241 “It’s Very Possible Trump Takes the US out of NATO.” Lex Fridman to Zelensky
Lex has rightly been panned for his interview with Zelensky a few weeks ago. Two widely made criticisms are that Lex was il informed and badly prepared and that Lex’s questions betrayed his naivety.
I partially agree-I would say Lex IS naive AT BEST. I’d argue that naive is the charitable explanation. This was Dylan Burns’ explanation
FN:
But I also think he may be more than JUST naive. I remain fascinated by this interview which raised as many questions as it answered. Certainly I agree with Destiny that Zelensky “crushed it.”
FN: Destiny video
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I’m certainly glad he got the opportunity to do this interview as it shows him every bit the brave, courageous, and wise leader that he is. In some ways Lex’s naive or worse questions were great as it gave Zelensky lots of opportunities to play whack a mole with some real zombie ideas. Indeed he at one point rightly called Lex naive and made the crucial point that this is also a war against Russian disinformation.
FN: Regarding the naivety of Lex and others Rob Pierson had an excellent deep dive
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Nevertheless I remain obsessed with the backstory behind this interview-how did it come to be and where did he get the questions from or more to the point WHO told Lex to ask precisely THESE questions as I strongly suspect someone told him what to ask. Who? Probably the same person who told Joe Rogan NOT TO interview Zelensky.
Because that was the start of the etymology of Lex’s interview. First Rogan publicly announced Zelensky had asked to come on his show. Rogan apparently not only turned him down but chose to publicly dox Zelensky. Which all is rather shocking at least if you came in believing Rogan’s claim to be “independent” and “willing to talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere.”
Clearly he’s not. Why he would turn down the opportunity to speak to one of the most consequential world leaders in the world today is a pretty interesting question. Which again I’m a little obsessed with-I’m obsessed with the entire backstory of this interview and this was the first track.
“Joe Rogan’s stunning claim on Zelensky
Influential podcaster Joe Rogan has made an extraordinary claim about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Joe Rogan’s stunning claim on Zelensky | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site
Which is a good point by the self described “Australia’s leading news site”-it’s a claim that we don’t have absolute proof of. Nevertheless I believe it as it rings true and reveals a lot about Rogan and explodes the myth that he’s this independent media paragon. Indeed, Kyle Kulinski for his part has admitted he was wrong about Rogan and those of us who argued he was a reactionary all along have been proven right.
Comedian Joe Rogan has claimed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to come on his popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience — an idea he didn’t seem pleased about.
He made the remark on episode 2236 of his podcast, which was released on Thursday and featured fellow podcasters Shane Gillis, Mark Normand and Ari Shaffir as guests.
The remark comes after Rogan sparked a backlash by suggesting Zelensky was part of a group that “are about to start World War III” telling the Ukrainian leader “f*** you, man”.
During his latest podcast Rogan discussed the possibility of a war between Russia and the US, commenting: “I don’t really think Putin’s that stupid. I think he’s gonna realise what’s going on and I think they’re probably working this out. Alex Jones said Trump is having secret meetings at Mar-a-Lago, I hope it’s true.”
Referring to his podcast Rogan added “Zelensky tried to come on” sparking a shocked reaction from his podcast guests. He continued: “They tried to get Zelensky on. I was like, what are you talking about?”
What are you talking about?! WTF is Rogan talking about? This is Mr. Independent Journalist Mr. I’ll Talk to Anyone Anytime Anywhere and he won’t speak to Rogan? It’s amazing how all the alleged free speech absolutists have shown themselves to be anything but.
The Elon Musk cum Nate Silver narrative cum Matt Taibbi narrative-which is a joke as no one more blatantly engages in “censorship” than Elon Musk has been Democrats and liberals are wrong to extol fact checking-Zuckerberg’s recent caving to Trump is BASED according to this particular propagandic talking point. Supposedly you should show some faith in the “marketplace of ideas”-so in that vein wether you like Zelensky or not you can’t deny his word renowned importance-how could any kind of “journalist” turn him down?
That Rogan did is pretty telling just as his subsquent announcement he’d be doing the show from Mar-a-Lago.
This has leg me to consider my previous reconsideration of wether or not Kamala Harris should have done Rogan. I’ve gone back and forth. It’s hard for me to criticize her for NOT doing it as during the election I didn’t care and didn’t understand the drumbeat that she should have. However, after the election, of course, I like most Democrats went into this huge tailspin of introspection and that at point I thought MAYBE SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE HIM? After all he does have a huge audience.
