The Dissidents Who Defeated Russia

Honestly with Bari Weiss

The Free Press

News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 7.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Earlier this week on Honestly, Batya Ungar-Sargon, Brianna Wu, and Christopher Caldwell shared their views on President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance’s showdown with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, and on the Russia-Ukraine war more generally. Simply put, Batya and Chris made the case that Russia is not an American adversary in the way China is and that Trump’s seeming sympathy toward Russian president Vladimir Putin is actually a strategic play to pull Russia away from China and into our orbit. The conversation is provocative. It provoked many of us here at The Free Press. Not all of our listeners agreed with what they heard either. For some, it was frustrating or even angering to hear this perspective. Yes, contrary to popular belief, we do read the comments. And there’s been a tremendous amount of debate inside our newsroom about America’s new posture regarding Russia and Ukraine, just as there is on all of the most important topics of the day. We think that’s our strength. We believe in listening to arguments, in good faith, from people we respect. And if our panel show earlier in the week was dominated by a perspective sympathetic to Trump, today we want to offer a very different perspective from Eli Lake, Free Press reporter and the host of our new podcast, Breaking History. In this episode, Eli explores how a different Republican president—Ronald Reagan—spoke out against Russian aggression. And how his words inspired dissidents from across the Soviet bloc, like the Czech playwright Václav Havel, to lead their own countries to freedom. This is a show that looks to the past to illuminate the present, and we think this episode is especially important right now. So today, Eli Lake on Breaking History. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:29.8	From the free press, this is Honestly, and I'm Barry Weiss. Earlier this week on Honestly,
0:35.8	Bacha Ungersargon, Brianna Wu, and Christopher Caldwell
0:38.8	shared their views on that explosive meltdown in the Oval Office between Trump,
0:43.8	Vance, and Ukrainian President Zelensky, and we also, of course, talked about the war more
0:48.4	generally.
0:49.4	Simply put, Bata and Chris made the case that Russia is not an American adversary in the way China is,
0:55.6	and that Trump's seeming sympathy toward Putin is actually a strategic play, one intended to pull
1:01.4	Russia away from China and into our orbit. The conversation is very provocative. It definitely
1:07.7	provoked me. I don't agree with that view. And you should definitely go back and listen if you hadn't.
1:13.0	And not all of our listeners agreed with what they heard either.
1:15.8	For some, it was frustrating to hear this perspective,
1:18.7	despite the fact that this is the view that's representative of a lot of people in this country.
1:23.5	And contrary to popular belief or what other people do,
1:26.5	we read the comments here. And that's because you, our what other people do, we read the comments here.
1:28.2	And that's because you, our audience, are curious, smart, and often have very, very helpful feedback.
1:35.1	There's also been a tremendous amount of debate in our newsroom about America's new posture regarding Russia and Ukraine,
1:41.8	just as there is active debate on all of the most important topics
	...

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