Remembering Burger Diplomacy

Squawk Pod

CNBC

Business News, News, Investing, Business

4.2 • 543 Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2022

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Following over 300 other western companies, McDonald’s has temporarily closed its restaurants in Russia while Vladimir Putin continues his war in Ukraine. CNBC’s Steve Liesman, a founding business editor of The Moscow Times and a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal in Russia, recalls the first Russian McDonald’s and what it symbolized for a nation once cut off from the western world. In conversations exclusive to Squawk Pod, he and fellow reporter Diana Olick, a former student in the Soviet Union, discuss the once “insatiable” Russian appetite for all things American, and the direction in which Putin is now steering his people. Plus, The New York Times columnist Tom Friedman considers China’s current power dynamic, as President Xi “tap dances” between supporting its ally Russia and remaining neutral, in case Putin loses his war. In this episode: Tom Friedman, @tomfriedman Diana Olick, @DianaOlick Steve Liesman, @steveliesman Joe Kernen, @JoeSquawk Becky Quick, @BeckyQuick Katie Kramer, @Kramer_Katie

Transcript

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0:00.0	Bring in show music please.
0:03.0	This is Squawk Pod.
0:06.0	I'm C. M.C. producer Katie Kramer, today on our podcast.
0:10.0	New York Times columnist Tom Friedman two weeks into Russia's war in Ukraine.
0:14.6	The danger here is that there's only one thing more dangerous than a strong Putin's Russia,
0:19.3	and that's a weak Putin's Russia that starts to fracture inside.
0:23.6	How China's power now hangs in the balance.
0:26.4	If China is your only friend, you have no friends.
0:29.8	Because China has no friends.
0:31.2	It has vassals and customers.
0:33.7	Plus, governments have sent a slew of economic shots at Russia,
0:37.5	and now over 300 Western companies are joining in.
0:40.7	Today we break down the symbolic departure of Western influence.
0:44.2	C. M. C. M. C. own Diana O'Lick, who studied in Russia just before the Berlin Wall
0:48.2	fell. So they opened up this strange McDonald's pop-up. The lines were just endless because I'll tell you this
0:55.2	Russians were insatiable for anything American. And see NBC's Steve Leisman who
1:00.9	led the Wall Street Journal's reporting in Moscow in the early 90s.
1:04.4	If you could buy a big Mac in Moscow, well you could almost do anything.
1:08.2	Anything was possible.
1:10.4	It's Wednesday, March 9, 2022, and this special episode of Squawk Pod begins right now.
1:17.0	We are now 14 days into Russia's war with Ukraine.
1:25.0	According to Reuters, more than 13,000 people have died
	...

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