1:14:30

billions of people were seeing the work

1:14:32

you are sending back. And.

1:14:34

We weren't we weren't aware, we

1:14:36

just didn't have enough connection and

1:14:38

time to figure out the impact

1:14:40

or the scale, the scale of

1:14:42

stare ah how far does images

1:14:44

go and what they do that

1:14:46

we knew about russia trying to

1:14:48

say we are intimation terrorists and

1:14:51

and say and it's was all

1:14:53

staged but that is kind of

1:14:55

foods we eat with we expected

1:14:57

because every time something important impact

1:14:59

will happen state they try to

1:15:01

do it so he didn't really

1:15:03

influence over work we just reporting.

1:15:05

I think I found out about the

1:15:07

the effects of went out with that

1:15:10

those images really meant only when nice

1:15:12

to win with less to cities and

1:15:14

when he started making a film that

1:15:17

became also parts. Oh let's say impact

1:15:19

or lack of impact because sometimes it

1:15:21

is a lack of impacted. Is

1:15:24

the most painful was is actually part

1:15:26

of a film that journalism and and

1:15:28

and seek news is is part of

1:15:30

the theme of the film and I

1:15:33

address exactly that's and as I was

1:15:35

so as I was making some and

1:15:37

it gives a lot of actually gives

1:15:39

a lot of useful context to people

1:15:41

who so does images and in use

1:15:43

a lot of info is important context

1:15:45

to them. how was how they were

1:15:48

actually made people's you know what's happening

1:15:50

behind the camera. right?

1:15:52

I mean it's it's own incredible people all

1:15:54

around you helping you guys me to read

1:15:56

you mentioned this in the men ago the

1:15:58

the russians tried to claim that him. Is

1:16:00

it you tuck from the bombing of a

1:16:02

maternity ward and a hospital or think about

1:16:04

that for second were fake You got swept

1:16:06

up into this disinformation. Never did you as

1:16:08

we aware of that at the time in

1:16:11

what a what does it feel like tooth

1:16:13

to know like the most horrific thing could

1:16:15

ever imagine was turned upside down like that

1:16:17

by the by the Russian government. As.

1:16:20

As a journalist, I don't get much

1:16:22

of his international journal said get much

1:16:24

affected by that's actually it's It's a

1:16:26

kind of a complement to your work

1:16:28

because if if you're getting attacked for

1:16:31

your work, if if it's contested means

1:16:33

it means something right, it's and you

1:16:35

have to. He was scenes and it

1:16:37

made an impact. I knew that journalistically

1:16:39

speaking and in the Dna from point

1:16:41

of view of those of documentary records

1:16:43

or A we needed to follow up

1:16:45

this story. We needed to find those

1:16:48

those women who suffered in this bomb

1:16:50

being. And who works cold actors. But

1:16:52

nevertheless we were told that story

1:16:54

anyway because she was so important

1:16:56

to know what was happening with

1:16:58

them so it it didn't affect

1:17:00

my work at all. Own. That

1:17:03

being said I know which have never

1:17:05

seen a devastating it is to here

1:17:07

for for Ukrainian said for people of

1:17:09

my you Poland for people who lost

1:17:12

their families in those bombings to to

1:17:14

hear something like that It's not just

1:17:16

to lose someone or to to lose

1:17:18

your city and to be injured is

1:17:20

also to hear that your pain and

1:17:23

you're suffering his faith that is so

1:17:25

painful for them and my heart is

1:17:27

bleeding for them but that's what drives

1:17:29

me when I make the So when

1:17:31

I when I make. Sure that many

1:17:34

as many people as possible see that

1:17:36

kills just to make sure that they're

1:17:38

suffering is is not. Is

1:17:42

not doubt it is. it's remembered.