Mind you I never got the argument that Kamala was somehow AFRAID to do Rogan as she had done Brett Bair. Hard to imagine Rogan would have been more adversarial than Bair was. Then too it seems an unfair narrative that Kamala Harris is unwilling to go to tough places-what tough places does Trump do? It’s not hard for HIM to do Bair or Rogan is it? It’s a home game for him.
I discussed Jason Paul’s running for DNC Chairman a little in chapter Liberal Left Alliance and think he has a number of good ideas which wether he wins or not hopefully will get a hearing by whoever does win. One point os criticism he made of other candidates I do agree with is the eagerness of many to go on Fox News, et al post November 5. But he makes a very crucial point-understand that if you go on these Right wing shows you’re entering enemy territory and plan accordingly.
FN: Link
Because now that Rogan has so clearly shown that he IS a partisan and which side that is while it may still be worth it for future Democratic candidates to go on Rogan for no other reason than the very large size of his audience nevertheless it’s important to get it that this is enemy territory so be very clear in that and what you as a candidate are trying to achieve.
That’s assuming in the future Joe will even have Democrats on his show now that he’s so clearly shown himself to be a homer for both MAGA and Putin. Indeed while everyone has presumed that it’s Kamala’s fault she didn’t go on Rogan he himself revealed during the fracas that she had NOT declined to be on his show. Rather based on what Rogan says-who I would consider taking him as an unimpeachable source-it was a difference on where the interview happened and how long it would be-Rogan wanted Kamala to come to him and she only wanted to do an hour according to him.
Joe Rogan Reveals Why Kamala Harris Interview Fell Apart
In any case it’s not quite as straightforward as the conventional wisdom where she refused to do his show. Indeed, in retrospect I wonder if he didn’t deliberately sabotage an interview by inserting poison pills.
Going back to the trajectory of the Zelensky interview very soon after Rogan publicly revealing he turned down interviewing Zelensky-perhaps that night if not soon after, Lex Fridman sent Zelensky a message on Xitter. “I’ll interview you President Zelensky.” Fridman further went on to announce he’d go to Ukraine to interview the Ukranian President. Again I strongly suspect the same person who advised Rogan not to interview Zelensky asked or encouraged Lex to do it.
In that moment my reaction was ambivalent. On the one hand I thought it was a good thing for Zelensky to get a chance to get his message out to a large international audience. On the other I was suspicious-why Lex of all people? It’s just that he’s a major Rogan stan yet this seemed like an implicit rebuke. Again I was happy for Zelensky to get his message out but wondered what was the real angle for Lex-and his friends in MAGA and/or among the Russian hacks of course there’s a lot of overlap between the two.
The question that begged was who told Lex to interview Zelensky and again my guess was the same person(s) who told Rogan NOT TO interview him.
Beyond that I was also wondering: what’s the catch? I was waiting to see if Lex suddenly threw in a poison pill, a pretext to pull out of the interview at the 11th hour. And lo and behold on a Sunday night before the week he was supposed to do the interview Lex tweeted that he wanted to conduct the entire interview in RUSSIAN under the logistical pretext that both he and Zelensky speak Russian fluently. Sure but also it’s the language of oppressive Mother Russia which it’s pretty hard to believe Lex didn’t understand.
This is why I argue the charitable view is he’s just naive. My hypothesis is the person(s) who both told Rogan not to do the interview and Lex to do it “suggested” Lex add this poison pill. Ultimately they did do the interview and it was not conducted all in Russian. Lex did feel it necessary to belabor the point making a big production at various points in the interview that he as having trouble understanding-Zelensky again was masterful. He trolled Lex repeatedly commenting at one point his Russian is not so great.
After Zelensky left, Lex went into another three minute soliloquy about how it would have been easier had they done the entire thing in Russian.
Again I’m very happy this interview did happen. Zelensky’s performance was very impressive-as Destiny said he crushed it-honestly he crushed Lex who used tired Russian talking point after tired Russian talking point. His FIRST QUESTION was about corruption in Ukraine. It’s worse than that: he claimed that “Donald Trump and Elon Musk are very concerned about corruption.”
I mean what? Lex was so impressed by this he finished the interview with this same knee slapper: “Donald Trump and Elon Musk are very concerned about corruption.”
