Hey everybody, we got a great one today, you know, for a change.

In fact, it's a best of so that Peter and I could take a little break during Thanksgiving week.

So you can sit back and relax knowing that you're not going to have to sit through one of our stinkers.

And to be frank, this is one of the best of the best ofs because it's Ann Applebaum on her scary book,

Autocracy, Inc. about the autocratic countries in the world.

These are autocracies that often have little in common, but which often

work together to build their wealth and power. We aired this originally a few months ago, and

Anne was, I will say, sounding not a little nervous about how our election was going to go,

and the prospect of what a Trump presidency would do to the balance of

power in Ukraine. Trump, of course, says he can end that war in one day, clearly eager to sell

a democratic country out so his buddy Putin can retain the territory Russia is captured since the war

began, not to mention the Crimea,

which he took back in 2014.

Anne's book, Autocracy, Inc. is about how a network of autocratic states that share very

little have different systems, including countries like Iran and Russia, North Korea, and Zimbabwe,

China, and Belarus, but which all have malign intentions, engage in money laundering,

manipulation of financial markets, and send political enemies to prison and, and worse.

And Anne indicated in this episode, which again, we recorded a few months back,

her concerns about our election, and we now know how that turned out.

And there's certainly no solace from the nominations Trump's been making,

several Project 25 drafters gaining key positions in the government, all the easier to

fulfill Trump's horrific agenda.

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