The Megyn Kelly Show - What's Happening In Cuba and Hong Kong, with Antonio Garcia-Martinez and Samuel Chu

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00:00:31.200 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest and provocative conversations.

00:00:42.700 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.780 Today, what's happening in Cuba and why should you care?

00:00:49.520 And by the way, what's happening in Hong Kong?

00:00:52.480 Because it's not totally unrelated.

00:00:54.300 It pushes for democracy in societies where the leaders

00:00:58.460 or at least those in control are trying to stop it.

00:01:02.360 And what are we doing to help, right?

00:01:04.440 What is the United States doing?

00:01:06.260 We're going to get into all of it.

00:01:07.520 Quick explainers.

00:01:08.460 I think I confess these are two areas in which I haven't fully understood the history.

00:01:12.540 And I love sort of getting up to speed on both of them in preparation for today's interview.

00:01:18.060 So if you don't know much about them, we'll lead you through it.

00:01:20.520 We will do Cuba 101 and Hong Kong 101.

00:01:23.220 And then I think give you a clear explanation of what's going on and why it matters.

00:01:27.580 And we're going to kick it off in a moment with Antonio Garcia Martinez.

00:01:31.280 He's a bestselling author.

00:01:32.480 He's a tech entrepreneur.

00:01:33.320 And his parents are Cuban exiles.

00:01:37.240 And he was born in the United States, but has been very actively following what's happening

00:01:41.280 in Cuba and can explain it all to us.

00:01:43.580 This is the same guy.

00:01:44.620 You may remember him.

00:01:45.340 He was fired by Apple over this BS charge after the woke came for him.

00:01:50.420 He had written something in his book that wasn't all that flattering about women in Silicon

00:01:54.060 Valley.

00:01:54.200 It was such nonsense, right?

00:01:55.680 It's like another innocent victim of our crazy cancel culture.

00:01:58.960 But he's on for something else today.

00:02:00.180 And we're happy to have his expertise.

00:02:02.060 And then we're going to be joined by Samuel Chu, who is he was raised in Hong Kong.

00:02:07.240 He spent his childhood there before immigrating to the United States.

00:02:10.940 His dad has been a leader of the pro-democracy movement there.

00:02:13.400 He's been a leader of that from over here.

00:02:15.880 And his dad's been arrested.

00:02:18.100 He's been under an arrest warrant from the Chinese government for pushing for democracy

00:02:22.400 from over here.

00:02:23.640 And his take on what the United States needs to do, whether we should be having the Beijing

00:02:27.800 Olympics in China and, you know, what the chances are for the push for democracy to actually

00:02:33.480 prevail.

00:02:34.200 So all of that in one minute.

00:02:35.940 First this.

00:02:41.760 Antonio, hi.

00:02:42.580 How are you?

00:02:43.360 I'm doing very well.

00:02:44.120 Thanks for having me on.

00:02:44.920 Good morning.

00:02:45.960 The pleasure's mine.

00:02:46.980 OK, so let's just start with, can you get us up to speed on just a little bit of the

00:02:50.540 history on Cuba, because I think most Americans have heard generally of the Bay of Pigs and

00:02:56.260 the Cuban Missile Crisis and Fidel Castro, but might not really understand why do we care

00:03:02.060 about Cuba and what the hell is going on down there?

00:03:04.540 Right.

00:03:04.700 So like I actually boned up on the history just before this interview.

00:03:07.460 But just take us back to, you know, like the mid 1950s and where Cuba was then before

00:03:13.300 Fidel took over.

00:03:14.820 It's a great question, because for some reason, Cuba's history has always been intertwined with

00:03:18.440 American history, and for some reason, it somehow always ends up in the news.

00:03:22.280 So, yeah, you know, Cuba was just to go back slightly, just a little bit more than 1950s,

00:03:27.240 just one second.

00:03:28.020 Yeah.

00:03:28.300 You know, Cuba was one of the last Spanish colonies in the Americas.

00:03:32.940 There was both a revolt against Spanish rule and the Spanish-American war that happened

00:03:38.200 at the same time.

00:03:38.900 It became a republic in 1902.

00:03:40.760 It ran as a democratic country for 50 odd years.

00:03:44.060 There was a dictatorship in the 50s.

00:03:46.260 That definitely was not great.

00:03:47.700 But Cuba, by and large, had a high standard of living.

00:03:50.320 My grandparents and great-grandparents were actually Spanish immigrants.

00:03:53.120 I'm a Spanish citizen, were Spanish immigrants to Cuba from Spain at a time when that sort

00:03:57.680 of thing made sense, which, of course, sounds ridiculous now.

00:04:00.240 But at one point, that was actually a thing.

00:04:02.780 Cuba was very tied to the, you know, American economic system and all the rest of it.

00:04:06.080 And then, you know, one of the most improbable things, I think, in 20th century history,

00:04:10.660 it became, there was a revolution and it went communist.

00:04:13.300 And Cuba became a Soviet satellite state, you know, in the very late 50s, early 60s.

00:04:19.680 So the first half of the 20th century, Cuba was more democratic.

00:04:23.040 I mean, I know that it was independent.

00:04:24.800 The United States was like, here you go.

00:04:26.000 Good luck.

00:04:26.800 So did it, did it, was it, was it democratic for the 50 years?

00:04:31.080 I mean, I wasn't alive then.

00:04:32.440 So I can only tell you what.

00:04:33.960 But I was raised in the bosom, so to speak, of the Cuban exile world in Miami.

00:04:38.040 And we were expected to have a full Cuban education alongside the American one.

00:04:41.300 So, yeah, I mean, it was a democracy until about the 40s.

00:04:43.020 Then this guy named Batista, who, you know, indeed was a dictator.

00:04:46.980 He ruled twice, actually.

00:04:48.060 There was two dictatorships.

00:04:48.880 There was a reversion to democracy.

00:04:49.840 And then he took power again.

00:04:51.460 And his dictatorship was a corrupt one and certainly nothing, nothing to be proud of.

00:04:56.860 But, you know, the, the Fidel dictatorship that came after it was, was very different.

00:05:00.820 And again, you have to think about it in the, in the context of the Cold War, right?

00:05:03.780 Having a Soviet client state 90 miles away from Key West is just a whole different ball

00:05:07.840 of wax, right?

00:05:08.620 So I think that relation, the fact that, I mean, of course, that was the case throughout

00:05:13.420 the Cold War.

00:05:13.920 I still remember I was raised in Miami.

00:05:15.640 There was this thing called the Marial Boat Lift in 1980, in which 125,000 Cubans came

00:05:20.600 over on small boats.

00:05:22.000 There was the, the, the rafter crisis in the 90s that some of your listeners might remember

00:05:25.180 as well.

00:05:26.440 And so it's, it's now Cuba after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Soviet Union

00:05:31.280 is this bizarre anachronism, right?

00:05:33.780 You know, it's, it's, I actually traveled there in 2017 to do some reporting on the

00:05:38.360 internet, in fact, for Wired Magazine.

00:05:40.460 And, you know, I knew a lot about Cuba was raised in Miami, which is, you know, kind of

00:05:44.340 a, you know, suburban version of, of Cuba.

00:05:46.800 But what I didn't quite understand or I'd never experienced was what it's like being

00:05:51.020 inside a totalitarian police state, basically one where an individual has no due process

00:05:56.820 or, you know, rights against the government.

00:05:59.420 It is totalitarian.

00:06:01.400 We use that term, but it's, it's hard to, it's, it's a, it's a system that totalizes

00:06:05.460 everything.

00:06:05.880 There's very little outside of the state inside Cuba.

00:06:09.040 There's a little bit of, of free enterprise and capitalism around Airbnbs and what they

00:06:14.940 call cuenta propistas, basically what we would call a sole proprietor.

00:06:18.140 So small little businesses, but you know, there's no Cubans don't have like checking

00:06:22.160 accounts.

00:06:22.980 There's no, there's no associations outside of the official party.

00:06:26.640 There's no large corporations.

00:06:27.680 There is some outside investment.

00:06:29.340 For example, I stayed at a hotel run by a Spanish hotel chain, but those that's basically

00:06:33.660 a lease that the government grants, the Spanish company, they don't really own much of anything

00:06:37.100 inside the island.

00:06:38.300 So it's, it's not, it's, I hate to make the illusion because it's such a very different

00:06:41.940 country, but like the image you have of North Korea, of this sort of status system,

00:06:45.320 that, that is what Cuba sort of is with just little bits of capitalism here and there.

00:06:49.700 So, so yeah, I mean, back in the mid 1950s, we had the, this, you had Che Guevara, you

00:06:56.540 had Fidel Castro, he became prime minister and now, you know, boom, you're off to the

00:07:00.700 races with Fidel at the helm.

00:07:02.900 And between 1959 and 1993, they say an estimated 1.2 million Cubans fled to the United States.

00:07:10.020 They understood that this was a regime they didn't want to live under, came to the United

00:07:13.420 States.

00:07:14.200 And we've been sort of watching Castro Institute communism and nationalize all the businesses

00:07:18.800 and so on ever since.

00:07:20.640 And then 2008, um, his brother takes over, right?

00:07:24.560 Fidel retires, Raul takes over.

00:07:26.940 And, um, and now there's a successor, um, after Raul, who doesn't seem as scary, I guess,

00:07:34.300 as powerful as the Castro's were, at least not as much of a dynamic figure.

00:07:39.340 And you tell me what led to, because I think when, what happened with the protests, you know,

00:07:44.420 however many days ago it was, was a lot of people were surprised.

00:07:48.160 They were surprised that the Cuban people would have the guts to go out and because you

00:07:52.620 really are potentially risking your life if you go out in the streets of Cuba and protest,

00:07:56.900 but they did it.

00:07:57.540 So what were the factors that led up to it?

00:07:59.940 It's a good question.

00:08:00.540 And by the way, I'm glad, I'm glad you highlighted how many Cubans live abroad.

00:08:03.060 I mean, something like 10% of the population lives outside of Cuba.

00:08:06.600 And my parents, just in the interest of full disclosure, were, uh, among the many children

00:08:11.160 that came in the sixties or their, their parents, my grandparents put them on planes alone in

00:08:15.080 the sixties to just get out of the country as quickly as possible.

00:08:17.240 And since then, there's been a number of waves of people tend to sort of think of the Cuban

00:08:21.860 exiles in Miami as like a monolithic group.

00:08:24.020 Um, but in fact, there's been several waves of it, um, from, you know, the, the early sixties,

00:08:28.500 my parents, the, what are the so-called Marielitos that came in the eighties, then the

00:08:32.940 rafters in the nineties and so on.

00:08:34.060 So it's, it's just, just a large number of Cubans living outside of, outside of the

00:08:38.160 island.

00:08:38.360 And, um, as you state, you know, one of the, one of the sort of hopeful delusions that

00:08:42.960 many Cuban exiles had in Miami is that, you know, the moment that Castro died or gave a

00:08:46.340 power, it would all go back to being how it was before, which of course, as time grew

00:08:50.380 on, grew on became increasingly fantastical.

00:08:52.500 Right.

00:08:53.100 Um, what we're seeing, right.

00:08:54.260 Is that the Cuban state is a, is a system.

00:08:57.240 It's, it's a, it's a monolithic system.

00:08:59.440 And once the Castros gave a power, as, as you cited, the guy who's in power now is a

00:09:04.540 guy named Miguel Diaz-Canel, um, he's the first sort of non-Castro who has been head

00:09:09.680 of state.

00:09:10.500 Um, you know, he's not, he's not, he's the first leader after the revolution.

00:09:14.240 He was not part of the revolutionary generation.

00:09:15.720 He wasn't there fighting in the mountains with Castro or anything.

00:09:18.340 Age-wise, he's probably, I don't know, my age or maybe in the, maybe somewhat older.

00:09:22.020 Um, but the system of April of 2018, there you go.

00:09:25.940 Right.

00:09:26.180 And yeah, he's probably in his early fifties or something.