On one level this doesn’t even begin to pass the laugh test seeing as these are two of the most corrupt dudes on the planet. Donald Trump who created his own crypto coin in Office is concerned about corruption? Elon Musk who offered to pay people in Pennsylvania $100 dollars to register to vote-and subsequently ended up stiffing many of these people is concerned about corruption. It’s not just that this is wrong, or ludicrously wrong, but the audacity of the wrongness of this takes your breath away.
One another level this is perverse in the middle of defending his country against Putin’s invasion to nag him about corruption at this moment.
But on yet another level I again wonder who told Lex to do this interview and wrote these questions for him to ask. Because the question begs: how does he know Trump and Elon Musk care so much about corruption? WHO told him this?
Lex also continued to place this kind of “naive” game of ‘I just wish everyone was as evolved as me and just get along. Why can’t BOTH SIDES stop fighting?’
Sure when one kid steals another kid’s lunch money every day the response is to sing kumbaya and how the two should do a ceasefire. BOTH SIDES need to stop fighting. He kept talking about some great powwow that Trump, Putin, and Zelensky should have pretty much the day after Trump was sworn in-Lex kept proposing a peace summit on January 25.
Again who gave him these talking points? Lex at one point even argued that Zelensky should FORGIVE PUTIN. Lex is truly a special brand of huckleberry-assuming he’s JUST NAIVE. I suspect he’s more than JUST naive.
After the interview Lex continued his whole wounded peacenik cum Zen routine-why doesnt Zelensky want to get along with Putin? How can there be progress if he won’t FORGIVE HIM. He recently declared himself “disappointed” in Zelensky’s “intemperate” language towards the Russian dictator.
Podcaster and computer scientist Lex Fridman expressed disappointment in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for using harsh language towards Russian President Vladimir Putin during an early January interview. Zelensky referred to Putin as “sick” and admitted to despising all Russians. In a video message, Fridman emphasized that he had given Zelensky every opportunity to express a willingness to negotiate peace but felt the Ukrainian leader chose disrespectful words instead.
Fridman argued that such language, while powerful, could hinder potential negotiations by making it difficult to treat Putin seriously as a leader. He stressed the importance of compromise for peace and called for a respectful approach, urging leaders to view each other as serious individuals with love for their countries and people.
Fridman stated the goal of his podcast was to provide Zelensky with a platform to extend an olive branch while putting aside ego. Following the interview, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev criticized Zelensky for breaking norms of political correctness during wartime, warning that his actions could lead to a long-lasting personal vendetta from the Russian people.
Lex Fridman expresses disappointment in Zelensky over using harsh language towards Putin
LOL. That’s Ukraine’s problem: Zelensky’s ego not Putin’s invasion. Yet this interview was very much worth it. As Silicon Curtain argued the while Lex channeled all these Russian talking points, he did let Zelensky talk and fully respond and Zelensky very skillfully parried them. Zelensky is quite right that Russia’s war is also an informational war-or more specifically disinformational-and Lex’s naive-or worse-questions gave the courageous Ukranian leader the chance to very effectively debunk the zombie Russian talking points.
Certainly Lex demonstrated the absurdity of these Russian talking points:
FN: Kavanaugh has some really good commentary on Xitter about Lex’s absurdities and Zelensky’s heroism
More on Lex’s absurdities:
But these Lex Fridman absurdities have wide currency-who can forget Tim Pool’s freakout: ‘Ukraine is INVADING RUSSIA! We have to apologize to Russia!’
But again this gets to the question of “naivety” which suggests gullibility but an honest mistake. Are these all honest mistakes by the Russia hacks or something more? In Tim Pool’s case it turned out to be $ million dollars more he was being paid by Russia through Tenet Media to channel his Russia talking points. Why does the naivety always show itself in the same direction? The bread always seems to be buttered the same way.
Again I take it as axiomatic that both Rogan and Fridman are in some real sense Russian hacks. The person(s) who told Rogan not to interview Zelensky then arranged for Fridman to do it and “suggested” he ask precisely these questions clearly are carrying Putin’s water-they may well be MAGA people but most MAGA people are pro Putin. Steven Bannon for yet another example was pro Putin pretty much since February 23, 2022 long before Boris Johnson allegedly prevented Zelensky from accepting the very generous peace deal Putin supposedly offered in April 2022.
But the one thing Lex said that I keep coming back to was when he-yet again trying to “sue for peace” asking Zelensky multiple times about some alleged peace summit that was coming on January 25-prefaced his question with “Donald Trump’s probably going to leave NATO.
That truly made me sit up and take notice. Again HOW DOES LEX KNOW THIS? To be clear I don’t buy that he was just riffing or speaking off the cuff-anyone familiar with Lex’s work at all knows he doesn’t riff-he’s neither brave enough for smart enough to do that. No I’d bet anything that he this was a talking point he was given by his Putin friendly handler(s).
It’s certainly NOT something Trump has EVER stated explicitly certainly not in this last campaign cycle but even in 2016. He’s certainly said many things that suggest he has a dim view of the consequential alliance that has kept peace in Europe the last 80 years-all the harumphing over Europe paying its fair share was clearly-in my view at least-pretextual. It provides a rationale for leaving NATO at some point. The news is not that Trump might want to leave NATO as I’ve suspected that for 9 and a half years the news is that Lex stated this as positive fact.
Again how does he know? Kind of makes you think of Kevin Spacey’s John Williamson character catching Jack Lemmon’s Shelly on who robbed the office in Glenn Gary Glenn Ross: how do you know it was a lie? You robbed the office.
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How does Lex KNOW Trump is leaving NATO? How does he know Trump and Musk supposedly care so much about corruption at least in Ukraine? Again I take this as something Lex was told-he would never guess this left to his own devices. Just to put a bow on my premise that the same person(s) who told Rogan not to interview Zelensky also directed Lex Fridman to interview him and “suggested” his questions and that Lex’s apparent “rebuke” of Joe for saying he will do the interview Joe had just rejected out of hand was just that-only apparent-note that behind Lex’s repeated attempts to get Zelensky to praise Trump and Musk he also urged him to praise Rogan too.
Indeed, one thing that’s notable post election is that Trump has acknowledged that Putin not Zelensky is the obstacle of peace. This completely explodes the myth of the Grayzone types the last three years that Zelensky-under undue influence from Boris Johnson and Joe Biden-has been the main obstacle. Trump has explicitly stated multiple times since November 5 that PUTIN is the main obstacle.
This has led to optimism among some Ukraine supporters notably Jake Broe.
Russia SHOCKED Trump Continues Military Aid to Ukraine & Sanctions on Russia
It certainly is a good sign that Trump continues to send the aid and continue sanctions on Russia FOR NOW. Last week he seemed to lash out against Putin threatening-what else?-tarrifs one of Trump’s favorite policies for just about everything-which doesn’t pass the laugh test as we do no trade with Russia. And even if for now he continues to send Ukraine its aid note that he and the GOP aren’t likely to pass more aid when this runs out.
The idea that Trump could sanction Russian oil and gas could be a good move. Still even though he criticized Putin and trolled him on how long this has taken-after all Russia was supposedly going to win in 48 hours. However in his interview with Sean Hannity last week he continued his harangue that “Zelensky should never allowed this to happen”-how could he have prevented his own country being invaded? By capitulation? I guess if Trump invades PANAMA-a nation literally without an army-Panama will have brought it on itself by not handing over the Panama canal?
As usual many are eager to praise Trump over these latest moves-and for those of us who support Ukraine there was SOME reason for optimism. With the emphasis on SOME. There also remains a lot greater room for deep concern and worry. To say that Ukraine is responsible for its own invasion is a very Putinesque thing to say, indeed Putin had told Tucker Carlson that Poland was responsible for Hitler’s invasion in 1939.
Trump Blames Zelensky for War: Says Ukraine Shouldn’t Have Fought
But then Trump himself has been acting pretty Putinesque himself since his return. This is the peace candidate the candidate of Not Going to Study War No More according to the #GenocideJoe Left. Yet he’s been talking as if he intends to invade the whole world as Vaush noted in a recent video.
(160) Why Is Trump Threatening To Invade The Whole World – YouTube
Which brings us however to the question of-Greenland. While I’m obviously a big Vaush stan I don’t think it’s correct to argue as he and others have that Trump talking about annexing Greenland is just a distraction.
(160) vaush greenland – YouTube
This more generally is a pet peeve of mine-since his first term many have attempted to divide things Trump says and does into a shiny object that’s merely designed to distract and a legit issue of concern. After 9 and a half years of Trump this seems to me to be clearly a fallacy.
I mean look at his first week: which of these things are just distractions? As I discussed in another chapter I’m a big fan of Tony Michels as well but I don’t agree with this idea that all that matters are issues that directly effect the pocketbook of the working class the rest is all noise. I don’t think Michels is saying this exactly but there clearly are some-both in the Center and the Left-who have a version of this to my mind flawed premise.
But the pardoning of 1600 insurrectionists many of them convicted felons, hundreds of them violent has no obvious connection to any “pocketbook issues” does this mean it’s just a distraction? Does the public not care about this? Polls seem to suggest otherwise but even if they don’t then it’s our job to make them care. The Democrats should NEVER STOP talking about this the next four years-indeed as Keith Olbermann argues see Chapter Third Impeachment should already be writing impeachment articles.
Neither did his executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship but it was a profound attack on the rights and liberties of millions of American citizens. How do you treat this as a disatraction? His rollback of vaccine research-already going RFK Jr before RFK Jr is confirmed though I still retain some optimism he won’t be; remember McConnell has polio and knows perfectly well without the vaccine he would never have gotten where he did in life. This could endanger the health and lives of millions. See what RFK Jr did in Samoa for a preview
2019 Samoa measles outbreak – Wikipedia
What about Trump’s gutting of LBJ error civil rights policies and agencies? Do we dismiss this as a “distraction” as it doesn’t effect the pocketbook of the White working class? How about the 13 IGs Trump fired-remember Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre? This was Trump’s Saturday Morning Massacre. However it is good to see that the IGs have refused to step down-unlike Christopher Wray they didn’t resign in advance.
A Bit of Good News on the Firing-of-the-Inspectors-General Front
Note though I found it difficult to find reporting on this refusal-finding it only in DailyKOS
The distraction thing is a canard though it’s understandable-with so many outrages it’s disorientating-where do you start? Maybe different people have to cover different things-immigration experts like the researcher at CATO can do immigration, experts on IG can cover that, others like EmptyWheel focus on things like the J6 pardons. But simply letting 80% of what Trump does go dismissing it as a distraction isn’t the answer.
And clearly the talk about Greenland and the Panama Canal are not MERELY distractions as Vaush himself recently acknowledged:
(160) OH MY GOD, He’s Actually Trying To Buy Greenland – YouTube
One very real and dangerous effect of this jawboning over invading Panama, Greenland and an economic invasion of Canada is that there are NATO ALLIES-at least Canada and Denmark are.
We can quibble over whether Lex Fridman has inside knowledge that Trump ls leaving NATO or not. Many will no doubt insist this isn’t going to happen, the very idea is “crazy” etc. As was the idea Trump wouldn’t leave in 2020 until he didn’t. Or the idea that he wants to run in 2028-though now we’re hearing a lot of talk about this.
But as Maddow noted in her recent interview on PodSaveAmerica is the US still part of NATO if it’s ‘threatening to go to war with or invade other NATO allies? At this point Trump has said nothing publicly about leaving NATO but he’s already making a lot of moves which may destroy it from within.
As Aaron Rupar recently noted, Putin needs Trump more than ever.
Whatever Trump’s policy on Ukraine will be-and I’m still on notice for another Doha like treaty where Trump had sidelined the Afghanistan provisional government and negotiated solely with the Taiban in 2020-all this jawboning of our own NATO allies is already giving Putin some life.
This takes us back to Trump’s acknowledgement that Putin is obstacle to peace. OTOH it completely explodes the talking point of the Grazyone and Friends that Ukraine is the one being rejectionist. OTOH it isn’t as reassuring as you might think at least if you recall this is what Trump said about the Israel-Palestine conflict. He stated that many times during his first term, still when push came to shove he moved the embassy to Jerusalem did the Abraham Accord which completely sidelined Palestine and basically took Netanyahu’s and Israel’s side every time substantively.
UPDATE: More evidence Mitch McConnell is going to emerge a low key #Resistance hero
‘Deadly serious’: Trump warned he needs a ‘McConnell strategy’ to prevent a GOP revolt
To be clear I’m not betting against Zelensky and Ukraine for one moment. We saw how against all odds the Syrian people defeated Assad. Certainly Ukraine’s material position is stronger than the Syrian #Resistance appeared to be.
UPDATE: For more reason to be pessimistic Trump will be good for Ukraine: