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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Here's one reality about the crisis in Ukraine that is so fundamental that hardly anyone says it out loud anymore, the United States will not send in troops. Almost no Americans would support that. That makes any attempt to deter Vladimir Putin's military actions more indirect, right? Germany took a big step today canceling the big and already controversial natural gas pipeline they were going to open from Russia.

Germany's dependence on Russia for energy was seen as limiting Germany's ability to take a moral stand against an invasion. As for the US, it's economic sanctions and the weapon of shame. Here is the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, speaking at an emergency UN security council meeting last night.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield: President Putin is testing our international system. He is testing our resolve and seeing just how far he can push us all. He wants to demonstrate that through force, he can make a farce of the UN. We must act together in response to this crisis.

Brian Lehrer: The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, at that emergency meeting last night. That came after Putin shrugged off previous US attempts to shame him into leaving Ukraine alone in a fiery speech that included this.

President Putin: [Russian language].

Interpreter: Once again, they tried to blackmail us. Once again, they threatened us with sanctions. I think they will still impose those, introduce those as strong and as more powerful our country becomes. They will always find an excuse to introduce more sanctions regardless of the situation on Ukraine that is. The only goal they have is to contain the development of Russia.

Brian Lehrer: The development of Russia. The only goal they have is to contain the development of Russia like it's a developmental phase of their country to invade Ukraine. Putin yesterday through a translator, of course. No, we're not about to send troops, but New York Magazine national correspondent Gabriel Debenedetti, says Biden is trying to psych out Putin through information warfare. Let's see what that's about with New York Magazine national correspondent Gabriel Debenedetti, who has also written recently on what he calls the next democratic reckoning.

We'll talk about that too as the Democratic Party looks to get its footing for the midterm elections after last fall's surprising Republican gains, even in New Jersey, remember, where Governor Murphy barely won reelection when that wasn't supposed to be close. Gabe hasn't been on for a while because he's been on book leave writing a book about Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Hi, Gabe. Welcome back to WNYC.

Gabriel Debenedetti: Hi, Brian. It's great to be back.

Brian Lehrer: Do I have the subject of your book right?

Gabriel Debenedetti: That's right. The long close, but very complicated relationship between the two. It'll be out later this fall and I'm hoping we can talk about it then.

Brian Lehrer: Obviously, you're invited on for a proper book interview when it actually comes out, but Obama was president and Biden was vice president when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. What did they do then?

Gabriel Debenedetti: That's right. I think it's important to remember that Biden actually was the point person for the Obama administration on Ukraine. Even an interesting fact that goes back a little bit further is that, of course, Russia also invaded Georgia in 2008, which was when Obama was the nominee, and it was right when he was about to pick Joe Biden to be his vice-presidential running mate. They go way back. This has been an issue that has defined the recent years certainly of Biden's career.

As we've alluded to already on this show just in your introduction, it's a lot of talk about sanctions because, of course, leaning on NATO is a big thing, leaning on allies is a big thing that Biden has long talked about in his career in the Senate, but also his vice president. He knows the Ukrainian leadership, the Ukrainian people well, but there's not going to be a ground war featuring American troops in Russia. It's really a question of trying to get all the allies, get Western Europeans in particular aligned for a regime of sanctions against Putin in particular.

That's what they've tried to do in the past, but with limited effect, because of course Russia has made an incursion into Ukraine, and here we are now where, as you alluded to, I wrote about how the president was trying to play some mind games with Putin. We're not really sure that it worked because, of course, Putin has moved forward, though the exact shape of what this incursion will look like we remain to see.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, when you talk about the pre-history of Biden's relationship with Russia, Biden's relationship with Ukraine, President Trump tried to get the president of Ukraine, still the same guy who's president now, to launch that fake investigation against Joe Biden, and that, of course, got Trump impeached by the House of Representatives. Is there any through-line from the Trump-Ukraine crisis to the Biden-Putin Ukraine crisis of today?

Gabriel Debenedetti: I don't want to stretch it too much. Many people who are active in the region as a matter of policy experts, I should say, think that something like this was always going to happen as long as Putin was thinking in these grand terms that he's been tending towards over the recent years. I certainly think we cannot ignore the fact that Putin and Biden have had a very bad relationship for quite some time, and that goes back to the early days of Biden's vice presidency. I also think that we should keep in mind that Biden was a very powerful senator on matters of foreign relations for a very long time, including during the tail end of the Cold War.

This is a matter in the region that he's thought about for a very long time, but the very fact that he and Putin don't get along and that, of course, Putin did get along with Biden's predecessor, and so had very little interest in making his life difficult by, say, doing something like this cannot be ignored, certainly. The fact that there was a lot of talk in recent days about whether Biden would be able to go a diplomacy route as he wanted to do, and sit down with Putin perhaps to talk about a solution here. We can talk about that all we want, but it certainly looks like that's not going to happen now.

Brian Lehrer: I do want to talk about this information warfare that you refer to in New York Magazine or how Biden is trying to psych out Putin as the title of that article puts it. I want to invite the listeners in. Listeners, first of all, with ties to Ukraine, we've had a few Ukrainian immigrants to the US or other people with ties to Ukraine calling in in recent days, you are certainly invited again right now, or anyone else with a question or an opinion about what the US should do.

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer, or if you have a question or a comment about the midterm elections because we're going to do that topic too, and how your party, whichever that is, should be running. We'll get to Gabe Debenedetti's articles on that. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer with Gabe Debenedetti, national correspondent for New York Magazine. What's this information warfare you referred to in the magazine? What is that term?

Gabriel Debenedetti: There are a number of different definitions of that term, of course, but in this sense, I think what was important to point out was something unprecedented with respect to Russia that the Biden administration was doing in recent weeks, which was trying to make sure everyone around the world knew the intel, or at least a lot of it, that the American government was getting about troop build-ups, about Putin's intentions, really trying to preempt the possibility for Putin to create a narrative that the world believe in terms of Ukrainian aggression toward Russia that he was talking about, which of course is not how the American government sees it and not in fact what actually happened.

What we saw, to put it in concrete terms, was the American government publishing pieces of intelligence telling people, telling the country, this is what Putin is thinking, this is where his troops are. For example, when the Russian government signaled that it was going to pull back troops, the American government very quickly said, "They're going to say this, but it doesn't actually appear that this is happening."

They warned for a while of Russian attempts to put out manipulated videos that made it seem as if the Ukrainians were the aggressors, and indeed some things like that had started to happen. There was a question there, and it certainly seemed as if what Biden was trying to do was signal to Putin that we know what your game is, we don't think that you're catching us off guard, and he wanted to make sure that the international community was on the side of the United States as Putin's aggression ramped up.

That said, obviously, this didn't dissuade Putin from moving forward, though, again, I want to reiterate, there has been a lot of talk about the possibility that Putin would go ahead with a full-on essentially ransacking of Kyiv. That hasn't happened. I don't want to speculate, obviously, on something like that too much, but that was one of the things that they warned about, and it is entirely possible that we won't see that.

Brian Lehrer: That piece came out last week in New York Magazine. I think as you were just starting to indicate, it's only working to a degree. Do you think Biden is succeeding in any way to psych Putin out as the headline puts it? Putin certainly sounds like he's pushing full-speed ahead, and even announced in that fiery speech yesterday the independence of two areas of Ukraine, which may be a precursor to a military invasion. It certainly is declaring part of Ukraine to be not part of Ukraine.

Gabriel Debenedetti: Sure. I think that it is very important to note that we don't actually know where this is going over the long run. We obviously see the direction it's taking. What a lot of folks have been saying, particularly European allies, is that what Putin has done over the last day or so is certainly very aggressive, certainly very scary. By putting troops or moving military pieces into these regions of Ukraine, which are filled with separatists, of course, he's only formalizing something that has already been the case. These are Russian-speaking areas. That's not to minimize necessarily the extent of the danger here.

European allies, in particular, have been quick to point out what he's not done is order a full-scale invasion. There was some question, I should say. As you pointed out, that article was published last week. A lot has changed since then. There was some question over the last 24 hours or so about whether the United States government considered this an invasion rather than just a further military buildup. This morning it seems like the White House is trying to be clear this is an invasion. The reason that that question is relevant is, because of course Biden has promised a pretty aggressive sanctions regime, and he wants to maintain the option of ratcheting that up even further.

It looks like today they're going to be rolling out further sanctions, but really only at a mid-level coordinating with European allies rather than going for the really aggressive ones that he's talked about. At his press conference in January when he went on for two or three hours, Biden, he was asked why should we believe that these sanctions would actually deter Putin when previous ones hadn't? Biden was very quick to say, "Because the sanctions I'm looking at now are unlike anything he's ever seen before." We don't know what that would look like.

Brian Lehrer: Richard in Bloomfield, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Richard.

Richard: How are you doing? I usually like to listen to your show. I have conflicting issues with Democrats and Republicans these days, but I agree with both of them on some. With that, I would say that I don't think that even paying attention to Putin is going to help the situation as far as America goes. You see what's happening in Canada, you see what's happening all around the world. Germany needs to have Russian fuel and resources. We can't alienate our allies. I feel like we're in a rock and a hard place. In my opinion, I would think that we should stand down and let him take what he wants to take.

Brian Lehrer: Even with economic sanctions stand down, in your opinion?

Richard: Yes, because the economic sanctions affect Europe, people we need, quite frankly. If you want to talk about our globalist economy, then we have to have everybody playing ball. In my perspective, I think we should open the nation to Central and South America and become a one-nation person.[crosstalk] If we were to do that, we wouldn't have such a threat from China or Russia because we'd be a huge landmass. We would incorporate all these people into the economy, and build and build and build. We could just go global in our own continent and stop the walk. I don't know that they care when this [inaudible 00:13:46] was happening.

Brian Lehrer: One more follow-up question, Richard. You put a lot on the table. Would the US, in your view, have any obligation to take a moral stand against a potential invasion by another big power against the smaller country where their autonomy would be trashed and a lot of people might die?

Richard: I hear your question. We can look at the Falklands. We can look at what we did in Panama. We can look at a lot of countries. We can look at history. Unless we forget history, nobody's innocent from this type of behavior around the world in any government.

Brian Lehrer: Therefore, we don't say anything.

Richard: Where is the end? Where is the end that says, "We're right, and you're wrong."? That's like a religious war. It will go on forever.

Brian Lehrer: Richard, thank you very much. Call us again. That was pretty interesting, Gab. He speaks for a fair number of Americans in various ways who might not like Putin but says, A, the US has done pretty crummy stuff over the years in pushing our weight around at the expense of the autonomy of smaller countries, and B, Germany needs Russian natural gas. He makes it sound like we're pushing Europe rather than Europe on the doorstep of Ukraine is pushing us to take a strong stand. Do you have a view as a national correspondent as to which one it is?

Gabriel Debenedetti: It's certainly a mixture of the two. I think that it's very dangerous to discount the European view on this. Western European leaders in particular, but also Central European leaders who are even closer to Russia have really wanted the American help on this and have been very, very careful to try and make sure that NATO is as strong as possible, specifically because of the threat that they believe Russia poses.

As for the question of German gas, for example, it was the German government this morning that shut down the process leading to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which has been so central to a lot of this. You had a lot of Republican hawks, in particular, trying to get Biden not to approve it or to stand against it, I should say. It was the German government, which would obviously benefit the most from it, this morning that stood against it or that shut it down.

There is definitely a very significant and absolutely influential, not absolutely influential but certainly somewhat influential, group of people not only here in the United States, but internationally who say, "This is not the United States's war to fight." In fact, Joe Biden would agree. It is not the United States's war to fight and that's why he's not going to send troops into Ukraine. The argument that he and others in his position have put forth is it is a shirking of responsibility to the post-war and certainly post-Cold War world order to simply say, "Russia's got to do what it's going to do. This isn't our fight to fight."

Brian Lehrer: We'll see what economic effect or even potential energy shortage effect, maybe not that but maybe an economic effect in terms of energy prices Germany stand taken this morning has on them. On yesterday's show, we had Susan Glasser from The New Yorker who certainly thinks the Ukraine situation is very serious and has huge implications for the West, including the United States.

She did also say that if the US starts a big economic sanctions tug of war with Russia, prices might go up even more in this country for more Americans. Maybe we're going to come to a point where the conversation we were just having with the call with Richard will become even more salient because people will be paying more for stuff in this country because we're taking a stand in support of Ukraine, and people may start asking, "How relevant is this really to my life?" I don't know if you think that's coming.

Gabriel Debenedetti: It's absolutely a real possibility. I think actually to the point that we were talking about earlier with the Biden administration's strategy of trying to get as much information into the public bloodstream as quickly as possible, that's relevant here too because, of course, Biden politically has suffered a little bit, not a little bit, quite a lot, in part because of inflation and prices going up even before this crisis. A lot of people close to him think this is a structural economic problem, but that he has really not done a good job. His administration has not done a good job because it's difficult of communicating to people why this is happening and what the solution is.

In this case, they are trying to be pretty proactive about saying, "There is a conflict in Russia. They're going to try and fight economic warfare. This is why prices may go up." I would argue that that hasn't really been the argument that the government has been making because, of course, they've been focused on heading the office crisis. You certainly see a specific tack of trying to have maximum communication, maximum openness, which of course they didn't do, for example, on some other foreign crises.

Biden I think learned a lot from the way that the pullout from Afghanistan was handled earlier in his administration. He certainly felt a lot of political pressure on that. Didn't think that he communicated his point to the American people well, but he still maintains that the policy of not starting new wars or not extending wars is the correct way to do it.

Brian Lehrer: Let's hear from some callers with ties to the region. Alec in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Alec.

Alec: Hi. I was thinking about this morning, and I was thinking that you look at Putin, he's sitting in his grand-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Just by way of background, you told our screener that you're originally from Poland. Is that correct?

Alec: That is correct. Yes, I was born there in '49 so I lived there during the communist time, and we had nothing there. Russia sucked everything out of Poland. They sucked everything out, shipbuilding from Gdańsk and everything. It was pretty dire. Very little food. Horrible. This was after the war.

Brian Lehrer: How does it inform your view of what's going on today?

Alec: Look, remembering World War II, Russia and US and the West, they defeated the Nazis, so I can understand and I have empathy towards that, but reflecting upon what my life was when I was younger and the little that we had, and then understanding the role that Soviet Union had to play at that time, and just drawing out the resources of what we had and reflecting on what's been happening in recent history as well, seeing what's happened in Crimea.

To me, what I was thinking about this morning, that's initially my point was I was looking at Putin sitting in this grand tzarist palace, and I think it's really gotten to his head, this grandeur that he's surrounded by that that's what Russia is about. In actuality, only the tzar was about that. The rest of Russia was in poverty, and that's why there was a revolution. I think he's delusional to some degree. Of course, there are geopolitical aspects of this in the current world that we're living in.

Brian Lehrer: Right. If his, let's say, inclinations toward grandeur, [chuckles] delusional or not, comes back to haunt the Russian people in terms of a lot of money spent on that grandeur that hurts them, their quality of life economically or in other ways, then maybe there'll be another revolution, but it's not happening so far. Alec, thank you very much. We're going to go next to Andy in Brooklyn. Andy, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Andy: Thank you so much, Brian. I was actually in Kyiv with a delegation of New York State officials and some Jewish organizations and the rabbi to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre in Kyiv. Because we were with so many state officials, we met with a lot of members of parliament in Ukraine and journalists. I have to say my impression was very clear that there are a very large number of people in Zelensky's government who are really trying to push forward with democracy, who are trying to fight the oligarchs, and who are really pushing back against the strongman culture that is so prevalent in the world.

I was really left with that impression that they're fighting a very strong uphill battle. Obviously, this is not just Putin and Russia, but the oligarchs themselves in both countries are enormously corrupt and are pulling a lot of levers of power. Additionally, you've got China weighting in on this which a lot of the analysis is showing.

This is in a way my question for your guest is that I feel like we're not reading enough about the forces of corruption in Ukraine that are playing both sides number one, and number two, I really see Trump's collusion in this and very many Republicans. That there's a lot of pleasure that I think a lot of people are taking in how this is derailing Biden's attempts to rebuild the country and to rebuild alliances following Trump's time in office.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting, Andy. Thank you very much. Although, Gabe, for you as a correspondent covering Washington, it looks to me like there's a lot of bipartisan support for being tough on Russia in this. There's a Lindsey Graham event today with I think Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island. That's a bipartisan thing. Tucker Carlson on Fox News may be more pro-Russia, but it looks like the Republican establishment in DC is breaking out in bipartisanship with the Democrats on this if nothing else. Am I getting that wrong?

Gabriel Debenedetti: I don't think you're getting it precisely wrong at all, Brian. There is an interesting split that's been happening in the Republican Party, specifically on questions of foreign policy and use of the military. This has been an emerging split, not straight down the middle, I should say, but in the party for a number of years now, even predating Trump.

I think it really went ahead during the Trump years where on some matters, they want to use military force quite strongly and in some not so much. You do have people like Lindsey Graham who's always been a bit of a hawk really urging Biden to impose strong sanctions. Then you have others who have been hanging back and said, "This isn't really our fight to fight." Of course, that's not the primary voice that you hear in Washington. That's been the case for a long time. You also saw that during the Afghanistan push, for example.

Brian Lehrer: Karina in Bushwick, you're on WNYC. Hi, Karina.

Karina: Hi. I wanted to bring up two points. One is that [beep] [inaudible 00:25:35] gave everybody the choice--

Brian Lehrer: I'm sorry. Just for background, you told our screener that you are originally from Ukraine. Do I have that right?

Karina: Correct. I was born in Ukraine.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Karina: All of my family is there. My sister is there. Ukrainian government gave everybody the choice on what they wanted to be. This wasn't an overnight decision. This was over several years and everybody got to choose whether you want to be Ukrainian or not, whether you want to stay in Ukraine or not. They were given this choice, number one. Number two, the fact that somebody speaks Russian first of is a lack of knowledge on everybody's part that in the former Soviet Union, by the time you finished school, and that's basic education, all your classes were in Russian.

If you wanted higher education, you had to speak Russian. Your tests were in Russian. If you wanted to turn on your utilities, it was the Russian government so therefore, you had to speak Russian. You could not walk into--

Brian Lehrer: All over Ukraine, not only in those Eastern portions?

Karina: No. All over Ukraine. This is the norm of the Soviet Union, the USSR anywhere. If you wanted to enter a government office, turn on a bill, and so on or anything, if you wanted to have any type of higher job, all business was conducted in Russian. If we follow the same route in America where we have so many people who only speak Spanish, does that mean they're not Americans? That's off. That to me is such a silly thing to be a litmus test. It is absolutely ridiculous.

Brian Lehrer: Because of the fact that there are separatists in the Eastern part of the country and that's who Putin is recognizing and did with his speech yesterday, would you say that it's not different over there, that there are people who feel more ethnically Russian, if that's the right way to put it, and there might be a different politics, there might be a different sense of identity for a lot of people there than in Kyiv or elsewhere in the West?

Karina: No, I would disagree. In Eastern Russia, you had a lot of mines that are essentially mined out, so you have lack of jobs and opportunity. As part of I believe it was the Minsk Accord, Ukraine had to get rid of all of its nuclear weapons. Most of those were located in Eastern Ukraine so you have absolutely decimated economy, no jobs, no nothing. This I think is a true oversight of the Ukrainian government, that they didn't reach out sooner and make sure that this part of Ukraine felt more inclusive. That I'll give them. As far as people being ethnic or not, people are desperate and the thing is they just want things to be over. That's the thing.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Karina: When I connect with people there, that's what their thing is. "You know what? At this point, I want my child to go to school. I don't want to be bombed in the middle of the night. I just want things over."

Brian Lehrer: Karina, thank you very much. One more call in this set and I think a different point of view from Dmitri of Russian background in Yonkers. You're on WNYC. Hello, Dmitri.

Dmitri: Thank you. I was going to call you yesterday because your guest I don't know what she was talking about. There was a deal made between Mr. Gorbachev and Mr. Reagan. This was the deal, NATO will never expand to the Russian borders, but NATO gave membership to Poland, Hungaria. Nothing has been changed. They're communists more than Putin. I'm from Russia and I do care about our country. We don't want Ukraine, but if the gentlemen agreement was made, then CIA, and this is the fact, your guest can check on it, and MI6 paid bunch of people, stole all of our industries, and become oligarch. How did they get their money?

They bought during that drunk before Putin comes in. I'm talking about Yeltsin Boris. They bought all of our industries with the West money. Now we're just getting upset. No, check your CIA checkbook, check your MI6 checkbook, how they paid to all of these oligarchs to bought all of the industries for nothing. There was a deal between Gorbachev and Reagan, and the only person knows in this country was Secretary Baker. He was working with them.

It was a gentlemen agreement, no expansion to Russian border. Now, guess what? We're going to defend it. If you think that Putin crazy maybe as you guys calling him, so be it. He's going to defend it. You guys created all of these people that have stolen money, and what did they do with their money? They came to London. We're suffering in Russia, and they bought condos. Who built Miami in your country? Nobody investigate that. Republicans and Democrats both in this country are dead.

Brian Lehrer: You're talking about the concentration of wealth that broke out in the Soviet Union after communism fell, after the Soviet Union fell.

Dmitry: Exactly, Mr. Brian. Exactly, because the money came from CIA and MI6, and Russian knows.

Brian Lehrer: Or it just came from the finance sector, maybe, maybe not, but for you, Dmitry, what's the connection between that and Putin's plans for Ukraine today?

Dmitry: Putin wants to show the world we're going to get back to whole Russia. The entire southern part of Russia used to be divided between Iran and Russia. What happened? We have all these countries, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan. This supposedly had to be a treaty between Iran and Russia in 1800. You guys got to start educating yourself about the history.

Brian Lehrer: If Putin does it, is this in the interest, Dmitry, of the Russian people, or as a previous caller was putting it, is this just Putin's interest in grandeur and it doesn't help the average Russian live any better?

Dmitry: Let me just say, Mr. Brian, first of all, your last caller was correct that everybody was speaking Russian, even the countries in the southern part of Russia. He is correct, absolutely, but what happened to Russia? Once Gorbachev made a deal with President Reagan, CIA and MI6, they decided to destroy our country by helping the people to destroy our country to the pieces.

Now we got a guy. Maybe he's crazy, maybe he's rough on the people. You keep talking about yesterday, your guest was talking about LBGT. Excuse me, we have bars in Moscow. My brother owns a bar in Moscow that is LBGT. I don't know what she was talking about. I was trying to get yesterday on your phone, I couldn't.

Brian Lehrer: I know. Our lines were full yesterday like they're full today. I'm glad you got through today, Dmitry. Thank you very much. I think it is fair to say that there's been good reporting about Putin's government intolerance for LGBTQ Russians. Gab Debenedetti from New York Magazine, a very interesting set of callers.

Gabriel Debenedetti: Yes, absolutely. You can see how this has obviously animated a lot of people across not just the Eastern European diaspora, but in this country as well. I think it really speaks to why this is a complicated matter. This is not a simple history in this region. Yesterday, you obviously saw Vladimir Putin give an extremely sanitized for his version in his mind, version of the region's history. We're not going to solve any of this certainly in the next half hour, but not in the next few months either. This is a matter that has inflamed international politics for decades.

Brian Lehrer: We only have like two minutes left in the segment. Because that set of callers were so interesting, I rode with them. We're not really going to get to talk about the other topic I was hoping to talk about with you today based on your reporting after the November elections about the Republican gains and Democratic losses as they informed the midterms coming up this year, but I'll just touch it with you. This will be a tease for people to go back and read your articles in New York Magazine from the fall.

Gabriel Debenedetti: Sure.

Brian Lehrer: One of your pieces was called The Next Democratic Reckoning about how high turnout elections were supposed to be good for the Democrats. As it turns out, maybe not so much. The other about how the pollsters got it wrong in New Jersey, and Governor Murphy's re-election was much closer than they thought it was going to be. You want to just give us the one-paragraph version.

Gabriel Debenedetti: Sure, absolutely. Pollsters still don't have a good answer for what they're going to do in upcoming elections. I think this speaks to the bigger issue, which is that there is a new political era upon us where for a long time people believed that midterm elections had low turnout, off-year elections have-- In this era, particularly since the introduction of Trump to national political scene, the turnout has just blown past expectations on both sides over and over. We live in, this shouldn't be news to anyone at this point, a hyper-aware, hyper-energized political era.

It's no surprise that people are exhausted by it, but it's also no surprise that the Democrats in particular are struggling because they believe for a long time that higher turnout will always be good for them. Now that's obviously not necessarily going to be the case, and it's requiring them, in particular ahead of the midterms which are probably not going to be so great for President Biden's party if past is any prologue, it requires a bit of a rethink.

Brian Lehrer: I love our caller culture, and how many people from how many different backgrounds are willing to call in on how many different segments that have to do with local things, national things, international things. We just heard callers originally from Poland and Ukraine and Russia, and one whose grandma he said came from Belarus.

Hopefully, that informed all of your understanding of what's going on over there in Ukraine and in Russia, folks, and what you should think about it and how much you should care and what you should think about our government's response, or anything else pertinent to that whole situation. We thank Gabe Debenedetti, national correspondent for New York Magazine. Gabe, thanks as always.

Gabriel Debenedetti: Always great to be here, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, much more to come.

 

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