Making Sense - Sam Harris - #387 — Politics & Power

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're

00:00:11.800 hearing this, you're not currently on our subscriber feed, and we'll only be hearing

00:00:15.780 the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense

00:00:20.120 Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org. There you'll also find our scholarship program,

00:00:25.920 where we offer free accounts to anyone who can't afford one. We don't run ads on the podcast,

00:00:30.840 and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers.

00:00:34.080 So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.

00:00:45.160 Today I'm speaking with Rahm Emanuel. Rahm is currently the U.S. Ambassador to Japan,

00:00:51.100 where he is just wrapping up his term. He was also the 55th mayor of the city of Chicago,

00:00:58.300 a position he held until 2019. Before that, he was President Obama's chief of staff.

00:01:04.100 He was also a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois. And prior to

00:01:08.900 that, you might remember him as a key member of President Clinton's administration, ultimately

00:01:14.640 serving as his senior advisor for policy and politics. I happened to be going to Japan and

00:01:20.740 realized I could talk to Rahm in person at the embassy, and there was a lot to talk about.

00:01:26.080 We generally discussed the state of the world and American politics. We talk about his

00:01:32.060 ambassadorship in Japan, the mystery of Japan's economic health, U.S. competition with China,

00:01:39.060 possible conflict over Taiwan and the Philippines, the significance of the South China Sea,

00:01:44.380 the history of the U.S.-Japan friendship. And then we turn to U.S. politics. We discuss how the

00:01:51.560 Democratic Party lost its way, immigration, whether Vice President Harris needs a sister-soldier moment,

00:01:59.540 whether she should explain her changes of position better than she has. And then after we cover that

00:02:04.940 fraught territory, we turn to the happy topic of the Middle East. We discuss the standing of Israel

00:02:12.080 in the eyes of the world, anti-Semitism, the Abraham Accords, Hamas, settlements in the West

00:02:19.320 Bank, the influence of the religious right in Israel, a possible war with Iran, Netanyahu and

00:02:26.820 Israeli security, a two-state solution, whether a Harris administration would reliably support Israel,

00:02:34.120 Israel, and other topics. Anyway, the conversation was a lot of fun, and now I bring you Ambassador

00:02:41.360 Rahm Emanuel.

00:02:48.460 So I'm here with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel. Ambassador, thanks for joining me.

00:02:52.860 Oh, thanks for coming in on your vacation.

00:02:55.040 Welcome.

00:02:55.280 It's kind of like a work release program.

00:02:57.860 Exactly.

00:03:00.000 We'll see if I can get through complete sentences here, because I've been in the country for

00:03:03.420 almost 48 hours.

00:03:05.240 Oh, so you woke up at one in the morning?

00:03:06.520 Yeah.

00:03:06.860 Exactly.

00:03:07.220 Close.

00:03:07.760 Yeah, I know that feeling.

00:03:08.860 After four hours sleep.

00:03:10.020 Yeah, yeah.

00:03:11.080 But it's great to meet you.

00:03:12.180 Nice to meet you.

00:03:12.920 We were thrown together by the incomparable Michael Kivas.

00:03:15.980 Correct.

00:03:16.560 And yeah, so we owe him the credit of this conversation.

00:03:19.980 Well, we'll see at the end of the show whether he gets points or demerits.

00:03:22.900 Exactly, exactly.

00:03:24.660 So there's so much to talk about.

00:03:26.900 I mean, I want to start with your current post here in Japan, but we're going to wander

00:03:31.120 from the Pacific.

00:03:32.800 Oh, we're going to play Risk?

00:03:34.160 We're just going to go across the map?

00:03:36.180 Yeah, we're going to, because obviously you've touched, you have so many areas of expertise.

00:03:40.560 So just to remind people, you have served in two presidential administrations.

00:03:45.640 Counting this would be three, yeah.

00:03:47.260 President Clinton, senior advisor, President Obama's chief of staff, and then ambassador for

00:03:51.380 President Biden, or for the United States, so you could say.

00:03:53.940 Forgive me, I didn't really think of an ambassadorship as, is it technically?

00:03:58.060 That's fair.

00:03:58.380 No, you're right.

00:03:58.920 Is it in the executive branch?

00:04:00.300 No, it's the State Department.

00:04:01.500 You could say, but your appointment, you know, there's two types of appointments I don't

00:04:05.220 want to waste on it.

00:04:06.080 There's a career appointment, and then there's political appointments.

00:04:09.060 We're the only country that really has it.

00:04:10.880 And then the political sphere breaks down donors or formerly elected officials, like Senator

00:04:17.700 Mansfield, majority leader, ambassador here, former Vice President Walter Mondale, ambassador

00:04:22.320 here, former Speaker of the House Tom Foley, ambassador here.

00:04:26.160 This has to be a coveted gig, right?

00:04:29.040 On the list of countries where you can be an ambassador, this is-

00:04:32.420 Well, you haven't seen the house, but this probably will get me in trouble, but it will

00:04:35.960 never be referred to as Section 8 public housing.

00:04:38.800 But if you're going to live in public housing, that's the way to go.

00:04:40.820 But the job is actually, on a serious note, the job itself at this moment in time between

00:04:47.320 the United States and Japan is like everything every other ambassador wanted.

00:04:51.220 Japan's ready to break out, do things and do things from real energy and time, et cetera. 0.95

00:04:56.600 And I think they've surprised themselves, I could, about how much they've gotten done

00:05:00.360 in a short period of time.

00:05:01.620 We're in the middle of redesigning our entire Indo-Pacific strategy from a hub-and-spoke

00:05:06.700 to this lattice war because of my background and experience.

00:05:09.500 I've been intimately involved in the trilateral with Korea, Japan, and the United States,

00:05:14.060 pushing that along.

00:05:14.940 And then also the one with the United States, Japan, and Philippines.

00:05:17.360 And so it has been from a work product, from kind of that intellectual energy that comes

00:05:22.780 from really kind of putting your thumb on the scale, totally fascinating.

00:05:27.220 From a quality of life, it's a culture and experience that I feel like it's a gift to

00:05:33.520 be part of something I never really knew.

00:05:35.560 And then on a personal level, there's things about the society I find.

00:05:41.180 Now, again, we're outside of it.

00:05:42.520 For a lot of people, sometimes inside, they feel it's oppressive.

