Ambassador Michael McFaul on the Rise and Fall of Democracies

Hi everyone, I'm Katie Kurrick and this is Next Question. Michael McFall has spent his career studying what makes democracies rise and how they fall. As many of you know, he's a former US ambassador to Russia and the author of a new book called Autocrats versus Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder.

Mike says that under Trump, America's retreat from global leadership has opened the door for autocrats like Putin and she to flex their muscles and for democracy everywhere to lose ground. He also argues the real struggle isn't just in other countries. It's here at home. He believes Trump has led us to a place of legitimately debating whether our leaders still have to play by democratic rules or if we're willing to let them act. Yes, like autocrats. Mike is my go-to guy for all things Russia and Ukraine, but believe me, he understands what's happening in the entire world better than just about anyone I know. Michael McFall, so good to see you in person for a change. I can't believe it. Welcome to New York.

>> My phone on a Substack.

>> Exactly. Thank you so much.

>> You look much better in person, by the way. You look great on t You look great on Instagram, but it's fun to be here with y'all.

>> Thank you. Thank you. So, wow. You've written a a light little book called Autocrats Versus Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder.

>> Yeah.

>> Tell me what you wanted to do when you set out to write this book, Mike.

>> Well, honestly, uh, it took me years to write. Um, I do have a day job. I'm a professor at Stanford and I run a big institute there, so I didn't have hours and hours to work on it. But the original, it changed over time. The original motivation was we had a debate several years ago amongst foreign policy types about whether we've entered a new cold war with China and its sidekick Russia. And I wanted like an academic did does I wanted to interrogate that hypothesis. Um and I know something about the cold war. I've written about that. I know quite a bit about Russia and America. I had

>> You were ambassador.

>> I was ambassador to Russia and I lived there many times. Um I I I've gone to China for decades but to write this book I spent big chunks of time learn that's the piece I had to learn about and my answer and that's why the book's so big was uh are we in a new cold war the answer to that is yes the second question are we really in a new cold war the answer to that is no uh because some things are similar but some things are different and uh I go through that analytically talking about similarities but also differences is and I think that's important because if we don't understand the world we live in, we're not going to develop the what I think are the proper policies. So that was the first motivation. But the the second motivation that started in the first Trump administration uh and then kept going in the Biden folks and then when he was reelected was even more animating. I had I had a few weeks to to add a few things and it's not just about Trump but he he really catalyzed this. I I worry that we have entered a new era of isolationism in the United States. Um prominent within the Republican party, but it's also in the Democratic party. And I don't think for America's long-term interest, that's a good strategy. Um then there's unilateralism. That's become very, especially under President Trump, let's just do whatever we want to do. We don't have to care about our allies. I don't have to care about multilateral institutions or norms. And I think that's a it said short-term that works. Longterm I don't think so. So that became another motivation. And then the title of the book autocrats versus Democrats. We're now in a period where a lot of Americans, Democrats and Republicans and independents don't think we should be supporting ideas in the world, democracy, human rights. Um and I get it. you know, we're kind of tired of being the superpower and

>> the world's policemen.

>> We don't want to be the world's policeman. And I say very clearly in the book, we should not be the world's policeman. Most certainly, we shouldn't use military force to promote democracy. That's that we're four for 17 on that front, just so you know. I've done the math. The book starts in the 18th century. Just uh but don't worry, I I do the whole I do 200 years of history. US China 30 pages. So I I've I've done that work so you don't have to. But I think that's also a long-term mistake. I think supporting ideas of freedom and democracy have not only been the right thing to do, but I think it's been on our strategic interests. So that piece in a way is the most controversial part of the book, but maybe the most important.

For people who are not foreign policy experts. Mike, I wondered if you could take the last 25 years and just give us a brief primer on how power has shifted and changed.

>> Yeah. Well, that's a I set up the book deliberately. I do nine different chapters. power, ideology, and then competing conceptions of the cold war, cold war, uh, global order, excuse me. And they all start with 1991 because in 1991, we were the world's hegeimon. We are the world's superpower. No challengers. 1991, the whole world seemed like they wanted to be democratic. Uh that's when Frank Fukyama writes this famous essay end of history because it just seemed like everybody was going to be democratic and most of the world was moving towards capitalism and a liberal international order. All those words are problematic but but if you remember you know you'll remember but so your listeners will remember there was President HW Bush in response to Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait said that's that's against the rules of the game here. we can't annex countries and he got the whole world together and we pushed them out. Uh so all the chapters start with that. Uh fast forward three decades later on the power front uh two countries have risen. China most prominently uh but Russia's much more powerful today than they were 30 years ago and that makes it the balance of power between autocrats and democrats different than 30 years ago. We're still ahead by the way and my book ends on an optimistic note. I think we'll remain ahead as long as we do certain smart things. But the Chinese have caught up. Uh second, there's now an ideological struggle between autocrats and democrats. The whole world did not become democratic and we failed on that. I personally feel some failure in Russia that we did things wrong there. Russians did most things wrong themselves, but we missed that. Um but it's it's not just between countries and this is an important theme in my book. Uh the old cold war days, remember the maps? There was the red team. There was a blue team. You know, Germany, oh, they're they're blue team. Angola flipped, okay, their red team. And you know, it was communist versus capitalists or free world versus dictatorship. We had some communists here in America, right? You know, I was a kid at Stanford. We had some communists up at Berkeley, right? And I met them, you know, but they weren't they were pretty marginal. Today, the fight is not just between countries, it's within countries. So within Hungary, there's a fight between autocrats and democrats within Italy, within France, and within the United States of America. That's different. That's new. And then the third piece on the global order. I would say that's where there's most breakdown. That's why the last word of the title is disorder because we don't agree on the rules of the game. And many politicians, President Trump being the most important one, don't even think that it we should play by those rules. So, he just gave a speech at the UN which is basically like we're wasting money. We're wasting our time here. And I think he's wrong about that. But millions of people in the world agree with President Trump and not me.

>> Well, and a lot of people agree with you, too.

>> Well, that's why I wrote the book. I want to convince more people to come uh in this which is going to be a long-term struggle. This book is written for audiences for decades, not just what to do in the Trump era. But I think and and I wrote it mostly as an American because I think in the long term we're better off uh being engaged in the world where than not. We're better off working with allies and multilateral organizations than not and we're better off promoting our ideas and values than not. Uh but I know that that's a debate and so we got to make people that like me we got to make better arguments and we got to bring those arguments not just to New York City and Washington and Palo Alto but to Montana and Idaho and South Carolina and Texas.