00:09:28.200 Um, you know, he, he rose through the party ranks as, as many did and, um, the state continues

00:09:33.660 nothing, nothing, there's really, hasn't been any real blips, um, other than, you know,

00:09:38.180 the Obama opening in 2017, that changed a little bit, a little bit more American tourism

00:09:41.760 and this and that, but by and large, the, not much has changed in the state.

00:09:44.660 The one thing that has changed, and I'll finally answer your question about how the protest

00:09:48.700 started.

00:09:48.960 The one thing that did change is the internet situation, um, that has changed in the past

00:09:54.840 year in a radical way.

00:09:56.000 And I think, um, so let's get into how the protest started.

00:10:00.080 So not this past Sunday, but the previous Sunday in a little town called, well, it's

00:10:04.520 more of a city, but San Antonio de los Baños, which is, um, a provincial city, not, not

00:10:08.880 particularly large or important, um, Southwest of Havana.

00:10:12.300 Um, people just started, um, basically randomly yelling at the communist party headquarters and

00:10:17.420 that anyone who would listen, um, you know, freedom, we want vaccines.

00:10:20.800 The, the, one thing to mention here is a, the economic situation in Cuba is not good.

00:10:25.140 It hasn't been good for, for a long time, uh, to the COVID situation is deplorable.

00:10:28.980 Um, the state claims that it's developed vaccines, but there, there functionally is no vaccine

00:10:33.340 rollout in Cuba.

00:10:34.880 Uh, and even though it's relative isolation meant that it didn't get hit by the waves that

00:10:39.020 we all got hit by last year, it's, it's getting hit by a wave now, basically.

00:10:43.040 And so it's having its, it's COVID crisis now with no vaccine.

00:10:45.420 So that's part of what's part of what's impelling this level of that dissatisfaction, but to

00:10:49.460 get back to the internet thing, the, the one reason why this spread so quickly, and this

00:10:53.040 would never have happened even a year or two ago, um, is someone uploaded like a 45 minute

00:10:57.960 video on Facebook of the protests of this happening, of these just shocking scenes of random

00:11:03.040 Cubans on the street yelling things like freedom and criticism of the government, which

00:11:06.780 has just hasn't happened.

00:11:08.180 There's been nothing like this since the early nineties in terms of mass movements.

00:11:12.200 And it quickly spread all across the Island from one end to the other of protests like

00:11:16.380 this that you just, again, you just haven't seen in the past 30 years of Cuban history.

00:11:21.340 Well, how did that happen?

00:11:22.700 Because was Cuba just allowing more access to the internet than it had prior?

00:11:26.520 Up until about 2008, uh, cell phones were actually illegal in Cuba.

00:11:30.160 You could go to jail for having a cell phone.

00:11:31.680 In fact, there was an American named Alan Gross, who was part of, uh, he was visiting, I think

00:11:35.240 an NGO brought some phones and gave it to Cubans.

00:11:37.360 He actually ended up in jail for a number of years.

00:11:39.400 So the Cuban government in general has not been pro open communication or pro internet.

00:11:44.140 Um, smartphones are now legal.

00:11:45.700 It's they're, they're no longer illegal.

00:11:47.320 However, internet as we know it, right.

00:11:49.920 I.E., you know, relatively fast connection that comes to this desktop computer or mobile

00:11:55.660 does not really exist in Cuba.

00:11:57.940 Um, or at least not until very recently.

00:11:59.900 So how does the average Cuban experience the internet?

00:12:01.860 Two ways one, there is public access points at, you know, a random square inside Havana

00:12:07.000 that'll have weak wifi and it's not free.

00:12:09.540 Uh, it's actually very expensive.

00:12:10.480 When I was there, you have to buy these little scratch off cards from the state monopoly.

00:12:14.780 There's no private internet in Cuba.

00:12:16.440 This, the state monopolizes internet.

00:12:18.320 The, the entity is called it Xa and you buy this little card, you pay $4 for it, which,

00:12:23.560 um, in Cuba.

00:12:25.040 So again, Cuba's strange.

00:12:26.680 Um, there's a local currency, which is what locals get paid.

00:12:29.960 And then there's the foreign currency, which is worth real money.

00:12:31.760 The local currency is basically worthless, but in, in local currency, the average Cuban

00:12:35.380 makes something like 20 or $30 a month.

00:12:37.160 Okay.

00:12:37.620 That that's really how, how little cash or hard currency they actually touch.

00:12:41.540 Um, you can only survive in Cuba.

00:12:42.860 If you have, if you're somehow involved in the tourist economy, you're going to get

00:12:45.360 money from abroad.

00:12:46.180 And most Cubans do try to do both.

00:12:48.400 And so imagine spending $4, you know, roughly a quarter or a fifth of your income for an hour

00:12:52.960 of internet of weak wifi inside a public square.

00:12:55.500 But, but they do it right.

00:12:56.660 Because that's how they contact, you know, relatives abroad, get in tune with the world.

00:13:00.460 That's not the official narrative, et cetera, et cetera.

00:13:02.280 So that, that's one way.

00:13:03.600 The other way, and this, this is going to blow your mind and your listeners' minds.

00:13:08.260 Um, in, there's something called el paquete, literally the package.

00:13:11.960 And what it is, is they take basically a week of the internet.

00:13:15.880 So like all the most recent Netflix shows, whatever went viral on YouTube, European soccer,

00:13:22.020 formula one, whatever, you know, a week's worth of internet content.

00:13:25.260 And they actually copy it onto like an external hard drive or USB stick, for example, for

00:13:30.860 your computer.

00:13:31.240 And then they sell that and they copy that and they physically transport that all over

00:13:34.620 the Island.

00:13:35.520 And your, your average Cuban who doesn't have access to a lot of dollars will buy it.

00:13:40.060 You know, the internet for like a dollar for that week, plug it into his, you know, uh,

00:13:44.660 cruddy laptop and then that's, that's how he interacts.

00:13:47.120 That's how he watches an episode of breaking bad or whatever.

00:13:48.940 And they are tuned into that, you know, they'll have watched the wire and all that.

00:13:52.200 Like they're fairly tuned into global media.

00:13:53.720 They're just interacting with it in a way that sort of recalls, you know, us in the

00:13:56.920 nineties carrying around hard drives or something.

00:13:59.140 Um, right.

00:14:00.300 And so, so that was the state of Cuban internet until about 2018, which brings us to the,

00:14:05.300 to the current thing.

00:14:06.040 Right.

00:14:06.680 Um, so starting in 2018 and it was very slow to roll out and it's still very expensive.

00:14:10.420 So it's not, don't imagine everybody has access to this, but in theory there

00:14:14.320 is slow 3g data going to smartphones, right?

00:14:18.300 So, and over the course of the past year, adoption has been relatively strong, at least

00:14:22.880 for those in Havana who are, you know, early adopters have the cash to pay for it, et cetera.

00:14:26.800 And so for the first time ever, right.

00:14:28.660 I mean, this thing that has possessed our lives, right.

00:14:30.580 For the past 10 years of mobile ubiquitous computing, right.

00:14:33.800 You know, the world's eyes and ears are in my pocket and I can be in everybody else's pocket.

00:14:37.740 That weird dynamic that has disrupted so much in the West is, has only hit Cuba, like

00:14:41.780 in the past year, basically, like it just hasn't existed at all.

00:14:45.060 Right.

00:14:45.640 And, and now, you know, given the economic situation, COVID, everything that's led to

00:14:49.800 this protest, they're having the biggest protest they've had in decades in a, you know, 62 year

00:14:54.640 old one party dictatorship, uh, with smartphones for the first time.

00:14:58.620 Right.

00:14:58.800 And it's, it's almost like, it's almost like some uncontacted population being exposed to

00:15:03.880 some new technology or some new pathogen or something.

00:15:05.920 It's like, boom, it's just hitting it once.

00:15:07.300 And then they see something so exciting on there, which is a push in their own country

00:15:11.360 for independence.

00:15:12.500 Right.

00:15:13.100 Right.

00:15:13.400 Which they would never, not independence, but just getting rid of this totalitarian regime.

00:15:16.820 I don't know what we'll call it.

00:15:18.320 Yeah.

00:15:18.560 Exactly.

00:15:19.180 Reforms.

00:15:20.220 Right.

00:15:20.400 Exactly.

00:15:20.840 And that's why it's so fascinating to, to, to watch it unfold in real time, because it's

00:15:25.020 kind of like the past 10 years of our history happening in the span of weeks, um, in Cuba.

00:15:29.760 And, and again, it's, it's the speed of it.

00:15:31.480 And also the difference between the narrative before, again, the state controls all in the Cuban

00:15:36.420 constitution.

00:15:36.900 And one of the posts that I posted on my steps, like I actually quote the article from

00:15:39.640 the Cuban constitution, there, there is no freedom of speech in Cuba.

00:15:42.280 Like there's no, it's not possible.

00:15:43.860 Like even legally for, I mean, forget like the legal reality and what they do, like even

00:15:47.720 legally, it's the case that the average Cuban doesn't have freedom of speech.

00:15:50.840 There's no private control of media.

00:15:52.160 It has to be through the state, right.

00:15:53.940 But through the constitution.

00:15:55.100 And so the, the, the sort of public narrative about Cuba, both externally and internally was

00:16:00.520 completely controlled by the state.

00:16:02.340 It was, it was basically impossible for one Cuban to speak to another Cuban without passing

00:16:06.360 through state media.

00:16:07.600 And, um, and so now that's been completely undone.

00:16:10.660 Right.

00:16:11.240 And so the, the speed of what's going on and the Delta between the sort of on the ground

00:16:15.860 live stream reality versus the public narrative is just enormous.

00:16:18.560 Um, and watching it crumble, like you, you literally had, you know, influencers like Mia

00:16:24.860 Khalifa trolling, uh, Diaz Canel, the Cuban president on Twitter.

00:16:28.160 Right.

00:16:29.020 Which again, we're kind of, we're kind of used to that world.

00:16:30.640 We're like, that's, that's, that's what we've done for several years, but that is

00:16:33.440 Is she the one who got arrested on the air?

00:16:35.440 Like live on the air?

00:16:37.140 Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:16:39.180 Um, although that's, I'm glad you, you brought that up.

00:16:40.880 That is, um, so that is as, as, as this happened, as internet is rolling out, um, as we

00:16:46.360 have here, there's a whole, there's a whole set of influencers that exist in Cuba that

00:16:50.220 have popular YouTube channels that have Twitter accounts with tens of thousands of followers,

00:16:54.720 you know, that, that whole very online people, right.

00:16:57.540 Um, that is happening in Cuba as well.

00:16:59.020 And indeed there's this, um, she's Dina stars, I think, underscore on Twitter.

00:17:02.960 And she also has a YouTube channel.

00:17:04.580 She's not really political and orientation.

00:17:05.920 Like her channel is not really about politics in general, but indeed she's a popular YouTuber.

00:17:09.480 And as you said, she was giving a live interview to Spanish TV from her room and state security

00:17:15.420 showed up.

00:17:16.200 I'm sorry, I'm laughing because it's just the absurdity of it.

00:17:18.120 And obviously, but she, you know, she's live streaming on like a Spanish, you know, national

00:17:23.560 TV show and state security shows up like goons and just like hauls her away.

00:17:28.300 Um, and, and she's like, by American standards, it's just so shocking to see something like

00:17:33.380 that.

00:17:34.000 But I guess by Cuban standards, they're like, yep, that's how it goes here.

00:17:37.420 Exactly.

00:17:37.980 I mean, it's like, it's like so much, I mean, you know, the internet is like the body, body

00:17:42.080 cam on everything.

00:17:42.900 Right.

00:17:43.260 In the same sense that, you know, body cams would be a lot of to lose brutality and just lots

00:17:46.400 of ugly things that happened that had always been happening.

00:17:48.260 Right.

00:17:48.500 But now we're seeing them.

00:17:49.500 It's the exact same thing with Cuban oppression, because I mean, there's this YouTube who got

00:17:53.460 arrested.

00:17:53.880 Fortunately, she got released a few days later.

00:17:55.480 So things relatively well, but I mean, you can look at videos of, you know, the street

00:17:59.620 goons beating people.

00:18:01.080 Um, you can see the Cuban government actually started showing up at night after the protests

00:18:04.660 are over and actually seizing people they know that have been at the protests.

00:18:07.800 I mean, that sort of that iron fist of oppression.

00:18:10.580 Yeah.

00:18:10.740 You can, you can live stream it and see it now when they get internet.

00:18:14.180 Um, that's the other thing you might be asking, well, isn't the Cuban government sort of trying

00:18:18.300 to shut down all this?

00:18:20.440 Well, they are, um, they, we'll get to that one second, pick up on what we think is going

00:18:25.560 on with those protesters, which is a point of concern.

00:18:28.480 But so when you say there's no freedom of speech in Cuba, I mean, how did, how did that

00:18:32.420 manifest?

00:18:33.020 Let's, let's go back before this, let's go back 10 years.

00:18:35.280 You know, you, if you wanted to go down to the town square and have a conversation criticizing

00:18:39.880 Fidel or Raul, uh, you know, over a cup of coffee, could you?

00:18:44.180 Uh, no, in fact, I'll tell you an anecdote, uh, cause again, me kind of like dumb American

00:18:48.440 never lived in this sort of country.

00:18:49.660 Didn't quite understand it.

00:18:50.600 I was having a coffee in a cafe in Havana talking to, there's a, there's a small tiny

00:18:55.180 number of independent journalists inside Cuba who have what we would call blogs basically.

00:19:00.160 And they do non-state journalism.

00:19:02.580 There's still real restrictions on what they say.

00:19:04.220 Anyhow, he and I were just talking about what it is to be an independent blogger inside

00:19:07.620 Cuba.

00:19:07.880 And, um, you know, he was saying, you know, we blog and in some sense we bring up accountability

00:19:12.940 to the government and the democratic process.

00:19:14.880 And me like a fool just blurted out, well, what do you mean accountability?

00:19:18.120 There's no democracy here.

00:19:18.920 This is a dictatorship.

00:19:20.580 And he just stared at me.

00:19:23.320 I had just uttered a string of obscenities and just ignored what I said.

00:19:26.280 Like I, I, what I had just said, one cannot say in a public setting.

00:19:29.420 And he just continued the conversation as if, as if I hadn't said it didn't happen.

00:19:33.620 It didn't happen.

00:19:34.760 And so it's that sort of thing.

00:19:35.660 Could it be that there's like a spy at the next table?

00:19:37.860 The next thing you know, you can't say.

00:19:38.560 Oh yeah.

00:19:38.580 Oh yeah.

00:19:38.820 Oh, absolutely.

00:19:39.500 Oh yeah, absolutely.

00:19:40.040 I mean, the other anecdote that I also shared in a sub-sec post is that I was in a party,

00:19:43.100 social events, rum flowing, people playing dominoes, like chill, social atmosphere.

00:19:47.340 Some little kid starts telling a joke that I'm sure he heard from his parents about Fidel

00:19:51.000 supporters and they instantly shut him up so that he wouldn't incriminate himself and his

00:19:54.800 parents by saying a joke, making fun of Fidel.

00:19:57.400 Yeah.

00:19:57.660 This is why, honestly, can I tell you something, Antonio?

00:19:59.480 This is the first moment it's really dawning on me why people who have a connection with

00:20:04.000 Cuba, either their parents live there or they live there as children, are the ones who are

00:20:07.380 the most outspoken about this crazy culture happening right now in the United States saying,

00:20:11.160 I have seen the extreme of this.

00:20:13.060 Slow your roll.

00:20:14.540 This is not the life we want to lead.

00:20:16.400 Trust me.

00:20:16.720 And I realize it's an extreme, but I'm getting it now.

00:20:19.580 I'm getting it.

00:20:20.700 Yeah.

00:20:20.860 No, I made that point in my step.

00:20:21.960 Again, nothing in the US is anything like what's going on in Cuba.

00:20:24.680 But that feeling of sort of performative signaling of ratting out your neighbor for the sake of

00:20:31.280 like public gain of, yeah, that, yeah, you can feel the notion that we have to re-architect

00:20:38.000 society for some future utopic perfection.

00:20:41.060 And to get there, we have to use these means.

00:20:43.400 I mean, yeah, there's definitely similarities there.

00:20:46.380 It's scary.

00:20:47.420 And we're not talking about, I mean, you could lose your freedom, right?

00:20:50.640 You can get locked up, but there's not due process.

00:20:52.520 You could really sort of get locked up and have the key thrown away.

00:20:55.300 And no one's really in a position to challenge the government to fight for you.

00:20:59.040 No.

00:20:59.740 Yeah, no.

00:21:00.380 I mean, one of the things you're doing, again, it's just amazing to see this unfolding on

00:21:04.360 Twitter.

00:21:05.240 There's a public list of what are called desaparacilos disappeared.

00:21:09.220 And what that means is, again, when you get arrested, and often it's after the protest,

00:21:12.660 like they've tracked you down and then you just arrest you to intimidate you.

00:21:15.980 There's no due process.

00:21:18.000 There's no bail.

00:21:18.780 They will haul you away.

00:21:20.000 You go to parts unknown.

00:21:20.980 Your family doesn't know.

00:21:22.620 They'll try to figure out where you are.

00:21:24.140 And then you reappear a few days or weeks later.

00:21:26.420 But there's nothing like a defense or like English common law.

00:21:29.060 Like that basically doesn't exist.

00:21:31.120 And that's how the regime works, by the way.

00:21:32.500 To be clear, it's not like these people aren't being disappeared and executed, right?

00:21:35.500 It's more the screws that turn in the oppressive system have been finely tuned over 62 years.

00:21:41.360 And it starts with an arrest, maybe a beating.

00:21:44.160 If you get a little violent, they have what are called acts of repudiation, in which your

00:21:49.980 neighbors are basically encouraged to show up and yell at you and throw stones and kind

00:21:53.420 of ostracize you.

00:21:54.640 There's a lot of screws that they turn to get you there.

00:21:56.420 You start losing your job.

00:21:57.300 People are tweeting.

00:21:57.840 Again, it's amazing.

00:21:58.960 People are tweeting about it now.

00:21:59.880 Like, yeah, I was at the protests and I lost my job.

00:22:02.260 Or that or that YouTuber that you mentioned that we talked about, Dina Starrs, she went

00:22:05.620 she got back to her apartment and she lost her apartment.

00:22:07.760 The landlady said, that's it.

00:22:09.420 You can't live anymore because the government showed up.

00:22:11.060 You're out of here.

00:22:11.720 It's scary when you when you hear it, like in real terms.

00:22:15.460 So just to take a step back in 1996, the United States imposed this embargo against

00:22:20.120 Cuba.

00:22:20.520 And we sort of said, we're not doing business with you.

00:22:22.720 And we're trying to pressure the regime to change, which hasn't worked out all that

00:22:26.160 well.

00:22:27.000 They didn't change.

00:22:28.080 And things got really crappy for people inside of Cuba because of the policies of the government

00:22:33.480 there.

00:22:34.100 The United States wasn't wasn't going to help them out.

00:22:36.020 They weren't going to do business with them.

00:22:37.080 But, you know, this is a point Marco Rubio has been making all along, saying that things

00:22:40.320 are crappy inside of Cuba because of because of Cuba, because of the policies there, because

00:22:44.260 of communism.

00:22:45.880 And yet Cuba keeps wanting to blame it on the United States.

00:22:49.740 Like if you would just do business with us, if you would open up trade the way Obama

00:22:52.640 did, things would be different.

00:22:54.120 And we're an easy scapegoat for them.

00:22:55.760 But Obama was the first president to come along and say, let's try something different.

00:22:59.740 Like, let's actually try to create a relationship with Cuba.

00:23:03.000 And within, you know, two years, Trump took over.

00:23:06.540 It was even shorter.

00:23:07.840 Trump took over and reversed it because he was back to sort of know the embargo is the

00:23:11.620 only way.

00:23:12.000 They're not going to listen to us.

00:23:12.880 We're not going to change things.

00:23:13.620 But the thing about the Obama time was it did it did help things in Cuba and it showed

00:23:18.980 the Cubans sort of what life could be like with a relationship with the United States.

00:23:22.940 So you tell me what how did that how what are your feelings about the embargo and then the

00:23:28.080 brief period in which we were doing business with that?

00:23:30.700 Yeah, I mean, I know the embargo chatter in the U.S.

00:23:34.220 is super important because, of course, it's the one lever that the U.S.

00:23:36.280 government has in some ways.

00:23:38.720 I think it's probably asking the wrong question.

00:23:40.480 But let's get into that.

00:23:41.400 So what is the net impact of the embargo?

00:23:43.660 You know, if you look at, for example, a lot of again, what's what motivated originally

00:23:46.700 a lot of the protests is the abysmal response to COVID.

00:23:48.940 Right.

00:23:49.480 And that in Cuba, a lot of a lot of the conversation, I have a lot of context on the island.

00:23:53.840 Right.

00:23:54.040 A lot of things they're asking for are donations of medical supplies to deal with the results

00:23:58.360 of COVID, which the hospitals just don't have them.

00:23:59.820 Right.

00:24:00.140 And so, you know, Cuban hospitals don't have antibiotics.

00:24:02.100 It's not like all the antibiotics in the world are made in the United States and nowhere

00:24:04.640 else.

00:24:05.000 Right.

00:24:05.340 Cuba trades freely with every other country in the world, Europe, you know, Latin America,

00:24:09.740 whatever.

00:24:10.480 Right.

00:24:10.760 And and it's good that you mentioned Obama, because indeed he did he did shake up U.S.-Cuba relations.

00:24:16.280 And one of the things that he did was, I mean, the embargo is in place, but he made it such

00:24:19.760 that food and medicine actually are not subject to the embargo.

00:24:22.120 And in fact, there was for a number of years after the Obama sort of thaw, there was actually

00:24:27.540 some buying of Cuban food by the government.

00:24:30.380 But again, they can buy, you know, they don't have to buy, you know, chicken from Tyson Foods.

00:24:34.660 They can buy it from Brazilian and Mexican suppliers.

00:24:37.100 And so it doesn't really change that much on the ground.

00:24:38.960 You'll note that of all the rhetoric from all the protesters around the ground, almost none

00:24:42.620 of them actually mentioned the embargo.

00:24:43.920 It's just it's just not material.

00:24:44.860 It doesn't matter.

00:24:45.300 Right.

00:24:45.860 Like changing the embargo isn't going to really change that much in.

00:24:49.120 Because that's what we hear from the leftists here in the United States.

00:24:51.280 I mean, Bernie Sanders, AOC, they're very, very focused on the embargo and putting blame

00:24:55.200 on the United States.

00:24:56.900 Right.

00:24:57.500 Exactly.

00:24:57.980 They it's one way of kind of turning Cuba's problems into, you know, condemnation of U.S.

00:25:03.680 policy.

00:25:04.800 I think it's not going to be that impactful.

00:25:07.580 I mean, the other thing is, and again, even to the Obama thing, right, like, again, I stayed

00:25:11.820 at an Airbnb when I was in Cuba, because, again, you could do that at the time.

00:25:14.720 I mean, you certainly couldn't before.

00:25:16.380 And, you know, does it does it inject more dollars into the economy?

00:25:19.820 Yes.

00:25:20.080 I mean, does it help prop up the regime because they make money off of it?

00:25:22.620 Of course it does.

00:25:23.480 But that said, do some Cubans that wouldn't have contact with dollars before have it now?

00:25:27.780 Almost certainly.

00:25:28.320 Yes.

00:25:29.800 But, you know, Cuba has been open to tourism for 20 plus years, right?

00:25:33.940 Like Europeans, again, Americans that don't quite realize this, Europeans have been going,

00:25:37.620 like when I was a college student in Spain, like your average young span would go there

00:25:42.340 for like the cheap vacation the same way that, I don't know, you know, Americans maybe go

00:25:46.120 to Baja or whatever, right?

00:25:47.320 They would go to the party and hang out.

00:25:49.000 So Western tourists have been going to Cuba forever and haven't changed anything.

00:25:51.900 I just don't understand, you know, do Americans bring like freedom in their luggage when

00:25:55.600 they cut, you know, they got off the plane in a way that, in a way that Europeans don't?

00:25:58.780 Like, I just don't understand the transformative change that Americans having mojitos in Havana

00:26:02.300 is what they're going to do.

00:26:03.160 But that said, if you talk to some of these people, and again, some of these people are

00:26:06.700 my friends who have local businesses that work inside the dollar economy and their argument,

00:26:10.400 which I don't think is, is, is totally bogus as well.

00:26:13.920 Yes, this helps the government.

00:26:15.540 Yes, it's not going to be transformative.

00:26:16.700 That said, we're creating sort of a middle class that's somewhat capitalistic, but as

00:26:21.120 this evolves, we'll clamor for power and be a factor in human society.

00:26:24.800 And, you know, maybe they're right.

00:26:25.860 Maybe over the long term, that level of opening is a good thing.

00:26:28.980 I mean, my understanding is there are a few events that led to these protests happening.

00:26:33.300 You know, yes, COVID 100%, because one of the guarantees of the government has always

00:26:36.920 been when it comes to health care, we got you.

00:26:39.060 You know, there may be all these problems inside of Cuba, but when it comes to health care,

00:26:42.440 you know, this is the one advantage of living in this kind of country is you'll be covered

00:26:45.660 and they haven't been.

00:26:46.540 And it's it's come to Cuba in a massive way.

00:26:48.520 And, you know, people are dying.

00:26:50.140 And the other thing is, first, they were backed by the Soviets.

00:26:52.960 Then they were backed by Venezuela, you know, both basically collapsed.

00:26:56.540 And so that backer has gone away.

00:26:59.980 And, you know, now you've got you've got the Internet and sort of the power of information

00:27:05.400 sharing in a way that, you know, as you've been pointing out, has been pretty profound.

00:27:09.620 But so they took they took advantage of it.

00:27:12.160 Right.

00:27:12.260 So the Cubans go to the streets and we see this remarkable tape of, you know, Cubans protesting

00:27:16.240 and yelling freedom.

00:27:17.240 And it's like inspiring.

00:27:18.820 It makes your heart sing.

00:27:20.200 And then nothing.

00:27:22.680 And then it's like stopped.

00:27:24.220 And I was just saying my team, because I'm like, where what's happened?

00:27:27.300 Where are the rest of the protests in Cuba?

00:27:29.120 Like what?

00:27:29.880 You know, the Europe spring.

00:27:30.960 You kept going.

00:27:32.120 Hong Kong.

00:27:32.960 We see it day to day.

00:27:34.320 It was like a day.

00:27:35.900 And then they've been gone.

00:27:37.840 And now there's no information.

00:27:39.940 So what happened?

00:27:41.740 Right.

00:27:41.900 So the protests are definitely less, I think, riotous than they were in the past.

00:27:45.240 They're still ongoing.

00:27:46.220 The problem is twofold.

00:27:47.080 One, state control has come in such that, again, they're starting to put people in jail,

00:27:52.060 starting to fire people.

00:27:54.180 So that's that's repressive.

00:27:55.500 The other thing is that one thing the Cuban government does is just turn off the Internet.

00:28:00.220 Since if you have a state control of the Internet, what it does is it basically filters traffic

00:28:03.460 to Twitter and Facebook.

00:28:04.180 So if you if you talk to a Cuban and I have through Signal or if you use like Twitter spaces,

00:28:10.220 this sort of social audio app, they're all connecting via VPN, virtual private network.

00:28:13.620 So they're connecting to another machine, which then connects to Facebook, which makes

00:28:16.480 the filtering harder.

00:28:17.680 And so the government is basically stepping in to shut to shut that down.

00:28:20.880 So you don't see the guy getting beaten up or you don't see you mentioned the health

00:28:23.680 care thing.

00:28:24.360 You know, people are live streaming from the hospitals and people are actually seeing that

00:28:27.060 Cuban hospitals are quite rudimentary and the care is not particularly good.

00:28:31.340 And so the government shuts down a lot of it.

00:28:33.220 But I think I think you did put your finger on a good thing, Megan, which is, you know,

00:28:36.000 broadly and this is pulling out to the 30,000 foot view.

00:28:39.100 You know, a lot of this online sort of protest movements, whether it be the guillet jaune,

00:28:45.440 the yellow jackets or yellow vests in France or Occupy Wall Street or, you know, they don't

00:28:50.860 tend to coalesce into sort of conventional political movements that maybe we're used to in the

00:28:54.500 past in which there would be some charismatic leader, a platform of demands, and there'd

00:28:58.960 be a negotiation process with the state.

00:29:01.100 Not that I think it would be even possible to do that in Cuba, but it just doesn't seem

00:29:05.040 like a lot of these protests turn into that.

00:29:07.420 It seems like more like you just heighten the contradictions between the public narrative

00:29:10.480 and the reality and hope that the state sort of crumbles like what happens or seem to

00:29:15.220 have happened in the Arab Spring.

00:29:16.440 Right.

00:29:16.780 So I think the hope for now for a lot of the protesters is just, again, heightening the

00:29:20.100 contradictions both internally and externally.

00:29:22.160 Right.

00:29:22.800 Like, I know, in other words, it's a start.

00:29:25.420 Yeah.

00:29:25.700 Yeah.

00:29:25.860 And, you know, you're absolutely correct that Bernie and AOC got up and were somewhat

00:29:30.120 apologists for the regime and turning attention to the embargo.

00:29:32.720 But as someone who's lived like in the U.S. outside of Miami as a Cuban exile and in some

00:29:37.480 sense has had to like try to bring a little dose of reality to the American Cuban discourse.

00:29:41.840 Right.

00:29:42.200 The you know, the level of irreality before these current protests was much higher.

00:29:47.420 People, again, would clamor about the Cuban health care.

00:29:49.560 It's a brilliant socialist experiment, even though Bernie Sanders, the literacy program

00:29:53.600 instituted by Fidel.

00:29:54.660 It's a great place.

00:29:56.180 Right.

00:29:56.640 Although literacy was always higher even for the revolution.

00:29:59.260 But in any case, but now you can see the reality.

00:30:01.620 Right.

00:30:01.800 It becomes much harder either for the Cuban government or for those who are sympathetic

00:30:05.160 to the Cuban government in the United States to weave those narratives when you're seeing

00:30:08.060 a live stream video of state goons beating up a minor, which got shared on Twitter a couple

00:30:13.420 of days ago.

00:30:14.040 It's very difficult.

00:30:14.560 A teenager.

00:30:14.980 You were tweeting about this.

00:30:15.880 There's a teenager.

00:30:16.320 Yeah, there's a teenager, you know, who yelled something at the cops and they got him in

00:30:20.400 an armhole and, you know, stuck him in the thing and put him in jail.

00:30:23.420 Just that's just how it works.

00:30:24.920 How do you defend that?

00:30:25.800 Right.

00:30:26.020 You can't.

00:30:27.160 Well, what about it?

00:30:27.840 So it's not just AOC and Bernie, but, you know, BLM made news this week when they they

00:30:32.500 remember the last week that they they blasted the United States for what's happening in

00:30:37.040 Cuba, did not admit the failures of Marxism there and got some blowback for that.

00:30:42.960 But then it turns out that one of our, you know, one of our chief commentators in the

00:30:46.600 United States, Nicole Hannah-Jones, who, you know, authored the 1619 Project and her

00:30:50.540 work is being pushed in schools.

00:30:52.240 She was very, very pro Cuba, saying it's it's very equal.

00:30:55.540 It's like it's an example and equality between blacks and whites.

00:30:58.600 We actually have this as a recent as 2019 in a podcast with Ezra Klein, who's now with

00:31:02.820 the Times to her.

00:31:03.700 Listen, most equal multiracial country in our hemisphere.

00:31:06.860 It would be Cuba.

00:31:08.960 Cuba has the least inequality between black and white people, any place really in the

00:31:15.400 hemisphere that I mean, the Caribbean.

00:31:18.800 Most of the Caribbean, it's it's hard to count because the white population in a lot of those

00:31:23.500 countries is very, very small.

00:31:24.860 Their country's run by black folks.

00:31:26.540 But in places that are truly at least biracial countries, Cuba actually has the least inequality.

00:31:34.200 And that's largely due to socialism, which I'm sure no one wants to hear.

00:31:38.380 Boy.

00:31:39.380 Well, yes, if you make everyone poor, inequality is indeed lower.

00:31:43.100 That's right.

00:31:43.800 That's exactly it.

00:31:44.860 That's exactly it.

00:31:46.220 Right.

00:31:46.480 It's like and even the mainstream press has admitted there's a piece in The Washington

00:31:49.720 Post the other day just talking about the the plight of black citizens in Cuba.

00:31:53.900 And it's, you know, Nicole Hannah-Jones is living in some sort of a fantasy world, thinking

00:31:57.260 that they've hit perfect equality between the races there and that this is the place

00:32:00.900 you need to go if you want to understand what what true equality looks like.

00:32:04.240 Anyway, I just think the reaction from the left here in the States has been kind of consistent

00:32:08.720 with the reaction of the left Maxine Waters when Charlie Rangel was in charge to Sheila

00:32:14.540 Jackson Lee.

00:32:15.760 They've been very pro Castro.

00:32:17.460 If you look back at their history over the year over the years and why is that?

00:32:21.300 You know, right.

00:32:21.700 Why is the left so in love with this with this government?

00:32:27.060 Well, I mean, for a long time, I had good marketing.

00:32:29.320 I don't know how quite how to put it, but the sort of romantic figure of Che Guevara.

00:32:34.000 I think Cuba, I mean, it's it's odd, but I think from inside the American worldview, a

00:32:39.040 lot of countries exist as kind of projections of domestic crises.

00:32:42.340 Right.

00:32:42.680 And you see that in Israel, Palestine, when they're trying to project a lot of Americans

00:32:46.340 or what politics on the situation there or Cuba is another one of these things that

00:32:49.560 serves as like a screen to project a lot of the internal debates that we're having that

00:32:53.040 often have little to do with reality on the ground.

00:32:55.240 But that serves as sort of a talking point around.

00:32:58.200 It's basically a way for the left to say, oh, socialism can succeed.

00:33:01.420 It can be socially and racially equitable.

00:33:03.960 And here's the example, Cuba, of course, just never mind all these live stream videos of

00:33:07.280 people getting bitten up, beaten up or put in jail.

00:33:09.500 And again, you can say that line when you don't have those videos.

00:33:11.680 But I think now that now that Cuba, you can actually go to Twitter.

00:33:15.080 You heighten these contradictions.

00:33:16.160 And so I wonder how long that narrative is going to hopefully how long that narrative

00:33:20.020 is going to be able to survive.

00:33:22.020 So what should happen now?

00:33:22.920 Because with the they say hundreds of Cubans are now facing charges of inciting unrest.

00:33:27.040 There are very, very real concerns about trials being held without due process.

00:33:31.240 A lot of these protesters can't even get defense lawyers who would actively be who would be

00:33:35.880 independent and actually be able to represent them.

00:33:38.840 They say most of the folks who have been arrested are young people from the poorest corners of the

00:33:42.900 country. That so reports the Wall Street Journal, as you point out, the government's cut the

00:33:46.840 Internet. They've cut phone services.

00:33:48.420 They've deployed what are called rapid reaction brigades, police and Communist Party militants

00:33:53.400 to take back control.

00:33:54.300 We've got some 500 people arrested right now, although we don't know the full number, to

00:33:59.540 be honest. And these folks are being held without means of communication.

00:34:03.240 It's like it's a true crisis.

00:34:05.460 So what should the United States be doing?

00:34:07.580 Marco Rubio has had some proposals of trying to help them out with the Internet, the phones and

00:34:11.300 so on. What should we be doing short term and what the hell can we do long term to help?

00:34:16.740 Yeah, no, it really is a crisis.