00:05:45.900 So you could feel that about our society on certain things.

00:05:48.960 But you know, as a former mayor that a city of Chicago that created safe passage routes

00:05:52.320 for kids to walk to school, my staff always tired of hearing that.

00:05:55.600 They accomplished that in Tokyo, from what I can tell.

00:05:58.320 Yeah, you have five-year-olds walk just eight, nine blocks to school, just put their hand

00:06:02.420 up, cars come to a stop.

00:06:03.960 The respect for life, I mean, you then realize how much we have stolen children's childhood

00:06:09.300 from them in America.

00:06:10.600 So from a lot of levels, I find this to be professionally rewarding and personally a gift.

00:06:16.980 And I told the president that.

00:06:18.320 I want to thank him for giving me the opportunity to experience a whole new culture.

00:06:22.600 All right.

00:06:22.760 So there are two mysteries that confront the novice in Japan.

00:06:29.040 Neither one of us would refer to ourselves as novice.

00:06:31.360 No, that's my first time here.

00:06:33.500 I'm fresh off the plane.

00:06:35.780 And so from what I can tell, there has been an impressive amount of economic stagnation

00:06:42.720 here in almost a lost generation.

00:06:46.760 I mean, if you're looking at the stock market index, you look at the, I think if you had

00:06:51.940 put a dollar in the Nikkei in 1989, you'd have exactly a dollar today or something close

00:06:58.940 to that.

00:06:59.400 Depends what the end trades at that moment, but yes.

00:07:01.840 So I don't think...

00:07:03.160 Let me just complete this thought because it's not as invidious as it sounds.

00:07:07.040 And yet it's obviously an incredibly prosperous society, right?

00:07:12.300 It's just impeccable on so many levels and it's not showing, at least from what I can

00:07:18.980 tell, the signs of economic dysfunction that you would expect if you just looked at that

00:07:23.840 graph.

00:07:24.960 So can you...

00:07:25.860 Yeah.

00:07:26.340 You know, one of the things I've read a little and I'm very persuaded.

00:07:30.060 I don't think the analysis, oh, the lost decades is really, it's a top line.

00:07:36.520 So if you lift the hood, if you go to the manufacturing side of the economy from a productivity

00:07:41.420 measurement, et cetera, it's incredibly productive.

00:07:45.220 Why?

00:07:46.000 They...

00:07:46.500 Japan got a head start on the decline in population.

00:07:48.800 So they're leaders in robotics and automation.

00:07:51.820 The top four robotic companies in the world, two of them are Japanese.

00:07:55.540 Of the top seven, depending on how you want to count it, are eight automation companies.

00:07:59.560 Almost half are Japanese.

00:08:01.460 So from the manufacturing side, which is a bigger piece of their economy than for the

00:08:04.940 United States, quite productive and stayed at world-class standards.

00:08:09.080 Now on the service side, your description is accurate.

00:08:11.880 The cloud is just coming here as a kind of a metaphor for a bigger kind of stagnation

00:08:17.240 in the tech, in the service side and technology adoption, et cetera.

00:08:21.160 But the economy is a very export oriented and it's highly world-class economy.

00:08:29.840 They have a lot of strengths in my view.

00:08:32.020 I mean, you have a highly educated workforce.

00:08:34.720 They stay to the office till 10, 11 o'clock at night.

00:08:37.400 We can't get people in America at 10 or 11 in the morning into the office.

00:08:40.680 Great universities, highly safe and secure modern infrastructure system.

00:08:46.260 You can get anywhere in the Indo-Pacific daily multiple times.

00:08:49.700 So there's a lot of advantages to that part of the economy.

00:08:55.100 And in the areas, I'll give you like, take semiconductor space, it gets a lot of notoriety.

00:09:01.260 I could refer to Japan as the supply chain of the supply chain.

00:09:05.460 So there's about 18 companies that are dominant in the materials and packaging,

00:09:10.240 which is so essential, that have anywhere from 40 to 70% of worldwide share market in their space.

00:09:19.160 And when you think of the people that make machines for the semiconductor,

00:09:22.980 there's ASML in the Netherlands, Tokyo Electron here.

00:09:28.020 And so they have a lot that is a specialty, but you could get overwhelmed and biased from the writing.

00:09:37.160 And I'm not sure it's 100% accurate.

00:09:40.040 And then it skews the way you interpret stuff.

00:09:42.880 And it's in kind of early stage velocity now back.

00:09:47.980 There's a much higher debt than we're carrying in the U.S., right?

00:09:50.780 Isn't it?

00:09:51.180 Much higher than anybody else.

00:09:52.320 I mean, there's like 200 plus percent.

00:09:54.940 On the other hand, you know, they do have that we don't have, $22 trillion,

00:10:01.060 dollars not yet, in savings.

00:10:04.340 So while their debt is extremely high from a GDP standpoint,

00:10:08.720 their savings is off the chart.

00:10:12.140 Now, that's the good news.

00:10:13.440 The bad news, it's earning, up until this point, zero interest rate.

00:10:17.220 And it's sitting, as our grandparents would do, in the mattress.

00:10:20.700 There was no 401k, no savings type of, no allocation of capital.

00:10:25.600 I sound like I was listening to Larry Summers when I was at the White House.

00:10:28.360 But the use of capital is not the most efficient.

00:10:32.000 So from your perch here, how are you viewing our growing competition with China?

00:10:37.820 That's an open-ended question.

00:10:39.000 Increasingly bellicose noises coming from the other side of the Pacific.

00:10:42.180 You know, here's what I would, I think we have to have a more, not, I wouldn't say a

00:10:47.900 nuanced view, but, and this is one of the things I've enjoyed working on in the sense

00:10:52.380 of the trilats and some of this stuff.

00:10:55.120 China made a major mistake in this region.

00:10:58.440 Go back 10 years with Wolf Warrior and Maritime or other type of aggression to every country.

00:11:03.960 You saw it just the other day with the Vietnam on their fishing. 0.97

00:11:06.520 You see it in the Philippines.

00:11:07.700 You see it on the border with India.

00:11:09.260 You see it strafing Australian planes.

00:11:11.020 You see what they've done to Japan. 0.99

00:11:13.160 And they just got the last couple of weeks in the sense of territorial, both aerial and

00:11:16.180 naval surfership.

