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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good Monday morning, everyone. To our Jewish listeners, I hope you had a warm and wonderful Passover Seder this weekend. To our Christian listeners, happy Easter week. To our Muslim listeners, Ramadan begins two weeks from today. Did you know that? Last April on the show when the pandemic was new and lockdown at its most intense, some of you will remember we did a virtual Seder, a virtual Easter service, and a virtual Ramadan observance on this show when almost nobody was getting together in groups. This year, we're in a very different somewhat hybrid even confusing place.

One Jewish family I know had a Seder last night led by a family elder who had about a dozen family members in their home around a big table. Then, about five other households from the extended family in much smaller groups in each case joining on Zoom. It's one family, but maybe representative of the hybrid moment we're in with different people having different vaccination status and different people having different comfort levels vaccinated or not. Here we go into spring religious holiday season. Later in the week, we'll take your calls on how you and your family are observing Passover or Easter this week differently or not from last year. In two weeks, we'll do it for Ramadan.

When that begins later in this show, we'll compare the persistence of COVID in New York and New Jersey. They are not the same right now. Meanwhile, Jewish listeners, enjoy the leftover gefilte fish and that sinus-clearing horseradish, whoop. One thing that's very different from last year at Passover and Easter and Ramadan time, Joe Biden is president, and Antony Blinken a devoted internationalist is Secretary of State. Yet knowing that someone like Donald Trump or maybe Trump himself might be elected again in 2024, that has many of our allies not trusting what they see.

I'm going to play a few clips in this segment of the new Secretary of State on CNN on their program, State of the Union yesterday with Dana Bash. Then we'll talk about what these clips mean with Gabe Debenedetti, national correspondent for New York Magazine, who has a major piece coming out tomorrow about Blinken. Spoiler alert, there's a theme to the clips that we're going to hear like this. Asked about whether the Biden administration will punish China for unleashing the coronavirus on the world. Blinken only wanted to talk about the future really.

Antony Blinken: Look, I think there's a report coming out shortly by the World Health Organization. We've got real concerns about the methodology and the process that went into that report including the fact that the government of Beijing apparently helped to write it. Let's see what comes out in that report. We do need to have both accountability for the past, but I think our focus needs to be on building a stronger system for the future.

Brian: He's not interested in escalating with China in that way like Trump might have been. Asked about US opposition to Germany building a big pipeline for oil imports from Russia. Like why make Europe dependent on Russian oil and give Putin that much power to blackmail the West, Blinken did not want to emphasize our difference with Germany on that.

Antony: Germany is one of our closest allies and partners anywhere in the world. [chuckles] One of the things that really came out from the conversations this week is that in so many different areas that are having an impact on the lives of our citizens, we are working closely together. The fact that we have a difference over this pipeline is not going to change that, but we do have a difference.

President Biden has been very clear for a long time that he thinks the pipeline is a bad deal and a bad idea. It undermines European energy security. In fact, it undermines the very principles that the Europeans have agreed on about the need to diversify energy sources and supply to make sure they're not reliant on any one country, especially not Russia.

Brian: Secretary of State Antony Blinken. By the way, it's Antony, not Anthony. On CNN State of the Union yesterday, and we'll play a few more clips as we go, but I think you get the theme. After Trump blew up relationships with allies and international institutions over individual disagreements with them, Joe Biden and Antony Blinken are about relationship, relationship, relationship.

With that, let's bring in New York Magazine national correspondent, Gabe Debenedetti, who's got a few interesting things going on. He's writing a book about the Joe Biden, Barack Obama relationship. He's got a major new article dropping tomorrow with the title, I think I can't say on the radio. Based on the PDF they sent me, it looks like secretary Swell on a PO-D planet. Hi, Gabe. Welcome back to WNYC.

Gabe Debenedetti: Hi, Brian. It's always great to be here.

Brian: We're not supposed to say the whole word for PO-D, but am I reading that title right? My display on the PDF file was a little weird.

Gabe: You're not misreading it. The idea is something that you were just alluding to. Which is that the world that secretary Blinken, but also President Biden have inherited from their predecessors is a suspicious one. Obviously, allies are very, very happy to have the US back. As Biden likes to say and as Blinken has come to say too in terms of rebuilding those relationships, trying to re-establish some predictability and trust with some close allies, especially those in Europe, but this is a world that just experienced the Trump years too. Obviously, in a different way than a lot of listeners have here in the US, but this is a world that saw Trump scrapping all sorts of international deals.

Really not being very predictable on all sorts of things. You have a planet now, including a number of allies who are wary right now and recalibrating what they want the world to look like. When I spent some time with Blinken in writing this, and he said over and over, "We're not trying to recreate pre-Trump world because we just know that's not a possibility." The idea here was to try and lay out what his task is now and what the Biden administration's task and the rest of the world is.

Brian: Here's another one from CNN yesterday morning asked about whether to keep President Trump's promise to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by May 1st, Blinken noted that he's in Europe right now meeting with allies from NATO.

Antony: Well, the one and only time NATO's Article 5, an attack on one is an attack on all has been invoked was actually in defense of the United States after we attacked on 9/11. We have a deep sense of gratitude to our European partners for that. One of the things that was important was not only to share our thinking as we're going through this review, including the May 1st deadline, but to listen, to hear from our partners who also invested their ideas, their thoughts, their analysis. That's exactly what I did. I listened very carefully, I phoned back to Washington, spoke to the president to relay the views of our allies and partners. That's going to factor into his thinking and into the decisions he makes.

Brian: Gabe, I pulled out that theme from all those answers that Blinken gave to Dana Bash yesterday. Did you hear it the same way where they all sort of other piece?

Gabe: Yes. He has been very consistent and this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Tony Blinken has known the world for a long time and has known other world leaders for a long time. He didn't just disappear over the last few years. He knew what was going on. He's been at Joe Biden's side for nearly two decades now. Of course, Biden is someone who also has been a player on the international stage for a long time not even just when he was the vice president, but prior to that, he was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was out there and they know these allies well, but they're not surprised is what I picked up to find that allies are questioning and are wary.

You brought up earlier or you've replayed the clip earlier of Blinken acknowledging that the German government, for example, is not happy with the way that the United States has expressed opposition to a Russian-German pipeline. Well, it's a pretty open complication or wrinkle in an otherwise close relationship. Emmanuel Macron has gone around talking about the idea of building more autonomy in the relationship. An undercurrent to some of this is that while pretty much without fail, allies have been extremely relieved to have the predictability and normalcy of the Biden administration.

A number of them said to me, "Listen, there's nothing that Biden and Blinken can say to prove to us that in four years things just won't go back to the way that they just were." Blinken to his credit said, "Listen, I won't be able to convince anyone of that so I'm not going to try. What we're just going to try and do is institutionalize and make as permanent as possible as much of the previous kind of relationship as possible." Also, to reimagine what kind of American liberal diplomacy looks like in this 21st century with an ascended China with Russia being more open about some of its provocations and with the rest of the world watching very closely.

Brian: To that point, as big-think as possible, Gabe, you write in your article that if there's a Biden doctrine on foreign policy, it's like Barack Obama's, but slightly more idealistic. How is Biden more idealistic than Obama?

Gabe: Well, obviously some of this remains to be seen. I wrote that this is provisional because, of course, it's the early days. While Biden has obviously engaged a lot in the foreign realm, he's not even through first 100 days, and he's had to deal with a lot, but the idea here is to really rely a lot on allies, or on the power of alliances, I should say, but also to rely very heavily on the example of American democracy as being important for showing the rest of the world the way to get things done.

Obviously, that's been challenged in recent years, but especially in recent months, which is something I talked about with Blinken extensively, and is one of the central themes of this article that I've written, but the idea is to use the example of how the United States works through its problems publicly and openly to try and show the rest of the world how an ideally working, functioning-- Ideally, probably isn't the right word, but how a functioning democracy or semi-functioning one should work.

Of course, the corollary to some of this is Biden was often during the Obama years, one of the figures who was more hesitant to use force internationally. He, for example, was one of the leading voices trying to draw down troops in Afghanistan from the early days of the administration, and Blinken was right there within him. Blinken is a little bit more interventionist in the past, but only a little bit more. The idea here is they're likely not going to want to get into the same kinds of entanglements that the Obama administration sometimes got in or they'll be more willing to extract themselves from them, I should say.

Brian: People who followed foreign policy during the Obama administration probably know that there was a difference on Afghanistan, on how to respond to Syria, and some other things between Hillary Clinton, in particular, who is more hawkish, and Joe Biden, who is more dovish, right?

Gabe: That's right, and Barack Obama. Obama, Biden, and Clinton, who are three pieces of this relationship, probably the most important three pieces for a lot of these debates often disagreed all with each other and played different roles throughout these various debates. Again, Biden was often one of the ones arguing for caution, arguing for minimal use of force. A great example of this, although Biden has changed his story over time, but a great example of this is the conversation over whether to engage in the raid that ultimately killed Osama bin Laden. Clinton was for it. Biden was ultimately one of the few people who was against it in the President's inner circle.

Brain: Interesting. Here's one more. Tell me where this fits in. Asked yesterday on CNN about whether the US would basically break off ties with Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman, now that a Biden administration report has firmly linked the prince to the killing of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi, Blinken replied, with his own question.

Antony: A crown prince is likely to be the leader of Saudi Arabia, far into the future. We have a strong interest, for example, in working to end the war in Yemen, probably, the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. That's going to take meaningful engagement by the Saudis, and doing so and we've actually made real progress in that direction in the last couple of months. Doing so is going to advance values that we hold dear in terms of protecting the lives of innocent civilians. In terms of advancing human rights and progress in Saudi Arabia itself, are we better off recalibrating the relationship as we did, or rupturing it?

Brian: There's that question in response to Dana Bash's question, "Are we better off recalibrating the relationship?" As he says they did or rupturing it? Is that the nicest way in the world, the most diplomatic way of saying, "No, we're not going to punish Mohammed bin Salman, for killing Jamal Khashoggi or having him killed"?

Gabe: Well, nicest possible way. I'm sure that there are other ways to say it, but I asked Blinken a similar question, and I got a slightly different formulation of a similar answer. He, to at least his credit has been consistent about this. The case he's trying to make is that for all the idealism that we just talked about, there's also a certain dose of realism, and they just don't think whether it's Blinken or Biden, or anyone else in the administration, publicly at least, don't think that they can realistically afford to break ties with such an important geopolitically country as Saudi Arabia.

Blinken made a point to me that they didn't just publish the report, but also imposed new sanctions and new rules that do tie Saudi Arabia's hands on a number of issues. Yes, it's obviously true that this has been a major concern of a number of folks who said, "Well, Biden, during the campaign, certainly we'll talk too much more tough on Saudi Arabia than it looks like he's doing now." So there is a certain amount of complication here and I think this is an important point because we should be clear that it's not as if the Biden and Blinken administration are coming in and just doing everything opposite to the way that Trump and Tillerson or Trump and Pompeyo did.

They have inherited a much more complicated world, and in a case like this, essentially what they're saying is, maybe we'd like to in an ideal world do more, but it's not realistic for us to try to, and that's simply an insufficient answer to a lot of activists and a lot of progressives, in particular, but they're sticking with it.

Brian: Right, but it's still very different for Biden, or Blinken to say, "Look, the world is complicated, and we need the relationship with Saudi Arabia for some really big things that are going to benefit the people of Yemen we hope, with the worst humanitarian crisis in the world right now, or that's going to benefit the world in other ways." Much different than Trump saying, "Basically, look, the Saudis buy a lot of stuff from us, what am I going to do? Cut that off?"

Gabe: Yes, that's exactly right, Brian. I think the other piece of this is that Blinken made this point in what you just played from his conversation with Dana Bash. They did publish this report that also outright blamed the Crown Prince or implicated the Crown Prince in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, which is something that had not previously been done with the government's formal imprimatur previously, and that's a significant thing in and of itself, and that's the case that Blinken and Biden did make.

That they're trying to make an overall humanitarian push here and trying to implicate him more explicitly. Again, that may not be sufficient to a lot of people for pretty obvious reasons, but it is a different argument that they're making, that's definitely true.

Brian: Listeners with Gabe Debenedetti, national correspondent for New York Magazine, we're going to open up the phones. Do you feel strongly about any of these foreign policy issues, troops out of Afghanistan by May 1st, cutting off Saudi Arabia, the Russian oil pipeline to Germany, any Europeans listening right now think that's a good or bad idea? Or anything having to do with China or if you just want to ask Gabe Debenedetti national correspondent from New York Magazine, a question 646-435-7280.

As always, our phone number 646-435-7280. Or you can tweet a comment or question @BrianLehrer, tweet @BrianLehrer, or call 646-435-7280. Blinken often says he and Biden have a mind-meld. He uses that Mr. Spock kind of time right, mind-meld.

Gabe: Usually, other people use it about them because of their-- Blinken is careful about how he talks about the President, but they have been working together for decades. It's certainly true that they see the world very similarly. A point that a lot of folks made to me was asking about Blinken and about this new administration is that it is a relationship between a president and secretary of state that is significantly closer than basically any other one that we've seen in a long time because Blinken himself was an aide to Joe Biden for years as opposed to an elected official in his own right or some other kind of principal in the political realm.

Brian: We're going to take a break then we're going to come back. Calls are starting to come in. I'm going to be really curious to see if we do get any from Europe, or German or other European expats, if you're here in the States, you can call too. 646-435-7280. We're going to take down some of those particular issues that we played, those Blinken cuts regarding, and see what's at stake. Stay with us, Brian there on WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Gabriel Debenedetti, national correspondent for New York Magazine, as we talk about the very interesting turns in last few days regarding Biden's foreign policies and Secretary of State Antony Blinken's appearance on CNN yesterday in relationship to those. Gabe's got a major profile of Blinken dropping in New York Magazine tomorrow, called Secretary Swell on a PO-d Planet. Secretary Swell, that just means he's trying to be Mr. relationship?

Gabe: Something like that. Yes, I leave it up to people to interpret, but he's certainly someone who is focused very heavily on personal relationships. As Joe Biden himself likes to say, "Foreign policy is an extension of personal relationships, just with higher stakes."

Brian: This China thing, Trump, of course, used to make a big deal about the China virus, all that stuff. When anybody asked him about his own policies to combat the spread of the virus domestically. It looks like Biden accepts the criticism that China is covering up the virus, helped unleash the virus on the world, but Blinken basically told them unabashed yesterday, "No repercussions?"

Gabe: The China policy and conversation is very multifaceted. The short version of what you just said is definitely correct. I think one of the things that Biden has said is that he's withholding judgment until there are more formal reports about what actually happened here, but a lot of this particular piece that I've written and that's, again, coming out in this week's issue of New York Magazine is based around the highest level bilateral talks that have happened so far between the American and Chinese government.

That was two weeks ago in Anchorage, Alaska and listeners might remember some news coverage of that because it got quite traumatic when the Chinese diplomats went off on the Americans and said, "You have no right to lecture us, et cetera." Blinken essentially made the case that it's very important to the United States, to crack down on, or to point out some of the democratic deficits and human rights violations that have been going on in China.

It certainly seems like there's a broader recalibration over that relationship after the Trump years when Trump was certainly quite bellicose towards the Chinese at various times, including with regards to a trade war, which he tried to start, but also when it came to the virus itself. Now, the Biden administration has, as I said, withheld some judgment on the question of the origins of the virus and the coverups that you were just referring to, but there's no question that this is the definitional foreign policy question of the coming years if not the coming century.

Brian: Riyaz, in Teaneck you're on WNYC. Hello, Riyaz

Riyaz: Yes. Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted us to get that the Biden policy of not punishing the crown prince, means we are encouraging him that he could do it more again and again. That's it. That should not be our policy actually.

Brian: What would punishment look like in your opinion, if you've thought about it, Riyaz.

Riyaz: Whatever they should at least cut out from friends. This is how we are encouraging him that "Yes, we let you go this time and you could do it again for the good of the world."

Brian: Riyaz. Thank you very much. What if you know Gabe, what repercussions for the prince were under consideration specifically?

Gabe: I don't know what was under consideration and I don't want to overstate what's out there already. There were more sanctions put in place on allies and on others in the government. In Saudi Arabia, they did, of course, as I said, published this report and they put new rules about who is allowed in the country, especially if you are doing work for another government and trying to cover up or somehow suppress information about that government.

For example, of course, Mr. Khashoggi was a dissident, but also a reporter writing about the Saudi regime. The new policy is-- You can't come into the United States to stop someone from doing that, but I don't know about the broad range of sanctions that were considered, but the feeling that was just expressed by the caller is absolutely one that the new administration is grappling with and dealing with. I don't think that the question that that secretary Blinken got from Dana bash this weekend is likely to be the last one on this by a long shot.

Brian: Riaz, thank you. Please call us again. Gus, in Ridgefield, Connecticut, you're on WNYC. Hi, Gus.

Gus: Hi. I think that the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic depression is probably the biggest single challenge besides maybe China. China is using its vaccine as a diplomatic tool. Russia is using its too, its vaccine called Sputnik as a tool. Should we United States not use our vaccines as a way of gaining influence if you like to put it crudely, especially in the third world by exporting more vaccines to those countries?

Brian: Gus, thank you very much. This has come up gave, I think it's not in your article, but it's certainly come up. The fact that the US is sitting on AstraZeneca vaccine, in particular, waiting for it to be approved for use in this country, in the meantime, some people, and this is what our caller Gus is articulating. Say, there's a moral obligation as well as maybe a diplomatic opportunity to share those doses that we're stockpiling, but not using with other countries that are short, especially in the developing world.

Gabe: Without a doubt. This is the real ongoing debate within the administration right now. I mentioned only very briefly in the article, but the United States has paid into an international vaccine effort quite aggressively. They have begun to give some doses to some allied countries, but there is an ongoing debate, as I just said about and as you were alluding to about how widely to distribute the leftover. There is going to be a glut of vaccine it looks like, that vastly outstrips demand in this country once all the accounting is done.

I think I would be surprised if there weren't more distribution on the international realm, but it's obviously true that this is a tactic that has been used-- Tactic is putting it cynically, but this is something that other governments including Russia and China have done to much more prominent effect than the United States so far. Then, again, the United States has been very focused on vaccinating its own population so far.

Brian: The caller put it in terms of Russia and China expanding its influence around the world by sharing vaccine and the US in that respect also on Russia expanding its influence. This Russia to Germany oil pipeline that we played the Blinken clip about-- Some of you listeners will remember the Trump used to make a big show of opposing that Russia to Germany oil pipeline when he was president, really as a way of distracting us from his general support for Putin, "I'm not supporting Putin it's Angela Merkel who's supporting Putin," even though in the big picture that was a distraction. There is still this pipeline and Biden doesn't like it any more than Trump does. Right?

Gabe: That's right. Although they obviously have slightly different reasons for it, but the truth is that the United States has stated its opposition to the pipeline basically because they don't want Germany to be reliant on Russian gas and Russian economic influence, but it seems like this is just going to end up being an impasse between the American and German governments here.

It's funny though, if I may, Blinken wrote his undergraduate college thesis about a disputed pipeline between the EU or the European continent and what was then the Soviet Union and ultimately argued in what was turned into a book early in his career that what was more important was maintaining the alliances rather than putting sanctions on the Soviet government. Now, that's very oversimplifying what was the long book and thesis, but this is something that he has been grappling with for a long time.

Brian: That's such an interesting part of your article, by the way, bringing up that Blinken college thesis, and then it comes back to a Russian, although at that time Soviet pipeline into Europe, has anybody gotten to ask them about that? Did you get to ask him about that and whether this is more similar or more different in his opinion?

Gabe: I didn't because I only had limited time with him. Obviously, he's a busy guy, but I did talk to him about his broader philosophy about these issues more generally. He is someone who thinks that the power of alliances and the United States' alliances must be maintained, but also that that's the greatest power that the United States has in many ways. That's really a point of view that has been implicit in many previous administrations, but I think this is probably the administration that is being most explicit about it early on.

I'll be very curious to see how that plays out. You saw the rapturous response he got when he went to NATO headquarters last week, his partners in Europe were so happy to see him after four years of what many of them think of as abandonment, but it remains to be seen what these alliances look like in this new world, where a lot of folks are saying on the European continent, especially, "Well, let's just wait and see how the next few months play out." They're obviously provisionally very happy.

Brian: Michael in Manhattan, has a thought about those EU allies and their reaction to the early days of the Biden administration. Michael, you're on WNYC. Hi, there.

Michael: Hi. I'm wondering if the EU partners are looking at us and thinking after January 6th, "Maybe these guys are like a fractured, dysfunctional country where our own people don't appreciate such an important alliance as our partnership with the EU coming out of world war II. Afterwards, for so many years since the cold war, we've been such close allies with them." I think they look at the American people now think, "They have no idea of what's important to them in terms of global affairs and international relations."

I just think that aside from Trump or someone like him being elected in four years, they're also just maybe looking at us more skeptically like, "They couldn't protect their own Capitol. Is this a country that we can really rely on, even if Biden wants to do the right thing?" As a country are we so dysfunctional, but they don't feel that they can rely on us even if we have good intentions?

Brian: It's a fundamental question, Michael. Thank you. Gabe.

Gabe: The fundamental answer is, yes. [chuckles] This is absolutely something that they're all working through in real-time. I asked Blinken about this and he's been asked about it in some other forums as well. He basically said that some people have asked him about this outright when he's talked to them. Some foreign leaders or foreign diplomats, but his answer is as much of an example as the Capitol siege was, he likes to focus more on the open way that the US has tried to rebuild from that and how the Biden administration has tried to hold those people to account, but also move on in a constructive way.

He is trying to look at the glass half-full version of this, but yes, I talked to a number of European diplomats, in particular, who essentially said, "Of course, we'd be crazy not to look at what just happened and not have some serious questions about the future of the United States." Again, you're right. It's not just about the possibility that Trump or someone Trump-like gets elected again in four years. These folks have a somewhat sophisticated understanding of American domestic politics, but it doesn't take that sophisticated and understanding to see that there are major fractures that need to be worked out. One point that Biden and Blinken have made ad nauseum.

Although, for good reason is that there can't be in their words such a bright line between domestic and foreign policy because the example of the American domestic policy is so obviously projected to the rest of the world. That's one big reason. What Blinken has really said over and over is we need to be an example to the rest of the world and we can't pretend that we're going to be some sort of-- I'm using my words now, some shining beacon to the rest of the world if it's so obvious that we have our own problems to deal with.

Brian: It even goes beyond that. I was really interested in this verbal smackdown that some of our listeners are aware of it got a little bit reported, but often overwhelmed by domestic things. This verbal smackdown the other day when Blinken and National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan met their counterparts from China in Anchorage, Alaska, which is where your article opens.

I was watching that on the day that it happened, the coverage of that and the Chinese diplomats were using much stronger language against American democracy as a model for the world than apparently, Blinken expected as you report, but they're really making the argument that democracy doesn't solve people's problems in the way America would like other countries to think. That there's actually this authoritarian model that Xi Jinping, the leader of China seems to believe in not just on behalf of his own power, but that it actually serves the people of China better.

I don't know if you have enough of a sense of him to have an opinion about whether that's an earnest opinion or just self-serving so that it does enhance his power, but is there a real post-January 6th, new ideological debate in the world about whether democracy is what's going to serve the people of any given country the best as opposed to more authoritarian models of rule?

Gabe: I don't want to overstate the degree to which January 6th was an international inflection point, but it was obviously a very important moment and what you're referring to, this blow-up that happened in Anchorage was significantly more dramatic than I at least expected it to be. Blinken himself told me he wasn't surprised, but other Americans were certainly taking it back by the tone, or at least the way that the meeting immediately went off the rails. The argument that the Chinese government was making you have to look at it from two sides.

Obviously, they are making the argument that you just articulated pretty well, but they're also really just trying to undermine American leadership. Not so much necessarily arguing that the rest of the world should follow their way of doing things. I'm not sure that Xi Jinping necessarily wants other countries to elevate their own versions of him. I think that would be overstating it slightly, but they do obviously see the unrest here as an opportunity to assert their own leadership if not necessarily by elevating themselves, but by saying, "Well, who are you guys to talk?"

Blinken responded with sort of a civics lecture, a reminder of how things work in the United States and what the upside of democracy was. It was an extraordinary thing to see a secretary of state do because for one thing, it was interesting to watch that happen off the cuff, but two that's not really the way that the United States has talked internationally, certainly over the last four years. This broader clash of visions is very clearly going to be one that continues to define American engagement with the rest of the world, not just with China for quite some time. I have no idea what the horizon time horizon looks like on that.