1:17:45

As. A lot of the

1:17:47

seem to capture in the film are shot

1:17:49

in a hospital. There are some of the

1:17:51

post challenging things I can imagine. shooting

1:17:54

or or of you frankly i was sitting

1:17:56

my desk crying and working out like footage

1:17:58

of a dead or injured children and I

1:18:01

think for any parent you probably watch and think, like, what

1:18:03

if that were me? What if that were my child? How

1:18:05

would I escape? In

1:18:08

the film, you include footage of people,

1:18:10

in particular doctors, encouraging you to film,

1:18:12

thanking you for filming, and you also

1:18:14

have people who are literally telling you

1:18:16

to fuck off. I

1:18:18

was wondering why you thought it was important

1:18:20

to include both of those perspectives, and

1:18:23

if emotionally, for you,

1:18:25

it was more difficult to cover these horrors

1:18:28

happening in your own country as

1:18:30

compared to, you know, you've covered so many conflicts

1:18:32

around the globe, but, you know, this was home.

1:18:35

Yeah, this is home, and my conflict

1:18:37

journalism started from Ukraine 10 years ago

1:18:39

when Russia invaded Ukraine, and I learned

1:18:41

everything about conflict journalism, and this

1:18:44

is so personal. This is a story of

1:18:46

my community and my country, of

1:18:49

course, it's not only the cities that are

1:18:51

being bombed, it's your memories are being bombed,

1:18:53

you see, and destroyed. So,

1:18:55

but people are different, and they react in

1:18:58

a very different way on a stressful, on

1:19:00

a stressful events, and these are the most

1:19:02

stressful events you can imagine, losing your home

1:19:04

or your families, and those people who

1:19:07

told me, don't film me, they're

1:19:10

not there, but those people who wanted

1:19:12

to say something, but even

1:19:14

if it wasn't really nice, or something

1:19:16

you wasn't agreeing with, but they still

1:19:18

wanted to say that, they are

1:19:20

in a film. It was quite

1:19:22

important for us to show all

1:19:24

the variety of responses to all

1:19:26

the variety of different

1:19:29

reactions to the events and

1:19:31

to journalists, because it's part

1:19:33

of a story, and

1:19:35

if you hear my narration, I'm

1:19:38

narrating a film, I

1:19:40

don't moralize anyone, I don't impose

1:19:42

my emotions on the audience, I'm

1:19:44

just telling the story in the

1:19:47

best way possible, providing as much

1:19:49

context as possible. Yeah,

1:19:52

so you and I are talking on February 15th, just

1:19:54

before the two year anniversary of the

1:19:56

so called special military operation that Putin

1:19:58

launched. There are people, People in

1:20:00

Mariupol still living under Russian occupation.

1:20:03

People throughout Ukraine deal with

1:20:06

the constant threat of air strikes. In

1:20:08

the film you say war is like

1:20:10

an x-ray, good people become better, bad people

1:20:13

worse. I was

1:20:15

wondering two years into this war how

1:20:17

you feel like it has impacted the

1:20:19

nation as a whole and how people

1:20:21

have responded. I

1:20:25

think in a complete, comprehensive way

1:20:27

we can understand that only when the

1:20:29

war is over and we will be

1:20:31

able to look back to our traumas,

1:20:35

to our losses, to what

1:20:37

we live through right now. Everyone

1:20:39

is filled with emotions,

1:20:41

with anger, with sadness,

1:20:43

with fear, but

1:20:48

at the same time with

1:20:53

determination. I think what happened,

1:20:55

a part of all the horrible things

1:20:57

that have happened to Ukraine and to

1:20:59

its residents, all the traumas, something

1:21:03

else, something hopeful did come

1:21:05

through. It's the

1:21:08

emergence of a very strong bond

1:21:10

between all layers

1:21:12

of the society, between communities,

1:21:16

local communities, in the community in general

1:21:18

of the country. That's what you see

1:21:20

in a film as well. In the

1:21:22

worst possible moments of loss, of a

1:21:24

tragedy, no one is ever alone in

1:21:26

20 days in

1:21:29

Marajupo. There is always someone to be

1:21:31

near, to hug, whether it's a

1:21:33

doctor or a journalist, I

1:21:36

did that too, you see me doing that, or

1:21:38

a neighbor. This

1:21:40

feeling of community and identity and

1:21:42

shared tragedy and shared resistance

1:21:45

is what holds

1:21:48

the country together right now because things

1:21:50

are not going well. In

1:21:53

Russia, every day becomes stronger and

1:21:55

bigger and the attention

1:21:57

and the support to Ukraine is... is

1:22:00

fading and but that feeling

1:22:03

of a community and

1:22:06

shared responsibility is never going

1:22:09

away anymore. That's the

1:22:11

case forever. Well,

1:22:13

watching these doctors go from treating people

1:22:15

in hospital rooms to hallways to basements,

1:22:17

watching these firefighters go from having infrastructure

1:22:19

in trucks and hoses to the last

1:22:21

fire station being bombed but still trying

1:22:23

to do the jobs, it's just incredibly

1:22:25

moving and inspiring. As you said in

1:22:27

the earlier you say in the film

1:22:29

too, I mean, the war didn't start

1:22:32

in 2022 for people, especially

1:22:34

in Eastern Ukraine. There was Crimea, the war in

1:22:36

Donbas, the MH17 shoot down, which

1:22:39

you covered. Do you think that helped

1:22:42

harden or prepare for the full scale

1:22:44

invasion in 22? Or is that even

1:22:46

possible? Yeah, that's

1:22:49

a painful question because it

1:22:51

also relates to me as

1:22:54

a journalist I've been covering this war since

1:22:56

2014. And then

1:22:59

the tension of the world shifted to Syria

1:23:01

and to a migration crisis

1:23:03

in Europe and to many other

1:23:05

stories, important stories that were unfolding

1:23:07

in the world, equally deserving attention

1:23:09

of course. But the

1:23:11

world has chosen to forget

1:23:14

about the invasion and

1:23:17

until 2022. And

1:23:19

that's why I think in 2022, it

1:23:21

came such a surprise to everyone

1:23:23

that, oh, Russia attacked Ukraine. But

1:23:26

no, it's not a surprise. Russia did

1:23:28

attack Ukraine eight

1:23:30

years before that. And it

1:23:32

was not a surprise at all. And

1:23:35

it's just have been ignored.

1:23:37

And maybe if I did my job

1:23:39

better as a journalist or a documentary

1:23:42

filmmaker or as a writer to

1:23:44

keep attention to

1:23:47

the fact that the war wasn't going on

1:23:49

for all these years, maybe

1:23:51

people would be better prepared. But

1:23:54

This is what's constantly happening even now

1:23:56

when the war is raging and not

1:23:59

only in Ukraine. In you see the war

1:24:01

is not only in Ukraine anymore. Ah,

1:24:04

and possibly will be. Next.

1:24:06

Day somewhere else right? A lot

1:24:09

of people still choose to ignore

1:24:11

the fact that that they need

1:24:13

to do something about it. They.

1:24:16

Can't be ignored. it. And because it

1:24:18

sooner or later it's going to arrive

1:24:20

at indoor of every single human being

1:24:23

on the planet. Yeah,

1:24:26

I think that and porn take away

1:24:28

his imagine watching the footage and imagining

1:24:30

what you do if it were you

1:24:32

and what we can do now to

1:24:34

prevent that's a long as line. Me

1:24:36

President Biden Been fighting to get more

1:24:38

funding passer Ukraine since last year. At

1:24:41

the moment it seems like that funding

1:24:43

is being blocked by President Trump. ah,

1:24:45

in a small but very extreme slice

1:24:47

of the Republican party. Watching the film

1:24:49

made me feel embarrassed all over again

1:24:51

at the smallness and fucking stupidity of

1:24:54

American politics. especially when compared to. The

1:24:56

gravity of what people in Ukraine are dealing with

1:24:58

and in the courage they've shown our people aware

1:25:00

of this debate is happening of us in Ukraine

1:25:02

as if you'll existential for them as any message

1:25:05

you want to convey to people listening about new

1:25:07

know maybe lobbying congress are doing what they can.

1:25:10

Again, I can't be. I

1:25:13

am a Ukrainian. And I'm

1:25:15

international. Journalists can be trying

1:25:17

to convince anyone have to

1:25:19

win anything I believe rational.

1:25:23

And informed decisions should be

1:25:25

made, but everyone has to

1:25:27

decide for themselves. Ah

1:25:29

I can say oh that looks from

1:25:32

of Ukraine perspective that's for sure. First

1:25:34

of all Ukraine is will keep fighting

1:25:36

regardless of what's what's the weather there

1:25:38

he support nights it just means if

1:25:41

there is not supported means more deaths

1:25:43

and means more destruction for civilians. Am

1:25:46

more my you pole and.

1:25:48

Type. Of the events. By

1:25:51

but did to fight for survival. In.

1:25:54

of russia was attacking us and

1:25:56

if us what was losing it's

1:25:58

territories god forbid But if

1:26:00

no one even was supporting at that

1:26:03

moment, right, people

1:26:05

will still keep fighting. So

1:26:07

regardless of that, people will keep fighting.

1:26:10

I think what's the most regrettable part

1:26:12

for Ukrainians when they look at what's

1:26:14

going on right now in Europe and

1:26:16

in the US, is that

1:26:19

they see that Ukraine

1:26:22

became a political, that supporting

1:26:24

Ukraine became a political question.

1:26:27

Because it's first of all, it's

1:26:29

a humanitarian problem. It's

1:26:31

a humanitarian issue. And that's what comes through

1:26:33

in 20 days in Mar-i-upol when you see

1:26:35

that. You see

1:26:37

humans, civilians suffering, and

1:26:40

they need help. And this

1:26:42

can't be used as a bargaining political chip

1:26:44

in any way. And that's

1:26:46

why Ukrainians are frustrated sometimes when

1:26:48

they hear the news. But

1:26:51

obviously, they are grateful for

1:26:53

everything that, for

1:26:56

all the help that already came to

1:26:58

Ukraine and they will be grateful for

1:27:00

everything that will come. They

1:27:03

will be grateful for any support.

1:27:05

But it's just when their suffering

1:27:07

and their fight is made into

1:27:09

a bargaining, political bargaining chip,

1:27:11

that's what insults Ukrainians. That's

1:27:13

what I see in their

1:27:15

eyes when I speak with

1:27:17

them. It's not a political question.

1:27:21

Yeah, it's existential. Last question

1:27:23

for you. So, you know, President Zelensky's leadership

1:27:25

in the early months of the war

1:27:27

was, I think, universally seen as astounding

1:27:30

and heroic. Obviously, after two

1:27:32

years of war, it is understandable

1:27:34

that the situation grows more

1:27:36

challenging and complicated and politics sort of

1:27:38

take over in some sense. He

1:27:40

recently made some changes to the military and

1:27:43

political leadership. There's been some

1:27:45

reporting about concerns over elections getting

1:27:47

postponed or maybe martial law remaining

1:27:50

in place, questions about the draft. Do

1:27:53

you have a sense as a journalist just what, if

1:27:56

there's been a change in terms of popular support

1:27:58

for this government or if ... people are

1:28:00

still just, you know, behind

1:28:02

him. You know,

1:28:04

what's great about Ukraine is Ukrainians

1:28:07

are always very, very aware of

1:28:09

what's happening to their country. They're

1:28:11

very, there's a very

1:28:14

active citizens, there's a huge layer

1:28:16

of active, active citizens,

1:28:18

active citizenship. So you

1:28:21

can't really lie to them, you

1:28:23

can't really hide anything

1:28:28

from them, people see everything that's

1:28:30

happening. So they are very sensitive

1:28:33

to any changes or any political

1:28:35

conflicts that are happening. But

1:28:38

at the same time, they clearly

1:28:41

know what country needs. And Ukraine

1:28:44

right now needs a unity,

1:28:47

political unity, a military unity,

1:28:50

international unity. So understanding

1:28:53

that Ukrainians do

1:28:55

keep supporting the government

1:28:58

and what they support, even if

1:29:00

they see problems, they

1:29:02

support the unity. Here's what's

1:29:06

the main dude here. And

1:29:09

they will be supporting those

1:29:11

who provide that unity to

1:29:14

the country. And

1:29:16

so far, that's what's what's been happening. But

1:29:18

of course, all the

1:29:21

problems that are happening there, we see

1:29:23

them, it's, and we see them, it's

1:29:25

because Ukrainians are so sensitive and very

1:29:28

well aware of these changes. They're very

1:29:30

well aware of, of the fight against

1:29:32

the corruption, they're very well aware of

1:29:34

what's happening on the front lines. So

1:29:38

yeah, of course, there are problems,

1:29:40

but any country would have problems

1:29:42

during during the war, and especially

1:29:44

when you when you fight to

1:29:46

an enemy, which is so

1:29:49

much bigger. Yeah, I

1:29:51

mean, I think what's just so astounding, from my perspective,

1:29:54

is just the way Ukrainians have

1:29:56

been able to adapt despite all that's

1:29:58

happening around them. You've got kids

1:30:01

going to school, people going to work, playing

1:30:05

guitar for the kids in the bomb shelter to try

1:30:07

to keep things feeling a little bit normal as you've

1:30:09

seen in your movie. I'm just wondering, how

1:30:12

is it possible to adapt? Is this just necessity

1:30:14

or is this something unique to Ukraine?

1:30:17

Partially it is because Ukrainians have been

1:30:19

adapting for this for years. Maybe

1:30:22

when it was the first

1:30:24

year, it takes a lot

1:30:26

of effort and time

1:30:29

to be able to exist in a

1:30:32

kind of a normal way when the

1:30:34

war is so near you, when the

1:30:36

rockets every day hit your city. But

1:30:40

it was happening for a while already. So that

1:30:42

really helps. And

1:30:44

humans in general and Ukrainians are

1:30:47

amazing in their

1:30:49

resilience, in their wish to live

1:30:51

the normal lives. And

1:30:56

actually that's what you wanna do when

1:30:59

you raise children. You want to provide

1:31:01

as much normality to them as possible,

1:31:03

even when it's not possible. You

1:31:06

know what scares me a lot is that

1:31:08

in the beginning of the war, in the

1:31:10

beginning of the invasion, in

1:31:12

full scale invasion, Russia was saying that they're,

1:31:15

and all this

1:31:17

absurd claims that they're fighting

1:31:19

Nazis and they're attacking Russian

1:31:22

speaking population and they

1:31:24

were killing Russian speaking populations at the same

1:31:26

time, they were excusing themselves

1:31:28

with that. But right now they, they

1:31:31

see the very different narrative. I'm

1:31:33

not sure that international community hears

1:31:35

that narrative that is happening within

1:31:37

Russia. They motivate their people and

1:31:39

their society, which also is getting

1:31:41

used to war. And

1:31:44

their politicians and soldiers with

1:31:46

one single thought, they are

1:31:48

at war with US and

1:31:50

Europe. They are currently at

1:31:52

war with everyone, with the

1:31:54

West. And a lot

1:31:56

of people in the West choose

1:31:59

not to notice that. that's

1:32:02

more than a hundred million people country

1:32:04

with a nuclear weapons, very

1:32:06

aggressive, producing a lot of weapons,

1:32:08

getting a lot of money from

1:32:10

from from oil is currently at

1:32:12

war with them and no one

1:32:15

seems to be fully prepared

1:32:18

for that even mentally. Yeah

1:32:20

I think that's really important point and people should probably do

1:32:23

a little more listening to especially the countries

1:32:25

or people in Ukraine of course but also

1:32:27

you know the the Baltic countries and parts

1:32:29

of NATO that are closest to the front

1:32:32

lines that are increasingly alarmed but listen the

1:32:34

film is 20 days in Mariopul it is

1:32:36

you can find on YouTube it is one

1:32:38

of the most affecting things I've watched in

1:32:41

many many years I cannot recommend it enough

1:32:44

and mr. Slavcharnov thank you so much for joining the show. Thank

1:32:46

you so much for inviting me stay

1:32:49

safe. Thanks

1:32:54

again to mr. Slavcharnov for making

1:32:56

an unbelievable film and for joining us on the show

1:32:59

thanks again to the mankini guy not

1:33:02

so much to Jared he can just go fuck

1:33:04

himself. And Maria and Daria

1:33:06

for for talking to us for the show about

1:33:08

their experience both inside and outside of Ukraine. And

1:33:11

to that yes to all

1:33:13

the Ukrainians who've shared your stories for two

1:33:15

years actually and we're glad we could use

1:33:17

this anniversary to to bring that

1:33:19

back and remind people of like that the human piece

1:33:22

of this thanks to that unbelievable

1:33:25

space nerd you talked to you too I really

1:33:27

did roll he really broke things down to good

1:33:30

job by you James active James active that guy's the

1:33:32

best great guy okay that's it for us talk

1:33:35

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