00:11:17.960 I wouldn't call it aggression, but kind of violation.

00:11:21.300 That has made our job of organizing much easier.

00:11:25.640 They try to isolate a country like the Philippines is doing now. 0.98

00:11:29.140 And we have been able to, through our lattice work system that President Biden has really

00:11:34.340 put together, to take China as a strategy of isolating a country and make it the isolated 0.91

00:11:39.080 party.

00:11:39.460 And so on a political side and a security side, I think we're in a better position than

00:11:44.500 we were before.

00:11:45.200 And I think China, which is why they always complain, they're being contained and we're 1.00

00:11:48.840 trying to contain them.

00:11:49.800 They do a pretty good job of containing themselves because everybody in the region right now is

00:11:54.500 trying to figure out how to make sure that the United States is anchored here as a counterweight

00:11:57.780 against China.

00:11:58.780 That's a big advantage for us.

00:12:00.060 Where I think we are a beat behind the music, I think we're doing a great job, if I may say,

00:12:06.800 on the diplomatic side.

00:12:08.100 A really good job in updating on our security alliances and bringing, like given what Japan's 0.94

00:12:13.920 doing, the ROK is doing, India is doing, others a lot.

00:12:17.380 I think China is making the same mistakes with their economic coercion, their mercantilism,

00:12:24.000 their debt trap diplomacy.

00:12:26.040 And we are just in the early stages of responding to that in the way that it took us about four

00:12:33.520 years ago to figure out how to use their tactics against them, their own tactics against them.

00:12:38.440 And China is, and I would say this, we made a mistake as a country, all of us, we're all 1.00

00:12:45.760 responsible for it.

00:12:46.880 We called them a strategic competitor, believed what we were saying.

00:12:51.140 China, when Xi comes in, decides the United States is a strategic adversary on their backheels

00:12:56.980 because of the financial and banking and problems.

00:13:00.480 And we held on to this concept.

00:13:02.340 They were a competitor.

00:13:03.100 They adopted a policy that we were an adversary, and we just caught on to who they are and what

00:13:10.240 they're doing.

00:13:11.320 And so we lost a decade.

00:13:13.060 That said, they also are in the beginning stages of losing a decade.

00:13:16.960 But we have to make the most of that time and move with due speed and smart, not just urgency.

00:13:23.060 What do you think, we're going to get to U.S. politics, but what do you think the implications

00:13:26.740 are of the U.S. election for our future with China?

00:13:30.620 Well, it depends, first of all, what happens in the election.

00:13:32.640 The gap in your question is that.

00:13:35.580 That branch point, yeah.

00:13:36.960 Well, here's what I think.

00:13:38.000 Down each of those paths, what is China?

00:13:39.600 I'm kind of biased, but let me say this.

00:13:43.440 This is a crude way to say it.

00:13:45.480 The Indo-Pacific is an away game for us.

00:13:47.540 It's a home game for China.

00:13:48.980 And if you think you're going to be relevant in dealing with China, either on the security

00:13:52.940 angle, the political angle, the diplomatic angle, the economic angle, you need allies

00:13:57.600 and you need allies to trust you.

00:13:59.280 And so if you are not good with your allies, then you got a problem here because you can't

00:14:07.060 do anything in the region without a Japan, without a Republic of Korea, without an Australia,

00:14:12.140 without a New Zealand, without a Singapore, without an India, without the Philippines.

00:14:15.380 So I got to be careful there so I don't get outside the Hatch Act of U.S. being partisan.

00:14:20.960 I think it's pretty clear one candidate's really strong about alliances and allies, believes

00:14:27.720 in them.

00:14:28.320 It's very pertinent to this part of the world.

00:14:30.480 You cannot operate that way without allies.

00:14:34.400 And if you don't give allies trust and confidence, they'll do the bare minimum.

00:14:39.500 And let me try, if I could illustrate one point.

00:14:42.540 You know, for 30 or 40 years, presidents have tried to bring China, or rather Japan and Korea

00:14:47.960 on the same page with us.

00:14:49.780 And for a lot of historical reasons, we all have, we have a complicated history of Japan.

00:14:54.200 Japan has a complicated history of Korea.

00:14:56.160 We actually also have a complicated history of Korea.

00:14:58.680 That said, given where they were, given where their countries were, given their trust in

00:15:03.540 the United States and specifically trust with the administration, both President Yeun and

00:15:08.380 Prime Minister Kishida went beyond just clearing the bar.

00:15:11.140 They went farther.

00:15:11.720 And the end result was probably one of the bigger, bolder moves we made in the region

00:15:16.560 diplomatically in the last 20, 30 years.

00:15:19.880 China notices that.

00:15:21.320 Now, if you don't work with your allies and give them confidence, they're not going to

00:15:24.360 take the step.

00:15:25.140 Take a look at President Merkel's right now.

00:15:27.600 Unlike Duarte, he is taking a step of trust with the United States.

00:15:31.840 You don't treat an ally with that kind of respect.

00:15:35.260 Something that's really, really important to the United States can slip through our fingers.

00:15:39.040 So, I think our election, and again, I got to be careful.

00:15:43.980 Remind me of the implications of that, Jack, just how tongue-tied will you be?

00:15:47.980 Well, I become a roommate for you.

00:15:50.180 The cost of it is I lose a job and then I become your roommate, and that's really kind

00:15:53.700 of not good for you.

00:15:54.940 No, you can't violate, and there's some attorney at the State Department that's like, I don't

00:15:59.580 know, ghosting me everywhere on this thing.

00:16:02.080 So, I'm not allowed to be partisan.

00:16:05.240 So, I will analyze it.

00:16:06.320 So, if you ask me about what it means here, you have to really believe in alliances if

00:16:13.940 you want to be a counterweight to China.

00:16:16.180 If you don't, and you want to basically say, well, we're might equals right, and that's

00:16:21.780 China's right, and that's their backyard, that's a different stake. 0.76

00:16:24.620 I think you will find our allies taking a different strategy to the United States after that.

00:16:30.040 Let me say this, the Hatch Act applies to U.S. politics.

00:16:35.200 Sometimes people don't think it applies to, I'm joking, my involvement in Japan.

00:16:39.800 Right, right, right.

00:16:41.540 So, what about Taiwan?

