This was Trump's net worth when he went

into office, $2.3 billion. And this is

his net worth now, just two years later.

$6.5 billion.

>> So, we've never had a president running

businesses while in office. And so,

decisions are being made not based on

what's good for Americans, but what's

good for his company. For example, why

did the Saudi government invest $2

billion in Jared Kushner's fund? It

wasn't because they just like Jared

Kushner. It was because Kushner is

Trump's son-in-law. And so my biggest

concern is the deterioration of American

democracy. I mean, it's already

happening. Most people think democracies

end with tanks in the street or somebody

shooting up the presidential palace, but

actually in the modern world, they

mostly end because someone who is

legitimately elected begins to take

apart the system. Trump, he has never

cared much one way or the other for

American democracy. He admires foreign

leaders who have no constraints. And I

have a goal that is to remind people of

why democracy is important and to pay

attention to the ways in which it's

declining so that we can fight back. So

we're just at the beginning of what

could be quite a big change.

>> So there's five core tactics that

autocratic leaders use to dismantle a

democracy. Could you walk me through the

five tactics?

>> So first of all,

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>> An Apple Bomb, what is it you spent the

last couple of decades of your life

doing, understanding, studying, and

sharing with the world? I started out as

somebody who was fascinated by the

Soviet Union. I went there when it still

existed as a as a student. I was lucky

enough to watch it fall apart. I was a

journalist based in Warsaw at the time

the Warsaw pack came to an end. Then I

spent

some years writing history books trying

to explain how control was maintained

over such a large space uh by so few

people. But all that time, I thought

that what I was doing was writing

stories about the distant past. I was

analyzing a system that didn't exist

anymore.

What's happened to me in the last decade

is that I've discovered that a lot of

what I thought was over and done and

belonged to some other era uh has come

back. Most people think democracies end

with a coup d'eta or, you know, tanks in

the street or somebody shooting up the

presidential palace. that actually in

the modern world they mostly end because

someone who is legitimately elected

begins to take apart the system and take

away the things that ensure free

elections can continue and I started

watching that happen in multiple

countries at the same time and I saw

this authoritarian instinct started to

come back and that's what I write about

now

>> are these just election cycles or is

there something bigger at play here

because you know I spend a lot time

reading articles from decades ago or

hundreds of years ago and in all times

in history it seems that there were

problems but it seems that the I don't

know the democratic system has a

remarkable way every four years of

clearing out what people weren't happy

with and putting something new in is

this time different to the past

>> what feels different to me is for the

first time in several established

democracies most notably United States

but not only you have political parties

who come to power with the explicit idea

that they will alter the system in order

to make sure that they can stay in

forever. The pioneer of this idea was

Victor Orban in Hungary. He was elected

legitimately with a big margin and then

what he did was slowly seek to capture

the state. So what a democracy needs in

order to survive, in order to maintain

its stability, it needs a few neutral

institutions. You know, it needs

independent courts. It needs an

independent electoral commission. It

needs independent media. In the modern

world, it needs a meritocratic

bureaucracy. So, people are hired and

fired to measure pollution or worry

about traffic and road construction who

aren't cousins of the ruling party. They

aren't somebody's friend, but they're

actual experts who understand how to do

things. So you need those things to be

in place in order to ensure that each

time there's an electoral cycle, it's a

fair election. And you see people who

are elected who who once they had power

decided to take those institutions

apart. You know, if you think about

democracy, it's actually a very strange

system, right? So you win an election

and in a democracy you have to preserve

the rules so that four years from now

your bitter enemies can contest you and

maybe beat you again. You know you lose

an election, you have to say okay we're

allowing our rivals to stay in power uh

but we trust that the system will remain

fair so four years from now we can also

contest them again. So it requires a

certain level of agreement about the

nature of the system and when that

begins to break down then you begin to

have imbalances and then you begin to

have elections that seem unfair to

people and then you begin to have a

completely different kind of national

conversation and we can see that has

happened in several places and of course

most notably in the United States and

because the United States is the largest

democracy because it's played the role

of leader of the democratic world the

influence uence of America on other

countries is pretty profound. Uh and so

this this idea that democracies can

possibly break down is suddenly um both

horrifying people but also interesting

to other people who say all right if you

can do it in America you can do it here.

>> There's a part of me that just thinks

that could never happen in America. And

that's obviously a bias that I have

being 33 years old and not knowing a ton

about history. But there's I'm sure

there's lots of people that think this

is some sort of theoretical idea, but it

would never happen in America because we

would never allow America to not be a

democracy. We wouldn't allow a a Russia

situation where you've got Putin sitting

in power for two decades or whatever.

>> Sure, but there are systems in between

Russia and liberal democracy. You can

have democracies that aren't fair. And

actually, I'm afraid to tell you that in

the United States, there is a history of

that. So the in the American South

before the civil rights movement, you

very often had in effect in in the

southern states, you had these one party

states where, you know, the rules were

pretty rigged. Everybody knew who was

going to win. Not everybody was allowed

to vote. So black people weren't allowed

to vote or they were it was very heavily

restricted. It was hard for them to

vote. And that existed in the United

States, you know, between the Civil War

and the and the 1960s, you had very

undemocratic parts of the United States.

And I think some of the people who are

in Washington right now in the Trump

administration are working from that

history and from that historical memory.

>> What is your biggest concern in this

regard?

>> Well, I have two concerns. Uh, one is

that inside the United States, the

deterioration of American democracy, I

mean, it's already happening, right? So,

it's already creating a class of people

who no longer feel they have a stake in

the political system and who won't vote,

may never vote and fe and and will be

outside of politics and outside of the

national conversation. That can lead in

the direction of violence that can lead

in in all kinds of negative directions.

We see the development of new kinds of

um paramilitary in the United States

that we never had before. the

development of ICE. We've never before

had a single national police force

wearing combat uniforms, wearing masks,

not subject to the normal restrictions

of local police forces. We also have a

rise in um high-end corruption. The

president, people around him, companies

close to him seem to have access to ways

to make money and are making money out

of doing politics in a way that was also

not possible at that scale in America

before. And that's sort of one whole set

of concerns if you want to go down one

of those roads.

>> There's this map in front of us on the

table. I realize some people can't see

because they're listening, but there's a

map on the table in front of us. Could

you just explain what this map shows and

why it's significant?

>> The map shows the level of of democracy

around the world. And of course, the

thing that's immediately notable to me

is that those who made the map don't

count the United States anymore as a

liberal democracy. Mhm.

>> So at a liberal democracy, meaning a

state where, as I said, the electoral

rules are clear, where the electoral

system is set up not to favor one party

or the next, and instead it's described

as an electoral democracy, which is

somewhat less free. You see similar

systems in South America. In Europe, you

mostly still have liberal democracies.

