614. Is the U.S. Sleeping on Threats from Russia and China?

Freakonomics Radio

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4.6 • 32K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

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Summary

John J. Sullivan, a former State Department official and U.S. ambassador, says yes: “Our politicians aren’t leading — Republicans or Democrats.” He gives a firsthand account of a fateful Biden-Putin encounter, talks about his new book "Midnight in Moscow", and predicts what a second Trump term means for Russia, Ukraine, China — and the U.S.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner.
0:05.6	Before we get to our episode, I'd like to invite you to come see Freakonomics Radio live.
0:11.0	I will be in San Francisco on January 3rd and in Los Angeles on February 13th.
0:16.7	For tickets, go to Freakonomics.com slash live shows.
0:20.5	They are selling riskly, I believe is the
0:23.1	word, so hustle up. Again, that is Freakonomics.com slash live shows. One more thing. The episode
0:30.7	you're about to hear is what audio people call a two-way, what normal people call a one-on-one
0:36.2	conversation. Most Freakonomics Radio episodes
0:39.1	aren't like this. We typically feature multiple voices, multiple angles, sometimes even multiple
0:45.3	stories, but there is a real opportunity to be had by going deep with one person. So for the
0:51.8	month of December, we are featuring some one-on-one conversations. You will be
0:55.9	hearing about the revolution in the GLP1 weight loss drugs. You'll hear from one of the best
1:01.3	magazine editors of this generation. And in a special episode of the podcast, People I Mostly
1:07.2	Admire, you'll hear a mind-blowing conversation between Steve Levitt and an astonishingly
1:12.2	creative neuroscientist. In today's episode, a conversation with a political figure who,
1:17.9	several times over his career, has been in the room where it happened with Donald Trump,
1:24.2	with Joe Biden, and with Vladimir Putin. And one last reminder about our upcoming live shows with very special guests, San Francisco, January 3rd, Los Angeles, February 13th.
1:37.3	You can get tickets at Freakonomics.com slash live shows.
1:42.1	As always, thanks for listening.
1:54.1	We begin this story on June 16th of 2021.
2:02.0	This is a one-on-one meeting in Geneva, nothing else going on. Both presidents fly in just for this meeting.
2:07.6	The two presidents are Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin. So let me set the scene for you.
	...

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