00:16:44.020 Is this something, perhaps you can't comment on it with full transparency, but what do you

00:16:49.680 understand our policy with respect to Taiwan to be?

00:16:52.420 Well, what would we do?

00:16:54.840 If it's a very clear ambiguity.

00:16:57.160 So, strategic ambiguity is our official policy?

00:17:00.300 Well, yeah, it was established when Kissinger and Nixon came up with the one China policy.

00:17:06.700 But, you know, so look, there's three flashpoints right now.

00:17:10.700 The South China Sea with Philippines.

00:17:12.060 There's the Taiwan Straits and Taiwan, and then there's the 38th Palo Alto with North Korea 0.75

00:17:18.760 and South Korea.

00:17:20.980 And so, not wrong to ask about Taiwan, but everything you're thinking about Taiwan is playing out,

00:17:27.260 not just Taiwan, but in real time, we're playing, something's playing out right now in the South

00:17:33.480 China Sea with the Philippines and China.

00:17:35.120 And I always remind, you know, you have a sovereign nation, the Philippines, the international

00:17:41.220 court in 2016, China versus Philippines ruled in favor of the Philippines.

00:17:46.160 China has summarily dismissed it, not even listened to it, and they are a treaty ally of

00:17:51.500 the United States.

00:17:52.600 So, while a lot of people, you know, rush right to Taiwan, my view is, I don't know why you're

00:17:57.600 passing up what's going on with the Philippines, because this is everything we're talking about.

00:18:03.080 And whether the islands, the fishing rights, et cetera, and the international court rules

00:18:09.400 established by the court, interpreted by the court, matters, and whether a small country

00:18:13.180 has standing against a more powerful country.

00:18:15.380 Is it your understanding that we have the same policy with respect to the Philippines as

00:18:19.100 Taiwan?

00:18:19.580 No.

00:18:19.860 In fact, we have a stronger policy because they're a treaty ally.

00:18:23.120 Taiwan is not a treaty ally.

00:18:24.720 Are we treaty bound to come to their defense?

00:18:27.180 Yeah.

00:18:27.340 I mean, if something was to happen, and Senate President Marcos has indicated this and said

00:18:32.180 something, that he would consider this as, you know, something that would happen to the

00:18:38.060 Philippines from a security standpoint for their military, could trigger that alliance

00:18:43.260 and that commitment in the war to the United States.

00:18:45.640 Now, I try to remind people, the South China Sea that, you know, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia,

00:18:53.240 all kind of counter other countries too.

00:18:55.960 14% of the world's entire fish stock and catch is in that water.

00:19:01.720 Massive amount of undiscovered oil and natural gas reserves there.

00:19:06.280 China is in confrontation.

00:19:07.960 Just the other day, there was a story.

00:19:09.820 They, their Coast Guard, they went after the Vietnamese fishing boats, said that those are

00:19:16.640 their islands.

00:19:17.240 And it's very clear they're Vietnamese islands.

00:19:18.900 They're doing it with the Philippines, et cetera.

00:19:22.600 Now, we don't have a treaty ally with, we're not, Vietnam's not a treaty ally.

00:19:27.400 Philippines is a treaty ally.

00:19:28.920 We have a commitment to their, there's not only their sovereignty, but their military safety.

00:19:34.680 Is that multilateral?

00:19:36.580 Does the UK have the same commitment with the Philippines or?

00:19:40.040 No.

00:19:40.580 No?

00:19:40.980 No.

00:19:41.120 So it's us?

00:19:41.560 Yes, it's us.

00:19:42.140 Based on history.

00:19:43.060 So you mentioned the complicated history between Japan and the US and Japan and Korea, et cetera.

00:19:50.540 That's actually the second mystery I wanted to ask you about.

00:19:52.740 So for anyone who even has a passing understanding of what happened during World War II in the

00:19:58.440 Pacific, it seems frankly miraculous that we found in Japan a friend of such durable goodwill

00:20:07.900 as has persisted for the last 60 some odd years.

00:20:11.480 I don't know when the friendship started, if you can place it on the calendar, but it was,

00:20:16.780 it had to be at the latest 1960 or so, right?

00:20:20.360 I mean, when did things completely thaw?

00:20:23.940 Well, I do think it's a testament how the bitterest of foes can become the best of friends.

00:20:30.660 Yeah, I mean, it offers some hope for the world, one would hope, but it does seem,

00:20:34.580 frankly, miraculous when you try to map it onto other conflicts that we're going to talk about.

00:20:38.920 When I listen to the Japanese, they have a change. 1.00

00:20:43.100 There is, and you read history, this is my reading of it, so other people say he doesn't

00:20:48.320 know what he's talking about.

00:20:50.080 There's no doubt, and it's over in our, the residence for the ambassador is where General

00:20:55.980 MacArthur receives the emperor.

00:20:57.640 Now, our big moment at the end of the war, end, is the signing on the Missouri.

00:21:01.960 That's our, that's our moment, that's our kind of trigger point.

00:21:06.060 The meeting with the emperor and the acceptance of the emperor will stay as the emperor is a

00:21:11.780 trigger point for the Japanese as my, as I read history, as I witness history, as I witness

00:21:16.300 others talk about it.

00:21:18.000 And the way the emperor then talks about the United States, and that is the first step on

00:21:23.060 a journey to a different place from enemies during war to building friends.

00:21:28.500 The second piece is, I think it's really, really, nobody ever told me about this, and

00:21:34.460 maybe I'm, I'm guilty of not talking to the right people or whatever.

00:21:37.260 I think I talked to a lot of people when I was, what I call in the Senate COVID quarantine

00:21:41.220 before you get confirmed.

00:21:42.840 So we all know George Kennan's long memo about the Soviet Union containment, et cetera.

00:21:48.560 Marshall sends Kennan here afterwards.

00:21:52.500 I mean, this is later in his career, early in the late forties, and he writes an equally

00:21:59.080 valuable memo about the role Japan will play as an anchor in this post-49 to communist China

00:22:07.260 and an anchor for the United States in the Pacific, Indo-Pacific, it wasn't called Indo then,

00:22:12.120 but the Pacific, or in Southeast Asia.

00:22:15.420 And it's, I happen to see it just once referenced in a book, so I pulled it up.

00:22:19.160 But it's unbelievably prescient.

00:22:22.360 Now, so you can date 62 and the military alliance, et cetera.

