Overtime – Episode #593: Ernest Moniz, Max Brooks, Kristen Soltis Anderson

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night Series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

Okay,

we're on overtime now.

For Max, why haven't the Russians launched a cyber attack on the U.S.

yet?

Oh, yeah, that's a good question.

I thought maybe that would happen after the unpleasantness started with you.

Well, then I thought that would be the way they would get back at us.

You know, people would see their bank accounts.

Oh, yeah.

No, they're trying all the time.

But, you know, we've had, since 2014, we've had a lot of time, not just to get our tech together, but also to get our doctrine together.

That's the most important thing.

We have the tools, now we have the strategy.

You know, he's been fighting, it's called fighting in the gray zone.

And he's been fighting in the gray zone for quite a while, and we're just starting to get better, which may explain why he rolled in the tanks when he did.

because they were a generation ahead of us in asymmetric means, but we have been catching up.

Oh, good.

Not to say they won't.

I mean, this is something very important.

Everyone should back up their data.

If you've got something in the cloud, it's not a cloud.

It is a data park somewhere, and it can be hacked and wiped out.

So if you've got something important, put it on a drive, put the drive in a drawer.

Note to self.

Yeah, that's good.

Okay.

Mr.

Secretary, how has Russia's invasion of Ukraine affected a possible revival of the Iran nuclear deal?

Where are we with the Iran nuclear deal?

We had it, we've got rid of it, now we're trying to get it back.

Well, Russia was threatening to undercut it,

but seems to have backed off on that.

Let me say one thing, Bill, which is not recognized enough, and that is in 2015 when the deal was cut.

Russia was the most helpful country.

With the Iran nuclear deal.

With the Iran nuclear deal.

There were like six countries at the table.

Six countries at the table.

Who were the other countries?

Plus, Iran.

So, U.S.,

three Europeans, U.K., French, Germans,

Russians, Chinese.

And why were the Russians the most helpful?

Because they stepped up and allowed Iran to come into compliance.

They took all their crap back to Russia, which was a great service.

That's how they were helpful.

I'm asking why.

Why?

What was in it for them?

Because they don't do things just

because all the countries there, including Russia, really did not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

It was in nobody's interest.

Now, I think we will learn within days whether or not this deal will go down.

Let me say unequivocally, it would be good for us if it did come back.

There's

a lot of white noise on this, but I'll give you two reasons.

One is that we will go back to the most important part of the agreement for a long time, verification.

Secondly,

a very important part of the deal was limiting Iran to 300 kilograms of very low-enriched uranium.

That will come back for nine years.

We've got to use the nine years better than we used the last four years in which we accomplished nothing with Iran.

And meaning use the nine years to get Iran to be a friendlier nation toward us?

Either friendlier or use unfriendly means.

But we've got to address the Houthis.

For example,

the Houthis in Yemen.

Those are the people.

The Houthis.

Is that how you pronounce that?

That's how I pronounce it.

I don't know.

Well, it would look like it was Houthi.

It's T-H.

Houthi.

You say Houki.

Huki is something I smoke out of.

Right.

Hookah-smoking caterpillar, right.

Right.

For example, we want.

We gotta drag them into this, the Hookies.

Oh, you know.

Oh, Lord.

Because here's the reason.

Here's the reason.

We want Saudi Arabia and the Emirates to help help us.

We've been asking them to make more oil.

You know, they're kind of annoyed that they keep getting hit by rockets and drones, and we haven't done goddamn anything.

Okay.

So that's the reason.

Watch your language on my show.

This is not a blocking.

I forgot.

I thought you were the ACLU, anyway.

I'm kidding.

Do you think we're

lumping the Russians, I mean, too much with their government?

I feel like in this country, what we're doing now, everything Russian is bad and every Russian is bad.

And that might have, first of all, it's not fair.

You know,

if they weren't white, I feel like we would call that racism.

You know,

to lump everybody together, not every, I mean, a lot of the Russian people don't know what's going on.