So clearly autocracies are on the rise and I'm curious if you had to look back and you do in this book and say what happened

>> between this idea that was perpetuated during the first Bush administration right

>> this idea that democracy was was rising or democracies were rising all over the world and in fact by the way George W. Bush who campaigned against nation building actually you know governed right so so I guess the question is

>> why are autocracies on the rise and why did this vision that was initiated by George Herbert Walker Bush not hold

>> It's a big hard question and that's why the book the book is big uh and hard

>> and hard and and you know I keep interrogating these hypotheses in real time because they're changing. But I think there are three big things that happened. Uh one, uh we thought and in retrospect we now know it was wrong. But but I I don't want to claim that I thought differently 30 years ago, but we had a theory, it's called modernization theory in academia, that as China became richer uh and modernized their economy, they would eventually democratize. And so we helped them do that. We invested in China. We brought them into the World Trade Organization animated by that theory and it turned out not to be true. Uh they're more powerful today. They're richer today. They are not more democratic today. Now I go through that in the book. I don't think this was inevitable that they became more autocratic. And I think Xi Jinping as a leader pushed them that way. One of the themes of the book are that leaders matter. that that may sound obvious to you, but in academia that there's a lot of uh of our most prominent theories don't even allow leaders in their to to have a causal impact. I radically disagree with that, but that that was the first failure. So, we helped them grow stronger. Same with Russia in a lesser extent. But I I remember I wrote a piece in 1993. Our worst nightmare would be a capitalist Russia that had recovered from the collapse of the Soviet Union. um led by a dictator and I didn't know it was going to be Putin at the time but that's tragically exactly what happened. We didn't we got that wrong.

>> Uh second we did not do enough to support democracy in these transition places like Russia but not only Russia other parts of the postcommunist world Hungary definitely do enough on Hungary. We should have had more conditionality for them. That was a giant mistake. So we we should have been uh leaning into that more. But there and there's a reason why we didn't. I want to explain that. We did that after World War II, right? World War II ended and our enemies, we invested tons of money in them called the Marshall Plan in Europe, but also Japan to to help them nurture markets and democracy. Uh and we got that right. Part of the reason we got it right in 45 and we didn't in ' 91 is because in 45 there was this enemy to the east, right? The Soviet Union was out there and we thought if we don't bring these folks in they're going to flip. They're going to be on the Soviet side. In 199192 there wasn't that enemy to the east. Um and as a result we just thought it's all going to happen naturally and so we didn't invest in that. But then third we made some mistakes at home both in our foreign policy and domestically. I think uh the invasion of Iraq uh Af let's start with Afghanistan. Afghanistan the world was behind us. NATO was behind us. They went in with us. Uh but then we overreached in Iraq. Um and that led to a lot of like are these Americans really for the liberal international order. They're just doing whatever they think.

>> And ultimately we overreached in Afghanistan too.

>> And then we overreached in Afghanistan. And we

>> I mean initially people were for it but then it was

>> this interminable war and the idea that we were going to change

>> Afghanistan as a nation just was a like fool's errand wasn't it?

>> Yes. And Americans got tired uh of these wars. Uh so that was that piece. Uh like we're not really playing within the international system. Now different presidents did that in different ways. I worked for President Obama. He was a big multilateral kind of guy, right? We did use force in Libya um in in 2011, but we only did that when we got a UN Security Council resolution to allow for that and and I was part of that. I negotiated with the Russians to get them to abstain. Um uh so it wasn't just a straight line to that, but there was that was that part of it. I think when President Trump came back in, he, you know, he just doesn't believe in cooperation in these multilateral organization. He just pulled out everything. In the book, I call it the Trump withdrawal doctrine, right? Pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, uh, pulled out of a arms control treaty we had with Russia. And that, I think, left people thinking, well, we're not who we say we are. And then the last thing is the way we've been practicing democracy at her here at home.

>> Um you can't say you're the leader of the free world if you're not uh acting as a free and democratic society at home. And so what we used to have during the cold war and most certainly in the early 90s when everybody looked our system as the best system, that's no longer the case.

>> Still, I don't quite understand, you know. Yes. So, you're saying that we didn't put certain safeguards in place as we were kind of uh as our foreign policy was evolving over the over recent decades. But what else happened to turn Hungary to to make them less democratic? Was it immigration issues? I mean, what were the forces at home? Because leaders matter, of course. I think you're right. probably the you guys underestimate that but also the people matter right so what has happened in these countries and and even Japan I read recently was going becoming more right-wing and Italy and Hungary and now France right and it seems like all these nations are really kind of and the US obviously kind of turning away from

>> sort of traditional dem democratic principles, right? And more towards autocracies.

>> Yes.

>> So, what the hell is going on?

>> Well, within the developed world, right, the developed democracies, the old democracies, right, including our own, uh, a couple of things are going on. One, people aren't happy with how democracies delivering. And, uh, part of us bringing in China into the World Trade Organization, that meant we lost a lot of jobs. We lost a lot of manufacturing jobs. and President Trump, who I think is a brilliant politician. I disagree with most of his policies, but he's a really br we've continued to underestimate how good of a politician he is. He tapped into that. He tapped into that and and he said, you know, you lost your jobs because of all these elites, billionaire saying all these elites, but he figured that out. And he's not the only one. You're right. It is a transnational phenomenon. Basically in every country in Europe to different degrees you have these illiberal nationalists uh these populists uh Victor Orban being the most famous but there are almost in every country. So that's the first thing that has happened and then the second uh you know the old debate was left and right right uh debate about what the tax should be or what the minimum wage should be and that you know in the old days 50 years ago that was democrats versus republicans liberals in America social democrats in Europe that was the main axis of political questions all of these populists they've moved to another axis which is about identity polic politics. Uh so it's a 2x two matrix now. And in the identity politics, it's about it's about your ethnicity. It's about the other immigrants, right? Coming in to take your jobs. And that's how they've captured this very strange thing like including in my own family by the way, a democratic uh Irish Catholic families. He's from, you know, uh Wisconsin. That's where my dad's from. Montana, that's where I'm from. that for decades voted for the Democratic party uh because we were the working class against the the Republicans who are, you know, that's the rich people. Um Trump has managed it by having this different access to appeal to identity politics that say you're getting ripped off because of the color of your skin. Um and he's not the only one. That's happening in all these places. And that also then trends with these anti-democratic ideas that you know maybe democracy is not such a great system of government. I'm still in the long run I'm still pretty optimistic about America but other you know Hungary flipped and what's different between Hungary and America is they didn't have they only had a few years of democracy

>> and it wasn't delivering and that created this space for a guy like Victor Orban. Exact same story in Russia by the way with Vladimir Putin. exactly the same story. He talks in the same way about the immigrants and the the liberals and the the decadent liberal west impinging on our conservative Russian values. That's the way he talks about the world. Um and and and that's why you see uh these this group of people uh they interact with each other all the time. They have their own podcast by the way. Uh, so Infowars, I've never been invited to Infowars. That's a very famous podcast here in the United States. Uh, those guys have on this guy Sasha um, uh, Dugan, and you've never heard of him, but Sasha Dugan, I used to know him when I lived in Russia. He's an illiberal nationalist populist. He's one of Putin's chief ideologues. Um, and I would say he has more ideologically in common with a guy like Steve Bannon uh than I do with Steve Bannon. Even though Steve Bannon and I are both American citizens, actually Dugan and Bannon, I think ideologically are closer together. And that's that's something new.

What about so you talked about identity politics and what's happening internally in some of these countries but how does that translate to foreign policy and isolationism versus kind of being one big global family

>> right well in the three different countries that are the center of my book different ways. So in America it's it's meant this growing isolationist tendency deeper in the Republican party but pretty deep in the Democratic party and it just says you know we did too much abroad we got our problems at home I mean my mom in Montana I have the same argument with her like Ukraine Mike you know you seem so passionate about it why don't you care about us and that's not fair to my mom she cares about people in Ukraine my relatives and sorry Mrs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She Yeah. She won't appreciate me saying that. Um u but but but it's a legitimate I want to be clear. It's a legitimate reaction. I get it. We we tried to do too much. We spent too much elsewhere. People want us to spend more at home. We're in this isolationist move. For Putin. It's a little different. For Putin. He wants to break up the liberal international order. He thinks it's been bad for Russia by the way he defines uh Russian interests. very antithetical to the way my friends in Russia do or my my Russian friends living in exile. But he thinks we'd be better off going back to the 19th century, 18th century spheres of influence and and uh and then second he has this ideological thing that he wants to erode NATO by um you know making ideological bridges with these people that are against the things we were just talking about the Victor Urban Maloney Farage in the UK and Trump and and at least until recently Trump seems to be changing his ways, but that he he wants to just break it up and that he thinks it'll be better. China's got a different game. Uh Xi Jinping has one foot in the old international system. So if President Trump recently was here in New York, gave a speech to the United Nations and he's basically like, I could care less what you guys do. You know, it was like it sounded like we're going to quit the United Nations. Uh Xi Jinping's not doing that. He's got a foot in the United Nations. He they're they're in the peacekeeper groups and the multilateral different pieces of the United Nations because he thinks that helps to advance Chinese interests. And I think he's right about that. And I think it would be a huge mistake if we walked away from the United Nations. But he's also and I think it's actually a playbook from after World War II for us. He's also creating new groups, new clubs, uh, that China is at the center of. He's uniting the autocrats. Uh, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, uh, BRICS, RC, an acronym that I'm I'm sure I can't even remember what that stands for. It's a trade organization to bring together allies of China. Um, AIB, the um, the BR the BRRI, Belt and Road Initiative. I go through all these acronyms in the book and we don't let's not go through individually but he's creating an alternative international order that China will anchor and

>> is he going to be successful? I worry I I think he's being very successful and I think we're asleep at the wheel and and we got to get back to a participating in the old ones by the way that we set up. Like why are we walking away from our clubs, but b get more creative of creating new clubs for democracies like we did after 45 where we brought them together. And um we're just not doing that. we're we're pulling back and I I worry that you know that in the short term we might be okay but you know I've studied the 30s and uh that's when we had a lot of tariff talk that's when we're like you know what's happening over chi Japan invaded China why do why should we care I don't know where that is why do I care and then Hitler and Stalin v both invaded Poland and millions of Americans still said and by the way Stalin later invaded a bunch of other countries and so did Hitler and we kept saying that's not our problem and that tragically in 1941 it became our problem. Uh had we been more engaged in the 30s I think we could have avoided the disaster that was World War II. And I just worry that if we pull back, the Chinese and the Russians aren't pulling back. They're going to get more aggressive and god forbid could pull us into a war, an unended war over Lithuania and Europe. If we're pulling back, we're sending signals of weakness or Taiwan and Asia. I don't think that's in our strategic interest.

talk to me about sort of the China Russia relationship for people who are not that well-versed in terms of the role that they're playing in each other's kind of um position in the world if you will.

>> Yeah, they're playing a big role that we got to pay more attention to. So, generally speaking, I would say that the autocrats are more organized today than the Democrats. Right. We got to get our team together. We got to, you know, we got to start running some plays. We got to start building the same kinds of things that they're doing. Uh think about the the war in Ukraine. Let me rephrase that. The barbaric horrific invasion of Ukraine that Putin launched in 2022. He gets drones from Iran, a dictatorship. He gets uh money and components from China, a dictatorship. And he gets soldiers, think about that for a minute, soldiers from North Korea, another dictatorship. So, they're all helping him out to fight that war. Uh, we got to we got to be as organized as they are. And with Russia and China, they're the two most powerful autocratic countries in the world. China's way more powerful in terms of capabilities. And I go through all that data and summarize it all in the book. Putin is more aggressive with respect to intentions. So, he's weaker, but he's willing to invade countries. Xi Jinping is not invading countries. Xi Jinping is not annexing territory of his neighbors. uh at least not yet. That's a that that's how they're different. Um but they're mostly uh united in opposition to us. Uh because they think that we're threatening their interests and threatening the legitimacy of their regimes. Um and some people think, well, we should do a a reverse Kissinger, right? Remember Kissinger went to China and he peeled them away to to to balance against the Soviets. I I go through could we do that in the book and I just don't see any opportunity for it. I think as long as Putin and she are the two leaders of those countries, they're going to be closely aligned and what we need to do is be as aligned as they are with our allies in Asia and Europe.

>> Like who I mean who uh are should we be working on our relationship with?

>> Well, the president was just I've lost track. Maybe he's already left. He was just in Japan. So in Asia, everything starts with Japan and South Korea. Uh he's about to go to South Korea. Uh Australia, New Zealand, uh uh we got to strengthen those alliances, not not tariff our friends. Uh in this kind of irrational way, uh you know, we got to have some cohesion to that. I just think that's a huge mistake. Uh India is another country that we're now antagonizing. They're a democracy. there's a complicated country because of their relationship with the Soviets and, you know, the non-align movement, but we need them on our side against the autocrats. Uh, in Europe and the NATO alliance, uh, the president's just alienating countries for no good reason, like, you know, the 51st state, Canada. Really, Mr. President? Uh,

>> why do you think he's doing that?

