Trump Just Turned Canada Into an Enemy — Carney Is Fighting Back (ft. Anne Applebaum)

Support for the show comes from ODO. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder? With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. Introducing ODO. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part? ODO replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try ODO for free at odo.com. That's o-d-o-o.com. - Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Jessica Tarlov, Scott's off. But I have one of his great friends who he is spoken to. And now we get to have Ann Applebaum here on Raging Moderates. She's a staff writer for the Atlantic. Senior Fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins and the School of Advanced International Studies and a Pulitzer Prize winning historian. Ann, it's great to have you. - Thanks for having me. - Yeah, no, it's a pleasure. Kind of one of those dreamy things for me. So I want to start with our closest neighbors, a trade war that is getting more and more heated by the day. Trade talks between the US and Canada collapse late Friday night. Just minutes before deadline, triggering 50% US tariffs on roughly 20 billion worth of Canadian goods, including hockey sticks, building materials, liquor, and clothing. This morning, President Trump fired up truth social and said that even more tariffs were planned for January 1st, 2027, so he's making advance plans now. 50% on cars, trucks, automotive parts, and steel. He says, "Canada will be treated like a state no longer." Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, meanwhile, said the US is at war with Canada over these tariffs. He's announced dollar for dollar retaliatory tariffs on US steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, electronics, and that it will be effective September 8th, which is soon, that is the day after Labor Day. Let's listen to a little bit of his speech from Saturday. - Last spring, I warned that America is trying to break us so they can own us. - And I promise that that will never, ever happen. We are keeping that promise. Canada is becoming stronger and less dependent on America. We are already giving ourselves more than they can take away. - Why does it feel like today, Mark Carney is going to war? - Because we're attacked. You're at war when you get attacked. We got attacked. US put 50%. We waited until the United States decided to actually implement the so-called 338 tariffs. - That's fine. We've got the reserves. We've got the resilience. We've got the plan. We've got the focus. We will respond. We're gonna focus on what we can control. We're gonna build. - It was quite a speech. There were some other sections of it that really stuck out to me also where he talks about trade being something that's about mutual strength. Something that Donald Trump is never really satisfied for anyone else having anything good out of an arrangement. But what were your big takeaways from Carney's speech and kind of the state of this trade war? - So I think if you zoom out, what you're seeing now is the end of an era. And Mark Carney has in more than once actually has defined it. We live for a long time in a world where people believed in negotiating for mutual benefit. That America and its closest allies would do trade deals and security deals that helped everybody. And the idea was that the more cooperation we had, the more progress we would have. And we did actually succeed the United States in creating a kind of zone of prosperity in Europe and parts of Asia. With our closest allies, we had these seamless arrangements that worked very well. Donald Trump doesn't believe in that world. And what he believes in is a world of zero-sum games. So only there can only be one winner and one loser. So the United States doesn't do deals with Canada that are good for the United States. And Canada, the United States is interested in destroying Canada. And what I think most Americans might not realize that there's actually now a backstory. I mean, there's been a year and a half of this that we don't pay a lot of attention to, but Canadians do. Which is that you know, really actually from before the inauguration, Trump has been issuing tweets and posts and making statements about Canada as the 51st state. There have been parts of the US government that have been promoting the Alberta separatist movement, maybe with an idea of breaking up Canada. There have been statements by different members of the administration that also imply that we wouldn't mind if Canada ceased to exist as a country. And so the Canadians have been listening to this. They've been watching this, as I said, zero-sum trade negotiation where only the United States is allowed to win and nobody else is allowed to succeed. And I think we've now finally hit a kind of breaking point where they're saying we won't accept this anymore. I mean, as far as I know, there were a lot of issues that stay here, but the two really big ones that struck me. One was apparently the United States was telling Canada they can't do trade deals with anyone else. In other words, they were trying to restrict Canadian sovereignty. And the other was there was pressure on Canada to give up some of its rules about using the French language. Products being sent to Canada have to be labelled in French and their rules are on intellectual property and so on. And this for Canada is a kind of-- that's a red line that can't be crossed. I mean, there are two language country. Quebec is a part of Canada, too. They speak French and the US was trying to-- so what you have is the US ending in era putting huge pressure on Canada, maybe decide to end it as a state and putting these unacceptable conditions on Canada. And you've now had a really