In Australia, Japan, South Korea, you

still have liberal democracies. And then

most of the rest of the world are some

form of autocracy. Either very closed

and very repressive like China or like

Russia or they are in a democratic gray

zone. So there are states that could

really go in either direction. I mean

they're still they're still open. But

it's true that if you'd looked at a map

like this a decade ago or two decades

ago, it would have been a lot bluer than

the the blue being democracy and the red

or reddish being autocracy. So you do

see a an absolute process of democratic

decline that's been written about um by

many people over the last few years. I I

I think I believe very much that states

influence one another. People follow and

imitate and copy their neighbors.

>> Do you think it's possible that in our

lifetimes the US might become an orth

orcratic

country?

So the US could become a what I think on

this map is described as an autocratic

gray zone. So you could imagine the US

as in effect a one party state. So a

state where one political party has

control and the other just can't win

national elections. you already have

this system of we call it gerrymandering

where electoral districts are being

written in such a way as to favor one

party or the another. The effect of that

also is that once you have people who

don't really have to contest elections

anymore, then you have corruption.

Because if you're going to win anyway,

why do you have to worry about your

constituents? then you have worse

government and worse services because if

you don't have to have a an electoral

contest then you know you can pursue

your own interests. You can do favors

for businessmen who help you in other

ways. And we see this decline of

democracy already at the state level.

And of course there could be a danger at

the national level of a fixed system

that made sure only one party ever wins.

And then you would get all these

pathologies that we already have at the

state level. We're beginning to have

them uh even now. And remember, we have

right now a president who refused to

accept the result of an election in 2020

and who staged what was intended to be

an electoral coup. Uh it failed. But,

you know, the idea that he wouldn't do

it again or nobody would ever dare to do

that or nobody would block an election,

I think it's pretty naive at this point.

I mean, it happened already. Um, and so

of course it can happen again.

>> Do you think he's going to try and get a

third term in office?

>> I don't think so because I don't think

he wants one.

>> Um, but I think it's possible that

people around him will try to shape and

affect the elections in a way that makes

sure that a Republican wins

>> or maybe his his children.

>> It's very possible that one of his

children will run for president

>> because there's a way to kind of control

power in America. You know, when they

they talk about MAGA, which is, I guess,

a collection of people now. You know,

you could say Jay Vance is part of MAGA

and the kids and Trump. So, maybe they'd

want to keep it within MAGA. Maybe

that's the

>> they might or they might want to want to

keep it within the family. I mean, look,

what is MAGA now? You know, what what

what is different about Trump's second

term from Trump's first term. So, one of

the things that happened after January

the 6 after the attack on the Congress

was that many of the people who'd been

around Trump, Republicans, people who do

foreign policy, people who do domestic

policy,

left. They said, "Right, this is too

much for us. You know, we're we're

American patriots. You know, we can't

support this kind of attack on our

political system." And they departed his

presence.

But that exactly that moment that attack

on the electoral system attracted other

people.

>> So for different reasons, people who

disliked the American political system,

who don't like democracy, don't like

liberal democracy, thought it was

leading America in a leftwing direction.

Some of them have political reasons.

They were attracted to Donald Trump

because they said, "Right, this is

somebody who has the nerve to try and

overthrow the system, and we like that."

And they're they're they're not all the

same. They have different views. So

there's a tech authoritarian group who

want influence over the American

political system because it's good for

their businesses and because they don't

get the point of democracy anyway and

they think they should be in charge.

There's a a kind of Christian

nationalist group who think the United

States should not be a secular state. It

should be a Christian state and they

want to they are interested in taking

over the system um with that. And and

then there's a traditional MAGA group

who think the United States should be

run by the people who used to run it.

you know, kind of white Christian people

of a certain kind and they want to bring

the United States back in that

direction. So, they're they're different

views. Um, and they don't all agree with

each other, but they they do agree that

the system requires radical change and

that's the difference between the first

and second term. So, Trump's first term,

I think he has never cared much one way

or the other for American democracy. He

personally sees himself as someone who

should be allowed to act in any way he

wants. He doesn't like any kind of

constraint. Um he admires foreign

leaders who have no constraints, but he

was one way or another constrained in in

in his first term by the system and now

he's surrounded himself by people who

are seeking to help him avoid those

constraints. And that's that's new.

>> I think when we have these

conversations, we assume that everybody

agrees that democracy is the better

path.

>> Sure.

>> And that they understand the downsides

of an autocracy. So there are different

kinds of autocracies to be clear and

some are some are more repressive than

others. The the main thing that you

would notice the first thing that you

would notice would be the absence of the

rule of law. Rule of law means that

judges and courts and the legal system

make decisions based on the constitution

or on the laws. And in an autocracy you

have rule by law. And that means that

the law is what the person in power says

it is.

>> Mhm. And so if you did a program for

example and someone on your program said

something that was offensive to the

leader of the country, you could be

arrested and you could be put on trial.

And instead of the court saying, "Right,

we we've looked at this case and

according to the law, we have in the law

it says we have freedom of speech and

you can do whatever you want," they

could somebody could could ring up from

the Kremlin or from the White House or

from, you know, whatever is the

leadership of your country and say, "No,

actually, we want this guy in jail and

we don't care what the courts think."

Um, and that's the big difference here.

I'll tell you a real story that happened

in Hungary when Hungary was going down

the road in the direction of a one party

state. You can be the CEO of a company

and people can come and knock on your

door and they can say, "We would like

you to sell us a majority share in your

company and you say, 'N no, why should I

let you do that? I I my company, I built

it. I invested in it. I don't want to

sell it." And then, okay, so what

happens the next day? Somebody breaks

the windows of your house. A few days

later, your children are harassed on the

way to school. People who work for you

start having legal problems. this or

that, you know, some kind of mortgage

issue or some, you know, and you

suddenly your company encounters

regulatory issues. There's a tax

inspection and one by one, the state

finds a way to harass you, to harass

your company, your workers, so that

eventually you say, "Okay, I give up. I

sell and I'm leaving the country." And

this happened to somebody I know. Sounds

like um anthropic in the United States

recently where an anthropic the AI

company refused to give the United

States access to its AI under certain

conditions and then very quickly Pete

Pete Hegsth did a a post I think and

Donald Trump did a post basically saying

that they were going to restrict their

ability to work with the government.

>> We aren't used to the idea that the

government decides which companies

thrive and which ones die, you know. So

once you have an an autocratic state

that can do what it wants legally, then

it can decide which companies succeed.

It can base government contracts which

are very important in every country not

on who's the best company or not on some

kind of blind procurement process but on

who's your friend you know or or who's

donated to your political party or who's

in the case of the United States who's

invested in your company. So one of the

things that we have in the United States

for the first time ever I think is a

president who is actively doing business

in countries and in areas that are of

interest to the people he's doing

business with. So for example the Trump

family does business in Saudi Arabia. It

has a it has a deal with a a Saudi

company called um Dar Alakan which is a

sort of development company and it that

company has close relations to the Saudi

leadership. The Saudi leadership is

interested in deals with the United

States, but I mean political arrangement

with the United States and the money is

going into the Trump family coffers in

order to make a better arrangement for

the country of Saudi Arabia. So it's a

way in which because we have a declining

democracy and because we have a

increasingly kleptocratic system

decisions are being made by the

president of the United States by the

white house not based on what's good for

Americans but on what's good for his

company and that's and that if you look

at Russia that's exactly how the

political system works there if you look

at China is more complicated it's a

bigger country it's more sophisticated

but even there you have again decisions

made not for the welfare

of the Chinese people, but for the

ruling party, for the Communist Party.

>> And we have two uh jars of money here.

This was uh Trump's net worth when he

went into office, $2.3 billion

reportedly. And this is his net worth

now, just 2 years later.

$6.5 billion. Looks like being a

president is a profitable job.

>> So that has never happened before. This

is completely new in American history.

There have been presidents who there

have been whiffs of corruption around

them. There's been, you know,

presidential relatives who've tried to

trade off the president's name. But

we've never had a president running

businesses while in office. And as I

said, in such a way that the people with

whom he's doing business are are hoping

to benefit politically or or or in other

ways. And that's that's completely brand

new. And if you just back to your

original question, which is why is

democracy better? Churchill was the

person who said that democracy is the

worst system of government except for

all the others. So it's a multi-reasons

why it's flawed. You know democracies

have require an immense amount of

tolerance. There's always a lot of

cacaphony. There's a constant flux and

change that that people find

innervating. But at the very least what

democracies can do is they can force

issues like this into the public sphere.

you know, you're allowed at least in a

democracy to question whether uh this

decisions are being made in on the basis

that they're good for everybody or

they're being made for the benefit of

the president.

>> I guess supporters would say, you know,

Trump's not running the businesses

himself. It's just his kids activity

that is generating this net worth.

>> Yeah. But I mean, everybody knows that

they're his kids and you you wouldn't do

it. You know, why why did the Saudi

government invest $2 billion in Jared

Kushner's fund? It wasn't because they

just like Jared Kushner. It was because

Kushner is Trump's son-in-law. And now,

of course, Kushner is the Trump

administration's negotiator in the

Middle East. Um, so he's negotiating

with his business partners. The

appearance of conflict of interest is

overwhelming. And as I said, we've never

had in American history or I think in

recent British history, we've never had

that kind of conflict of interest so

clear at that at that high a level.

>> Do you spend much time thinking about

what's going on in the Middle East, the

wars in Iran and what in Venezuela and

the bigger picture here of what's

happening and how this might link back

to what you were saying about

authoritarian regimes. It's all very

confusing. I I feel like we went through

a period of relative peace through the

Biden era and Trump obviously ran on

this promise that he wasn't going to

start new wars. Um and we seem to be

having a lot of wars. Russia and Ukraine

still raging on doesn't seem to be

nearer to any conclusion and now there's

this war in Iran that threatens to be a

neverending war. What is what what what

>> there are several things going on. One

of them is that in declining democracies

and in historically in autocracies is

you have leaders who conduct wars as a

way of consolidating their base and

consolidating their support. Uh and so

one of the things that Trump likes to do

is if he declares a war, I believe he

had a different expectation of the Iran

war. He's using foreign policy. He's

using these fighting of wars in order to

consolidate his support at home. So

that's that's a part of what's

happening. But some of this is nothing

to do with Trump. You know, we are now

living in a world where the historical

political system, um, the one that was

built after 1945, some people call it

the liberal world order, I don't really

like that term because it sounds kind of

mushy, but the the order that has

existed since 1945, the one that was

somewhat based on the UN, that was based

on a set of rules and treaties, that

order has begun to break down. And it's

breaking down for several reasons. one

we've started to discuss already which

is changes inside the United States and

the United States was an really

important pillar of that order but it's

also breaking down because the

autocratic powers uh Russia, China,

Iran, Venezuela until recently uh and

and others have been challenging that

order for a while themselves. They

didn't like the American dominance of

you know of international politics in

the conversation. they were competing

with America at a at a strategic level

but also in what is really a war of

ideas. So let's go back to autocracy and

democracy. You know if you are the

leader of Russia or you're the leader of

China, what is the thing that is most

threatening to you? And the answer is

the language of liberal democracy. So

all this stuff that we find boring and

we're used to and you know this idea of

freedom of speech and separation of

powers and rule of law all those things

that we have come to take for granted in

our societies are a huge challenge to

the political system in Russia or China.

You know what is Putin most afraid of?

He's most afraid of a street revolution

of the kind we had in Ukraine in 2014.

So when people are standing on the

street and they have signs saying we're

against corruption, you know, we want

democracy, we want to be in the European

Union, we want to be integrated with

Europe, he's afraid of that happening in

Russia because if you live in an

autocratic state where you don't have

freedom of speech, where there is no

justice, where the government decides

what all the rules are, then those ideas

are explosive and exciting, the same way

they were in the 18th century when when

they first appeared in the Declaration

of Independence. And people can be

motivated by them. People will go into

the street for them. People will risk

their lives for them. And the autocrats

know that. And so really for the past

decade since 2013, 2014, you see them

seeking to spread those ideas to promote

them. I mean, we all know now about

Russian propaganda campaigns. We know

what Russian disinformation looks like.

There's a Chinese version, too, which we

don't see that much in English, but it

appears in in other countries. We see

them seeking to undermine democracy,

trying to spread the influence of a

different set of ideas. So the war in

Ukraine is exactly that war. The

Russians are firstly trying to destroy

Ukraine as a nation. They want it to

disappear. This is they're they're an

empire. They want Ukraine to be their

colony. And they understood perfectly

well that by challenging Ukraine, by

invading Ukraine, they were defying this

liberal world order. They were defying

the rules of post-war Europe because in

post-war Europe, there was a decision

made after 1945. We're not going to

invade each other anymore. We're not

going to have wars. Instead, we're going

to decide everything by by diplomacy.

Borders will not be changed by force.

And the Russians understood that they

were breaking that that norm. And they

invaded Ukraine. They also invaded

Ukraine because the Ukrainians were

using that language, that powerful

democratic language that we take for

granted. And Putin said, "If they can do

it in Ukraine, then people could do it

in Russia. and so I need to crush this

Ukrainian democracy movement. And so

that war really is a fault line between

the democratic world and the autocratic

world. So I think what what you're

seeing is the breakdown of an older

system that was more or less organized

around by American rules.

>> Through history, which lasts longer,

democracy or autocracy?

>> Oh, autocracies.

>> They last longer. Well, look, if you

look back in history, most human

societies in most times have been what

you would we would now call autotocracy,

but they were whatever. They were

monarchies. They were led by tribal

leaders, by warlords. There have been

very, very few liberal democracies. And

most of them have not lasted. And I

should also say the people who wrote the

American Constitution knew that. And

when they wrote it, they were reading

the history of ancient Rome. There was a

Roman Republic and it fell when it was

taken over by Julius Caesar. So, they

all knew that story. They were reading

about the Greek democracies, Athens,

which also fell. And when they wrote the

US Constitution, they were thinking, how

do we make this last? What can we put in

it to make it last? It's a longer story

whether you think they were successful

or not. But everybody who created

democracies, whether it was after World

War II in Europe, whether it was America

in the 18th century, everybody

understood that this was a fragile

system. And they tried to put checks and

balances,

you know, judicial, legislative, and

executive power. They tried to create

systems that would ward off the impulse

towards autocracy.

>> I don't know if you have the answer to

this question, but where are people

happier on average in a democracy or in

autocracy?

>> So, I have to tell you, I know a little

bit about happiness surveys, and over

and over and over again, the happiest

place in the world is Finland. Finland,

Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Scandinavia is

very happy.

>> The reasons for that may not be anything

to do with the nature of the political

system might have other sources, but the

happiness is certainly connected to

democracy. It's connected to stability

and of course connected to wealth. Just

looking at some research here. It says,

"While wealth and economic stability are

critical for happiness, regardless of

the government type, democracy provides

additional structural benefits like

participation, security, and lower

corruption that tend to lift a society's

overall life satisfaction.

>> Well, democracies by definition are at

least in theory, the state is structured

in a way to benefit everybody, right? At

least that's how it's supposed to work.

Mhm.

>> So whether it's a national health care

system or whether it's a system of roads

and railroads, you know, the state is

building things that are designed to

serve everybody in an autocracy that

doesn't necessarily happen. So in

Russia, ordinary Russians have no

influence on that decision. They have no

way of expressing their views. They

can't say what they think. They have no

ability to influence the state. They

can't say, "Well, actually, hey, we'd

like to build a hospital instead of

bombing another city in Ukraine." And so

they have very little ability to change

the system and that and that of course

creates frustration and unhappiness.

>> If that is true and this is why I asked

the question if it's better for the

people and at some degree I think if

informed people would choose it which I

think is and I say the word informed

because I I understand in a lot of these

countries where they don't have

democracy I'm now using don't have

democracy instead of having to say that

word again. They limit the access to

information so that people don't know

what they're missing out on, I guess, or

don't have those potentially disruptive

ideas. They're not exposed to them on

their on their phones or devices. I I

would think a person would choose to

live in a democracy if given the choice

and the information.

>> I would think so. Although

you know there are other you know there

there's a deep human need for a sense of

stability and security and hierarchy for

some people

>> and it's true that authoritarians seem

to offer that. You know in a democracy

you do have this constant change of

leaders. You know there's more demands

on citizens. You know you have to

participate if you care about your

country. It's not just enough to vote.

you need to be involved in politics in

some way. And autocracies, I mean, I

think falsely offer stability. And so

the the argument of the Russians and

Chinese governments and the argument

they make on in those social media

campaigns that they run inside the US or

the UK or Europe is exactly that,

authoritarianism, stability, safety,

traditional values, hierarchy. And there

are people for whom that's deeply

appealing. So I I wouldn't discount that

instinct. And when people like that are

also able to control information, when

they control the security services, when

they monopolize the use of violence,

they can be very hard to undo even if

the majority of the country wants

something different.

>> It's almost hard for me to understand

how the people in Russia are okay with

the fact that their the leader has been

there for several decades and isn't

moving.

But it's hard for us to understand

because in the UK or in America, we

there would be people on the streets.

>> It doesn't matter what they think

>> really. Well, because they have no way

of expressing what they think. There's

no such thing as public opinion or

public debate. There's no there's no

forum you can join where you can say

what you you could express your views in

a way that's fair. And and if you do

say, I think Putin should be, you know,

it's time for him to retire, you could

be arrested. And so people begin to

adjust what they think and they begin to

change their behavior because they know

that it's dangerous to say things. I

mean, this is something this is a

phenomenon I found in the work I did

years ago on the Soviet Union. The

propagandist said how successful we are

and how much hay we've grown this year

and how many bits of steel we've made

and it was always fake. And so the

question was always, well, did people

really believe that? Did people believe

in the system? Do they believe in the

propaganda? And the answer was a little

weird. It was convenient for them to

believe it. In other words, in order to

get on in life, you had to believe it or

you had to say you believed it. And at a

certain point, what they really thought,

like deep in the back of their mind,

didn't matter because there was no way

to say what you think. And that's what

you have in Russia. Again, now it's for

me very tragic because there was a

period in Russia in the 90s and 2000s

when there was open debate and people

were speaking freely and clearly about

about the state of the country. But

right now it's it's once again a

situation where

expressing your views is dangerous and

so people just don't do it and they try

to stay out of politics altogether. You

know, politics is dangerous and ugly and

nasty. Like just stay home. And remember

that this is something that's developed

over years. It didn't happen from one

day to the next. It was a decline that's

been happening since the year 2000.

>> I've heard you say that there's five

core tactics that autocratic leaders use

to dismantle a democracy. Could you walk

me through the five tactics and maybe

also link them to things that are

happening now in in the West which might

be warning signs of the dismantling of

one's democracy?

>> Well, corruption,

we've done that one already.

>> Mhm.

>> Corruption you have in any political

system, and you often have it in

democracies, too. But in an autocratic

society, you have more corruption

because the the legal system is

controlled. And so what you have for

example in the United States the fact

that Donald Trump has taken over our

department of justice and has installed

loyalists who are looking among other

things for example to pro prosecute his

enemies just because they're his

enemies. That means you have a check and

balance. So normally if there was high

level corruption in the White House or

in the administration you would have

people inside the Department of Justice

and the FBI who would investigate it.

But now we don't have that happening.

>> Is that different from the past? It's

different. It's different. I mean, we

didn't have anybody try to use the White

House to make money in this way before.

So, hard for me to say what would have

happened in like, I don't know, the

Clinton administration, but we didn't

have a completely politicized civil

service, completely politicized FBI who

would avoid, you know, any any kind of

investigation. Um, and so corruption is

a particular symptom of

authoritarianism, and it's also a tool.

you know, it's something that the

president can offer people. You get

along with me, you don't criticize me,

your business will prosper. You know,

you will get government contracts.

>> Is that what we're seeing with all these

big tech CEOs that seem to be going

frequently to the White House and saying

wonderful things about him and his

support and having dinner with him and

none of them speaking out? But if you

look at their Twitter feeds a couple

years ago, they were all saying the most

horrific things about Trump.

>> Yes. I mean I mean they they've

understood that, you know, if this is

going to be a an American administration

that you have to genulect the president,

you have to be sickantic to the

president in order to get business

deals, um then they'll do it. If you

have to donate to his White House

reconstruction fund, which many of them

have done, then you'll do it. If you

have to donate to his inauguration,

you'll you'll do it. It's a question of

who is supposed to be the beneficiary of

government regulation. It's supposed to

be Americans. I mean, ordinary people,

we're supposed to become more pro

prosperous. The beneficiary is not

supposed to be, as I said, the president

and his family and his entourage. And

that is a big shift in in in American

politics.

>> When I look back at someone like like

the CEO of OpenAI's statements on Trump,

if you go back to 2016, he said he was

an unprecedented threat to America and

called him a potential disaster for the

American economy. He said he was

irresponsible in the way dictators are

and compared his rhetoric to the big lie

tactics used by historical

authoritarians like Hitler. He described

him as erratic, abusive, and prone to

fits of rage. And then I see him side by

side at the White House saying nice

things about him and saying nothing

critical at all.

>> It's one of the most bizarre things

actually about this whole

administration. you know, if I were that

rich, like what's the point of being

rich unless if you can't say what you

think?

>> Mhm.

>> You know, I don't I don't understand the

value of it.

>> Can I hazard a guess as to why the like

incentive structure they're trapped in?

>> What's your guess?

>> I think that being rich for these people

is actually just a proxy of status. And

I think the thing that risks their

status, which is what they care about

more than anything else in the games

that they're playing, is losing to their

direct competition. And it's quite clear

to me that if someone like Sam Alman was

to say anything negative about Trump, it

would of course hurt his business, but

actually it would hurt something more,

which is his status. He would lose to

anthropic and XAI and Gemini. To lose in

your category of peers, which the all

these sort of tech oligarchs are in like

category of peers would hurt more than

anything. I think it would hurt more

than losing a gazillion dollars is just

like losing the the game.

>> Yeah. There are two things about it. One

is it's very shortsighted

>> because ultimately who will suffer if

there is a decline in in in the American

political system in the American legal

system? I mean it's them.

>> Maybe they've gotten used to paying to

play

>> in a way.

>> They they have but it's a it's a it's a

mug's game. I mean it's fine as long as

you're one of the people who are

winning, but what if what if the rules

change?

>> Oh yeah. Like like in Russia with the

oligarchs put

>> That's right. I'm sick of these

oligarchs. I want different oligarchs.

And that happened in China, too. So it's

a so that's one um argument against it.

The second argument is and I think

anthropic might have figured this out

already and some of the law firms have

figured it out. There's also a game to

be made by saying no I'm independent. We

have our own corporate rules. We have

our own legal code of ethics and we're

going to behave as patriotic Americans

and then you attract business

>> and they and they may be doing all of

it. And as I said there's a there's a

parallel thing that happened with US law

firms. there were some frivolous

lawsuits and they settled them and then

there were some who said no we won't

settle we won't do that and the ones who

didn't do it have all won you know and

they're all thriving I mean so there is

also a benefit to be gained both

commercially and financially and I would

think even in that weird world of status

by standing up for what you believe in

and by remembering the bigger picture

and the bigger picture is what happens

to the United States I mean the United

States is your main market it's where

your employees come from it's the place

where you're doing business and if if

the United States begins to suffer then

you suffer too and so thinking a little

bit like that would might help some of

them.

>> Is this just another 3 years of this

sort of you know unusual behavior before

we resume business as usual in in in our

democracies.

>> I'm I'm asked this by Europeans all the

time and my sense is that a lot of

things will not ever be quite normal

again either inside the US or around the

world. I mean, I I would advise, for

example, I mean, if you're doing

business with the US or you're a

security partner of the US, I would

strongly recommend that you have plan B.

You know, it's really time for NATO to

have a plan in case the United States

flakes out, to have a different security

option. You know, what happens to the US

after Trump isn't clear? First of all,

the next president could be JD Vance,

who I think is even more committed to

the project of making America into a one

party state. Or the next president could

be a Democrat we haven't heard of yet,

who decides to use the broken system in

order to take advantage of it in a

different way. I mean, I hope that won't

happen, but you can't count it out. I

mean, once the norms are broken and once

the laws have changed, then it can be

anybody can take advantage of it. I

mean, if if Trump can use the federal

bureaucracy to threaten media companies,

then why can't the next president? And

so, you know, you certain things don't

necessarily get fixed once they're

broken.

>> On that point of global partners of the

US now thinking about their own defense

and themselves more. Is that a pattern

that you're seeing? just from my

observations of you know we're we're sat

here in London at the moment but my

observations of the UK the UK used to

consider ourselves to be the great

alliance sort of partner of America

>> special relationship

>> that we had the special relationship

which I never knew what it meant but I

always liked it seems like that's gone

out the window

>> and the UK are now speaking a lot to

like President Mccron in France and it

seems like we're having our own little

European meetings but around the world

it seems that that's happening Canada

don't seem to be a great ally of the US

anymore after they threaten to invade

them. What it what is happening from

that perspective? Are we are we becoming

more individualistic and breaking into

our own little groups because of Trump's

rhetoric?

>> What you're watching is everybody all

over the world hedging. Everybody is

looking for alternatives. So you now

have an EU India trade agreement which

nobody would have bothered to do a few

years ago. You have Canada

in initiating a security relationship

with the EU. you have conversations

inside NATO about, you know,

realistically if the United States

weren't to help us in case of a Russian

attack, what would we do? So that's

those aren't really public

conversations, but privately lots of

people are having them. Everywhere you

go, you see these so-called middle

powers. This is a term that Mark Carney

of Canada first started using. You know,

Brazil, India, the EU countries begin,

Japan, you see them beginning to make

new relationships with one another. You

know, if the United States flakes out

and we can't trade with them in a normal

way anymore because the president

changes the trading rules every 5

minutes, then at least we'll have a

decent trading relationship with

somebody else. I I travel a lot. I've

traveled a lot in the last three months

and everywhere I go, that's the main

topic of conversation. Canada was

completely integrated with the United

States. I mean, it didn't almost didn't

have an independent economy. And now

that Canadians are thinking, how do we

benefit from our oil and gas wealth to

protect our sovereignty? Who else do we

do deals with? Carney's been to China.

He's, you know, also talking to India.

With whom will we share potentially

share nuclear technology? There are

these conversations between France and

Poland and France and Germany about a

different kind of nuclear umbrella. It's

all pretty tentative, but it's it's

moved much faster than I would ever

expected. I think the breaking point for

a lot of people in Europe was Greenland.

And I don't know if people have really

focused on what exactly happened there,

but you had the president of the United

States saying he was going to invade

Denmark. All right, there we go. So, the

United States was saying it was going to

invade Greenland. So, Trump was kind of

hinting it in public and behind the

scenes there were other signs that maybe

they were really preparing to do it. And

so, what did that mean in Denmark? That

meant that the Danes said, "Okay, we're

preparing for a US invasion." And this

is a very, this is a country that's very

pro-American. Lots of big Danish

companies in the United States,

including the ones who create the the

weight loss drugs. Lots of Danish

American travel, friendship, everything,

security relationship going back to to

the Second World War. Okay, the

Americans are invading. What do we do?

Do we blow up the airports in Greenland?

And they did start planning that. Do we

plan to shoot down American planes? Are

we going to shoot at American soldiers?

You know, are they going to shoot at us?

And they had to suddenly imagine a real

war with their closest ally and how that

would impact them and impact trade and

impact NATO and so on. And not only did

they have to do it, their close allies

in Europe did it, too. So the Germans

were consulting with the Danes all

through this period. You know, what if

the Danes shoot down an American plane?

like how does that affect us? And

everybody went through this kind of

traumatic experience of imagining a US

invasion of a NATO ally. And then Trump

made a speech at Davos where he somehow

changed the subject and confused

Greenland and Iceland a few times and

you know and it got put off. But no one

has recovered. Everybody remembers that

moment and said, "Okay, this is a this

is an unstable power. They could do real

damage to us. they can't be relied on.

We need alternatives. And so really

since then, and that was in January,

since then, this is when you've seen

this the stuff you were talking about,

you know, the visits to China, the

visits to Canada, um the back and forth

with India, and you see you see

everybody hedging and rearranging the

way they think about the world.

>> If you're an American, is this good news

or bad news that the rest of the world

is hedging?

>> It's very bad news.

>> Why? because a lot of America's

prosperity in the post-war period has

been based on the fact that America was

dominant in global trade and you know we

make money out of our European

relationships. Um you know we produce

things that we sell all over the world

and actually you know we import things

from all over the world and that's good

too. You know the the root of American

post-war prosperity is is are these

relationships especially with Europe um

and also the root of America's security

dominance. I mean why are there NATO

bases in Europe? It's not just to

protect Europe. It's also because from

there the US can project power into the

Middle East. It has it can you know into

Africa. It has it has a sort of window

on the world from there. And once those

bases are gone then the US is suddenly

cut off and far away in a way that it

wasn't it wasn't before. And there are

all kinds of other risks. You know will

the US dollar go on being so dominant?

US makes money out of that. Um, will US

goods go on being so valued? You know,

in Canada, they boycott US products now.

And actually, this was when I was in

Denmark uh in February. I was shown an

app. You can take a picture of a thing

you see in the supermarket and it will

tell you whether it's made in the United

States. And if it's made in the United

States, you don't buy it because they

were so angry. Even the dominance of

American tech, which a lot of Europeans

have belatedly woken up to as a problem,

could be in question. So Europeans are

looking to do cloud storage in Europe

and payment systems in Europe because

you know maybe the US is unreliable and

so all all it's it's we're just at the

beginning of what could be quite a big

change and yes Americans would feel

that.

>> Coming back to this point about the war

in Iran you said that Trump sort of

misestimated what would happen here.

Yes. Obviously flew into Versa and took

Madura out of bed

>> and that seemed to go fairly well um

from what he might have been expecting.

Um but then he attacked Iran and this

war seems to know no end now.

>> I mean here's another feature of

dictatorships is that nobody questions

your decisions and nobody offers you

alternatives. So

>> the people around you

>> the people around you. So when he was

planning the war in Iran you from the

reporting that we know people did say

well you know Mr. President you know the

Iranians are not like the Venezuelans.

It's a it's a very embedded regime and

the Iranians had a plan already for what

would happen if their leadership was

killed. They just they had a sort of

decentralized system, you know, that

will kick into place. You know, they

have allies all over the Middle East.

They have these proxy groups in

different parts of the Middle East and

famously the control over the straight

of Hormuz possibly. And he was told

that, but it seems he wasn't told it in

a very definitive way. Like some people

said, well, maybe this might be the

case, but nobody said to him, "Mr.

president, this is a bad idea because

he's known if you said, "Mr. President,

this is a bad idea," he might have said,

"Well, get out of my sight."

>> Mh.

>> Because he's not somebody who listens to

other people's views or or takes them

into into consideration. The thing that

bothers me the most about Iran, I have

friends and I've been involved with

organizations that do Iranian human

rights. The thing that bothered me the

most was his utter failure even to talk

to or about Iranians. I mean, there it

is an unpopular regime. It's one of the

worst regimes, ugliest on the planet.

And yet there seems to have been no

communication with the you know

democratic opposition in Iran. No

communication even with Paly the son of

the sha the monarchists in Iran. I mean

there are alternative governments. There

are alternative people who you could

speak to. And he never did that because

his real interest isn't democracy you

know or making Iran into a better place.

His real interest was in somehow

dominating Iran and getting them to give

him a share of the oil revenues which is

what happened in Venezuela.

you know, so he he he's also not even

thinking the way previous Democratic

presidents thought. So even George W.

Bush also somebody who made huge

mistakes, you know, and so on. You never

heard George W. Bush say, "What I want

is to run Iraq and steal its oil.

>> They wanted to make Iraq into a

democracy." Okay, that you know, which

by the way it is now, but it's it was it

was a long bloody pathway. Trump doesn't

even think like that. He thinks my idea

is to do some deal with one of the

dictators and and move on. And actually

that's what's happened in Venezuela. So

Venezuela is still a dictatorship and

it's run by the same regime as before

just led by a different person.

>> And he's been quite vocal about the fact

that they're getting all the oil. Yes.

Which is it's crazy thing to hear that

you'd snatch up you'd snatch a world

leader and then the same day you talk

about how you've got the boats stealing

the country's oil. I say the word

stealing but taking the country's oil

and proudly saying it. And it's not even

clear what he means by that and so on,

but it was not the action of a of a of a

20th or 21st century president.

>> The midterms are coming up and um I was

reading that Trump's approval ratings

are at an all-time low. It's the first

time I've seen people that were sort of

devoted supporters of his like Tucker

Carlson coming out and saying

apologizing for supporting him.

>> So this this war in Iran seems to have

really backfired in a way that I don't

think he was he was intending. And you

can kind of tell by how Trump's feeling

because you just watch him in

interviews. And the line that he repeats

75 times is probably like in some

respects the exact opposite of what's

going on. So when I when I watched him

in an interview this week and he was

repeatedly saying obviously he says how

great the war is going. So that makes me

feel like it's not going well. Yeah. It

was that was the main narrative was just

like how well the war is going.

>> He keeps saying we've won, we've won,

it's over. One of the problems of having

a president who lies all the time is

that you, you know, you just stop

believing. I mean, even if the war was

over, you wouldn't believe it because

he's his his his track record is not

good. Um, I mean, look, I think the

important thing to understand about

Trump is that he's somebody who has no

strategy. He doesn't care that much

about what happened before he was

president. He doesn't know the history

of Iran, you know, um, he doesn't

understand much about the history of the

region, and he doesn't really care about

what's going to happen later. He's

interested in what is happening now and

is he winning in the current moment.

>> What does winning mean?

>> Whatever it means to him. So I'm I'm

winning the contest with this journalist

or I'm winning the argument about Iran

or like we're winning the war or we're

I'm you know the opinion polls are all

in my favor. So whatever is the

situation, he has to emerge as the

winner. That's his narcissistic

mentality. That's not very good for

strategic thinking because sometimes you

don't win immediately like you have to

have a plan, you know, and you have to

have a long-term aim and you have to

have a strategy on how to get there. But

he he doesn't think like that. If you

watch him if you watch him perform on

television,

whatever is the happening, he will

convert it into that, you know, I'm

winning.

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When you begin to see attempts to

corrupt and shape elections, this is

when you know your democracy is in

trouble. When the rules of the election

are challenged. when um there there

begin to be arguments about who can vote

and and attempts to make some people not

be allowed to vote when you try to alter

the result in some way. I mean any an

attack on elections is a classic way in

which democratically elected leaders

undermine democracy. So an example of

this okay Victor Orban who just lost an

election in Hungary after 16 years he

had twothirds control of in Hungary if

you have twothirds of the parliament

then you can change the constitution so

he continually altered the Hungarian

constitution in order to give himself

electoral advantages so changing

constituencies and rebalancing the way

votes were counted in the United States

I think we already talked about

gerrymandering um gerrymandering is

unbelievably anti-democratic and the

fact that we of a kind of gerrymandering

contest right now.

>> What's gerrymandering?

>> Jerrymandering is a great word actually.

It comes from a congressman named Jerry

in the early 19th century who drew a map

of an electoral map which looked like a

salamander. And a gerrymandered map in

in US terms is a electoral map that has

been altered to favor one political

party. you know, the city of Nashville,

instead of having a single Democratic

representative, instead of having a

sensible constituency around the city,

um, that would vote for one member of

Congress, has been divided into several

constituencies that are designed in such

a way that only Republicans win. And

once you have maps that are designed to

favor one party or the other, then you

begin to get real democratic decline.

>> But there are other things happening in

the US too. So there are fears that ICE

which is the paramilitary organization

created by the president supposedly to

go after immigrants that what if what if

ICE troops are put on the street dur on

election day you know would some people

be intimidated from voting so there are

fears that he will do that uh in some

states

>> there's something called voter ID he

talks about a lot

>> yes well this is also very strange so of

course in the US you have voter ID and

most people have driver's licenses um

they want to change the law so that

either have to use a passport or a birth

certificate. And most Americans don't

have passports. I think 60% don't. I I

don't remember the number, but it's it's

very low. Many people have lost or never

had their birth certificates. If you

passed a law like that, it would make it

much more difficult for some people to

vote, especially certain kinds of

people. So married women would have to

show a passport, a birth certificate,

and a marriage license because you'd

have to show that because your birth

certificate name is different from your

married name.

>> Okay. Yeah.

>> So you'd have and so many people believe

this is a way to get fewer women to vote

and women are more likely to vote

Democrat. It's also part of a narrative.

So, the administration is trying to

argue that lots and lots of illegal

immigrants are voting,

which is a conspiracy theory. There's no

evidence of it. There's no evidence of

really of almost any illegal immigrants

ever voting. And if you think about it,

if you were an illegal immigrant, why

would you want to vote?

>> Because it would just be a way of

attracting attention to yourself. But

they seek to establish this narrative as

a way of disqualifying Democratic votes.

They want to say that votes in Trump did

this during the last election. Votes in

cities are too high. If they need to

call for a voter recount, they want to

say that this is the explanation for why

they've lost. Um, and so the part of the

reason why they're talking about voter

ID is that

>> so just looking at some of the data, it

says young voters between 18 and 29,

roughly 24% of them lack the documents

that would qualify them to vote. Um, in

minority voters, 11% of citizens of

color lack these documents. um compared

to a smaller percentage in white

citizens. In lowincome America, only one

in five households earning under $50,000

has a passport. And as you said, married

women, 69 million women have birth

certificates that do not match their

current legal name due to marriage,

>> right?

>> So, okay.

>> I mean, it's it's risky because I

imagine lots of Republicans don't have

passports.

>> Yeah.

>> But I think they've calculated that it

would suit them better. So, they're

looking to shape the voting population

in a way that will benefit them. M

>> so they're looking to find ways to

massage the outcome.

>> And that's you know that that's a kind

of classic when you're in a country

which is declining democratically one of

the classic things that happens is the

ruling party seeks to alter or change

who is able to vote and how votes are

weighted as a way of altering the

outcome.

>> What's the third one?

>> Personnel. Well, we talked about this

one a little bit already.

>> Oh, the civil servants.

>> This is civil service in a modern

democracy. So in a 21st century

democracy, government does a lot of

things. It manages the road system. It

it sometimes organizes health care. It

organizes regulates the insurance

markets. It does all kinds of governance

pollution and all those people who do

those jobs. Um it's very important that

they be people who know how to do them.

So you want the person who's measuring

air pollution, you want that person to

be an expert in air pollution. Mhm.

>> You don't want them to be, you know, the

president's cousin

>> or the person who is regulating the

insurance market. You want that to be

someone who knows about insurance

markets. And you don't want it to be the

best friend of the vice president

>> in corrupt autocracies. That is who gets

those jobs.

>> Seeing this a little bit with the Fed.

No, he doesn't like Jerome Pal in the

Fed,

>> right? And so he's tried to undermine

Jerome Powell. He's sued Jerome Powell

or he was investigating him rather for

some kind of fake um financial scandal

and he tried to put pressure on him to

resign. He tried to put pressure on him

to change his policy. And I you know

honestly I don't I don't know whether

the person who who will come in next

will be will be more susceptible but

he's certainly been chosen because Trump

thinks he is. And so what Trump wants is

to have civil servants who are

historically independent and that

includes the chairman of the Fed. Um it

includes actually department of justice

the attorney general usually has some

independence. What you want is people

who are acting in the interests of

everybody and in a in a functional

democracy in the happy Scandinavian

countries then at least most of the time

that's what they're doing. And in a

corrupt democracy or in a failing

democracy, then you have people whose

interests are not everybody in the

country, but their interests are the

president, his family, his party,

anyway, not not American. And so that's

the danger of undermining the civil

service.

>> The fourth one is

>> information.

>> Okay,

>> all dictatorships seek to control

information. You know, in China, the

entire internet since the 1990s has been

constructed so that the government can

control it. There is no outside

internet. There is there's nobody who's

active on the Chinese internet who isn't

somehow known or accounted for somehow

by the authorities. And the internet is

also connected to a whole system of

surveillance cameras and other kinds of

databases so that people can be tracked

all through the system and all through

the country. People do have VPNs in

China and they and they do get out, but

the majority of people are inside the

that's probably the China is the most

extreme form of that and Russia is

actually now heading in that direction.

So Putin has now cut off Russian access

to most forms of Western social media,

you know, Instagram and there were some

amazing videos of really sad Russian

Instagram influencers who were losing

their audiences because of Putin's

Putin's changes. So he's now he's now

heading in that direction. But even

inside the United States, which is maybe

the loudest and most open democracy in

the world, you can see the Trump

administration seeking to shape the

information space in new ways. So we

have federal regulators who are now

willing to put pressure on television

stations if the president asks them to.

We have the president putting his thumb

on the scale of people who are acquiring

new media companies in order to make

sure that the new owners are somehow

friendly to him.

>> What about Tik Tok?

>> Tik Tok, CBS, uh CNN, these are all

media companies where the president is

trying to get people who are sympathetic

to him in charge. And this is, by the

way, you know, we all have this idea

about censorship that it's like there's

a guy in a room and he's crossing

sentences out of a newspaper article.

You know, that's what censorship is. But

actually nowadays that's not how media

control works. So in Orban's Hungary in

Erdogan's Turkey what happens is that

the leadership

encourages or helps business people or

groups close to them to acquire media

properties. So they do it through the

level of media ownership.

>> So who owns the media becomes the most

important question and then the person

who's who's in charge of the media can

then influence in some ways what it's

able to say. So it doesn't give you

complete control. So actually in Hungary

you still had a couple of very small but

still existing independent websites who

turned out to be very important but you

had an attempt to control for most of

the television was controlled either

directly or indirectly uh by Orban and

it looks to me like Trump is trying to

achieve something like that. There's a a

piece of that that also involves culture

and universities as well. um pressure on

universities so that they don't produce

people who are too critical. In the US,

you've had the Trump administration took

over the Kennedy Center, which is the

most prestigious arts venue in

Washington, and tried to change its

nature and tried to change its, you

know, who who was who could play there

and who couldn't. Um and the result is

actually that it's now been shut down

for two years. You see this on both

sides of the political aisle, both on

the Democratic side in different ways.

But I but I think that both parties when

they're in for long enough, what we're

allowed to say changes.

>> Yes. Although the mechanisms have been

different. I mean, I was involved in the

argument, you know, some years back

about this, you know, we I think it was

incorrectly called cancel culture, but

whatever. The the the argument that was

happening inside universities and some

press and other institutions about what

you could and couldn't say. And I

thought it was um you know that that

there was this peer pressure and

sometimes institutional pressure on

people and people were cancelled that

means they lost their jobs or they were

kicked out of whatever group they were

in because they'd said something the

wrong way. You know I I I argued against

that and wrote about it and so on. What

you have now is a little different. You

now have the president just, you know,

attempting to change media ownership and

you have you you're beginning to see

what happens when the administration

goes into university and said, "You

can't teach this course. You can't hire

that teacher." That was the deal that

was given to Harvard, I don't know, um,

you know, some months back. The reason

why Harvard wound up refusing to deal

with the Trump administration and when

it started to sue them was because the

administration was trying to actually

decide who would teach what courses at

Harvard. I don't believe there's a

precedent for that. But I agree with you

that it is an illiberal instinct to try

to control speech. And there's a

left-wing version of it and there's a

right-wing version of it. And the people

who are really in favor of free speech,

and they're vanishingly few, are the

people who are willing to call it out on

both sides. And one of the things you

often hear now from these sort of

so-called free speech warriors is that

they're perfectly happy to shout about

the left cancelling people or left-wing

rhetoric that they don't like, but then

they keep quiet when it comes from the

other side.

>> Yes. I was looking back through the

history of this happening on both sides

of the aisle and in Mark Zuckerberg's

testimony I think in front of Congress

he said that he was repeatedly pressured

um for months by the Biden Harris

administration to remove certain content

and then there's the whole Hunter Biden

lap laptop story where Zuckerberg

confirmed that Meta were asked to demote

a New York Post story by the FBI and

then there's various other stories here

about PE Twitter executives being

emailed by White House officials um and

being asked to change things on their

platform.

>> So there is a difference between someone

sending you an email and saying you know

look we this has been flagged by a

monitoring group as maybe fake or as

maybe Russian disinformation or as you

know coming from some kind of foreign

influence campaign and so you know it

would be great if you took it down or

demoted it and there's a difference

between that and taking over the company

in order that the president gets to

dictate what's on it. Nobody coerced

Meta into doing anything

or Twitter. You nobody said, you know,

Twitter will be will pay a fine if you

don't do X or Y in the context of people

looking for foreign influence campaigns.

There were conversations about what was

appropriate to print and what wasn't.

>> I think from what from what I've

observed, it happens on both sides, but

in different ways. I remember was it was

it Elizabeth Warren talking a lot about

um the section 230? M which I think

protects some of the big social media

companies from being sued for users

posts. And I think she would repeatedly

reference section 230 and other

democratic lawmakers as a way to get the

platforms to take a more aggressive

stance on what they called like hate

speech and speech and disinformation.

>> So section 230 essentially allows the

platforms to be to escape the rules that

newspapers for example have to abide by.

So

>> so actually we do have regulations. We

have liable laws. We have laws about

terrorist content, for example. So,

there are laws that regulate some parts

of speech that we've agreed are good in

order to, you know, maintain peace and

so on. And the platforms are exempt

>> um because of section 230. And so, the

platforms have argued that we don't

control what's put up on our platforms

and we don't bear any responsibility for

it. I'm not sure that removing section

230 is the best way to deal with this,

but making the online world conform to

the same laws as the offline world seems

to me kind of very basic. I mean, it's

it seems obvious to me that child

pornography that's illegal if you have

it in your house should also be illegal

if it's published online. Um it seems to

me that um people recruiting for ISIS

that's illegal to do you know down the

street from here then it should also be

illegal to do online. Um and the tech

companies have been trying in recent

years in this is an argument that's

taking place both in Europe and the US

and elsewhere to get out of

responsibility for just for conforming

to the law in the countries where

they're active. And in one or two places

there have been big clashes. I was just

in Brazil which is one of the places

where that happened. um where the

Brazilian law said something that was

published on Twitter was illegal and

they fined the company for publishing

it. Twitter didn't want to pay the fine

and there was an argument back and forth

and for a while Twitter was shut down in

Brazil. But it does seem to me that any

given country whether it's Brazil or

Nepal or you know Ethiopia and

particularly democracies I should say

you know democracies have the right to

say these are our laws for example these

are our electoral laws we have laws on

election spending and if the platforms

violate those laws they're in breach of

the law you know and so election is a

very important one because if you're

spending a million dollars on Tik Tok

illegally

that can be much harder to see than it