Yeah, I don't love any of these stories that you hear about, you know, a young Russian pianist being canceled from his performance with, I think, the Montreal Symphony

because he's Russian.

I mean, there are just,

there is a way that this has gone way too far.

Also, strategically, it's unwise because what we were very smart about doing in World War II is we knew the war was going to come to an end.

And we knew that if we punished all Germans the way we did after World War I, we would back them into a corner.

So we crafted the narrative that you Germans are led astray by Hitler because we knew even if in some cases it wasn't true, you know, we said to the average Nazi, you still got to run the post office.

So we have to think we cannot back the Russians as an entire group into a corner.

If we can separate Putin from the Russians in general, then we don't only have a victory, we have a post-war plan.

Okay.

Can I ask you?

I could just add that, you know, like NATO and Russia back before 2014, we set in motion a new mechanism to talk if there were crises.

As soon as a crisis came, we said we're not going to talk.

It makes no sense.

Right.

You're talking about the red phone, the famous red phone?

No, no, no, no, I'm talking about the NATO-Russia.

But at some point they did put in, was it during Kennedy?

That was after the Cuban.

Right.

They put in the

hotline.

The hotline.

The hotline.

So that, like, if the shit goes down, call me first.

Right.

Right.

But this was NATO.

Yeah.

Anyway.

And also, I mean, I must say, under Trump, Milley, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, assured the Chinese that this not who I work for, if he gives the order, I'm not going to do it.

I would like to think that Putin has someone around him like that.

You know, we have a big problem on the scale of the Iran nuclear deal.

Because what happened was Ukraine was born nuclear, right?

It was born independent with a Soviet nuclear stockpile.

It only agreed to give up those nuclear weapons with the express promise that Russia would never invade.

And now they've done it.

And so basically what that says to every small country in the world that is non-aligned, the only way to protect your survival is with an atom bomb.

So the Iran nuclear deal is just one of many, many nuclear deals we're going to have to diffuse.

It's not even just like non-aligned countries.

I mean, Australia in the last couple of months has said, you know what, I think it'd be good for us to be a little bit more of a nuclear power.

Even a country like them, who you used to be able to say, well, they're under the protection of the United States, it'll be fine.

Even they're saying, we'd like to be in charge of our own defense a little bit more.

And how many times, Vietnam, Iraq with the Kurds, Afghanistan, this instance you just mentioned.

How many times can we do this to countries, say we'll be there, and then not be there before?

Well, but this is the big picture.

This is what we need to talk about, Bill.

This is a turning point in history with this war.

This is the Haile Selassie moment.

This is the moment when the Emperor of Ethiopia went to the League of Nations in 1936 and begged them

to help us.

Haile Selassie.

He begged them to stop this dictator, Mussolini, from invading his country.

And he said, today is us, tomorrow is you.

And the world did nothing.

And that gave the green light to another dictator, Adolf Hitler.

You know, you've got a production system on this show, this kid.

His family is Swedish.

They're in Sweden right now.

And they know what the Europeans know, what we don't seem to understand, is that if we don't stop Putin now, he will keep going.

And I'm not saying we get involved.

There is a line.

NATO forces must never, under any circumstances, fire on Russian forces.

That is the line.

But if the Ukrainians are willing to shed their blood, not just for themselves, but for the entire world, we owe it to our children to help them.

Because if we don't stop Putin, then

we condemn our children and our grandchildren to another century of war.

Since you're, Mr.

Know-It-All,

answer me this.

Why do the Rastafarians worship Haile Selassie?

What is that all about?

I know a little bit about it.

Tell me.

Okay.

That is a religion that

it is similar to the ancient Hebrews.

That Ethiopia is Zion, the Caribbean is Babylon, and they are a diaspora.

The slaves brought to the Caribbean is the diaspora in Babylon.

And someday they will return to Zion.

But where does the pot come in?

Where does this Rastafarian

highly salassi, and we never stop smoking blunts all day?

What is that?

I've always been confused about that.

You got me there.

All right.

Thank you very much.

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