>> I don't know. I honestly don't know. But I have lots of Canadian friends, including senior people in the government. They don't find it humorous. They don't think it's a humorous thing. Uh invading Greenland, another one of our allies, Denmark. Like really, we can do anything we want in Greenland. Uh that we have bases there. We can get minerals from there. Uh we can do it in a cooperative way. Uh and the president, you know, sometimes it's successful coercive diplomacy. And you know, he's done some things I think were successful. What what he did in the Middle East, I applaud that. But for your friends, coercion is not a long-term strategy. So, we're strong enough that we can tell people what to do. Uh, and most countries in the world don't have enough power to not do what we tell them to do, including democracies. But they don't like it. Nobody likes to be coerced into doing things. Um, you know, I grew up in But Montana. Uh, and there was this guy Eddie. But's a really rough town. It's a mining town. Uh, and I was this scrawny little kid. And Eddie Eddie was the bully of the neighborhood. And for like three years of my life, walking home from school, if I ran into Eddie, I had to do whatever what Eddie wanted, you know, give him my coat and and he'd still sometimes beat me up, by the way. But did I like it? So, yeah, I acquiesced uh you know I I submitted to Eddie uh but eventually I got strong enough where I didn't have to do that and and you know, so coercion has this shortterm kind of sugar high that you can bully people but in the long term that's not a great way to have enduring friends and allies and if we're in this struggle between autocrats and Democrats which I think will last for decades we need our allies our democratic allies on our side not just in the immediate run for but for the long term.

>> But how do we reach closer relationships with other democracies if the president increasingly is acting like Putin or she or other autocrats around the world. In other words, it would be one thing if it was a different president

>> shoring up these relationships.

>> That's right. But you've got somebody who is acting a certain way that is more consistent with authoritarians. Yes.

>> Right. I mean,

>> yeah. So, how do you do that?

>> President Trump doesn't frame the world the way I do, right? He doesn't see the world as autocrats and democrats. He sees the world as strong leaders and weak leaders. So, that would be the title of his book, strong leaders versus weak leaders. Um and and he doesn't really discriminate between autocrats and democrats, right? Sometimes he treats autocrats very favorably and you know for a long time that was what he did with Putin and then he

>> loves Victor Orban.

>> Victor Urban is buddy. Yeah. He talks about it all the time. Um

>> kind of his role model.

>> He he celebrates I'm not sure he really understands what's going on in Hungary but he most certainly that's in his mindset. Victor Urban that's a good European you know uh Macron bad European right and so while you have that attitude um you know my strategy in terms of engagement either with the administration or in commenting on it is to reduce the amount of damage we do in the short run and by the way we've achieved some things uh when I was finishing this book right around the time that president was uh won the second time I was worried we're going to withdraw from NATO. I mean, he was talking about it. Uh, we haven't done that. That's that's that's an achievement. Uh, the way he talks about Putin today, he's a little more critical of Putin. That's an achievement of of trying to say this strategy is not working. But my book's not just written for Secretary Rubio and the people around uh the president right now. My book's written for people for decades to make the argument uh a for the next president why this strategy is better than this the one that we're currently on and b to you know future leaders like I hope some kid in Texas I was just at UT Arlington uh and I was talking to a bunch of young students you know I hope that they'll read the book and when they take over 20 years from now they'll realize that engagement's better than going alone own isolationist tendencies. So this is a long-term kind of fight about ideas within the United States of America.

>> You write that China is not an existential threat to the free world and

>> that's controversial.

>> Yes, I was agrees with that. Um but it doesn't sound like you I mean

>> you position them early in our conversation as I think as significant threats. So, so which is it, Mike?

>> Great question. And it and it's a complicated question and that's and we need complicated diagnostics if we're going to prevail. Um, and and so existential threat means a threat to your existence. That's literally what the word means. I looked at the data. I spent years going through trying to learn about China's capabilities and tensions. Uh, and I could be wrong. I want to be I want to be clear about this. You know, we're all guessing about Xi Jinping and and even I'm not a China expert, but I know all the China experts in America and in China and they're all guessing and arguing amongst themselves. So, I could be wrong. But I don't see the data to support the idea that Xi Jinping wants to destroy America. I just don't see it. I think he has a different strategy. He has a more uh he wants to preserve his dictatorship. That's his number one priority. and he wants to support other autocrats around the world. That's his secondary priority. But he's not seeking to fment a Marxist Leninist revolution here in the United States. I just don't if he is, he's hiding it well and he's not achieving many results, right? I don't see a lot of demonstrations in America about we need more Xi Jinping thought here. Uh, by the way, that's different than the Soviets, right? The Soviets had that aspiration. I don't think he does. Do they still

>> the Russian

>> the Soviets?

>> No, the Russians still

>> I mean the Russians now they they want to they want America to be weaker. They want us to you know they want their ideological friends to be on their side but but the idea to to to destroy America I don't I don't think I think Putin even Putin who is not uh you know somebody I'm very critical of um he's pretty critical of me too by the way. Uh I don't think that's in his game plan. But aren't they go but before I forget but that doesn't mean that they're not a significant threat to American security and prosperity and our values. So it's somewhere in between

>> somewhere between serious and existential.

>> Yes. And that that's where we got to be. Uh I use the word Goldilocks solutions many times in this book. Uh and it's partly because I think we're just way too polarized as a country and we're way too polarized in our foreign policy. So, you know, the China debate is either you're a hawk or a dove. And I hate both of those terms. I just I didn't like them in the Soviet period. I don't like them for Russia because it just it just you have to have a you have to have an assessment of the threat and then develop a strategy to advance our national interests. And sometimes with China that means confrontation. So my book I talk about we need to prevent war over Taiwan. that I think that's a really important thing for all American leaders to do and that means spending more for their defense and they need to spend more on their defense and China will see that as confrontational. We got to live with that and at the same time we should be cooperating more with China on issues of climate change. I I I just think it's crazy uh that this is a real threat to America and by the way an existential threat uh climate change. I think the president is 100% wrong on this that we're going to pull out uh and and you know he's got these crazy ideas about how solar and wind are bad. By the way, the Chinese are investing a lot in those. But we should be cooperating with them at that. And I think that mix cooperation and containment is the right strategy for dealing with China.

>> Why do Russia and why do both Russia and China want to get America to be as polarized as possible? I mean, you can't, you know, you always hear about these Russian bots seeding seeding discontent and they're there

>> and uh China too, right? I mean, so so

>> why are they doing that?

>> Well, they're doing it. They're very active. Uh Putin more active. And especially in 2016, uh you know, there's this new mythology that this is Russia hoax. And if you say it a million times, Americans believe it. It was not a hoax. It was real. They stole emails from the Democratic party uh and and put them out to weaken Hillary Clinton. That's just a fact. Uh, and you know, if you disagree with me, be in touch. I've written a lot about it. Did it have an impact on the 2016 election? We haven't been able to measure that. We social scientists, right?

>> Well, how can you really measure something like that?

>> It's very difficult. And that that I think we just need to be able to say both those things at the same time. But did they want to? Absolutely. If you read Russia today, uh, they are seeking to divide and polarize our society every single day. Um and and by the way, they're out there on our platforms. Um and the reason is it's I think it's really clear uh pretty straightforward. If we're fighting amongst ourselves, we're not fighting them. Uh and one of the big themes of my book, so I compare Cold War to today, right? And we already talked about it, similarities and differences. Uh and they're both and I have, you know, my book talk, I have, you know, charts of similarities and differences. We won't go through them all because it's a long list. But a big difference uh we already talked about isolationism in America. But another big difference is our level of polarization inside our country. Now we had we had polarization in the late60s and early '7s. People forget that and it was it w that was real. But this is worse. And that helps our enemies. And and you know, my greatest threat is actually not the Chinese and the Russians, but ourselves. If we continue down this path, we're going to weaken our economy. We're going to weaken our ability to inspire people abroad. Um, and that serves our adversaries, does not serve America.

>> So, how do we get out of this mess? according to if if if you know the world according to Mike McFall.

>> Yes.

>> Um how do we stop this trajectory of growing autocracies all over the globe including at home uh and and get back to a more sort of uh cooperative global order and and go from disorder to order.

>> Yeah, again, big hard question. Uh, it took me three chapters to answer your question. So, I have, and by the way, my editor really did not like this.

>> I was gonna say, can you can you write this book, Autocrats Versus Democrats for Dummies?

>> Well, uh, I have a great slide deck. Uh, and we're going to post it on your website. Okay, great.

>> I I can I can do this book in 35 minutes. Remember that name that tune show? name that I can I can summarize this book in 35 minutes with a lot of uh great slides and great photos.

>> Well, like you should do a TED talk and then we can Yeah. and push that up because it's so honestly there's it's so complicated, Mike, because it's involving history and wars and

>> various governments all over the world. I think it's a lot to put to get your arms around.

>> It is. Uh and that's I will send you the talk. Um uh but but I I just so you know the the first draft was 1,200 pages long and had 6,000 notes. So it took me two years to make it 500. But I do so without apology because the world is complex and I worry there are too many populists in the world including in our country that just make everything super simple, manachian, black and white, you know, enemies and and friends. And that I think was going to get us in trouble. But to answer your big question, um, with a few quick sentences. Um, one, um, I have a I have a a chapter on mistakes during the Cold War that we shouldn't repeat. Uh, we'll come back to that in a minute. But the the core chapter, we did do some things right during the Cold War. And I think we need to get back to doing them. And that the list is really simple. One, allies. That was our superpower during the Soviets. We need them today. We got to stop pissing off our allies. We need to strengthen them. Two, the American economy. Why did we win the Cold War ultimately? Because we outperformed the Soviets. The West Germans outperformed the East Germans. The South Koreans outperformed the North Koreans. We have to keep our economy strong. We're doing pretty well on that. I'm not sure if it's because or in spite of Trump's policies. Do you worry about that it's going to stay steady given sort of the tariff situation and everything else that that the chickens will come home to roost and hurt us economically?

>> I I worry a lot about it and three the big things I worry about one tariffs two immigration policy. How do we win the Cold War? The best and the brightest came from all over the world including China and Russia to Silicon Valley and other places to help us and we're shutting that down. uh and I worry maybe this sounds parochial as a Stanford professor but a a genius thing we did during the cold war was we invested in research and development we created the best universities in the world and that helped us win the cold war that's what the Chinese are doing now and we're not doing it in the long term I worry a lot about that

>> and immigrants in many ways are the backbone of the economy too

>> of course and we can't we are we will that's a a strength we have if we use it properly vis not just the people who are, you know, graduate students. I'm talking about the people who are helping farmers on, you know, in I mean,

>> building houses in Montana. I just was talking to some contractors there. These tariffs and immigration policies are hurting contractors in Montana.

>> So, that that is one one area you say. So, keep the economy strong,

>> allies, economy. Third, uh, instead of breaking down the trade and investment world in the free world like the president's doing, we need to rebuild it. Now, we made mistakes. I got it. But, but, but the the answer to the mistakes of the World Trade Organization is not to blow it up. It's to reform it. So, get back to that, especially in the free world. And then fourth, uh, and finally, get back to supporting democracy, freedom, liberty. Choose your word, right? I I want to do it in a nonpartisan way. That was crucial to winning the last struggle between autocrats and Democrats in the Cold War. Uh and we're just we're just shutting it all down. So USAD, US Agency for International Development, created by John F. Kennedy in 1961. It's not an accident. That's the height of the Cold War. When he rightfully decided we needed to compete with the Soviets in the developing world with economic assistance, President Trump just shut it down. Let let me tell you, the Chinese are not shutting down their belt and road initiative. They're expanding it. Um

>> in Africa and all over the world, right?

>> And we're offering nothing. Voice of America, uh, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia. These are all, uh, you know, government subsidized um, media, and there's problems with it, and I've written a hundred articles about that. But shutting it down, that's not prudent. Reform it, make it more independent. The Chinese are not shutting that down. Uh, National Endowment for Democracy. So, I'm going to be Republican here, right? Nonpartisan. I I mentioned Kennedy. Let me mention Ronald Reagan. By the way, a lot of the themes of this book echo a lot of Ronald Reagan. I would never have imagined as a kid when I protested against Reagan in his embrace of the aparttheid regime in South Africa that I'd say that. But I am saying that um it was something called the National Endowment for Democracy when he had this idea we should provide assistance to small D democrats around the world. Uh and now the president and his team they're shutting institutions like that down. So, I think getting back to that, uh, those four things will be fine. But then you asked about the inside the United States, and that's harder. Uh, one, because I'm not I don't pretend to be an expert. Uh, but I I have I have some ideas in the book. Anyway, um, and you said if McFall could be Zar, uh, there are definitely institutional reforms for our democracy we we could do to reduce polarization. Our campaign finance laws are just atrocious. Uh uh we need we need more transparency and we need more equality of who can fund them. Uh redistricting, you know, we're going through this crazy time. I'm out in California and you know, it's Prop 50 and we're I I voted for it uh for next Tuesday because we have to respond to Texas. But uh but thankfully the the resolution in in California says it'll just be temporary. We can't just have these uh places with no competition in electoral districts because that means the most radical in both the Democratic party uh and the Republican party win. We got to get rid of that. Uh and even the electoral college, I mean, I know this is going to sound like blasphemy, but that is not a Democratic institution. Um

>> well, I don't know if it's blasphemous.

You're not the first person to say that. I, I get, I, on the, when I'm talking about this book and I mention it, I get a lot of flack, like, how dare you, that's our system. Well, when that constitution was written, we also had slavery. You know, I mean, we need to update that. And doing so would reduce polarization because with the Electoral College today, millions of Americans, including a lot of Republicans in California, I don't know if people know this, but there are millions and millions of people that voted for Donald Trump in the state of California, and they don't get any attention during the election because we all know it's going to go blue. If you got rid of the Electoral College and every person's vote mattered, you would have a different, you would have a different set of campaigning.

Um, and the last thing I'll say, um, just in a note of optimism, I, I do think it's our elites and our media and our camp folks that fund the campaigns that have pulled us in this polarization way. Um, and the reason I think that is I'm from Montana. I have, I have relatives who voted for Donald Trump. Uh, my former high school debate partner, uh, that, that's how I got interested in Russia. He's a senator, Senator Steve Daines. He's a Republican. Uh, and I got to tell you, when I'm chatting with my relatives and friends back home, we agree on 80%. Uh, you know, there are marginal things we disagree about. Uh, I just don't think most Americans are as polarized as elites. I think we're mostly purple. Um, and one of the data points, um, uh, that gives me hope, uh, I worked on Barack Obama's campaign very proudly and then worked for him for five years. Do you know that he got 47% of the vote in my home state of Montana? 47%. McCain got 49. Now, that was a while ago, but it wasn't a hundred years ago. And just let me tell all your viewers and listeners, uh, we don't have a lot of black people in Montana. So, that's Barack Obama used to say that all the time. He says, "There's not a lot of, there's not a lot of my people there, but I'm going to win the state." Uh, and he, he's a super competitive guy, by the way. I, I've played basketball with him once, so we went 0 for three and I thought he was going to fire me that day. Uh, he's super competitive. He really wanted to win Montana. But I tell you that because preferences don't change that fast. That was just 2008. It's not like there's been this radical change and and I do think, um, these institutional changes could get us there, but maybe some leaders that also didn't talk in such polarizing ways. Uh, I think that would could help us get it get us to more consensus because we, for the things I worry about, we need it. If we don't get our act together domestically, we're going to have a lot of troubles on the international stage.

>> But I know we wanted to leave on a hopeful note, but when you say that, I have to say, what do you envision? Because honestly, I don't see any signs that we are going to become less polarized. In fact, it feels like we're only going to get more polarized. Um, at least, you know, uh, if you look, I mean, we could have a longer conversation about whether it's the media and, you know, Jonathan Haidt wrote that great article about why the last 10 years have been uniquely stupid and talking about extremists having more of a voice on social media, but let's say we don't >> become less polarized, we don't have leaders that appeal to our better angels, right? And we have people who are are sewing anger and discontent and enragement through engagement. Uh >> so, so >> what, what does that look like in 10 years? Not only what you were saying about your fears about the world stage. >> Yeah. >> I mean, get, paint the worst-case scenario for me. >> Well, I'll paint it and then I'm going to come back to the best case because, uh, because I'm doing all I can to fight against it. The worst case is that we just become a, you know, it's happened to many countries before where we become a middle power. We come, we're a declining power, a world dominated by the Chinese and the Russians and everybody's buying their goods and trading with them. We become poor as a result of that. We most certainly will become poor. If we're an island with our tariffs in, in a world that's run by the Chinese, we become poor here in the United States. There's just no doubt about that. Um,

>> What about making America great again, Mike? >> Well, those, those, we're not doing that and we need to get back to that. I, I want to make America, I think America's pretty great already, by the way. >> Well, and that, that's a pretty loaded statement anyway. And you know, hearkens back to a very different time. >> To the 1930s. That's where the America First Committee and well, that's a good analogy. You know, you do, if you follow these isolationist policies and these divisions at home, I mean, we had full-blown Nazis, you know, in America, millions of them. I didn't learn that as a kid in Montana. I've learned it to write this book. Uh, that was a, that was a bad course we were on. That, that was not going well. >> And now we have a lot of neo-Nazis here. >> We do. Uh, but we also have a lot of people that are not neo-Nazis, and we have a lot of people that do believe in democracy versus not. Uh, the data is on my side on that here in America. Uh, it's, and it's on my side around the world. I think most people agree with Churchill, who's, I'm paraphrasing, but he said, you know, democracy is a horrible system of government except for all those others tried, and the data shows that people in all over the world tend to agree with Churchill, different variations. So that makes me optimistic. But the second thing, the optimistic note that, that might be analytically where we're going, right? Like as a social scientist, if I put on my political science hat and I have to look at the data, that may be where we're going. Or if I was briefing a bank, which I sometimes do, and they say, they always say, "Give me your base case scenario where they want my analysis." I might have to say, "Well, that's where we're going." But I'm not just a social scientist. I'm an American. Uh, and I don't like where we're going. Uh, and I wrote this book in part to make the case for why there's a better strategy for us to, for our national interests abroad. Uh, including reducing polarization at home. That, that leads to a better world for my kids and hopefully grandkids. Uh, more prosperous, more secure, more free world both at home in America. I, I outline what those ideas are and then we got to get out there and fight for them and and part of what I'm going to do with this book is go to places where I was just at the University of South Carolina last week, right? And not everybody in that room agrees with me, and I'm glad to be in that room. I just been to Texas twice. I'm going to Texas. You're from Texas, right? >> No, I'm not from Texas. >> Virginia. You're from the other Arlington. >> Our other Arlington. I was just in UT Arlington, uh, last week, and I'm going back for two more stops in Texas, going to Montana, Idaho, Ohio, Pennsylvania. I won't go through the whole list, but, but I'm not going to Yale and Princeton and Harvard. Um, I, I kind of know what those debates are. Um, and I want to tell you two things. Um, one, everywhere I go, the rooms are completely sold out. So when people say Americans don't care about, uh, foreign policy, that's not true, uh, in San Antonio or Arlington or Columbia. Uh, and I get it. There's selection bias, who comes to see McFaul. I get it. I get it. But, but I get bigger crowds in those places than I do in Palo Alto or Washington D.C. Um, and people are not all agreeing with me, but people want to have this conversation. Be, and, and one other really surprising thing. There's this sense that all we care about is our material interests and money and we got to cut foreign assistance because it's too much money and actually it's just a fraction. That, that's a narrative that's out there. The president wants you to believe that. My biggest applause lines are when I say, uh, in the fight between Putin and Zelensky, I want America to be on the side of good versus evil. And I use that language on purpose because I think it is a fight between good and evil. And it's a fight between democracy and autocracy. And it's a fight between imperialism and a country that's fighting for its independence. And when I say those things, that's when people stand up and applaud. So, I'm not willing to accept that we're all just cynical people caring about ourselves. I actually think we care about right and wrong. Um, and if I'm wrong, I'm going to spend a lot of time, uh, proving myself wrong by talking about this book around the country.

This future you envision, can it happen if if MAGA is the leading political philosophy or at least in a position of power in this country, or does that have to change? >> No, it has to change. Um, but I'm optimistic there, too. MAGA is not the most, they're a minority in America. Let's be clear. The data is just overwhelmingly clear. They're, they're a minority within the Republican party. It's kind of 50/50 there, but then there's a lot of other Americans. There's all the people in the Democratic party and then there's most of America, 40% I think are independent and don't vote. So, there's a lot of people that disagree with that. Um, but then you got to fight for that, too. I want to be clear, this is not going to just happen. Uh, I, I, the epitaph in the book is, "The arc of," now I'm going to, "The arc of the universe bends is long, but it bends towards justice." Yes. Yeah. Wait, is it, what is it? The arc of history >> is long >> long, but it bends towards justice. >> You can look it up. Uh >> Well, your, your former boss Barack Obama made that famous. >> And I, I used to see it. I used to go, go into the Oval Office and I would see it there every day. But I add in my own words, but it doesn't bend alone. We got to bend it that way. We got to fight for it that way. And, um, with, with respect to democracy in America, this is the biggest challenge to our democratic institutions of my lifetime by far. And people more expert than I, I'm not an expert on America, but they would, they go back to the Civil War to say this is as big as that. Um, but I know we've talked about some of the other countries, Victor Orbán, Vladimir Putin. >> Oh, I saw the, I saw the protests in Hungary over the weekend. >> So they're fighting. They're back. Um, that's, that's an amazing thing. Um, and, and the difference between early Hungary and especially Russia, two big things. So there are parallels between Trump and Putin. I've, I wrote that piece first in 2017, by the way, where I just saw he's rolling back the press. He's all the oligarchs are coming towards Trump. Uh, and it, it was slower, but this time around it, man, it feels like early Putin era, right? Um, who's, who owns the media, right? And then who shows up to the inauguration and then took off Jimmy Kimmel, right? That reminds me of, um, there was a show called "Klyuyev" uh that Putin took off because he, he didn't like being >> because they were making fun of him. >> They were making fun of him, and he took it off. >> Wasn't it a puppet show? >> It was a puppet show. It's fantastic. Fantastic. It was so funny. It was so good. They made fun of everybody, by the way. They didn't just make fun of Putin, but he didn't like, I think it was the height stuff that really got under his skin. He's, he's a pretty short man. Um, so I see those tendencies, but I also see, uh, protest. A lot of people dropped Apple, you know, uh, over the protest. Oh, no, Disney, excuse me. Sorry, Apple. Uh, Disney. I, I was one of them, by the way. I canceled. I didn't even know we had it. Uh, but, but when I figured out we did, that mattered. Um, the "No Kings" protest, millions of people showed up. Uh, that matters. So I, you know, you can see it half empty, half full. I'm cautiously optimistic that our institutions are stronger than, uh, the early Putin era, right? You wouldn't, we wouldn't be doing this three years into the Putin era if this were, uh, a parallel. Um, and two, and, and we have governors and we have a party that could be a little stronger in my view, an opposition party, but, um, we do have more independent media than the Russians had. They just had one channel. >> For now. >> For now, but then we got to fight for it. We got to fight for it. Um, and we also have something that the Russians didn't have in that they had just had about a decade of an experiment with democracy, and it wasn't delivering, just like a lot of Americans think our democracy wasn't delivering. But we've had 200 years of this. It wasn't an accident that that protest was called "No Kings" because that goes back to 1776, not just back a few years. >> Well, more almost 250. >> Almost 250 years. Yeah, actually, we'll celebrate that next year. So I, I just think we, you just can't sit on your couch and cry about it. That will not make our country better. But I, I'm cautiously optimistic that that democracy will not collapse and that we might get back to some more Goldilocks solutions that I write about as opposed to this extremism.

I can't let you go without asking you since I call you all the time anytime something happens with, uh, Russia and Ukraine, to get your latest take on the situation. Honestly, it's very hard for the average person to keep up with. Is Putin, you know, on the outs? Is, you know, Donald Trump trying to cozy up to him? Does he hate Zelensky? Does he like Zelensky? Is he insulting Zelensky? Is he embracing Zelensky? So, what is the latest and how do you see this getting sorted out if it does? Well, it's understandable that it's hard to follow because it changes every three days. And with President Trump, uh, you know, President Trump used to be consistent on Putin, right? We've talked about that for many years. He used to love Putin. He was this guy. When they met in 2018 at their big summit in Helsinki, Putin said, you know, we have these Americans we'd like to interrogate. And he handed the list. And Trump said, "That's a great idea." And I was on the list. So, I remember those days in a very personal way. Um, he, you know, lately Trump's been all over the board. Um, and I think he's finally figuring out that >> he can't trust Putin. >> Yeah. He's, you know, it should have taken him, shouldn't have taken him this long. But Putin's playing for him. He, he gave him all these concessions and Putin overreached. He asked for more, and I think that that upset the president. I'm glad about that. But then, you know, there, there just last week, the, there are a bunch of Ukrainians in town. Uh, and then Zelensky came on Friday and was going well. I, I, I heard lots of good readouts of those meetings, and then Putin out of the blue calls Trump, and they have a good call, and then he says, "Let's go meet in Hungary." And then the meeting with Zelensky turned out to be not very friendly. Right? So, I just wish the president would have a little more consistency on what he's doing. But the, where we're at tragically is not that different since the last time we talked. Uh, the war continues. Putin continues to kill lots of civilians. He thinks that's the way he's going to exhaust that country. Uh, incrementally, Russians are taking more and more Ukrainian territory, incrementally. Little bits and pieces, v, you know, small villages with killing lots of Russians to take them. But that's the trend line. Uh, and therefore, if we want to end this war, we have to stop that forward progress. Wars end in two ways: stalemate on the battlefield or one side wins. It's very rare that there are different kinds of outcomes. And I think stalemate is a necessary condition to get Putin to negotiate. And that means we need to help with more weapons and more sanctions for Zelensky. Um, and I'm glad that the president is selling weapons to our European allies to give to Ukraine. But I got to tell you, as an American, I'm also embarrassed by that. You know, the president talks all the time about burden sharing, and I, I appreciate that we should share the burden with, with respect to NATO, but why not share the burden with respect to Ukraine? Uh, and that American companies are making money off of the war in Ukraine, and we're not helping the Ukrainians. We, the American taxpayers. I just think that's morally wrong. And I also don't think it's in our national interest. If we stop Putin in Ukraine, that means we don't have the threat of war, uh, in Lithuania that would drag us into a war because of our NATO allies. If we stop Putin in Ukraine, that makes Xi Jinping think a little harder about invading Taiwan. And if we stop him there, uh, it makes the rest of the world lean a little bit more towards the democratic countries and a little away from the autocratic countries. So I actually think the, the stakes could not be higher, and we got to get more engaged.

>> So what, what is going to happen now? He is meeting with Putin, right? Uh, how likely is it that the US will stop Putin and stop this war? And how long can Zelensky and Ukraine hang on? Mike. >> Well, they're struggling. I just met with some warriors from Ukraine just a few days ago. Uh, and I'm always amazed by two things: just their incredible resilience. Uh, I just met with, I don't think she'd mind me talking about it, somebody's been fighting on the front line the entire war. Uh, volunteered, a woman, uh, when her country was invaded, became a sharpshooter, became a sniper, uh, and is now working on counter-intelligence, um, more fit to use her capabilities. Um, and I, I have the privilege of interacting with Ukrainians pretty much every day. Uh, sometimes here, sometimes, uh, over various ways of communication. And the way I would describe it is they're exhausted. Uh, they need more soldiers. Uh, and they're worried about what's going to happen to their country. Uh, but they also don't really have options. Uh, uh, one of my Ukrainian friends, uh, very vividly said when I asked him your question, he said to me, "Mike, I want to quote that grand military strategist Mike Tyson, uh, the boxer." And he said, Mike Tyson asks was once asked, "Don't you get tired in the 12th or 13th round and you just feel like quitting?" And he said, 'Of course I feel like quitting, but I know that the consequences of of quitting are much worse than the consequences of keep fighting.' Uh, and that's the Ukrainian mentality. There's a, there's a myth sometimes here in America that I encounter that if the Ukrainians just stop fighting, uh, Putin will stop fighting. No, he won't. He'll just keep killing Ukrainians and he'll march all the way to Kyiv and he'll take their entire country. So they don't have a choice, and therefore stalemate is the answer. And I, I want to be cautiously optimistic. There, there's been some drone technology breakthrough. There's been these longer-range missiles that we, we haven't given the Ukrainians, but they are developing their own that I think could help shift the balance of power to be more equal. That might create the permissive conditions for a ceasefire. But we're not there yet.

Ideally, I mean, I, if, if you were advising Donald Trump prior to this meeting with Putin, >> what would you, in the best of all possible worlds, want him to say to Vladimir Putin to stop this war? >> I think he needs to credibly say to Putin, if they meet, uh, because there's some talk that they might not meet right away. There's a bunch of garble about it as they're often times keep up with it. >> To the point, I mean, you know, they say the meeting's on and then they haven't, we'll see. They may meet somewhere else, but they'll eventually talk that the president, you know, he believes in engagement, and I, I support that, by the way. He's got to talk to him. Uh, but he has to credibly commit to being with Ukraine for the long haul because Putin believes, uh, in fact, I'll, I'll say this as an anecdote. As I was leaving Moscow in 2014, 14, in the buildup to the first invasion of Ukraine, it actually happened the day I left Moscow. That's just a coincidence. >> I was going to say, they thought McFaul's gone. Yeah, McFaul's gone. That was just a coincidence. But I was on my way out and, and it was clear that this was brewing, and, um, and I met, you know, Putin and I, we did not have a good relationship, but I actually, it's your job as an ambassador to deal with the government. I knew a lot of the people very close to him, and I had a long dinner, uh, with the first deputy prime minister on my way out, and we talked about this, and he said, "Mike, uh, we believe we have two great advantages over you when it comes to Ukraine. One, we care more because they're our neighbors there." And he, and we would add, they're our Slavic brothers and sisters, which that's a, that's wrong, but that's what they think. They, they think Ukrainians are just Russians with accents. They're, they're not. Uh, but one, we care more. And two, you Americans have very short attention spans. >> I knew you were going to say that. >> And he said that was 2014. He said that to me, and I think Putin's banking on both those things. Um, and so President Trump needs to tell him that he's wrong about that. Uh, that we're not going to go away, that we're going to be there for as long as it takes. Um, and Trump, this is a great trump card. He has. I was trying to think of a different word. This is a great, uh, instrument of leverage he has, that he is not known for somebody with a long attention span. He is not known for somebody that cares about Ukraine. Uh, so if he says it, uh, that has way more weight than, you know, McFaul or even Senator Rubio. He has that credibility. Trump does, ironically. So that's what he should say, and then he should back up his words with actions. That, you know, part of the problem with Trump is every now and then he'll say something tough and he doesn't follow through sometimes, and I think, you know, new sanctions, I just did a few new ones, I, I applaud that. New sanctions and new weapons would would show that you're backing up your words with actions.

>> Well, to be continued. I'm sure I'll be calling you after that meeting if it ever happens. Tragically, I think this is going to go on for a while, so we can talk again. >> Well, the book is "Autocrats vs. Democrats." How many years in the making? Six >> Off and on. You know, I had a day job. I ran a big institute, and I, I teach at Stanford, so it wasn't like I was working on it full-time, but, but it's been many years. The most ambitious book I've ever written. Um, but it's also the most important, given what you and I were just talking about. Uh, this is a fight for our future. Um, so I do think it's the most important book I've ever written. >> Well, thank you so much for sharing your perspective, not just obviously talking about this book, Mike, but for your willingness to talk to me on a Saturday afternoon when I call you at the last minute and say, "Can you please do a live interview with me?" I, I, so we all appreciate you're being so, um, accessible and, um, available and instructive on all these very complex but vitally important issues. So great to see you. >> Thank you for having me. It's always fun to talk to you.