00:22:27.520 But I would literally, if you ask me, okay, what was the first step on that journey to

00:22:31.960 a different place?

00:22:33.200 The receiving the emperor, us embracing the role of the emperor, which allowed Japan to 0.91

00:22:38.100 move on.

00:22:38.460 It's pretty also clear in the days of both Hiroshi of Nagasaki, we were more explicit where Secretary

00:22:44.220 of State Burns is not, that we would, which is what Stimson was arguing for, that the

00:22:50.560 emperor would stay.

00:22:52.560 The war may have ended sooner.

00:22:55.080 The judgment, it's a judgment call, it's an interpretation.

00:22:58.120 So that to me is, and it would give you hope.

00:23:01.060 And I'll tell you the other thing, and I say this about the President Biden when he held

00:23:05.060 the ROK and the Japanese Prime Minister and the ROK President in Camp David.

00:23:09.980 It's pretty ugly in Ukraine, pretty ugly in the Middle East, a lot of conflict in the

00:23:14.900 world, Sudan, and you look at the rest of the certain battles in Africa.

00:23:19.980 There was a place in Camp David where it shows what diplomacy and dialogue can achieve versus,

00:23:27.340 I'm not saying that sometimes conflicts don't have their own logic, but I thought that was

00:23:32.160 a hopeful sign in a pretty dark time that we're living in.

00:23:35.660 Yeah, I mean, as I say, it would be wonderful if there were a deep analogy between what we

00:23:42.760 accomplished here, given just how horrific World War II was, and the current crises that

00:23:49.800 you've mentioned.

00:23:50.400 Now, we're going to get to the Middle East and Iran because I-

00:23:53.580 Because you can't help yourself.

00:23:54.760 Certainly top of mind.

00:23:56.100 But we're going to go through, let's go through U.S. politics and see what the Hatch Act

00:24:01.900 can allow us to talk about.

00:24:04.700 I mean, so you obviously-

00:24:05.360 I am a former ballet dancer.

00:24:06.940 I'm pretty flexible.

00:24:07.920 We'll see.

00:24:09.300 You have a deep knowledge of democratic politics, obviously.

00:24:14.300 And also you were a mayor of Chicago, which gave you a special view of the local implications

00:24:21.820 of certain policies.

00:24:24.040 Many of us, so I'm a lifelong Democrat.

00:24:25.820 I've never voted Republican.

00:24:27.940 I don't think I've been tempted to vote Republican, but I have often thought in the last few years,

00:24:34.680 certainly since what appeared to be a kind of social justice moral panic that took over

00:24:39.980 the Democratic Party in around 2020, that I would campaign for Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney

00:24:47.520 at this point.

00:24:48.080 Just give me a normal Republican and I could get behind that person. 0.96

00:24:51.840 And if you know my history and, you know, castigating the theocrats on the Republican

00:24:55.980 side, you would know just how far a pendulum swing that is.

00:24:59.680 But that is in response to a sense that the Democratic Party has really lost its way.

00:25:06.380 It may be recovering its way.

00:25:08.480 Certainly it seems to be executing a kind of pivot, however, unacknowledged in the campaign

00:25:15.380 of Vice President Harris at the moment.

00:25:17.540 But we're talking about a party which seemed for years at a stretch, again, I would date

00:25:24.420 this to the 2020 campaign, to be, I mean, pick your ghastly policy, defund the police.

00:25:32.400 People should have their reputations destroyed for doubting whether they're more than two

00:25:36.900 sexes biologically.

00:25:38.900 I mean, there was an activist takeover of the conversation that I think has done great harm

00:25:46.560 to our politics if for no other reason than it has given real motive force to the personality

00:25:54.380 cult that has subsumed the Republican Party.

00:25:57.080 And there are many single issue voters now who are not.

00:26:01.220 I don't mean to.

00:26:01.560 I know I'm giving you a lot.

00:26:02.580 I'm good.

00:26:03.400 Feel free to.

00:26:04.360 Feel free to respond.

00:26:05.380 Which of the 42 questions do you want me to answer for us?

00:26:07.600 I'll sharpen it up.

00:26:08.920 Respond to the claim that the Democrats lost their minds for a few years there on issues

00:26:15.720 like immigration and crime.

00:26:17.780 And what is politically necessary now in the final stages of this campaign?

00:26:22.720 Okay.

00:26:23.420 So, well, that's this campaign, but it's that question is about a bigger than just this election.

00:26:30.480 Yeah.

00:26:30.720 Okay.

00:26:31.360 So, let me try to unpack a couple things that there's a lot in there.

00:26:37.180 Not one that ever believed in or supported defund the police.

00:26:41.140 And even when those who advocated said, well, it doesn't mean what it says, well, then my

00:26:44.500 attitude was, well, no, don't say it.

00:26:46.240 Because if it doesn't mean what it says, you're confusing a lot of people.

00:26:49.940 But you have to back up as a mayor that also had to work with and should have worked with

00:26:56.900 the management of the police department.

00:26:58.920 We had a lot of, every Chicago, New York, LA, every city of any size had safeguards in.

00:27:04.220 The truth is they atrophied and the police departments needed to be better managed from

00:27:10.460 the responsibilities they had to both serve and protect.

00:27:14.460 It's just a fact.

00:27:15.760 A lot of, and as a mayor, you're accountable for that.

00:27:19.280 But the police department's oversights, while you had checks in the system, they really weren't

00:27:24.280 working and we had a confidence in them when they weren't working.

00:27:27.020 But when you put into the mosaic of what you're talking about, not just on the policing

00:27:32.120 side, I don't think the Democratic Party could endorse today, or I think it could now, but

00:27:38.560 in the period of time you were talking about, what Senator Kennedy and Senator John McCain

00:27:43.560 had negotiated.

00:27:44.180 And that was only 10 years ago from an immigration policy.

00:27:47.600 President Clinton had advocated, which is my kind of North Star about this, that we're both a country

00:27:53.280 of immigrants and a country of laws, and both have to be respected.

00:27:57.680 I actually think the American people are more welcoming about immigrants, but they don't like 1.00

00:28:02.540 their laws being broken.

00:28:04.480 And they don't like a sense of out of control or somebody cheating a system into something else.

00:28:10.120 So they're actually, when you look at communities around the country, actually quite receptive

00:28:15.800 to immigrants.

00:28:17.140 It's a sense that the law is not being abided by.

00:28:20.680 And we went as, I don't want to say we, there were big voice, loud voices.

00:28:26.440 Now, those voices didn't mean that they were loud.

00:28:29.180 It doesn't mean they represented a lot of people.

00:28:31.500 So as I have a rule in politics, sound is not always fury.

00:28:35.260 Don't ever confuse sound with fury.

00:28:37.280 Like, sometimes sound is fury, but sometimes it's just sound.

00:28:40.660 So they were loud voices.

00:28:42.760 But the fact is, those voices did not, like people that would talk about Latinx or et cetera,

00:28:49.240 weren't representing where the country was or even where the communities are.

00:28:53.400 And give you one example.

00:28:54.500 We haven't had an election yet.

00:28:56.160 I think as a son and a grandson of an immigrant, I can say this, not the ambassador, but as a son

00:29:01.260 and a grandson of an immigrant.

00:29:02.240 And I consider myself a child of an immigrant father.

00:29:06.740 Obviously, President Trump's rhetoric about immigrants is really harsh and ugly.

00:29:12.300 Yet, he's doing better among Hispanics than almost anybody since George Bush 43.

00:29:17.940 So it tells you the voices that thought they were representing the immigrant community didn't

00:29:21.680 really know where the immigrant community, quote unquote, was.

00:29:24.120 And it's pretty clear that even in the Hispanic community, there's not a respect for just

00:29:31.080 crossing the border and being as an undocumented, or you want to use the term illegal or not

00:29:36.320 use illegal, use undocumented.

00:29:37.980 Pretty clear there's a respect also for the law and for the law being followed.

00:29:43.880 And I thought our party and voices in our party, rather, were too much about a permissive

00:29:50.160 culture and not much about a value-based culture.

00:29:53.140 And that has caught up with us, straight up.

00:29:58.140 And if you look at working class, because it's not just white, that's 2016 Trump.

00:30:03.360 You look at 2024 Trump, it's not working class whites, it's working class.

00:30:08.240 There's an economic piece to this, but it's much more cultural.

00:30:12.440 And our party, when you look at the success of Roosevelt, you look at the success of Kennedy,

00:30:19.380 you look at the success of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and not to draw others out, or

00:30:23.860 you could also put Jimmy Carter in there.

00:30:26.120 It was the whole package, not just the economics, but also the sense of a value system.

00:30:33.020 Remember, the most famous line, or one of the most famous lines for Bill Clinton is 92 acceptance

00:30:38.000 speech at the convention in New York, was to the families and the parents that work hard,

00:30:44.980 play by the rules, pay the taxes, raise your kids to know right from wrong, I'm going to

00:30:50.460 be your president.

00:30:51.060 That is a value statement.

00:30:53.040 That is not, here's, I mean, he had his middle-class tax cut, et cetera.

00:30:56.080 But in the same sense that when President Obama appealed to a sense of hope, and that

00:31:02.360 there were blue, there were individuals in red, there is no blue or red America.

00:31:07.040 There are only Americans of many different stripes and colors.

00:31:09.600 There was a value there.

00:31:11.240 And I think our party loses its way when it doesn't actually understand the cultural component.

00:31:17.440 I believe firmly people are more and vote more than the totality of their wallet.

00:31:25.080 Their wallet's a big piece.

00:31:27.020 The safety of their kids is a big piece.

00:31:29.240 The laborhood school is a big piece.

00:31:31.980 The things that happen in their community is a big piece.

00:31:36.260 And we diminish that.

00:31:39.500 And it's ironic because the times we have succeeded and created, not just in one election, but a

00:31:44.960 lasting legacy, is when we respect the, what are termed cultural and societal issues.

00:31:51.300 And we hurt ourselves when we veer off of that.

00:31:56.060 So do you think the pendulum is swinging back?

00:31:58.020 Yes.

00:31:59.020 Very quickly.

00:31:59.800 You can see it not only manifested in elections, you can see it very quickly also within the party.

00:32:06.960 Yeah.

00:32:07.340 So the question is...

00:32:08.680 And I don't know if you think those, let me, I don't, I'm cutting you off.

00:32:11.620 I apologize, but you are talking to an Emmanuel. 0.94

00:32:13.860 That's a habit of ours.

00:32:14.740 I don't think that those voices ever really represented the Democratic Party.

00:32:20.060 They intimidated a lot of people in the Democratic Party, trying to shut them down.

00:32:24.500 Well, but by numbers, they didn't.

00:32:26.560 The polling, only polling, or the only research I know of on this point suggests that it was

00:32:31.300 8% of activists or 8% of the party, but they captured the institutions, right?

00:32:36.940 It became the new orthodoxy.

00:32:38.720 Well, what they...

00:32:39.940 They captured the New York Times, they captured Harvard, they captured medical journals.

00:32:43.580 No, but what they, whether you want to say, you're saying captured, I say they silenced

00:32:48.640 a lot of other, intimidated a lot of other folks.

00:32:51.980 Either way, they have done, but they didn't, that's why I always say about politics, sound

00:32:57.620 is not always fury.

00:32:58.780 They did not represent, they never even got close to a majority.

00:33:02.600 They never even got close to 10%.

00:33:04.740 And yet, they're...

00:33:06.960 Okay, but just a sanity check here.

00:33:08.440 So this, I believe this is true.

00:33:09.880 I, as the words tumble out of my mouth, I can't believe they're real, but this is, I

00:33:14.160 have this fact checked, at least by CNN, that when asked, I believe by the ACLU at some

00:33:19.860 point in 2020, Vice President Harris said that she was in favor of offering gender reassignment

00:33:27.000 surgery at taxpayer expense to incarcerated illegal immigrants, right? 0.72

00:33:33.360 She checked that box, call it whatever you want, that most of America perceives that as

00:33:38.180 just sheer lunacy, if not morally abhorrent.

00:33:42.580 And that's riding atop of, let me just take this one issue, and I realize this is plutonium

00:33:49.300 that I've brought into your embassy.

00:33:51.340 Don't worry, I have police for that.

00:33:52.840 Yeah.

00:33:52.940 It's, you have some number of people left of center in our country, and they certainly

00:34:00.960 seem to be a majority from the point of view of the New York Times and the establishment

00:34:05.760 where that began to castigate anyone who would use the term woman in a context that could seem

00:34:13.880 to be...