strong reaction. And again, I don't think Americans are understanding it from the Canadian point of view, but this looks to Canadians like a war on Canada, and that's what Carney said. Well, I think that they're going to feel it a lot more deeply when the implications of this come to fruition. I mean, if you weren't a state that did a lot of trade like in Kentucky, for instance, they know what's gone on with the bourbon industry as a result of this, but that has felt small with these large tariffs, especially on the automotive industry, for instance, people in Michigan are going to feel that construction, supplies, Ohio, Maine, and it's interesting from the political perspective on the domestic front. A lot of the states that will be most affected are battleground states for the midterm. So I don't know if leader Thune is currently running to the Oval Office to say something to Donald Trump about the larger implications for us here besides the money of it all, but it's going to have a big effect in November. You know, commentators have batted around this idea that Mark Carney is the quote unquote leader of Europe, that he is setting the tone for how European nations should think about how they deal with Donald Trump. What do you think taking such a strong stance against him? And he has pushed back strongly in the past and given these big speeches, but the size of the tariffs are larger than what we've dealt with before. So what do you think the reaction in Europe is right now to what Mark Carney did on Saturday? So Europeans have been in a slightly different position from Canada because Europeans are right now directly threatened by Russia, militarily threatened by Russia. I'm actually I'm in Poland right now as I'm talking to you. So it's something that is talked about here all the time. You know, there was only days ago there was a Russian drone was discovered at a German airport, their sabotage attacks, their Russian drones that come over the border, their explosions and so on. And it feels like the war is getting close. And Europeans have wanted the US to continue playing a deterrent role, you know, the presence of the US in Europe was seen as part of what has prevented the Russians from going farther. And I think that's, you know, I think that's true. And so they've been more reluctant to use the kind of language that Mark Carney uses. Even though I think we're also at a beginning to come to a turning point in Europe where most European leaders, you know, with maybe some exceptions, but most of them now also understand that we're reaching a moment when it's better to be clear about living in a world where you don't count on the United States as much as you used to. You begin to make new security arrangements. You begin to look for different trading partners. People are moving much faster in that direction than before. I mean, I don't think you'll hear, except maybe from Spain, maybe from countries in southern Europe. You would hear louder language. You won't hear Europeans talking the way Carney talks, but you will see them behind the scenes beginning to make really big changes. You know, so there's a kind of security alliance emerging with Scandinavia and the Baltic States and Northern Europe, you know, Poland, Germany, UK. There are some, you know, dozens of European leaders have made the, you know, tracks either to India or to China or to Latin America in the last, you know, a couple of years doing new kinds of trade deals and even security deals. So you're beginning to see sort of one level under the surface. You're beginning to see new arrangements coming into being. And I think that's going to continue. And the, and Karni, yes. gives voice to it in a more articulate way. He's a more articulate leader, but he's also, he can speak more openly. It's easier for him. But you'll see, we're already seeing Europeans doing much the same. - Yeah, I think it also helps a lot that he's a former central banker. So the way that he talks just feels a little bit different than someone who maybe got elected for the soaring rhetoric. Mark Carney has that as well, but you can feel the seriousness of what he's saying, which certainly is rooted in his resume. It kind of takes us in the direction that I wanted to go anyway about the future of the global alliance. I understand why some European nations, whether it's being under threat from Russia or being really concerned about what's going on in Iran and that they have an energy supply crisis as a result of that war. But do you, so Trump is going to leave office hopefully peacefully after the 2028 election? So always caveat. But do you feel that when these countries or these leaders, I should say, are going around the world are going to India, they're standing side-by-side with Xi Jinping, are they making a long-term plan or are they making a two and a half year plan to get through the end of the Trump administration? Because I know that this is not something that you can just kind of boomerang back, right? And we'll go back to normal. And most people, the world over, are not interested in businesses usual and just reverting to a system that maybe wasn't particularly fair in all facets. We had that in Trump's first administration with NATO countries having to pay more for the common defense. So what is your sense of what Europe thinks about a post-Trump euro looks like, whether it's a Democrat or a Republican that comes into office? - So remember that the kind of revolutionary movement that Trump represents isn't just him. It's also congressmen and senators and they have right-wing media. They have bureaucrats in the administration who now have relationships with the European far right or with other groups around the world. You have US tech companies who have a similarly kind of predatory attitude towards US allies and friends of all kinds. And people can see that even if Trump were gone, those people who have, as I say, this predatory zero-sum attitude to the world are still gonna be around. And even if there's some kind of imaginary, nice pro-alliance American president next time, they'll still be in Congress. Some of them will still be in the government. They'll still be in the media. They'll still have influence. And counting on the United States changing back again somehow isn't really something you can do. I think it was the French foreign minister said this and maybe the French president has said it as well. He said something very recently. Again, the future of Europe and the security of France can't depend on 40,000 voters in Wisconsin every 40 years. So we need something different. This is why, as I said, you're beginning to see this restructuring underneath the surface. You see France actually is a country that's trying to move all of its government software away from US software. They're putting a lot of money into developing their owns that are kind of a separate, big AI company and separate tech industries. And you're beginning to see some of that happen as well. So I don't think the situation that we had for decades after World War II, where the United States was just automatically accepted as the leader and was given advantages and actually given trade advantages and security advantages because it was later. I don't think we're going back to that. I mean, NATO is an interesting, even what you just said, NATO paying more and so on. Remember the NATO bases in Europe, especially, there's one in Spain, there elsewhere, have mostly historically not been used directly for European defense. They've been used for America projecting itself into the Middle East. They're part of a US global picture. The US also has advantages from NATO and it's also had the open economies where it could trade in in Europe and in Asia thanks to all these alliances and relationships and arrangements. And I think the automatic difference to the United States, giving the US these advantages and bases and so on might come to an end or it will begin to become narrow or it will begin to be less. Again, I don't think anybody wants like a dramatic break, but I don't think we're going back to the time when the United States was automatically received this kind of difference because it was the leader of the democratic world. - Yeah, it's like one of those breakups that just fizzles out, like breadcrumbing a little bit where you're just sending attacks every once in a while but you're clearly not together anymore. Just to contextualize it for everyone else. Like we talk a lot less and I wanted to, before we get to Iran because what you were saying about the bases connects directly to what the Pentagon seems to be planning, which is to pull us back from having a midiest presence at all. And whatever that portends for the future of the policy of foreign policy, but I'm curious, you know, you mentioned far right influences. Is there also concern about the far left because this, you know, the horseshoe unites in our politics. When it comes to foreign policy, a lot, right? And talking about America first and we should be focusing on domestic issues. We shouldn't be mostly, they focus on Israel and saying our money shouldn't be going abroad to fund anything from Iron Dome, to offensive weapons for sure. So is there a concern that no matter who comes into office, certainly if it's a lefty Democrat, that we could still be in the same position as a global order? - Yeah, I mean, the Trump administration has a specific policy, which is, you know, it's in its national security strategy and it's being carried out by people at the State Department to promote the interests of the European far right in particular, some also in Latin America, but in Europe, it's very specific. I mean, to promote the German far right, the French far right, and to help them win elections, to intervene in their politics, even to intervene directly in elections, either it's the administration doing it or it's Elon Musk doing it or somebody else. And that scene is a particularly egregious abuse of American influence, especially American tech influence that I don't think a Democratic president wouldn't, you know, wouldn't behave like that presumably. But yeah, I mean, I think everybody understands that the US is going through a transformation and that the US dedication to playing and, you know, a role in international security is receding and that even a Democratic president might be the same. I mean, I tend to think maybe I'm wrong, but the far left is a smaller percentage of the Democratic party than the far right is of the Republican party. And so the idea that they will somehow dominate the next, you know, if there were to be a Democratic administration, they would dominate, it seems more unlikely to me. I mean, I could, I could well turn out to be wrong. But the real fear isn't that. It's just more the, it's more of US withdrawal, US confusion. I mean, remember that a lot of this US behavior, including this trade war with Canada, is also suicidal. I mean, this is really bad for the US industry. It's really bad for the US currency. You know, these uneven tariffs have damaged the US economy. You know, as you refer to the automobile industry, you're absolutely right. I mean, automobile parts go back and forth across the US, Canadian border, sometimes several times before a car is built. You know, if you put tariffs in that would destroy that, you're going to do real damage to the American car industry, which is already in pretty big trouble. You know, so people see this kind of self-harm. US is undermining its alliances, its interests, its power, its economy, you know, the war in Iran has raised gas prices which harm Americans and harm everybody else. So it's not just that people are afraid of the left or the right. They're afraid that the US is becoming less powerful and will have fewer tools to offer to create zones of security that it was able to do in the past. You know, so it's not even just a political problem. It's not about whether the left or right wins. It's about whether the United States is going to be capable of acting in the world the way it's, we got used to it being able to do over many decades. - Support for the show comes from Marsmen. Gaining weight as you age is pretty common for men. Of course, diet and lifestyle are big factors, but another factor might be that your testosterone levels start dropping. That can happen as early as your 30s. It's a simple equation. More body fat equals more testosterone being converted into estrogen. And that leads you right back to fat gain. Marsmen can help you break out of that cycle. It's a natural supplement designed to support healthy testosterone levels. When your hormones are working the way they're supposed to, a lot of things can get easier. Workouts, energy levels, even staying lean. Marsmen doesn't use any weird stimulants or synthetic hormones. It's natural ingredients that are shown to support healthy T levels, weight management, and exercise performance. 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Currency is hit, a record low, as the US is preparing a new round of sanctions. Divisions emerging within Iran's leadership over whether to keep fighting or pursue talks, which as of now apparently are not on. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson is unveiling what he calls the single greatest financial offensive ever-martialed against an adversary, threatening to isolate countries that continue doing business with Iran. And Iran in turn is warned that countries aligning with the US could be considered to be committing a "act of war." And we are six months in. It feels very no-end in sight. What's your sense of where things stand? And do you believe that there are more conversations going on behind the scenes than President Trump's truth-social account would indicate? If I believed what President Trump's truth-social account portrayed as reality, then I wouldn't really understand anything. So no, I don't take much that. It's very hard to take anything he says as factual. I assume someone's talking to somebody because someone always is. I mean, just like the Ukrainians talk to the Russians behind the scenes and everybody talks to everybody. But there are a few things that are emerging from the conflict. Essentially what the US did when it destroyed the Iranian leadership in that very first strike at the beginning of the war was it eliminated a kind of old and tired religious leaders and they've now been replaced by a younger, essentially, military punta, which doesn't seem inclined to give up and seems able to endure quite a lot of hardship. Again, I hope to be wrong about that. I would like the Iranian regime to change. I've had friends in the Iranian opposition for years and I want the best for them and for their country. But at the moment, they've discovered that they have advantages that weren't even clear before. I mean, for example, it's turned out that the Gulf states, the US allies in the region are much more vulnerable than anybody thought. It turns out that it's pretty easy for them to hit targets in Saudi Arabia or in UAE, making those countries much more malleable and much more willing to deal with Iran than they were in the past. The whole tenor of the region has changed now because the war and everybody understands that Iran has hard, as President Trump would put it, that we didn't. We seemed to not have known where they are. Or rather, military planners knew that they were there, but Trump wasn't listening to them when he began the war. And so we're in a situation where Iran is emerging as the most important regional power it could do. Bob Kagan has a good piece in the Atlantic. Actually, there was published in the last day or two saying exactly that. And the US is in a position that looks much weaker than anybody could have imagined. The US also, again, in the region has an alliance problem. Had the US begun this conflict by first talking to European allies and to regional allies, some of whom were also surprised by it, and said, "Here's what we're going to do. We need your support. Everybody's got a role. Will you help us in whatever we. in carrying this out?" Maybe not everybody would have been enthusiastic, but they would have had some. They would have had a broader base of allied support and friendship and, you know, a military might, an economic might from the very beginning. But they didn't do that because they don't think like that. Again, they think zero is some. They think we're the best. The US can do whatever we want. Our power means that we get to dictate the outcomes. And they've really alienated everybody. They've alienated Europeans. They alienated Abu Dhabi. They alienated everybody in the region. And now it's really the United States seeking. You know, trying to figure out how to end a war that it doesn't even have clear goals for anymore. So, you know, you have a. You could very well have within the next year or two a really completely different Middle East, you know, one in which the US plays much less of a role than it ever is and therefore accruing less advantages and having less influence. What do you think Israel's stance is right now or what actions they're willing to take? I feel like that has been completely undercover at least in US media. At the heights of conflict, I guess, we're at a bit of a stalemate right now in the war we were talking about Israel and their role not only as a partner to the US and what we're doing with Iran, but also focused on Lebanon. And I'm curious what you think they're thinking behind the scenes. Obviously they're going to have elections. It's a very big deal. And the future of Israel as a close partner in the US, I think, is up for grabs or up for debate. A bit more than it ever has been before. And. So, Israel's. Israel seems to be deliberately trying to lose friends. You know, deliberately making enemies. Deliberately creating one conflict after the next. You know, it's not just the far left of the Democratic Party that's, you know, that's angry at Israel. It's also the center. You know, the. Ramanial was in Israel and made it. It was a. It was a moderate by any standard. You know, and made a speech warning Israeli leaders that they were losing a whole generation of Americans. Not just because of. You know, because of this mistake in war, but because of the behavior of settlers in the West Bank, because of their aggression in Lebanon and in Syria. You know, you have in Netanyahu a leader who, like Trump, you know, is also somebody who has become, you know, through many. Too many years in power has become, you know, arrogant in his belief that Israel gets to dictate all the outcomes and never has to negotiate. And you're seeing the. You know, you're seeing. You will see a continued backlash to Israel as well. I mean, the best thing that could happen to Israel in the next. In the next. In the coming months is that Netanyahu would lose the elections. And then we'd have a different kind of leadership. But it would take a long time if. If it's even possible in this, you know, in this generation to rebuild the kind of respect that Israel once had in the United States. What did you make of in that speech that Ron gave. His idea of a 23-state solution and kind of moving away from this idea that we should just be focused on the two-state solution. I think he was trying to help out the left, but also to some degree help out the right, which is struggling with this too. So more on the fringe or kind of like the mega red meat base of it versus, you know, centralized leadership or whatever of the neocons that hang on are still in office. But I thought that it was very smart of him to make the problem or regional problem or regional discussion to give also Israel some cover that we would talk about them as embedded as part of a system versus just on their own. Yeah, I'm not sure how grippingly original that was. I mean, you know, people have, you know, there have been attempts to get other Arab states involved in the conversation for a long time in different ways. But I think it's true that beginning to radically rethink how we talk about it, how we deal with it, what kinds of solutions are possible. There is. I don't have the solution myself, But it's pretty clear that thinking along the lines that we've been thinking for two decades isn't working and finding a new way of negotiation, you know, it could help solve the problem. I mean, again, I think one of the most important obstacles to any solution remains the leadership of Israel. You have to have Israeli leaders who want peace and who want to create regional stability and who want, you know, regional ties in which they will fit in their Palestinian neighbors or some form of Palestinian state will fit. You know, in order to in order to have a negotiation at all, and I don't sense from this Israeli government any desire to do that. I don't know how closely you've been paying attention to what's going on at the stars and stripes, the independent military paper, but Pete Hexath has fired a couple top editors and a reporter. It seems linked to their reporting on 1,300 military families who were evacuated from Bahrain still can't return return home six months later. Tens of thousands of dollars in expenses kind of left hung out to dry. I'm curious as to what you think this port ends. Obviously, this administration is extremely hostile to a free press. What can we do about it? I know that's kind of a broad question, but obviously, you know, you've studied reported on, you know, Victor Orban and that there was an election and was able to push them out, even though a huge amount of influence and a lot of help from us, including, you know, JD Vance pop and over and things like that. How are you feeling, I guess, about the state of the press and whether that whether that could boomerang back under a new presidency? So the stars and stripes story is frightening for a number of reasons. One, it's an old organization and with a long and great tradition, and it's really sad to see it destroyed. It also, when I saw that story, I wondered how much about the war in Iran we just don't know. I mean, it's not just stars and stripes. It's also, you know, the journalists have been banned or have had to resign from being based. At the Pentagon, there are no journalists embedded in this war. You know, we've always in the past or in recent years, anyway, in recent decades, the US Army, US military has always wanted journalists to be at the conflict, has worked with journalists and we're not seeing very much of that at the moment. And I wonder how much of it we just, you know, we just don't know. I mean, the story about thousands of Americans being essentially expelled from Bahrain and unable to live there's not one I'd see, you know, and I was, yeah, I was, I was impressed that stars and stripes had it and distressed to see that it was being controlled. So you do see this administration seeking to, you know, it's not, it's not through direct censorship. It's not, there isn't like a bureau of censorship or administrative information who decide what's published and what's not. But through all kinds of methods, you know, through pressure on newspapers. In this case, this is a, this is a military newspaper so they have direct control. But through pressure on ownership, you know, I'm sure you've talked about this millions of times on many podcasts and television shows, you know, through multiple ways they do seek to control information. I mean, I tend to think that it won't work because I mean, like the Bahrain story, I mean, sooner or later, people do find out. I mean, Orbans attempt to control the Hungarian press ultimately didn't work because although he controlled 90% of it, all the TV, all the major newspapers, you know, a few tiny websites that still had people trust were able to break a few stories and change the national conversation, even though it was just a really a few journalists and a few websites. And I tend to think that as people, you know, once people understand that stars and stripes is not independent, they'll stop believing it. And then they'll start looking for information about the military somewhere else. And so I tend to think it will, it will backfire. I mean, I suppose there's a risk and I'm amazed that Republicans aren't worried about it that you could have in the future, you know, a Democratic president who also tried to use these same tools, you know, now that Trump has successfully shown that you can use the, you know, federal regulators to influence television stations. Once he's shown that that's possible, you can see others doing it. But I also think that one of the longer term effects is that people, once they understand that these are not credible sources of news, you'll find people looking in other places. And so it will just accelerate the decline of, you know, if the FCC is going to try to destroy or manipulate television, it will just accelerate the decline of television. And people will begin to look for something else. It's certainly not good for American democracy or the American national conversation, but I also don't think it can succeed indefinitely. Well, that's nice, but that bit of optimism. The FCC example is a good one because that did actually bring Republicans out in very strong terms, pushing back against Brendan Carr. And what the administration was trying to do on tech crews was saying, like, do you guys think there'll never be a Democrat again in office? I mean, I happen to think we couldn't come up with one as maniacal. Or who thinks they should control every facet of American society in this way. So I mean, objectively speaking, there isn't anyone else in US politics who is quite as maniacal. So yeah, I mean, so far. No, there isn't. I always get that question, you know, what would you do if there was a Trump on the left? And I was like, I don't know, like Bernie Sanders annoys me sometimes, but he kind of just wants free healthcare for everybody and a higher minimum wage. It's not quite as scary as what's going on with the right support for the show comes from Odo running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odo. And the best part? So why not you? That's O-D-O-O.com. Are you stuck in a job working hard but feel like no matter what you do, you just can't seem to get ahead financially? Or maybe you've always felt like sales is something other people do. Not you? Well, this week on Network in Chill, I'm chatting with Shelby Sapp, the internet's queen of sales who teaches women how to pitch, close, and get paid. Whether you're running for a promotion, building your own business, or just trying to get a seat at the table, Shelby breaks down everything you need to know, the rich, closer mindset, the biggest sales myths holding you back, and why learning how to sell is actually the fastest path to financial freedom. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on youtube.com/yourrichbf. I want to talk about what's going on. In Kiev, there's Gordon Pressure, obviously, on the battlefield, and at home, these anti-corruption investigators have released tapes alleging senior officials treated corruption as routine. And the former Defense Minister, Fedorov, is openly challenging Zelensky and calling for elections. It seems as of now though that the people are largely standing behind Zelensky happy with how he has prosecuted this war or their defense. Russia's escalating their tax, Ukraine facing a $27 billion defense shortfall. What do you think the current state of play is there? I mentioned last week, I was talking with Susan Glasser about the vacuum that may be left by Lindsey Graham's passing. We don't know who will fill that seat, but Mitch McConnell going out, he's already a little bit out, but we'll definitely not be the senator from Kentucky. Come next term and Lindsey Graham. Those are two stalwart supporters of Ukraine, and you look at that deficit and think if we have a government that is hostile to giving Zelensky the weapons that he says that he needs to be able to win this war, where does that leave them and leave us? So there are two or three things in that question. One is the corruption story is an interesting one, because the corruption investigations in Ukraine are coming from inside the Ukrainian government. In other words, these are Ukrainian, you know, inside the government organizations which are dedicated to looking for corruption, which are fighting me. Try to imagine that right now in the United States, and you can't do it. You know, it's as if the FBI were investigating, you know, the Trump family companies, which is unimaginable, right? That's very funny. And so that, and so that, so actually, you have this exposure of corruption is evidence of the democratic institutions working in Ukraine. The fact that there is that much known that it's openly discussed, that people debate about it, and they talk about, you know, what should be done, makes Ukraine right now a more open and more effective democracy than the United States. So it's a, you know, so always keep that in mind when you talk about corruption. Zelensky is, it's not so much that Zelensky is popular right now. It's that people don't want elections there, because they're afraid that elections would be divisive, how would soldiers vote? What if the Russians started a bombing campaign on election day that meant people couldn't, you know, the possibilities of disrupting the election are so many. It's just hard for people to imagine how it could be done. So even people who didn't like Zelensky and there are such people will tell you they don't want elections. And this fjodorov's calling for election. was actually quite unpopular. I mean, he's very popular, but that was not a, that wasn't a popular thing to do. So the politics are, you know, remain weirdly stable. I mean, Lindsey Graham, honestly, I mean, I, you know, I think at Ukrainians were grateful to Lindsey Graham that he, that he spoke out in their favor. But I'm not sure he had any influence over Trump's policy towards Ukraine. I mean, Trump has repeatedly refused to help Ukraine for two years. We still give them some intelligence help. We don't give them any weapons. And we don't give them any money. We're very, very minimal. And I don't see that Lindsey Graham really affected that. So I'm not sure that, that his passing makes that really that big a difference. You know, Ukraine now is almost entirely funded by Europe. So Europeans, and this is, you know, back to the question we started with, you know, what's happened to NATO? What's happened to Europe? So the Europeans, European money, funds that Ukrainian drone industry, Ukrainian drone industry is now beginning to, to work together with European companies. Some of the, some Ukrainian weapons are now made in, in European countries. You know, you have some of its private, some of its state, their mutual investments. You know, you're beginning to see the emergence of a completely different kind of military, industrial complex for lack of a better word in Ukraine and Europe that wasn't there before. And that's a big change. And that's really how Ukraine has, has survived. The one thing the United States could give Ukraine, it now can't really give Ukraine. And these are these anti-missile interceptors. So, you know, Ukraine has plenty enough, well, it has, I don't know, but enough, but it has offensive weapons. It's able to hit targets deep inside Russia. It's able to stabilize the front line. The front line has barely moved in the last few months. So, there's no danger of the Russians, you know, of key of falling right now. The only thing that the Russians are able to do is to hit Ukraine from afar to hit the cities with ballistic missiles and cruise missiles that Ukraine doesn't have any defense against. And unfortunately, most of the world's anti-missile defense has just been used up in the Middle East. So, it was used by the US in this war of choice in Iran. And it's something that's very difficult to produce quickly and it doesn't seem that it can be done fast. The Ukrainian strategy now is to try and hit the factories where missiles are made and the launchers that launch them as a way of stopping this. But they don't have, you know, there aren't any missile interceptors. And, you know, the US is kind of losing, it's even its influence over that conflict because the one piece of weaponry that, you know, would be very welcome. A. Trump wouldn't give it anyway, probably, because he's not that interested in helping Ukraine and B. We just don't have much of it anymore. Nobody has much of it anymore. So, I think JD Vance said in the last few months how happy he was that the US was no longer helping Ukraine, but also by no longer helping Ukraine. The US has removed itself as an important factor in the conflict and as a decider in Europe. And you will begin to see, as I say, new kinds of connections and developments happen. I mean, I also don't think, you know, part of the US military and certainly the US public, I don't think really understands how different this war is than almost any other war we've ever seen falls. So, this is now a drone war, you know, it's really, you know, the front line is this kind of 30 mile strip where everything is visible. And tanks are useless because you send a tank in and it's immediately identified and blown up. You know, troops are useless in that sense. I mean, you can keep sending them in and most of them die. And the Russians do that because they want to use up Ukrainian ammunition and drones and so on. But they aren't winning that way. And so, it's really changed the way this war has been fought, this drone technology, and it will change the way all wars are fought in the future. I don't know whether the US military has really thought this through. And there was, I saw recently, they were, they were, they had canceled some meetings with Ukrainians to discuss their industry. You know, Ukrainians are working now with Europeans. They work, they're working with some countries in the Gulf. You know, the US is again becoming kind of extraneous to these conversations. Yeah, I was going to say they definitely canceled the meetings and then there was the huge presentation that the Ukrainians came to Washington to give last summer a whole year ago, which certainly would have helped us out with the war and Iran about their adaptability and how we could, if we got into this kind of precarious position, be able to fight back and spending last money because we were spending something like $4 million for every $30,000 drone, which obviously is unsustainable from a dollar's perspective. But I don't know if you saw this. The Wall Street Journal was reporting that there was a 600 person army unit that was created that was essentially like a drone battalion. And Pete Hexeth has apparently canceled that because of this push to get back to basics. What does that say to someone? Yeah, I can't even make up an intelligent conversation or a question to ask about it because like why in God's name would someone do that? Like to win a push-up contest? Or what, you know, what could he be thinking? And is there some nefarious, you know, pinky and the brain scenario in the background that does want us to be completely defenseless moving forward? I get it. You don't want to give money to Ukraine. You think Zelensky is corrupt. You're mad about the perfect phone call. Like whatever it is. But what is the idea for the future of warfare if you are talking about fat stores and testosterone injections and push-ups and canceling the drone guys? It's nuts. I mean, also, you know, we should be. It's not just a drone battalion. I mean, we should be looking at how to integrate drones into every single aspect of warfare. Because there was no maneuver warfare. There's no reconnaissance. There's no nothing without drones now. Drones have really changed the way everything is done. It'll change the way navies are going to work. You know, Ukraine has no navy at all. I mean, there are no ships really to speak of. And yet Ukrainian sea drones and underwater drones as well as these kind of unmanned boat drones have pushed the Russian navy out of the western part of the Black Sea. You know, so you now have the way the Air Force works, the way the navy works. Everything is going to work differently because of drones. I mean, helicopters aren't going to work the way they used to. Tanks aren't going to work the way they used to. All kinds of equipment that were used to relying on it that the US produces in large numbers and is very proud of, you know, might have to be completely rethought in the face of the drone war. And if, you know, I assume there are people depending on who are doing this because, you know, that's what we pay them to do. But Hexath refusing to be the face of that or refusing to say we're going to upgrade our systems. We're going to adapt to this new way of doing it. And instead talking about, you know, push-ups and facial hair is really insane. I mean, as you say, it's almost as if, you know, if someone were paying them to undermine the United States, you would get the same result. I mean, I'm not saying that's happening. But it's a kind of, you know, if they were enemy, secret enemies, then this is how they would be behaving. It's a, again, I use this for already. I mean, suicidal. You know, why are they trying to undermine, you know, undermine the US military? It's hard to understand. Last thing, and you mentioned this, you know, you're in Poland. It's been a lot of time there. Do they sit around scratching their heads like the same way that we just did in detail? Like, what does that look like amongst high-end, Polish conversations, right? Where they're, you know, consuming press from all over the world. And they see actions like this. So here in Poland, as almost everywhere else I've ever been, you know, you have local news, you have national news, and then you have the US news. So if you read the papers in the UK, you see British news and American news. You don't see, you know, French politics is kind of tertiary. You know, it's there, but it's not as important. You know, in Poland, you know, the Czechs are their neighbors. They don't talk about Czech politics. Like, everyone talks about American politics all the time. And the transformation of the United States, as I say, from a power that was, you know, sometimes distrusted, sometimes it made mistakes, sometimes people disagreed with it. Some people were in the American, but was generally seen as, you know, as the linchpin of a system, and watching it turn in on itself, and wreck its alliances, and therefore undermine its power, is the main conversation everywhere, not just Poland. I've just been to Iceland. And half my conversations in Iceland were about that. Iceland had a big US base in the past, and, you know, they confused them with Greenland, and the speech he gave at Davos in January. And, you know, even they noticed that it's a very different country, and that's effects the way they talk about politics too. I mean, this is universal. I mean, you have this conversation everywhere on the planet. People are asking, what does it mean now that the United States is not the kind of country that it was before? How does that affect our economics? How does that affect our politics? I mean, it's a, it's very hard to describe, [BLANK_AUDIO] Americans, how central it is to other countries, you know, stuff, you know, U.S. politics of U.S. states, you know, the Michigan primary. You can have a conversation with that about that with people in Poland. You know, how many Americans can talk about primary elections in Poland? I would say six, you know, maybe, maybe seven. But it's really central to everybody's sense of who they are. And everyone understands that this is a really a revolutionary moment and everything's changing. Yeah, you're right. I mean, Poland, even a more extreme example, but I did all my graduate school work in London. And I mean, this feels like forever ago, because it was the Obama era. I was the end of Bush through, you know, the beginning of Obama. And I was shocked then how much they were into it, let alone now watching the effects of our politics roll out. And Apple bomb, this was fabulous. Thank you for joining me. Thanks for having me.