Brian: I was in China in 2012, just as Xi Jinping was coming to power on a tour for journalists. We were exposed to a wide range of Chinese intellectuals from dissidents to fervent supporters of the administration and their system. On the fervent support of their system side, this one guy, in particular, was arguing that democracy is so messy and produces such gridlock, remember already 2012, the Obama administration and Mitch McConnell, there was already gridlock in the United States and they couldn't really get anything done.

He was literally arguing against democracy, this Chinese guy, professor at a university there, saying, "Yo, it just doesn't work as well for your people as our orderly transitions of power, of course, he didn't talk about human rights atrocities and things like that. It's interesting how they try to engage people explicitly in that debate, at least, posturing and maybe they really believe it that it's a real debate. Let me take one more call. Rudy, I think originally from Germany on Long Island, on Sea Cliff. Hi, Rudy?

Rudy: Hi. I wanted to say that as a German and traditional ally and I live here in the States and I observe this, it feels strange that US tells us whom to do business with. Even though we may not like what Putin and Russia does. Germany was the one after all who helped Nalvany to come out. We're all in favor of Nalvany, but there are things that are-

Brian: The dissident.

Rudy: -good for business and this is a long-run project and it's 95% done and yes, has commercial interests. This has nothing to do with democracy, this has nothing to-- It feels like the US acts no matter what they say about Democracy. For a small country like an imperial country that says, "You have to do this and if you don't do it, we give you sanctions." Well, by the way, there's no international law justification for putting sanctions on Germany. [crosstalk]

Brian: I hear you, Rudy. Let me ask you a follow-up question. One of the concerns of the United States is that if Germany is dependent on Russia for oil, which means basic sustenance of transportation and heating people's homes and stuff like that, then does it give Putin too much power to enact other policies over the West that are not in our interest, or in Germany's?

Rudy: There are other sources of energy and we're moving towards those. This is the transitional-- We're already getting a lot of natural gas, there's no tube one, the second pipeline through the Baltic sea. Then, there is a pipeline that goes through to Ukraine and Poland. Ukraine, Poland would like to keep the transition fee and the influence, supposed influence on natural gas to us. What argument is that? We built-in liquid natural gas terminal as far as I heard, so US gas can be exported.

It is oil country senators who are pushing for this. It is blatantly business. Germany, the more sources you have the worse. You can always refuse to take the gas out of a pipeline, but why spend 95% and you're threatening Swiss companies and you're threatening the little port in East Germany, where the pipeline is coming, withdrawing anybody who's doing business with them will be sanctioned.

That sounds like a superpower telling you, "You have no business doing things that we don't like." That's not how you talk to an ally. You can have differences in opinion. Obviously, Germany is worried about its energy sources, but you do a business, you have a contract, you don't start to say at the very end, "Oh, you know what? I have other thoughts." Because internal politics is not what you do long-term projects.

Brian: Rudy. Thank you so much for your call. We really appreciate it. Gabe, as we run out of time for this segment, there's a traditional European unhappiness with the United States throwing its weight around like an imperialist power. Many people will say, and I don't know enough to know the real breakdown of this, that it's really the oil industry in the United States that's pushing this policy.

Gabe: That's certainly true. There's always this tension and I think that that's not going anywhere, but I think a lot of this is very legitimate concerns, but I think a lot of it must also be read realistically, which is a lot of European partners are looking at the United States coming back into focusing on these allied relationships and saying, "Well, but let's try and recalibrate a little bit so we weren't quite so reliant on the United States as we were previously."

There's a little bit of gamesmanship happening even though, obviously, it is true that there is this concern. Now, the other side of it is that the American perspective would essentially be, "Well, we don't have any veto power over German relations with the Russians anyway, so we can threaten sanctions." Everyone knows that the United States is not going to impose any crippling sanctions on the German government. It's a stated preference and an implied threat rather than a real veto as some people might be reading it.

Brian: A correction I think I've been saying oil pipeline from Russia to Germany, but it's really a gas pipeline, right?

Gabe: Yes.

Brian: Just to correct myself. There we leave it with Gabe Debenedetti national correspondent for New York magazine in his article coming tomorrow on the new secretary of state, Secretary Swell on a PO-d Planet. Gabe, thanks a lot.

Gabe: Thank you, Brian.

 

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