00:34:18.040 I mean, one of the things that you're doing on the Internet, by the way, is keeping that

00:34:19.940 list of 500 plus people who are just about to see that we're just kind of gone.

00:34:23.800 And again, it's amazing that the Internet can do that, that I was actually sent a link

00:34:27.060 to like a Google Doc in which there was all the names with all their particular details

00:34:31.400 saying when they disappeared as a way to sort of centralize it, because, again, otherwise

00:34:34.640 there's nobody holding the government to account.

00:34:37.080 Again, another way that the Internet is sort of opening things up in Cuba.

00:34:39.480 So, yeah, what can we do there?

00:34:41.140 I mean, there's a lot of proposals, right?

00:34:42.260 Everything from military, diplomatic and whatnot.

00:34:44.560 I think one of the most interesting proposals, in my opinion, Florida Governor DeSantis actually

00:34:49.720 sort of posted a sort of open letter to the Biden administration saying the federal government

00:34:53.380 should help the Cuban people get Internet.

00:34:56.480 FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who I interviewed actually in a podcast recently, kind of echoed

00:35:02.140 those remarks.

00:35:03.220 And I think they're right.

00:35:04.460 I think I think the Internet and open open communication and freedom of speech to a single

00:35:11.280 party dictatorship is probably the most disruptive possible thing you could do.

00:35:14.840 And unfortunately, the Cuban government and the Cubans are very resourceful, as I mentioned,

00:35:17.940 about trying to get access to Internet in various ways.

00:35:20.020 But if they just there's there's literally one or two C cables that actually go to Cuba if

00:35:23.540 and that's it.

00:35:24.320 There's no other way to access Internet.

00:35:26.260 If the government turns those off, that's it.

00:35:28.580 It's over.

00:35:29.680 And so I you know, I the technology exists, apparently in during I'm sorry, during Hurricane

00:35:36.740 Maria in Puerto Rico, when Puerto Rico had big interruptions in its communications, there

00:35:42.900 was this thing called Project Loon that Google funded for a while, which was these balloons

00:35:46.440 that actually had antennas on them, which I know sounds like the most the most weird contraption,

00:35:51.360 but it actually works.

00:35:52.140 You can actually beam the equivalent of 4G sort of cell data over large.

00:35:56.620 You know, we're talking dozens of miles of territory using balloons.

00:36:00.540 And so a lot of the a lot of the proposals are around that.

00:36:04.120 Like, can you imagine having, you know, Internet balloons or a lot of companies have actually

00:36:07.860 worked on this.

00:36:08.220 It's not as crazy as it sounds.

00:36:09.320 Facebook had a had a company that would actually beam Internet from solar planes.

00:36:13.600 And a lot of companies have expressed, you know, a lot of private companies have actually

00:36:16.320 done work in this to try to sort of fill that last mile gap of broadband, the

00:36:20.100 places that are really off grid in this case, though, it wouldn't be places that are like

00:36:23.860 it's not Antarctica or whatever.

00:36:25.400 It's it's a place that is connected, but chooses to turn itself off due to due to the

00:36:29.140 government.

00:36:29.660 And so and, you know, and again, this isn't that strange.

00:36:32.940 One thing people may not realize since 1983, the U.S.

00:36:36.360 has funded what's called Radio Marti, Radio Marti and TV as well.

00:36:40.220 That basically beams TV and radio to Cuba in, you know, during the Cold War, actually, the

00:36:44.860 Voice of America, which is the American sort of PR wing started in 19, I think, 47, transmitting

00:36:50.580 to the Soviet Union, you know, unfiltered news to those behind the Iron Curtain.

00:36:54.320 So the U.S. has played a role in getting open information to people behind Iron Curtains

00:36:59.420 of various forms.

00:37:00.360 And so this is sort of in keeping with that.

00:37:02.540 So I don't think it's a question of historical precedent or technology.

00:37:05.340 It's really one of political will.

00:37:07.560 Here's the, you know, six to four thousand dollar question.

00:37:10.180 Why should Americans care?

00:37:11.100 Ah, good question.

00:37:14.780 Well, I mean, if I know it might sound a little cliche and patriotic, but if Americans care

00:37:19.640 about freedom and democracy abroad, they should care about 10 million people who still live

00:37:23.460 under the communist yoke, just 90 miles away from U.S.

00:37:26.340 territory.

00:37:26.980 So for that reason, there's a huge Cuban exile community in the United States who all vote

00:37:31.700 quite actively in Florida, one of our largest electoral states.

00:37:35.680 That's another thing to think about it from the just from the hardnosed political point

00:37:38.720 of view.

00:37:38.940 And it's the right thing to do.

00:37:42.140 I mean, I don't know quite how else to state it.

00:37:44.340 I mean, it's it's free Internet, free communication, engage with the world.

00:37:48.580 I mean, who could be against that?

00:37:49.620 Right.

00:37:49.820 Why?

00:37:50.180 Why shouldn't the United States make that make that possible to a country that's survived

00:37:54.280 62 years of dictatorship?

00:37:56.220 Yeah, we're not talking about sending troops in.

00:37:57.860 Right.

00:37:58.140 It has been interesting, though, I have to say, to see the DHS chief come out and say, oh,

00:38:03.080 Cuban immigrants, not you.

00:38:04.740 Don't come here.

00:38:05.780 This is this not an option for you.

00:38:07.160 Right.

00:38:07.320 It's like a very different sounding message than we've heard from the Biden administration

00:38:10.440 when it comes to immigration.

00:38:11.480 But, you know, the more cynical analysts might say those are all future Republicans.

00:38:18.300 They don't want them.

00:38:20.860 Judging from the last election, that's that's very possible.

00:38:23.700 Yes.

00:38:23.980 Which is interesting as a side thing.

00:38:27.880 Right.

00:38:27.980 Because the way that the Cuban government has typically dealt with this in the past and

00:38:30.460 there's been protests in like 94, 1980, as I mentioned, is by opening the sort of spigot

00:38:34.580 to the United States and letting Cubans go.

00:38:37.340 But since Obama changed the wet food, dry food policy, that's no longer possible.

00:38:40.760 Right.

00:38:40.920 They won't actually be welcomed in the U.S.

00:38:42.540 And so the Cuban government can't sort of play that card.

00:38:45.500 So in some sense, they're kind of stuck.

00:38:47.640 They're kind of stuck.

00:38:48.400 They can't they can't have Cubans fleet up to Miami and they can't quite keep the Internet

00:38:53.700 off forever.

00:38:55.280 Yeah.

00:38:55.860 Well, I love the idea of the balloons.

00:38:57.700 We'll continue to follow it.

00:38:58.720 It's it was inspirational to see all these Cubans in the streets with American flags waving

00:39:04.580 the stars and stripes because it stands for freedom.

00:39:07.660 It stands for freedom.

00:39:09.120 You know, while the Americans here, you know, folks on the far left are spitting on it and

00:39:13.940 saying it's a symbol of oppression.

00:39:15.040 And it's like, oh, my gosh, how can it how can this group of, you know, foreigners get

00:39:20.080 it and this group of Americans not sad?

00:39:24.700 Yeah.

00:39:24.820 I mean, those who would spit on the American flag, I invite you to spend a week in Cuba

00:39:27.880 living as a Cuban and your thoughts about the nobility of the United States might change

00:39:32.220 after that experience and realize that this the United States is a magical country in many

00:39:35.500 ways.

00:39:36.260 My my parents and grandparents were always very grateful for the welcome they got here after

00:39:40.780 fleeing Cuba.

00:39:41.940 I'll bet.

00:39:42.900 Antonio, thank you so much for coming out.

00:39:44.340 I appreciate your input.

00:39:45.980 Thanks, Megan.

00:39:46.500 Thanks for having me on.

00:39:49.200 Up next, Samuel Chu on Hong Kong and what's happening there and why you should care.

00:39:54.540 By the way, it relates.

00:39:55.920 You can see the similarities in what's going on in Cuba right now.

00:39:59.200 Stay tuned.

00:40:03.860 Samuel, hi.

00:40:04.580 How are you?

00:40:05.680 Good.

00:40:06.380 Good morning.

00:40:07.300 Good.

00:40:07.720 Thank you for being here.

00:40:08.540 So let's just start with a brief history of Hong Kong, because I'm not sure everybody

00:40:13.180 understands how it was under British control for so long and then it had to go back to

00:40:19.100 China in 1997.

00:40:21.980 How did that come about?

00:40:23.540 Yeah, I think that's actually really a great starting point.

00:40:27.200 Hong Kong was actually ceded from China rule to Britain after the opium war.

00:40:33.760 And it was basically given over as a 100-year lease for which that the territory, particularly

00:40:43.620 the Hong Kong island and part of the new territory, which is known as Kowloon now, was given over

00:40:49.800 control to the British government.

00:40:53.540 And so for really a century, it was a British colony.

00:40:59.800 And it was really until, it wasn't until the late 70s and early 80s where a conversation

00:41:05.980 and negotiation started between China and the British to say, well, what is going to happen

00:41:12.880 to the future?

00:41:13.540 And eventually, after much negotiation, in 1984, what is known as the Sino-British Joint

00:41:21.860 Declaration was signed, where Hong Kong was going to be turned back over to mainland China

00:41:26.000 in 1997.

00:41:29.020 And the agreement then was that Hong Kong was going to maintain this high degree of autonomy

00:41:33.960 that it has now been enjoying under British rule with all the freedoms and basic rights

00:41:41.380 that really people in the mainland did not enjoy.

00:41:45.020 But the agreement was that after 1997, for 50 years, everything was going to remain unchanged

00:41:50.960 for Hong Kongers.

00:41:52.840 And that deal was ratified not only by the Chinese government, not only by the British government,

00:41:58.000 but it was ratified in the UN, as well as many other countries, including the US, expressive

00:42:04.140 support.

00:42:04.720 And so that's how it was turned back over from a British colonial state territory back

00:42:12.140 to the control of China in 1997.

00:42:14.200 And obviously, as we've seen in the last year or so, a couple of years, that agreement, the

00:42:20.500 Joint Declaration, that really was supposed to protect the autonomy and freedoms of Hong

00:42:24.780 Kongers has now been eroded and broken.

00:42:27.700 Yeah.

00:42:28.080 It's not worth the paper it's printed on.

00:42:29.820 They said one country, two systems.

00:42:31.420 There was concern right from the get go about whether that was sustainable when you're talking

00:42:35.480 about China, which is a communist country in Hong Kong, which was democratic.

00:42:40.920 I mean, you tell me I've never been there, but I've been told it largely resembles the United

00:42:45.880 States or did before all of this and Great Britain, you know, freedom of the press, fair

00:42:50.920 judiciary, the ability to protest.

00:42:54.220 What was it like before 1997 when control was handed back to China?

00:42:59.460 I think that, you know, for, you know, I grew up in Hong Kong, I was born there.

00:43:05.120 And even though Hong Kong was never fully democratic, meaning that they have never had the full

00:43:11.020 universal rights to vote for their own leadership.

00:43:15.940 After 97, some part of the legislature was voted on by people in open elections, while others

00:43:26.540 were not.

00:43:27.540 And so in a way, the political system has never been completely open.

00:43:32.720 But as you described, Hong Kong for generations, for decades, have enjoyed, as I was growing

00:43:37.700 up, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly.

00:43:41.040 For 32 years, actually for 30 years, Hong Kong was the only place where on mainland soil of China,

00:43:49.340 people were able to openly commemorate and remember the June 4 Tenement Square massacre in these

00:43:57.500 rallies of hundreds of thousands of people where the right to protest and free speech was

00:44:03.700 freely practiced and protected.

00:44:06.280 And it's also the same reason why that the city enjoys such a top status as a financial

00:44:14.840 hub, as a free, you know, business hub internationally.

00:44:18.920 All of those things have now been wiped out.

00:44:21.900 And I think that it's exactly as you said, this actually, in a way, is unprecedented because

00:44:27.980 we are used to seeing cities and states and countries being sort of kept under repressive

00:44:36.600 regimes.

00:44:37.380 We have never witnessed a city of 7.5 million people having every freedom taken away and

00:44:46.060 having all the institutions and rights reverse over such a short period of time where they

00:44:54.380 have enjoyed it.

00:44:54.900 Not that Jay Norlinger of National Review had a piece, which is great.

00:45:00.260 He's always worth reading.

00:45:01.280 And the subtitle was The Great, Free, Vibrant City Was Promised 50 Years of Autonomy.

00:45:07.220 It got less than half of that allotment because here we are, you know, 24 years later or so on,

00:45:13.720 and China's got full control and no one's helping.

00:45:17.420 It just seems to me that the United States doesn't have the appetite to interject itself

00:45:22.220 into this fight.

00:45:23.100 There seems to be a collective shoulder shrug because China's so economically vibrant and

00:45:29.920 important to world trade.

00:45:31.320 And so no one seems to be helping the people of Hong Kong.

00:45:34.120 But let's just jump back to your story so people can understand.

00:45:37.460 So you grew up there.

00:45:38.300 You're 42 years old, as I understand it.

00:45:40.540 And what was it like as you led up to 1997, understanding that this transfer and control

00:45:46.680 was about to happen and also understanding that China's word was probably not very trustworthy?

00:45:52.040 Yeah, so I was actually born in 1978.

00:45:55.120 I'm 43 now.

00:45:57.120 And when I was growing up here, I mean, in Hong Kong, I remember actually always thinking

00:46:02.600 that there's this tension, which I think is a really important point for people to understand

00:46:07.700 that we also didn't get freedom completely, a democratic system, under colonial rule.

00:46:14.480 But what we did have was never having to be afraid of speaking our minds and never having

00:46:23.820 to worry about our basic freedom and rights being infringed on.

00:46:27.820 I remember the early days in 1989, I participated, along with my father and my family, on the first

00:46:37.480 million Hong Kongers march and protests in Hong Kong in support of the student protests in

00:46:43.960 Tiananmen Square in 1989.

00:46:45.640 And when they won a hunger strike, wanting to push for political reform in China, the democratization

00:46:52.100 of China, and when the massacre happened, I remember just the citywide devastating feeling

00:47:00.720 of just how could this happen?

00:47:03.800 And the immediate fear that people had of if this is what's happening in the mainland, what

00:47:09.180 is going to happen to Hong Kong?

00:47:10.780 And I remember, I think, that leading up to 1997, and I actually left in 1990, but even

00:47:17.860 in the 80s and in the early 90s, you saw scenes of people, families, with all their gatherings

00:47:26.860 at the airport, fleeing, many of them going to the UK, to Canada, here to the US.

00:47:33.440 And those scenes are actually unfolding again today.

00:47:36.420 If you go to the Hong Kong International Airport today, every weekend, you see pictures of the

00:47:40.780 pictures of families with everything that they can carry with them, getting on planes, saying

00:47:47.440 goodbyes to their loved ones, because they know that they're leaving, and this time they're

00:47:52.380 not coming back.

00:47:54.000 And so I think that the fact that the pro-democracy movement that has been so central and vital

00:48:00.940 for the last 30-plus years here in Hong Kong, a movement that my father had led, a movement

00:48:05.900 that I have participated in.

00:48:07.600 And now, today, almost every one of those leaders of the pro-democracy movement are either

00:48:13.560 in jail, house arrest, living in exile, or just being essentially stripped of their political

00:48:24.040 and personal rights to speak out.

00:48:27.820 And that is-

00:48:29.000 So let me jump in and ask, how did it start, right?

00:48:31.440 Because China was supposed to give Hong Kong 50 years, from 97.

00:48:35.520 And it seems to me that little by little, they started seizing more control.

00:48:39.560 It started to look more authoritarian over there.

00:48:42.320 And while there were protests here and there by the folks in Hong Kong, there wasn't much they

00:48:47.640 could do.

00:48:48.440 I mean, China, when it wants to control something, is going to control something, and they're really

00:48:53.820 not apologetic about their strong-arm tactics.

00:48:56.780 But you tell me how it manifested bit by bit.

00:48:59.040 Yeah.

00:48:59.380 And within that deal, as you said, in the 50-year no-change deal, in addition, there was also

00:49:05.920 actually steps that were promised to Hong Kongers about democratization in Hong Kong, meaning

00:49:12.440 that by 2010 and 2012, there were supposed to have been universal voting rights for every

00:49:20.020 Hong Kongers to choose their own chief executive, their own executive leadership in Hong Kong.

00:49:26.360 But leading up to that, not only has the, you know, there was this unease about if they

00:49:31.420 were, you know, going to maintain even a status quo.

00:49:34.100 So China already, actually, by the 2010, had reversed its stand and said that we're not

00:49:40.260 going to do any of this democratizations and voting.

00:49:45.680 We're not giving you any of those rights.

00:49:48.720 And that was actually what spurred on the 2014, what is known as the Umbrella Movement.

00:49:54.480 My father happened to be one of the organizers.

00:49:55.660 And your dad helped lead that, right?

00:49:57.660 Exactly.

00:49:58.100 My dad actually called for and helped organize the largest civil disobedience protest in Hong

00:50:05.120 Kong history at that point to say that this is something that you promised us.

00:50:10.700 Again, you have broken that promise.

00:50:12.980 And so for 79 days, I think it was, and I spent the first two weeks of those days on the

00:50:19.020 streets with hundreds and thousands of Hong Kongers, they took over the financial district and

00:50:23.340 they said that this is the promise that you broke.

00:50:25.440 And this is something that you represents this larger agreement and promise that we do not

00:50:35.020 think that you will hold to.

00:50:37.940 And it was clear that China, even at that point, have said that what agreement, whatever the

00:50:44.160 paper that is signed on, it's now a historic document.

00:50:47.300 It's worth nothing.

00:50:48.940 And that really, I think, became the genesis of really the latest rap.

00:50:54.660 And then actually, my father and others were prosecuted for the peace war protest in 2014.

00:51:00.660 By the time they were convicted and sentenced in 2019, in 2018, China has used the Hong Kong

00:51:08.320 government to propose another law that says that if you break the law in Hong Kong, we are

00:51:14.600 going to preserve the right to extradite you into the mainland, to be tried under our system that

00:51:20.880 nobody wants to be tried under.

00:51:22.920 No, that's not good.

00:51:24.720 And so that's actually what then gave birth to this most recent round of 2019, what is known as

00:51:31.000 the anti-extradition protest, in which a million Hong Kongers and then two million Hong Kongers came

00:51:37.280 out to the street and said that we're not going to allow you to infringe on the justice system

00:51:42.300 of Hong Kong.

00:51:43.060 We do not want Hong Kongers to be extradited.

00:51:46.560 Imagine if my dad, you know, who went through the trial in Hong Kong, I sat there in a courtroom

00:51:51.140 for the crime of organizing a peaceful protest, was sentenced to almost two years.

00:51:58.280 If that was to take place in the mainland today, I have no doubt that they would have gotten

00:52:03.920 life sentences.

00:52:04.660 Wow, wow.

00:52:06.640 And even you, so you, you left Hong Kong, you're, you're, as I understand it, now you're an

00:52:11.380 American citizen, but you went back for the protest.

00:52:14.060 Your dad's, I guess, still there and, and active politically, but even you over here trying,

00:52:20.840 I understand you, you, you co-founded this group called Occupy Central, um, or your dad

00:52:25.620 did, but you, you co-founded your own group that's pushing for, um, you know, democratic reforms

00:52:29.960 there and push back against China.

00:52:31.320 Even you got arrested or that they've tried, they want to arrest you?

00:52:35.640 Actually.

00:52:36.100 So I, uh, been, you know, as you said, I've been going back and then I actually was there

00:52:39.500 in my dad's trial.

00:52:40.480 And then, uh, about a little over a year ago, China in response to, I think both the protests

00:52:47.160 on the ground, but also overseas efforts like mine implemented what is called the national

00:52:51.620 security law.

00:52:52.900 Uh, so there's nothing, nothing about national security really about this law, except that

00:52:57.360 it gives it supreme power in Hong Kong.

00:53:00.140 And within there is what it called article 38 and article 38 basically says that anyone

00:53:08.320 anywhere, even if you're not a Chinese citizen or Hong Kong residents, if you say or do something

00:53:14.760 that is deemed to be threatening to the party, to the communist party, or to the regime in

00:53:20.080 Beijing and in Hong Kong, that you violate and could be charged under the national security

00:53:25.700 law.

00:53:26.460 And so that was implemented on July 1st or June 30th, uh, 30th last year.

00:53:31.140 And about a month later, um, I was actually, uh, sitting, uh, sleeping in, in, um, in, in,

00:53:37.780 in my home in LA actually where I was living.

00:53:40.420 Um, and I suddenly woke up to hundreds of messages on my phone, uh, on, uh, July 31st of

00:53:48.160 and August 1st, uh, the day after.

00:53:50.660 And it turns out that, um, the Hong Kong government had issued a rest warrant under the national

00:53:57.800 security law to come after me, to target me for the crimes of colluding with foreign powers.

00:54:07.820 And my immediate reaction was, well, first of all, I was actually sleeping.

00:54:11.680 So I was just waking up.

00:54:13.320 I remember I actually fell asleep watching law and order.

00:54:15.740 And it was ironic that I woke up a fugitive and, and when I woke up, when I read the actual,

00:54:22.780 uh, charges that were being levered, uh, against, against me, I thought to myself, what foreign

00:54:29.620 forces?

00:54:30.040 I am an American citizen.

00:54:32.500 I have been American citizen since, since 1996.

00:54:36.880 I created and founded Hong Kong democracy council to lobby and advocate my own government.

00:54:43.440 And, and, and so that was really the preposterous, but that is the way that the communist party

00:54:49.120 in China works, right?

00:54:50.200 That's, that's how strong they believe that they're, they're far reaching.

00:54:54.560 They believe that their reach is, you know, there's no limit and that they can actually

00:55:00.020 simply go across oceans and across the sea, across the airway.

00:55:04.420 And I will just, you know, I probably should have told you this disclaimer by talking to me,

00:55:08.500 they can probably arrest you for violating the national security law now.

00:55:13.420 Good luck with that.

00:55:14.480 Uh, I had a big argument with Mark Cuban about China and his support for China and so on.

00:55:19.000 And honestly, I have no idea whether it's related, but like that week, you know, those calls that

00:55:24.380 you get from, you know, Chinese rebel rousers that come on your phone all the time.

00:55:29.340 I mean, an explosion every minute it happened to my phone.

00:55:32.000 We had to put a special mechanism on the phone to block all of them.

00:55:35.060 But I thought, could this be unrelated?

00:55:38.060 I don't, it just, after very publicly going after his support for China, it, the, even

00:55:43.880 just that small little harassment on my phone, it ratcheted up exponentially.

00:55:48.000 I cannot imagine what it's like to be someone like you.

00:55:52.460 Up next, what is life like on a day-to-day basis in Hong Kong right now?

00:55:57.000 And should the civilized world have done more to stop this deterioration?

00:56:01.320 Uh, we'll get into that.

00:56:02.260 But first, we're going to bring you a feature we have here on the show called Asked and Answered.

00:56:05.940 This is where we answer some of our listener mail.

00:56:08.680 Steve Krakauer is our EP, and he has got the question today, which is, who is it from, Steve?

00:56:14.000 Yeah, Megan, it's from Ginny Johnson, uh, who emailed us at, uh, questions at devilmaycaremedia.com,

00:56:20.040 where we continue to get lots of great questions and we'll answer them right here on the podcast.

00:56:24.700 This one, uh, is interesting.

00:56:25.980 She says she's a super big fan, listens to every show, sometimes two or three times because

00:56:29.760 you give us so much information.

00:56:31.400 I like that.

00:56:31.960 I don't know if that counts as multiple downloads for us, but we'll take it.

00:56:35.940 With that comes my question.

00:56:37.460 She says, are you worried that YouTube, where we will soon be putting some clips, will pull

00:56:42.460 or block your content as they have so much for Steven Crowder and others?

00:56:47.660 Many of the topics you've covered, albeit true, would not have survived the fact checker,

00:56:51.760 she says.

00:56:52.420 Uh, thank you for that.

00:56:53.120 I'm not worried.

00:56:54.160 I mean, I, I think they probably will at some point.

00:56:56.980 Maybe, I don't know.

00:56:59.160 I think I have a good relationship with YouTube and I think they understand what kind of journalism

00:57:03.140 they're going to be getting from me, but that doesn't make me immune.

00:57:06.520 So I, I'm a little less worried than I think most people would be just because I, I actually

00:57:11.560 have a good relationship with them.

00:57:13.180 However, the reason I'm really not that worried is because a couple of things, number one, as

00:57:18.020 of September 7th, we're going to be doing the show live on Sirius.

00:57:21.560 So that, you know, the genie's out of the bottle.

00:57:24.720 YouTube may try to censor it, but it's already out there.

00:57:27.000 It's, it was out there live.

00:57:28.320 So there's only so much YouTube can do.

00:57:30.300 Um, you know, the message is already out there.

00:57:31.920 People want to hear it.

00:57:32.760 Same thing with the podcast.

00:57:33.980 You know, the podcast is available and not censored, uh, by Apple or anybody else.

00:57:37.880 And it's there.

00:57:39.400 So what, what good does it do for Apple or for YouTube to go in there and start slicing

00:57:43.520 and dicing, um, product commentary journalism that's already available to millions and millions

00:57:49.140 of people, right?

00:57:49.980 It's doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

00:57:51.720 Having said all that, I understand they have the fact checkers and their fact checkers

00:57:54.780 sort of automatically, they have a system that automatically flags certain content.

00:57:59.020 And if you get flagged, they demonetize you.

00:58:01.460 That's what happens.

00:58:02.080 You get put in sort of a jail, YouTube jail for a few days while they check it out and

00:58:06.360 see whether it was, it's a claim that they can allow.

00:58:09.160 So I think I would pass all those tests.

00:58:11.320 So if it's a matter of dollars and cents, I'll suck that up, you know, for the, for the

00:58:16.200 opportunity to be on YouTube where a lot of my fans are.

00:58:20.840 I mean, there are a lot of people who consume their news via YouTube.

00:58:24.540 Um, it's not ideal.

00:58:25.860 I don't like it, but I still think it's worth getting on there, even if I have to deal with

00:58:30.540 the hassle of their automated fact checking system.

00:58:33.720 So all in all, I think it's a worthwhile place to be and place to go.

00:58:39.260 Um, and I think, you know, we don't surrender these battles by just saying we're out.

00:58:43.320 We have to get in there and fight them.

00:58:44.780 You know, I do see it happening in Steven Crowder, who I really love.

00:58:47.140 And I feel for him because he's been proven right on so much of what they've tried to

00:58:51.420 censor and there's no apology after the fact.

00:58:54.620 Now he's, you know, provocative.

00:58:55.800 I think he's definitely more provocative than I am, but who's to say what's provocative these

00:58:59.420 days, right?

00:58:59.840 It's like, I, I made, I've made many comments that I thought were pretty banal that then wound

00:59:06.100 up becoming national news for days.

00:59:07.700 It's like the woke media will decide and leftists who control these platforms will decide what's

00:59:13.640 controversial.

00:59:14.100 Meanwhile, people of reason are stuck sitting there saying, what, I don't want, right?

00:59:19.940 So we just have to keep churning out production and trusting that the audience will find it

00:59:25.760 when and where they can.

00:59:27.840 And if YouTube is overly censorious, you'll just get it live on serious.

00:59:32.140 So you'll get it from the podcast as you do now.

00:59:34.180 And I'm grateful to have you as a listener and also kind of curious about when we do go

00:59:39.120 on so many platforms, live on serious available on YouTube, still on taped on the

00:59:43.980 pod.

00:59:44.860 Where do you think you'll get it?

00:59:46.340 Like, where do you guys think you'll choose to take in the show?

00:59:50.040 Which of those forums is most interesting, user-friendly and attractive to you?

00:59:55.080 Let us know by subscribing to the show and giving us a five-star rating and then giving

01:00:00.580 us a comment in the comment section.

01:00:02.480 So I know what you're thinking.

01:00:04.300 And thank you for the comment.

01:00:05.380 So Steve, there are many ways to write in your question to the show.

01:00:08.680 There are.

01:00:09.340 Yeah.

01:00:09.580 You can keep emailing us at questions at devilmaycaremedia.com.

01:00:13.060 We look at those every day and start gathering those.

01:00:15.740 Or you can reach us on social media.

01:00:17.580 So Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, at Megan Kelly Show.

01:00:21.600 Feel free to throw questions over there.

01:00:24.240 We'll gather them up and put them over to Megan.

01:00:28.020 Awesome.

01:00:28.940 And now, back to our guest in one second.

01:00:31.060 Can we just spend a minute on this July 2020 national security law?

01:00:39.480 Because while their authoritarian power grabs took place before that, between 1997 and 2020,

01:00:46.180 that seems like just a shocking, shocking power grab to me.

01:00:52.200 Xi Jinping then issued a warning against the growing calls for separatism at that time and

01:00:57.620 said, this is a quote,

01:00:58.440 Any attempt to divide China will end in bodies smashed and bones ground to powder.

01:01:03.160 I mean, imagine, imagine a leader in the United States saying something like that, right?

01:01:07.440 The law criminalizes secession, subversion.

01:01:11.280 What does that mean?

01:01:11.840 Right?

01:01:12.000 Very broad terrorism, collusion with foreign forces.

01:01:14.980 That was your alleged crime.

01:01:16.660 It gave Beijing unprecedented power over daily life in Hong Kong, made it easier to punish protesters,

01:01:22.000 reduced the city's autonomy and was dubbed the end of Hong Kong by critics.

01:01:26.560 Um, it seems like that was it.

01:01:29.220 That's the moment that Hong Kong started to look identical to almost China.

01:01:33.940 Uh, films were canceled.

01:01:35.660 Uh, citizens started scrambling to delete their Facebook posts, newspapers, independent newspapers

01:01:40.880 closed, protests were squashed, arrests of activists all over the place, warrants issued

01:01:45.400 on foreign activists.

01:01:46.260 More than a hundred thousand people were arrested for crimes like, quote, uttering seditious words.

01:01:51.900 The police became tools of the state.

01:01:53.920 I mean, I just feel like, was that the before and after moment?

01:01:57.220 Yeah, I think that what it happened to the national security law, and actually it's kind

01:02:00.960 of interesting because when they were proposing it, you have to remember that this law, the implementation

01:02:06.460 of it actually broke the Hong Kong city constitutions and Chinese law, because it was implemented without

01:02:14.380 any participation and input from the Hong Kong legislature or people of Hong Kong.

01:02:20.640 It was actually.

01:02:21.140 They stopped pretending, right?

01:02:21.920 China stopped pretending that they were even relevant.

01:02:24.560 Yeah.

01:02:24.720 I mean, I understand that people in the U.S. sometimes get, you know, frustrated about

01:02:28.800 our process of democracy, but imagine if we didn't get the debate and that our elected

01:02:33.520 leadership or anybody who's in government did not get a chance to read the text of the national

01:02:39.880 security law.

01:02:41.560 I actually read and finally saw the text in Chinese for the very first time, the minute before

01:02:49.780 it was implemented and enacted in Hong Kong.

01:02:52.520 And that was how the law was brought into being.

01:02:56.720 And at first they made this propaganda claim that said, so we're only going to use this

01:03:01.800 to go after a very, very small group of rabble rousers of the people who are just the problem.

01:03:09.900 And what immediately became clear and what we all knew all along was that this was going

01:03:15.780 to become then the one supreme law of the land, right?

01:03:20.040 You described the way that it is used, and I think it's important to even point out, I

01:03:24.800 think you might be familiar with a good friend of mine, Jimmy Lide, who was the owner and

01:03:30.100 publisher of the largest opposition paper, AppleDaily.com.

01:03:34.980 But I think people have to remember, he's not just a newspaper man.

01:03:37.660 He is the head of a multi-million dollar corporation that was essentially shut down.

01:03:46.180 He has been in jail since December.

01:03:48.920 He has not actually been convicted.

01:03:50.700 Well, he has been convicted on lesser crime, but he is essentially kept indefinitely behind

01:03:55.200 bars.

01:03:56.260 And while that is happening, they have frozen his assets.

01:03:59.600 And then just a month and a half ago, they raided his newsroom for, I think, the four

01:04:05.340 or the fifth time this year, froze their operating account, told every bank in Hong Kong to not

01:04:12.760 do business with them, and then essentially forced them to close down a company, a multi-billion

01:04:19.320 dollars, million dollars media company.

01:04:22.580 It was essentially shut down under the NSL overnight.

01:04:25.700 What happened to AppleDaily can and will happen to American companies, to international

01:04:34.400 corporations, because now you're in that territory of totalitarianism where they can, whatever

01:04:45.280 they say, it doesn't matter if it's your personal freedom or the rights to everyday business

01:04:53.160 transactions.

01:04:53.960 Those can be criminalized under the national security law.

01:04:59.040 And then for the first time under, again, as I said, for 30 years, Hong Kong was the only

01:05:03.620 place where people could openly protest.

01:05:06.920 And every year they met together, thousands of them, to commemorate what happened in Tiananmen

01:05:12.300 Square.

01:05:13.080 For the last two years, those have been banned.

01:05:15.800 And now, effectively, in Hong Kong, any gathering publicly, there was a grandmother who actually

01:05:23.360 tried to take a solidarity protest walk during the June 4th and then the July 1st turnover,

01:05:32.640 handover time.

01:05:33.960 And she was arrested for illegal assembly while she was marching and walking by herself.

01:05:40.920 And that's the kind of total crackdown and oppression that we now see and people are living under in Hong Kong.

01:05:48.680 Yeah, the Biden administration came out.

01:05:50.900 Biden came out and said after Apple Daily was shut down, it's a sad day.

01:05:56.020 And and also warned American businesses.

01:05:58.760 You as you just pointed out, you could be next.

01:06:00.820 You know, you need to understand where Hong Kong's going.

01:06:03.620 And the Chinese responded by saying this will be responded to strongly.

01:06:07.400 You know, you're not even allowed as the U.S.

01:06:08.700 president to to issue warnings to American businesses about them being next.

01:06:13.360 Now, I want to spend more time on Apple Daily in one second.

01:06:15.300 But to your point, the New York Times had a report recently that talked about the status

01:06:19.220 of things there now, having gone and done on the ground reporting.

01:06:23.320 And this is this is I'm quoting now.

01:06:25.620 Neighbors.

01:06:26.280 This is in Hong Kong.

01:06:27.100 Neighbors are now urged to report on one another.

01:06:29.520 Children are taught to look for traitors.

01:06:31.580 Officials are pressed to pledge their loyalty, meaning to China.

01:06:34.760 Police officers have been trained to goose step in the Chinese military fashion, replacing

01:06:40.460 decades of British style marching.

01:06:44.600 And again, back to that, Jay Norlinger, he writes today, Xi Jinping is presiding over the

01:06:49.480 nastiest, most oppressive period since Mao's cultural revolution.

01:06:55.220 So my question to you is, when you look at, you know, all this.

01:06:58.820 Could and should the civilized world have done more to stop this prior to this moment?

01:07:06.040 Yes.

01:07:06.720 And I think that the world, the international world has been asleep at the wheel for too

01:07:14.100 many years.

01:07:14.960 I think there were warning signs, right?

01:07:17.120 I think that we knew even before, after the joint declaration was agreed to and signed,

01:07:22.200 before the handover happened in 97, 1989, the world witnessed one of the bloodiest crackdown

01:07:31.080 by a regime of its own people.

01:07:34.280 Footages, reporters were there.

01:07:36.520 We saw people shot and rolled over by tanks.

01:07:40.660 And that, as it was for Hong Kongers, a clear warning, should have given the rest of the world

01:07:49.260 a much more clear wake-up call.

01:07:52.740 That handing Hong Kong over simply and believing and trusting that somehow there was going to

01:07:59.000 be this opening and liberalizing of China because of it or around it was just a pipe dream.

01:08:08.140 And we've been here before, and it's not just one party.

01:08:12.080 It's not just the current administration.

01:08:13.940 We have been asleep in the wheel for a long time because we keep thinking to ourselves that

01:08:19.260 if we just gave them something else, right, if we gave them the most favored trade status

01:08:24.080 in the U.S., if we got them into the world trade organizations, if we gave them an Olympic

01:08:29.160 or if we gave them two Olympics, that it was just going to get better.

01:08:34.240 And I think that that is our responsibility.

01:08:38.680 I think that is the world's responsibility.

01:08:40.280 As I said, Hong Kong was created because of the commitment and the support of the international

01:08:45.060 community to recognize it as a separate autonomous region for China.

01:08:49.840 But I think that just as the Chinese regime have, people have benefited economically and

01:08:55.660 continues to, but they have just fallen off the job on keeping the other part of the bargain,

01:09:02.380 the bargain that was made, the commitment that was made to Hong Kongers.

01:09:06.420 So they kept cashing the checks and kept looking the other way.

01:09:10.560 And this is how we got here.

01:09:12.280 And I think that that is a real shame.

01:09:15.120 And I think that this is why, in a lot of ways, China can continue to say that,

01:09:19.600 Samuel, you are colluding with foreign forces on our internal affairs.

01:09:23.580 I tell them, you recruited the U.S. and the U.K. and the rest of the world to support and

01:09:29.740 create Hong Kong as it is.

01:09:31.100 This is the deal that you made.

01:09:33.320 And so I am simply calling all the parties back to the table and saying that it is now

01:09:38.400 your responsibility to save and to keep your promise to Hong Kongers.

01:09:43.340 That's right there.

01:09:45.420 Richard Haas put a put the fine point on it.

01:09:48.400 He's the former director of policy planning for the State Department under W.

01:09:51.400 George W. Bush and said, quote, we don't have the luxury of building a foreign policy

01:09:54.440 that's centered on promoting the role of democracy and human rights.

01:09:57.660 Talking about Hong Kong.

01:09:58.840 So our influence is limited.

01:09:59.860 He said we can vent, but we should have no illusions that it'll change the situation.

01:10:03.480 There may seem cruel, but it's a fact of life.

01:10:05.820 So good luck.

01:10:07.400 You know, it's not our problem is basically what you're saying.

01:10:09.380 I saw Richard's quote, and actually I think I'm the quote right after Richard in that

01:10:14.500 piece that I think you'll refer to in the L.A. Times.

01:10:17.940 And I think that here's, you know, what I was, I mean, the first thing I would actually

01:10:21.840 say is that I am more than happy to have friends and allies.

01:10:26.600 And I think Hong Kongers have enjoyed bipartisan support in the U.S.

01:10:31.820 I would also say that the life and death of Hong Kong is not something to be declared

01:10:36.240 by others.

01:10:37.760 If you look at the courage and the fight and the legacy of protests and resistance in Hong

01:10:42.940 Kong, I am not so sure that I would prematurely declare Hong Kong over as many have.

01:10:49.480 But what I would also say that it's this, I think that the U.S. and others could look at

01:10:58.180 it and say that, well, we can't do anything to push back because we are, you know, limited

01:11:04.700 in our own interests and driven by our own economic gains.

01:11:09.220 The way I would reframe it for, you know, Richard and others for the Biden administration is that

01:11:16.420 what is happening in Hong Kong is an existential threat to the Chinese Communist Party.

01:11:23.500 That is the reason why they are taking such a rapid, total approach to cracking down.

01:11:32.920 How so?

01:11:33.740 And if you look at it from that way, because they cannot allow any sort of resistance and

01:11:40.160 opposition to exist, even at a very low level, and they cannot let Hong Kong to consider to

01:11:47.420 zimmer like the way that it has.

01:11:49.920 Right now, even without a free press, even without the right to assembly, you continue to

01:11:55.220 see people arrested and taken to jail because Hong Kongers continue to express in various creative

01:12:03.180 ways.

01:12:03.740 And that will continue.

01:12:05.960 And I think that what we are witnessing is that the heavy handed crackdown that Xi Jinping

01:12:12.860 has employed and deployed in Hong Kong, it's because he understands that if this gets to

01:12:19.320 continue, if Hong Kongers continue to speak out and to stand up and to continue to get global

01:12:25.740 international support overseas, it is a threat to the control that Xi Jinping has in and within

01:12:33.780 the party and within the mainland.

01:12:34.860 And you have to remember that if that's the case, that means that everything that we engage

01:12:42.460 with China on, this is actually at the center of it, right? That we can't let it go. Because if this is, we look the other way and simply say that we're just going to deal with you on trade, on, you know, other economic competitions or cooperation, or even as some would suggest,

01:13:05.380 we're going to go and do climate change. We're going to go and do climate change together and forget about human rights. What we're missing is that this is actually what Xi Jinping is scared of the most. It's the distress and the opposition and the pressure that he experienced from within. And that is why he keeps dispatching his most trusted official to come down to Hong Kong

01:13:35.380 ship and close down and let the curtain fall on Hong Kong because he is willing to sacrifice everything that Hong Kong is and every benefit economically it presents because it presents the most direct threat to his political power.

01:13:52.060 Thanks for staying with us this far. The end of the episode and who's coming up on our next show is right after this quick break.

01:13:58.140 The thing about Apple Daily, I confess, surprised me. I expect sort of strong arm tactics by China. But what I read was that and some of this was live streamed by reporters who were in the newsroom. Not only did he arrest Lai, he sent over 200 national security officers into this newsroom.

01:14:23.080 They were arresting reporters. They paraded him through the newsroom in cuffs to try to humiliate him. It was condemned immediately by the international community. But he and Lai vowed to resume the operations after the raid. But they put him in prison and and did all the things that you just talked about.

01:14:39.580 They basically forced the company to close. They they wouldn't allow them to do business with other people. They were concerned about the safety of the staff.

01:14:46.180 And to me as a reporter, it was so sad because this is just a week or two ago. Late June, the final edition came out. People lined the streets that the circulation was normally, I guess, around 80,000 or had been at one point over a million copies were printed this time.

01:15:01.800 The supporters were in lines all around waiting, waiting for hours to get a copy, the thirst for democracy, for a free press, for the freedoms that were there to some extent prior to 1997 is strong.

01:15:15.440 And I just I don't know what it's going to take. Right. You see these things like the umbrella movement protests organized by your dad, where they try to protect themselves with the tear gas with the umbrellas.

01:15:25.280 And then 2019, we saw it ramp up again in Hong Kong with the protests. And, you know, we see something similar happening in Cuba this week.

01:15:32.460 And it's like they get a lot of attention when they happen and then they go away and we move on with our lives and the crackdown continues.

01:15:39.940 So what what's your prediction for what's next in Hong Kong?

01:15:44.280 As I said, I think mentioned earlier, something that is very unique besides the fact that, you know, Hong Kong has been a global city, you know, that just as we said, like three years ago, Heritage Foundation used to say it's the freest city in the world.

01:15:58.580 And Cato Institute had its own rating that is the most free society on the face of the earth.

01:16:05.820 And I think that as much as we're angered and saddened by it and it's unthinkable to have all of that ripped away just in a period of over two years.

01:16:17.400 Again, I go back to this, I think, unprecedented moment in history where people who have enjoyed, people like me who have lived and breathed all of these freedoms and these democratic practices and rituals in Hong Kong for so many years, having that taken away is not going to be that easy.

01:16:42.100 I was explaining to someone the other day that it's just kind of like showing your kids television and then telling them that it doesn't exist.

01:16:48.360 And I think that this is what continues to give me hope is that there is continues to be a set of individual leaders, of institutions, of organizations, of the movement.

01:17:03.560 And nobody is giving up and nobody is actually giving over their rights and handing it over.

01:17:13.160 You can take them in jail like Jimmy has, you know, who is in jail now for months and months and months, have not been able to actually even get a clear set of charges against him.

01:17:23.960 And we expect that he might be extradited into the mainland.

01:17:27.000 But I think the idea here is that we will not see people easily being completely silent, walked over because they are at a point of realizing that they have lived and breathed these freedoms for their whole lives.

01:17:45.980 And it is up to the U.S. and the rest of the world to come together and say that we are going to protect you because we make you a promise.

01:17:54.000 It's unlike it's unlike Cuba in that way where they grew up under Castro.

01:17:58.100 But Hong Kong is very different.

01:17:59.820 They had freedoms that are now being taken away one by one.

01:18:02.840 Last question for you before I let you go, Samuel.

01:18:04.760 What what are your thoughts on the Beijing Olympics?

01:18:08.040 Should we be holding Olympics in China?

01:18:10.880 Well, I think it's very clear that the Beijing Olympics, as I said, for me, one shame on me.

01:18:16.160 Through me twice.

01:18:17.800 I think that the con is pretty clear for everybody to see that China has said that they were going to do human rights, you know, to open up and protect and improve human rights in 2008 when they got the Olympics.

01:18:30.880 And what they did is they used the games to actually expand the surveillance states and all the apparatus that is now being used.

01:18:38.320 And we knew exactly and the IOC knew exactly what they were walking into when they awarded them the 2022 Winter Olympics.

01:18:47.160 I think it is a shame.

01:18:48.780 I think it's been a clear call from bipartisan leaders.

01:18:52.900 You know, Senator Rick Scott, for example, Florida, have been pushing for a boycott.

01:18:56.940 Even the speakers, Pelosi, have said that we need to have a diplomatic boycott.

01:19:01.980 I think that this is a very clear sign.

01:19:03.940 And this is actually one of those things I would say that actually matters to Xi Jinping in China.

01:19:08.880 The fact that they can host a global international sporting event and actually have it as a showpiece while they are committing genocide and reversing the fate of a whole city of Hong Kong and broke every promise that they made.

01:19:26.760 Any form of pushback, of boycott and a diplomatic boycott of sponsors pulling out matters to Xi Jinping and the regime in Beijing.

01:19:39.600 And so I definitely think that it is a shame if we actually go through next year and have people and sponsors and have Xi Jinping be able to preside over a showpiece while peoples are actually being put in camps.

01:19:54.920 It's unacceptable.

01:19:57.820 Yeah. All right.

01:19:58.460 We haven't even touched on the Uyghurs and what he's doing, but Hong Kong is bad enough.

01:20:02.620 Listen, thank you so much for telling your story.

01:20:05.000 Stay well and stay on it.

01:20:06.680 We'll continue to follow you as well, Samuel.

01:20:08.420 Thank you so much, Megan.

01:20:09.560 I'll talk to you hopefully soon.

01:20:15.560 All right.

01:20:16.140 Don't miss our next show.

01:20:17.300 It comes out on Friday and we will have a nice long form interview with Malcolm Gladwell.

01:20:23.400 I cannot wait for this.

01:20:25.220 I've read all of his books.

01:20:26.840 He, too, is a provocateur of types.

01:20:29.520 I was mentioning Stephen Crowder earlier as a provocateur.

01:20:31.880 Malcolm Gladwell, I mean, he's an intellectual.

01:20:33.660 He's an amazing author.

01:20:34.800 He's a deep thinker.

01:20:36.320 But he's provocative in that he doesn't really give a fig if you don't like what he says.

01:20:40.820 I mean, he said some controversial stuff.

01:20:43.220 And I think it's going to be fun to talk to him about what that's like in the book world, right?

01:20:48.940 In the book world, they're so woke.

01:20:50.680 They're crazy woke there and yet somehow he's muddled through.

01:20:54.520 He throws his arrows and is one of the best known and bestselling authors in the world.

01:21:00.460 Anyway, very happy he's coming on.

01:21:01.700 That's Friday.

01:21:02.220 Don't miss it.

01:21:04.500 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

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The Megyn Kelly Show - July 21, 2021

What's Happening In Cuba and Hong Kong, with Antonio Garcia-Martinez and Samuel Chu ｜ Ep. 132

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