00:34:14.320 I am, look, I'm not going to sit here and not say, I'm not...

00:34:18.020 Something happened, you're admitting that something happened.

00:34:19.760 Oh, no, no, there's something, rationality got snapped for a second.

00:34:23.260 I also happen to think it snapped back, but that said, and I'm not saying that either whether

00:34:28.220 it's the New York Times or other institutions lost their center of gravity and their balance.

00:34:36.160 Don't disagree with you.

00:34:37.620 And, but I also think that you can't, well, look, you said you've only voted down.

00:34:42.300 I grew up in a home of, my grandfather was a socialist, became a Democrat because of

00:34:46.740 Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

00:34:47.900 I mean, I think a Democrat was one of the 10 lost tribes of the Jewish people.

00:34:50.640 So that's what I grew up in.

00:34:52.400 I'm not, I will never vote for a Republican, can't vote, but now I just crossed the Hatch

00:34:57.140 Act.

00:34:57.700 So, okay, there goes that.

00:34:59.180 The police are on their way.

00:35:00.020 Yeah.

00:35:00.320 But here's what I do want to say is, you know, we're spending time because, and legitimately

00:35:05.360 care from a center slash progressive set of politics because it matters.

00:35:11.200 But you actually would, if you would ask me what is amiss, and I got to watch myself here

00:35:16.720 and I'm not doing a good job self-policing as a second ago showed, what happened, what

00:35:21.140 has happened over the last 20 years, the last 10, 15 years in the Republican Party and the

00:35:26.460 voices there.

00:35:27.700 For all you want to say about the, some things in the Democratic Party, I think it's important

00:35:32.400 to remember there's, the Democratic Party center has held.

00:35:37.220 I'm not saying that we've had bad moments of where the shrill has silenced people or intimidated

00:35:42.300 people or the claim for orthodoxy hasn't.

00:35:45.640 On the other hand, you said you would vote for Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney.

00:35:50.340 They have no home.

00:35:52.500 You still have a home in the Democratic Party.

00:35:54.740 I still have a home in the Democratic Party.

00:35:56.940 And that's the difference where they don't.

00:35:59.120 Jeff Flake, who's a good friend we served together in Congress, was ambassador to Turkey.

00:36:03.080 He just endorsed again, second time around, he endorsed President Biden last time, this

00:36:08.420 time Kamala Harris, because there isn't a home. 1.00

00:36:11.460 That's just not true in the Democratic Party.

00:36:12.700 So it's very different.

00:36:13.900 And again, I got to be careful.

00:36:15.340 I probably twice have gone offsides and the ref is going to call to blow the whistle and

00:36:19.320 give me a yellow flag here.

00:36:21.340 But again, so I find your optimism here.

00:36:25.340 I'm not, I'm not a, I'm a hardened pal.

00:36:28.700 But if it's, if the pendulum has swung back, if.

00:36:31.280 I think it's swinging back.

00:36:32.420 So just take this narrow case that I just gave you.

00:36:36.280 Does Vice President Harris, candidate Harris, need to acknowledge the change of opinion

00:36:43.080 or just, well, no, it's just, it's going unremarked.

00:36:48.040 I mean, she's, she's acting like someone who never thought this.

00:36:51.400 Should she say, listen, our party went a little crazy in 2020, right?

00:36:55.340 And I got caught up in this, right?

00:36:57.460 Now, put your, put your political hat on if you can.

00:36:59.580 And acknowledge the, she's trailing three or four things of that sort that have a kind

00:37:06.280 of, you know, you can't unring this crazy bell that rang in 2020.

00:37:10.500 And that, that was one of them.

00:37:11.560 There, there's, there's one with, um, I don't think to defund the police can be hung around

00:37:16.880 her neck, but there's, uh, there's a couple of other. 0.97

00:37:19.400 You can't hang that around her neck.

00:37:20.100 Like when you look at her record as both a district attorney and attorney general, no

00:37:24.960 way you could do that.

00:37:25.840 And it's not an accident that while she, uh, in the coming out of the box as the candidate

00:37:32.220 for president, she leaned on that voice and that experience.

00:37:37.800 But she wanted to be a national.

00:37:39.500 She has something around not making it a crime to come to the country illegally. 0.95

00:37:43.920 Right.

00:37:44.900 There's the, there's, there's a reboot in her brain clearly around issues of immigration,

00:37:50.020 if not crime, socially polarizing issues like the transgender debate.

00:37:56.040 So I'll just give you the perception from the center and the center right is she's carefully

00:38:02.740 avoiding any conversation that would provoke questions on these kinds of topics.

00:38:07.900 And she's just hoping to get into the end zone in November without ever having to address

00:38:12.780 this change of heart.

00:38:14.320 I worry that again, I worry as someone who desperately wants to see her be the next president.

00:38:19.140 I worry that there's enough of the country who thinks she is a stealth candidate who will

00:38:26.660 implement all of these crazy woke policies.

00:38:29.880 If you, if you only gets the chance because she hasn't acknowledged just how clearly the spell

00:38:35.540 has broken for her.

00:38:36.560 Well, no, again, I want to, let me ask you, I'll give you one more way to sharpen it up.

00:38:42.780 Shouldn't she have a sister soldier moment of some kind on these issues politically? 0.99

00:38:46.860 Yeah, but see, that's what, not what you were earlier asking.

00:38:49.220 That is what I mean.

00:38:50.380 I want to be clear.

00:38:51.660 You were saying she has to deal with herself and say something about where she, Kamala

00:38:55.840 Harrison, that I would say, no.

00:38:58.120 Well, no, but no, but she would have, so if she had a sister soldier moment on one of these

00:39:02.080 topics, someone's going to say, well, wait a minute, you said in 2020 X, now you're

00:39:06.020 saying why, and she's going to have to have the conversation.

00:39:08.440 Let me make a general rule of, let me just give you a general assessment without making

00:39:11.840 it about Kamala Harris.

00:39:12.900 Okay.

00:39:13.680 Two rules I've had about presidential politics and campaigns.

00:39:18.060 To be a contender that wins, you have to project strength, confidence, and optimism.

00:39:23.500 And in a public mind's eye, they got to be, see you as sitting, being able to fill the

00:39:34.000 space of that office.

00:39:35.700 That's essential.

00:39:37.220 More importantly for the president than for a senator or a congressman, a little less for

00:39:41.660 a governor and then a little less for mayor.

00:39:43.380 But if you're a chief executive, and I may be biased because I'm from Chicago, you can't

00:39:48.020 be smaller than the office.

00:39:49.740 That's, that's a big office and they want a big person for it.

00:39:53.580 If you go back through presidential history, at least in the, take World War II forward,

00:40:00.020 the candidate that has projected the strength, the confidence, and the optimism has won.

00:40:05.060 Whether it's, you are using shorthand, I happen to know what you mean by a sister soldier moment.

00:40:10.460 But be able to be seen as strong enough to stand up and call a friend wrong when they're

00:40:17.240 wrong, is what you're looking at, as a tactic to achieve that kind of larger purpose that

00:40:23.040 may or may not be right.

00:40:25.260 Again, I'm sitting 8,000 miles away, 14 hours away.

00:40:28.600 But I do know what you have to, what in 2008 and in 1992, at least those are my experiences,

00:40:35.780 Bill Clinton and Barack Obama's first election.

00:40:37.440 But they, in a comparative basis against both Bush 41, John McCain, they, they won that

00:40:45.300 fight, strength, confidence, and optimism, and big enough, ready enough for the office.

00:40:50.480 Well, remind me, I don't know if it had political implications, but did President Obama ever explain

00:40:55.840 his change of heart around gay marriage?

00:40:58.040 Did he ever have the interview?

00:40:59.220 Now, remember, he's president then, not presidential, okay.

00:41:01.860 Right.

00:41:02.120 So, running for a second term, did it come up?

00:41:05.740 I mean, his biggest thing in 08 was his change of heart and running for president.

00:41:10.200 He had to explain that, and he changed his view.

00:41:12.700 And I think, you know, you've got to, as a, one of the things, look, I mean, you and I

00:41:18.000 are doing this interview, I think 36 hours after the debate, I thought the better, one

00:41:23.340 of the better moments was when, I mean, he's, I call him Tim, the vice presidential, Tim

00:41:28.280 Walsh, I'm happy to recruit him.

00:41:29.740 You know, when he said, hey, that was a knucklehead move.

00:41:32.780 He just handled it.

00:41:34.420 And people can relate to him and relate to that.

00:41:37.060 He just said, it's a knucklehead move.

00:41:38.520 It was a, and that was it.

00:41:40.100 And you got to be, you know, when you're, you know, when you've done something wrong,

00:41:44.300 you say it.

00:41:45.300 You're saying change of heart and say, look, with more information, I got it.

00:41:49.820 But your questions, if I may, I don't, you can, you're the, you're doing the podcast

00:41:54.320 so you can ask whatever you want, is so much where she has to come clean about something.

00:41:58.360 And my view is that's not what I would do.

00:42:00.180 Well, my, my fear is that.

00:42:01.100 And again, I got to be careful here.

00:42:02.380 Yeah.

00:42:02.700 No, my fear is that half the country.

00:42:04.860 Can we play this on November 2nd?

00:42:05.820 Yeah.

00:42:09.040 At 3 a.m.

00:42:10.340 But to take a, a, a, a peculiar example, but nonetheless, an influential one.

00:42:18.560 We're spending a lot of time here.

00:42:19.040 I'm kind of wishing we'd go to the Middle East real quick. 1.00

00:42:21.360 Yeah.

00:42:22.560 So let's go to something easy.

00:42:24.980 Easy and cheerful.

00:42:25.980 But you take a peculiar person like Elon Musk, right?

00:42:28.660 Who's a blowhard derival, all blowhards at this moment, but he has a megaphone that 200 million

00:42:34.920 people are listening to.

00:42:36.260 Honestly, he's a single issue voter on this kind of topic, right?

00:42:40.920 I mean, like he, he got radicalized on some of these cultural war issues.

00:42:44.060 Yeah.

00:42:44.220 And he is treating her like a stealth, far left democratic activist, right?

00:42:52.300 And he's effectively doing that to an audience of some tens of millions of people who, if

00:42:57.540 they're not persuadable, they're not persuadable.

00:42:59.060 But what I'm imagining is that there are some, whoever the undecided voters are out there.

00:43:03.760 Here's what you're saying.

00:43:04.940 And if I may, which is, I think a challenge for the party and not just for her, we've allowed

00:43:10.140 a few shrill voices in our party to become a caricature of our party.

00:43:14.800 And they are, they are first shrill, B, they don't represent anything but themselves and

00:43:20.900 C, we've allowed them because we haven't used our own voice to become a caricature as

00:43:26.320 if that's our opinion.

00:43:27.940 So if those sentences came out of her mouth, what would be wrong with that?

00:43:32.300 If you were running the campaign.

00:43:33.560 I'm not running the campaign.

00:43:34.740 Okay.

00:43:35.040 I've got to be really clear.

00:43:36.520 But to me, to me, those are the perfect sentences.

00:43:39.280 I just want, I want them to be coming out of her mouth.

00:43:41.480 I know what you want, but I keep trying to steer you.

00:43:44.240 It's not about her saying what, I understand what you're saying.

00:43:48.040 And for my money, and again, I'm at a distance, it's being able, you said sister soldier, what

00:43:54.720 I think is, look, you got to be able when one of your own friends or fellow travelers is

00:44:00.440 wrong, call them out.

00:44:02.140 And when you disagree, have the confidence, whether that's her or any candidate.

00:44:06.320 Now, yours, the sister soldier moment, having been part of the 92 campaign for President

00:44:11.720 Clinton, it was a, even his end welfare as we know it, or putting 100,000 cops or his

00:44:18.600 immigration policy, we're a nation of laws and nation of...

00:44:21.700 If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at

00:44:25.760 samharris.org.

00:44:27.400 Once you do, you'll get access to all full-length episodes of the Making Sense podcast.

00:44:32.160 The podcast is available to everyone through our scholarship program.

00:44:35.160 So if you can't afford a subscription, please request a free account on the website.

00:44:40.440 The Making Sense podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on listener support.

00:44:44.880 And you can subscribe now at samharris.org.

Making Sense - Sam Harris - October 15, 2024

#387 — Politics & Power

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript