Hi, Brian. Hi Katie. So I'm gonna ask you to play the role of therapists today, Brian, which you often serve for me. My price is right good. I'm worried about Russia. It seems clear, according to intelligence agencies and Donald Trump himself, that somehow they did meddle in our electoral process. I'm worried about this reboot of our relationship, which on the face of it doesn't sound like a bad idea, but it seems much more than a reboot. It seems like a rekindling. And I don't really understand the pros and cons of a closer relationship with Russia. Now I'll be your therapist, Brian. Wouldn't be the first time. Are you worried about Russia? And how does that make you feel? You know? I am, because nowhere is the change of administration more apparent than in our newfound coziness with the Russians. Trump has brought in a lot of Putin loyalists to his administration. Some of the Americans who are the closest to Vladimir Putin and Russia at least over the past ten years, has been a pretty bad actor on the global stage, invading countries causing instability hurting the United States, and so we really wanted to talk to somebody who understood the Russian people, the Russian government from the inside out, someone with a very interesting personal history. He's written a book called Red Notice, a true story of high finance, murder, and one man's fight for justice. Brian my friends have been raving about this book, and we thought Bill Browder would be a good person to really start to unpack the perils and opportunities of a closer relationship with Russia, and someone who really understands who Vladimir Putin is and what he's all about. So if you're optimistic about a new and mutually beneficial US Russian relationship, listen to Bill Browder. First, Bill Browder, thanks so much for talking with us today. We're thrilled to have you. Great to be here. You have such a fascinating backstory, to say the least, and we're going to share with our listeners this story of intrigue and tragedy that you have been immersed in for the last several years. But Brian and I thought we would start by asking you about Donald Trump's inauguration. He is now President of the United States, and I just would like to get your reaction to that very fact. Well, it's it's it's a true mystery to me. What's actually going to happen them. I've seen so many different people telling me so many different things. Um people saying, look at all the the smart people around him, everything is gonna be great, It's gonna be fine. And then I read a tweet that he has been written in the middle of the night, and I have panic, And I'm just waiting to see on the issues that I'm most sensitive to what he's gonna do, and that that really relates to Vladimir Putin and Russia. But doesn't it seem like he's quite sympathetic to Vladimir Putin, That Putin clearly made a choice going into election day that Trump was going to be his guy. It seems that way. It certainly seems that way from the Russian side. It's I was just at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and the Russians were all they all had a bounce in their step, and they were all celebrating and smiling and planning for the lifting of sanctions and looking for all sorts of gifts from Donald Trump. But we we we still don't know if that's actually going to happen. I mean, this may be their own fantasy. And he's you know, it's not clear what he's gonna do. He he claims to be a big dealmaker. UM, I don't know what deal he's going to do and whether there's any deal to be done. I mean, if you really look at it, the Russians are asking for lots of stuff, and um, Putin doesn't have much to offer in return. And so if Trump really is a deal maker and a good businessman, um, maybe they're not going to get what they're asking for. Bill, you have a very interesting relationship with Vladimir Putin, and for our listeners to understand that, I think we should start at the very beginning. What was a nice guy like you doing in a place like Moscow. Well, I've got a funny, funny story, strange story. I come from this family of famous American communists. UM. I was born in nineteen sixty four, and when I was going through my teenage rebellion, I looked around and I said, what's the best way that I can rebel from this family of communists? And I figured out that the best best thing to do is to put on a suit and time become a capitalist. There was nothing I could do the cause my parents more pain than that, and so I became a capitalist. U. I went to Stanford Business School and I graduated business school in which was the year of the Berlin Wall came down. And as I was looking around for UM, what to do with my life next, I had this epiphany, which was, if my grandfather was the biggest communist in America and the Berlin Wall has just come down, I'm going to try to become the biggest capitalist in Russia. And that's what I set out to do. I think this thing started when you invested about two thousand dollars and a handful of Polish companies in the early nineties. You made ten times your money and you called at the financial equivalent of crack cocaine. Where did that lead? Well, you have to really understand that if you ever make ten times your money on investment, it releases a certain chemical in your stomach. And that was my very first investment in my life. And so I UM, I ended up looking for um, what what can I do next? And UM I ended up with a job at Solomon Brothers at Solomon Brothers. UM I started to learn about the Russian market, and what I discovered was that when the communism ended and President Yelson became president, he decided he wanted to make Russia into a capitalist country, and that the way that he wanted to make Russia into a capitalist country was to basically give everything away for free to the people. And they were basically giving away the whole country for free. And then after it had been given away, it basically started trading at a at a at a slight premium to free which was still at a like a ninety nine discount to everything else in the world. And when I saw the prices of Russian stocks at discount, I said to myself, God, we should be investing in this stuff. And in fact, you started on your own investing in this stuff as a very young man. UM, how did that go? So? I I? UM. I left Solomon Brothers and I set up my own company called Hermitage Capital. I moved out to Moscow, and it just couldn't have gone better. In the first eighteen months of our fund, it was it was the single best performing fund in the world. I ended up on the cover of various newspapers and magazines. My clients for sending sending their private jets to entertain me on their yachts. Are fund had grown from twenty five million to more than a billion dollars of assets. And I was all of I was all all of thirty one years old. You were living large, weren't you, Bill Browner? Until it all went wrong. What happened well at that point, and so I was all of thirty one years old. And when all these big things are happening to you at that age, you don't have any perspective. But anyone looking at it from afar would have said, Wow, that's the biggest cell signal there ever was. And of course I didn't sell. And this was now in Russia, and they, the Russian government um defaulted on their debt. They devalued the currency by and my billion dollars of assets went down. I lost nine million dollars from my clients. It was the However, many people were entertaining me on their yachts on the way up. Sure weren't calling after I lost them of their money. It was a true and absolute Those invitations dried up quickly. But you made a discovery about corruption in Russia as you were trying to rebuild from this hole you were in, and and what did that lead to? Well, so, so what what I discovered was that that there are these people called the oligarchs. I think most people in the world know what that means. That these like super rich Russian guys. And and prior to they had kind of behaved themselves because a lot of fancy bankers from Wall Street were coming around and saying, hey, we can get you some free money on Wall Street. But after the crash, those Wall Street guys had all been fired from their jobs for getting involved with Russia. So there was no more free money from Wall Street, from Wall Street for these Russian oligarchs. And they said, heck, if there's no free money, there's no incentive to behave why don't we just take everything? Because there's no laws in Russia to prevent misbehavior. And so the oligarchs embarked on an orgy of stealing, which has been unprecedented in the history of business. They were doing assets stripping, transfer pricing, embezzelment, delusions, every possible way of stealing money. They were doing it. And I was sitting there with the last ten cents on the dollar of my client's money, and uh, there was you know, I wasn't gonna I wasn't gonna let them steal this stuff for me, and so I ended up starting to have wars with the oligarchs to stop them from stealing. Not to sound like an idiot, but can you help me understand who these oligarchs are? You know, I have the this vision of these guys with a lot of gold jewelry and fancy suits kind of you know, with toothpicks. I have no who are these oligarchs? Well, there's not that many of them. First of all, that there were twenty two oligarchs that that sort of started out this whole process in Russia, and they were basically just guys with the sharp sharpest elbows and the most aggressive tactics of anybody in Russia. And what they did was they effectively cornered the market on everything. And so instead of all the assets going to all the people of Russia, which is what it was intended, all the assets ended up in the hands of these twenty two guys. And they're not nice guys. And you obviously became concerned about the corruption. But you're in Russia, I mean, what do you do. There's not really a better business bureau to go to. How do you deal with it if you want to expose corruption in Russia? Well, we tried everything. You know, we went to the government, and we discovered that the government didn't care in fact, that people in the government were benefiting you know, they were on the payroll of the oligarchs. Um. You can't go to the police because they're not policing. You can't go to the parliament because they aren't parliamenting, and um. And so the one thing we figured out that we could do was naming and shaming to publicly embarrassed, exposed and humiliate these people. And so we had great skills and doing the research on how they were going about doing the stealing. And I knew a lot of foreign correspondence in Moscow and so and these guys were always interested in a good oligarchs story, and so they would write about it and um. And interestingly, when they wrote about it, then the Russian press picked it up. And after the Russian press picked it up, then politicians would start sort of being a little embarrassed, maybe do something about it. And in a number of companies that we invested in this naming and shaming ended up leading to some of these bad practices stopping and the share prices of the companies we invested in rising in some cases very very dramatically. And so I developed in a sort of a new business model, which was going into bad companies in Russia, um doing the research, exposing the bad things going on, and then watching the share price rise. And we went from a hundred million dollars after the crash up to four and a half billion dollars after a few years of doing these these expose a s and I thought I was had perfect job that anyone could ever have, where I was making money hand over fist for my clients and myself and and we were also going out and getting the bad guys at the same time. And there was nothing more gratifying than that. And Bill, one of the allies that you UH discovered in your naming and shaming campaign, at least early on against the oigarchs was Vladimir Putin. Can you can you describe who Putin was at that point and kind of why you saw him as as being on your side? Well, yes, so Vladimir Putin. So when we first first started doing this was just around the time slightly earlier, but just around the time that Putin had come to power. And when he first came to power, he wasn't really the President of Russia, even though that was his title. He was sort of the president of the Presidential Administration of Russia because, um, that's all he really controlled. The rest of Russia was controlled by these oligarchs, these these twenty two guys I was telling you about. So so Putin, Um, he wanted to become president of the whole country, not just of his own administration, and so he was looking at ways in which to stop these oligarchs from stealing power from him. So Putin liked you for a while because you were taking power from the oligarchs, and that's what he wanted. But then suddenly he didn't like you that much. Why how did why did things change suddenly? Well, this was the interesting thing. So he was at war with the oligarchs, he was fighting them, but at some point in in his war he decided he wanted to make one big drastic move. And so what he did is, this was in late two thousand and three. There was the biggest oligarch in Russia. His name was Michael Hordakowski. He was the owner of a big oil company called Yukos, and he was considered to be the richest man in Russia, and he had been a pain to Putin. And so one day this guy was on his private jet in Siberia at the airport, and Putin ordered his his secret police to stop the jet at the airport, and then they raided the jet, grabbed the guy, arrested him and then put him in jail. Um. And and then they put him on trial. And by the way, in Russia, when you go on trial, UM, there's no presumption of innocence like you have in America, and so and there's like a ninety seven percent conviction rate, and so that when you go on trial, they stick you in a cage and so um and they and on this particular occasion they allowed the television cameras into the courtroom, so that um, they filmed the richest man in Russia sitting in a cage. And so, one by one by one, um, these oligarchs. At the end of the summer in two thousand and four, they went to Putin and they said, Vladimir, what do we have to do so we don't sit in that cage, and he said, oh, it's very straightforward. And when and when I say, this wasn't for the Russian government or for the presidential administration of Russia. This is for Vladimir Putin. And at that moment in time, Putin became the richest man in the world. How much is Putin worth, Well, everyone's got a different tim In and it's hard to prove because the money never is in his own name, is in the name of the these oligarchs. But my estimate is he's worth around two billion dollars, which make would make him the richest private individual in the world. Well, when we come back, we're going to talk more about the current state of affairs between Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Russia and the United States, and also why you are still so embroiled in Russian affairs, and that has to do with your former lawyer who is now dead. We'll be back with Bill Browder right after this. We're back with Bill Browder, who is the author of Red Notice, a true story of high finance, murder and one man's fight for justice. A real expert on Russia who can help us understand the pitfalls and perils and perhaps even benefits of a close relationship with Russia, which is in the news these days. But before we tackle that bill. In two thousand five, you were detained at an airport in Moscow. You were declared a threat to national security and we're banned from the country. Um. That must have been pretty terrifying, was it. That was terrifying for sure, when when you get some expelled from a country that you've lived in for ten years and where you're the largest foreign investor. Um, that's a big shock. But I knew that that's that's a minor sanction compared to what they could have done. The Russians turn on you, they tend to do so with extreme prejudice. When you say extreme prejudice, is that a euphemism for like your toast, you're dead. Well, there there's sort of three levels of of what could have happened to me. They could have killed me. They could have taken me hostage and put me in prison, or they could have expelled me. And in the in that little continuum, being expelled as hardly a sa ancition compared to the other two options. After you left Russia, you hired a local lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky to represent your interests as you were winding down your investment fund. There what happened to him, Well, so what happened was about eighteen months after I was expelled from Russia, twenty five police officers rated my office in Moscow and they seized all of our corporate documents, our stamps and seals and certificates for running our companies. And so I went out and I hired the smartest lawyer I knew in Russia was at the time a thirty five year old lawyer named Sergey Magnitsky. He worked for an American law firm in Moscow. I hired Sergey to help me investigate what these people were up to and to try to stop whatever they're doing. So Sergey goes and investigates, and he comes back about six months later and he says, I figured it out, and it's not pretty. And basically, what Sergey had discovered was that after we had sold all of our stock in Russia got all the money out, we had a big profit. We had a billion dollars of profits, and we paid two thirty million dollars of taxes to the Russian government. And when Serge had discovered was that the people who had rated our offices used those documents to steal our companies. And then they used are stolen companies to go back to the tax authorities and they and to say, all those taxes paid last year, that was a mistake, we'd like the money back. They applied for a two thirty million dollar illegal tax refund and the very next day it was approved and paid out. So essentially, government officials used your investment fund to steal two thirty million dollars for themselves and then and they were stealing it from their own government. They weren't stealing from me. There was this money we already paid to the Russian governments. They were stealing it from themselves. But it wasn't like the government from one pocket of the government to the other. This is from the government to a bunch of corrupt officials. What happened when Serge tried to expose this though, so when Sergey testified against these guys, he was waiting for the bad guys to get arrested. Instead are the bad guys being arrested. About six weeks after he testified, they came to his home at eight in the morning, um from his wife and two children, searched his apartment and then arrested him. They put him in pre trial detention, where he was then tortured to get him to withdraw his testimony. They put him in cells with fourteen inmates and eight beds and left the lights on twenty four hours a day to impose sleep deprivation. They put him in cells with no heat and no window panes in December and Moscow, so he nearly froze to death. They put him in cells with no toilet, just a hole in the floor where the sewage would bubble up. And they were doing all of this to try to get him to retract his testimony against the police officers. And they wanted to get him to sign a false confession to say that he stole the two thirty million dollars. So how on was he imprisoned and when did you learn of his fate? Um After about six months, he got sick. He lost forty pounds, He got terrible pains in his stomach, and he was diagnosed having pancreatitis and gallstones and needing an operation. He and his lawyers wrote twenty different requests to every different branch of the justice system in Russia, begging for medical attention. All of his requests were either ignored or denied, and then on the night of November sixteenth, two thousand nine, a year after he had been arrested, or nearly a year after he had been arrested, he went into critical condition, and so they put him in an ambulance, sent him over to a different prison facility. But instead of when he gets to the new place, instead of putting him in the emergency room, they put him in an isolation cell. They chained him to a bed, and then eight riot guards with rubber baton's beat him until he died at the age of thirty seven, leaving a wife and two children. Just hearing of his experience is horrifying, and it must have been devastating for you to feel so power list in this situation. I got the news the very next morning, and it was the most traumatic, heartbreaking, life changing news I could have ever gotten. The surge Magnitsky was killed because he was my lawyer. If he hadn't been my lawyer, he would have still been alive. And after getting over the absolute sort of shock of the whole situation, when I had enough composure to think about it. Clearly it was obvious that I only had one choice in life going forward, which was to put aside everything else I was doing, um and get justice for Sergey. And and just to provide people the kind of the background. While you were beginning your effort to get justice for Sergey, the US under President Obama in two thousand nine, was embarking on the famous Russian Reset. So there wasn't a lot of interest in the administration at the time to go after the Russians, right, Yeah, So we said to ourselves, well, we're not gonna be able to get justice for murder in Russia, but we could certainly try to stop these people from using traveling to the West and using the banking system and buying assets and so and so forth. And that's when I went to Washington to tell the story. And and that's when I encountered, um, what you just described before called the Obama Reset, where Obama had come into as president and he wanted to quote reset relations with Russia. Yeah. So just to give some context, Uh, at this point, Putin was no longer president, he was Prime Minister, and he was succeeded as president by this guy met Vedyev, who the West, including the United States, felt would be more cooperative, and in fact, the Obama people to this day argue that the first several years of the Reset were really productive in terms of getting a new arms control agreement, helping with the supply route in and out of Afghanistan, pressuring the Iranians and the North Koreans on nuclear issues. So what's your response to that, um, Well, the answer is they got some of those things, um, And they had to sacrifice a lot in order to get that, including human rights and uh, the security of of NATO allies in Poland and the Czech Republic and places like that, and so it was. It was a sort of narrow decision which which had a lot of ugly consequences, and it didn't last that long. Eventually they realized that Russia in America's interests were too two diversion. But that was the that was the environment in which I was trying to convince Washington to do something about the Magnetsky murder. And it was an uphill battle. For sure, you didn't find a receptive audience, but finally you did because the Magnetsky Act was passed in two thousand and twelve, what exactly did that do. Well. It's interesting because while the president at the time, Obama, didn't want to do anything they would ruffle the feathers of Russia. Um, there was another center of power, which was Congress. And I told the story that I've just shared with you to Democratic Senator from Maryland Benjamin Carton and a Republican Senator from Arizona, John McCain, and I said, can we can we put a law in place, um named after Sergei Magnisky, which would punish the people who killed him and punish people who do similar types of things. And they came up with what's now known as the Magnuski Act, which imposes visa sanctions and asset freezes on the people who do this kind of stuff. And it also puts their names on what's called the U. S. Treasury Sanctions List. And by by once your name is on that list, just next door to ISIS and al Qaeda terrorists and Colombian drug barons and so on and so forth. And in spite of the fact that Putin was apoplectic about this, he was truly enraged and furious. And in spite of the fact that this reset exists, President Obama really had no choice based on the popularity in the Congress, and he signed it into law. Um, there are now forty five people on the Magnisky List who are all sanctioned, many of them intimately involved in Sergey's torture and murder. How do you know Vladimir Putin was so personally enraged by this stuff? Well, we know because while this was going through, uh, he had a press conference literally that the same days that this was happening. He got something like seven questions at his annual press conference about the Magniski Act, and he got more and more agitated, more and more aggressive, and and more and more aggressive towards the Act, towards America and towards me personally. And shortly after that, they passed what they call the Anti Magniski Act in Russia, in which they banned the adoption of Russian orphans by American families. And I should point out that the only orphans that the Russians led American families adopt, we're sick orphans, and American families with open hearts and open arms would take these sick children in and nurse them back to health. And he banned them from adopting these sick children, which was effectively sentencing their own orphans, some of their own orphans to death, in order to protect his own corrupt officials. You're in a very unique position, Bill, given your background and your experiences in Russia, to talk about what is happening here in the United States and really around the world when it comes to how we see not only Vladimir Putin, but Russia itself. So what do you make of this coziness some say bromance between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin? What is that about? Well, Um, what we know is that um Putin really doesn't like a few things. He doesn't like the NATO, which is this military treaty that the United States has with a number with twenty eight other countries. He doesn't like that because he knows he would lose the war against NATO, and so he'd rather not have that. He doesn't like the European Union because he doesn't like a whole bunch of countries together on dictating how he can't use gas as a weapon. Um. And he didn't like America telling him what he could and couldn't do, and that was his status quo with Obama, and he thought that if if Hillary Clinton was elected, then then that would more or less be the same thing. And so he wanted somebody other than Hillary Clinton being elected where there was a possibility of of that not being the same thing. And he was particularly excited by the warm words coming out of Donald Trump's mouth where he was saying how how much he admired Putin, and so on and so forth, and so you can see the champagne corks popping on election night in Russia. He's under the belief that he'll be able to achieve some of these objectives within a Trump president. So this is a new era for Russia in his view. And just let the records show you do not think Vladimir Putin is a good guy in any way, shape or form. If you had thirty seconds to explain why you think Putin's a schmuck, how would you do that. Well, I've seen with my own eyes and with evidence that Putin is a criminal. He's a criminal who's stolen an enormous amount of money from his country. Um, he's been involved directly in in a conspiracy to cover up the murder of my lawyer, Sergame Magnisky. He was personally involved in that, and I've seen how he's behaved. He's like Pablo Escobar, except he controls the country with nukes, and that's a very dangerous man to have in the world. You spoke earlier about the warm words that Donald Trump has for Vladimir Putin. What do you think is the explanation for that? You know, there's been a lot of discussion of this unconfirmed dossier that BuzzFeed put out. Um suppose atally showing compromise or a compromising information that the Russians have. Russian Brian, I do that just to pander to you? Uh, do you believe that stuff? And or or do you think there's some ideological basis for Trump's fondness for Putin? Well, I think that we're gonna end up knowing a lot more when we actually see what Trump decides to do. I mean, it's interesting because, on one hand, Trump has muttered some some very warm words towards Putin. On the other hand, he's staffed his most important national security jobs at the Defense Department, at the CIA, and the Homeland Security with absolute strong cold warriors. On the other hand, he appointed as Secretary of State one of the Americans, who's closest to Vladimir Putin, And he's praised Putin probably more than any other world leader. You're talking about Rex Tillerson exactly. So don't we already know that he's going to make a strong effort to be old closer ties with Putin. Well, so every president has done this, from George Bush through Obama now to Trump, or tried to do this, I should say, and try it and failed. So Donald Trump presents himself as a dealmaker. We already know what Putin wants from this deal. He wants sanctions lifted, he wants the end of NATO, he wants to break up the European Union. So the question is what does Donald Trump get out of that? Well, well, Bill, he hasn't had exactly you know, warm fuzzy words about NATO. I mean, Donald Trump built much of his campaign saying that he wasn't a big fan of NATO and that the United States shouldn't pay to defend all these countries. You know that we're not the world's policeman. So it seems to me that Putin and Trump are at least aligned on that, and they're also aligned on the collapse of the European Union, because Trump has been one of the foremost American supporters of the Brexit effort, and he's also touted other countries in Europe believing the European Union. So it seems like there's a tremendous amount of overlap in terms of their views. It does seem that way. And so the question is what does Trump get in return? What about the notion of joining forces with Russia to fight isis that's something that he has talked about a lot or did on the campaign trail. Well, that's a complete nonsense. Russia doesn't fight iis. Russia bombs the Syrian rebels who are trying to stop ASSAD. So Russia is bombing children, civilians, women, hospitals. If we're going to join Russia, I pray we're not going to get sucked into bombing innocent civilians in Syria because that would be the most horrific thing I could ever imagine. So why do you think Donald Trump has such a soft spot for Russia If we know they're not fighting isis? If we know that Putin's goals are very similar to others around the world who want to diminish American power, how do you explain it. I can't. There's no rational reason that I can see why he would do that. It doesn't make sense to me. Let me ask a simple, sophomoric, possibly stupid question that I think. I hope our listeners will appreciate. What is wrong with having a closer relationship with Russia. Couldn't we accomplish things together, as you know, a unified superpower, rather than be competitive adversaries. Well, it sounds great if it was possible. But Putin is a bad actor. So Putin has just invaded He invaded Georgia in two thousand and eight, he invaded Ukraine, UM in two thousand fourteen. UM, he's at war in Europe. Um. He wants to expand his empire. This is the first time since the end of the Second World War that borders have been redrawn. He's committing war crimes in Syria by bombing women and children in hospitals. And so, I mean, everybody wishes that he'd be a good actor. If we could have a good relationship with a good actor, that would be a great thing. But should we allow him to destabilize the world and bring death and misery to people, and to challenge the safety and security of Europe. I don't think so. I think that we know where that has led in the past. And unfortunately this man can't be appeased, and so the only option we really have is to contain him. And if what Trump is proposing is to basically give him a free ride on all of his bad actions, then he will it will encourage him to take more of those. It sounds to me like he's an egomaniacal, power hungry despot who cares only about himself. Is that an accurate characterization? And please don't give him my phone number. Well, what he is is he started out being a massive kleptocrat where he stole like all the money from the people. When the people started grumbling, he started worrying about them turning on him and deposing him like that like the people of Ukraine did of their leader, of their corrupt leader, and so he then started a war to distract them, and when when sanctions were put in place, he then started another war in Syria. His main objective is to stay in power, because he understands that if he's not in power, he'll lose his money, go to jail, and perhaps one of his enemies will kill him, and as such, staying in power is not such an easy thing to do in a place like Russia, because a lot of other people that wanted. And so the more as time goes on and the more difficult situations arise, the more he's got to become repressive in his own country and and aggressive um in foreign countries to keep his people distracted. Bill critics of yours more foreign policy realists would say that your understandable distress over the killing of your former lawyer has blinded you to the subtleties of the relationship. That there are areas in which our two countries cooperate in arms control, in our efforts in Afghanistan, in containing Iran, and that if we have a purely adversarial relationship in which we're attacking and going after the leader of Russia at every turn, it hurts the interests of the United States around the world. Is it possible that Putent's Russia shouldn't be seen in black and white, but in shades of gray. Um? Well, I mean, you can use whatever color analogies you want, but you've got a guy who will act aggressively using all tools to further his own interests and So the question is how do you keep him from using those tools in a way that's detrimental to our interests. And there are places where we have leverage and we have negotiating positions where he will negotiate with us, whether we're nice or whether we're mean. And there are places where we don't have leverage, where he where he will do whatever he wants. And if you mean any person in the military, serious person in the military in the West, and discuss Vladimir Putin anyone, they will tell you that you need to contain him, that that you can't give him any freedom of movement because whatever you give him, you'll take that and we can't get it back. And I'm long over my emotional distress with Ladimir Putin, and I've seen how he operates, and I'm just speaking in a calm, sober way that this man needs to be contained and how we go about interacting with him while we contain him. Sure we can talk, Sure we can negotiate, and sure some of those things that we discussed can be negotiated. But you can't give him the latitude to go and take over countries and do his bad actions, because the more latitude you give him, the more trouble will be in Does the notion of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson give you pause given his ties to Russia, given the photographs we've seen of him sitting next to Vladimir Putin. Well, I wasn't a great and of most of his answers in his confirmation hearing, he was very um equivocal about sanctions. He was saying, you know, I don't I won't commit to keeping them in place. The only the only thing he did say, which which I liked, was that he was ready to keep the Magnisky sanctions, which he has no power actually to repeal because they're in Act of Congress. But I didn't like the answers he he was giving because it was clear that he was trying to leave himself as much room for movement as he could um to take get rid of them, if that was what the policy was. And so yeah, I'm scared that he's going to capitulate to Russia, which would be a bad thing. Bill. Can you just explain briefly what the sanctions do exactly and why they're biting the Russians so hard? Well, there's two types of sanctions. There are sanctions against high level individuals, targeted personal sanctions freezing assets and banning visas. And then there are sanctions which are called sectoral sanctions, which are sanctions which prevent Western American and European banks from lending money to Russian companies. And both sanctions are highly effective in their own special way. As I mentioned before, um there's a very small number of oligarchs who control almost all the economic assets of Russia, and Putin, by the way, is a partner with those oligarchs. And so basically, if you sanction a small number of people with with asset freezes and visa bands, that personally touches Putin, and he hates it and it makes his assets less valuable and it makes his own personal financial interests hit. Secondly, the sectorial sanctions means that Russia can't borrow money, and Russia needs to borrow money in order to roll over loans, etcetera, etcetera, and so as a result of them not being able to borrow money as a result of oil prices being down, they've depleted huge amounts of money from their national reserves and from their welfare funds, etcetera. In order to pay for things and the combination of these two things absolutely infuriates weekends and upsets putin. Here's another question from one of our listeners, and Ambler Pennsylvania. Let's listen. Hello. I saw Katie's post about what questions do you have about Russia? My question is more about Donald Trump's ties to Russia. Now that the transition has occurred in the inauguration has occurred. Who will hold Trump's team accountable to find ties between the campaign and Russia? And will it still be possible now that he has control of those government agencies that actually UM do the investigating I have been asking this question without stop and have not gotten an answer. I would really appreciate it if you would take the question. Thank you so much so, Bill. Who will hold Donald Trump's team accountable, UH, to make sure that the country is aware of any ties, either currently or in the past between the campaign and Russia. Well, I I think it's it's a little bit over dramatic as say that nobody in Congress UM will do anything about this, When when when Obama was in Congress and he didn't and he didn't want to do anything tough on Russia. The Democrats UM UH, led by a very liberal Democrat from from Maryland, Benjamin Carton, you know, acted against Obama in passing the Magnitsky Act, And I know many Republicans in Congress um that that if there is a real issue, if if if our relationship with Russia is harming our national interests, they're not going to go along with that. So I don't think it's as dire a situation as as as that um that person's question was. But there is some definite truth in that if you control the leavers of law enforcement and the leavers of power, it's a lot a lot harder for the people in those agencies to act against the interests of power. So hopefully the checks and balances, if they're needed, will will be working. And then, furthermore, we don't know what's going to happen in the next congressional election. Maybe the Republicans won't be dominating both houses of Congress. Things change very quickly in these types of situations, and we don't think that the world is going to fall apart today. We should note that the questions about Trump's team and their connections to Russia aren't limited just to Rex Tillerson, who's probably gonna be Secretary of State. They also include Michael Flynn, whom Trump is appointed to be National Security Advisor, which is an enormously powerful position. It's the person in the White House who briefs the president on national security every day, who mediates disputes between Defend States, CIA and others. And there were these calls between Flynn and the Russian ambassador which are now under investigation. So it seems like he's picking the Americans who are just known for their extraordinary closeness to Russia. Does that give you any additional concern about the direction that Trump is going to take? Well, Um, you know, we we We've talked about Tillerson, We've talked about Flynn, but what about Maddis, Um, what about Peo? What about the new Homeland Security secretary? And even with Flynn, I've heard both sides of the story. I've heard that he has no illusions about Russia. I've also seen pictures of him um at a Russia Today party with Putin. So I mean, it's very easy to feel worried and emotional, and I know a lot of people do. And I I'm looking for every signal and sign which way this thing is going to go. But I think it's a little bit too early to start saying that this is all a big, you know, takeover by Russia of our administration. But let's see what they actually do, and they might not. It might not be so bad, maybe it will be. I don't know, but but I think we're sort of jumping the gun a little bit until we see what the policies will be. Perhaps you can't read the tea leaves having said that bill the notion that the Russians meddled in US elections? I mean, isn't that something to be concerned about? Or have I seen the Manchurian candidate too many times? Well, there's two things. When is did they meddle in the election? The answer is yes, it's been pretty clear. The second is is there any quid pro quo for their meddling in the election? And that we don't know the answer to what do you mean quit pro quo from from the United States? So so it does Trump owe them anything if if they did. But I'm sorry to interrupt, but what about just the whole idea of them effing with our democratic process? I mean, shouldn't shouldn't they have to pay something for that? And what about the notion of increasing sanctions. And I guess didn't Lindsey Graham say this weekend, Brian that Senators would vote for some kind of punishment for the Russians meddling and the elections. Yeah, he was trying to send a signal to Trump that the sanctions pressure should go up, not down. Well, I agree with that, and I think that that Russia should be sanctioned, punished with great ferocity. And and I should point out that that sanctions work. People are all saying, well, sanctions. You know, the Russians haven't modified their behavior from sanctions. Let me tell you something. Putin wakes up every morning praise for sanctions to be lifted, and goes to bed every night praying for sanctions to be lifted. It affects him personally. It affects him profoundly. And he doesn't like these sanctions. And they were bad actors. They should be punished. And I hope very much that this is where our checks and balances come in. If there's like some kind of warmth for whatever reason from from Trump, that Congress, which is a separate section of power under the Constitution, will act to severely punish Russia. For their bad actions, because there needs to be consequences every time they do something bad, so they don't do bad things going forward. We talked about the Russians meddling in the American presidential election last year. Are you concerned about Russian meddling in the French and German elections that are happening this year and electing pro Putin candidates as a result. I'm concerned, and everybody in Europe is concerned, because the Russians have gotten good at this stuff. They're good at fake news, they're good at hacking, and they're good at manipulating the outcomes and even funding all sorts of fringe parties to pull people away from the center. And and by the way, it doesn't cost Putin nearly cost him nothing to to do this election manipulation compared to any kind of military adventures. And so he's out there using his technology fast and furious, hoping that he can upset the political balance all over the world and be able to achieve as objectives of breaking up the European Union and breaking up NATO. Russia is clearly rising right now. What will happen remains to be seen, but is Putin here to stay because I know he's enormously popular in Russia. Right now, what is his approval rating, Brian Bill, do either of you know percent? I mean that is just unheard of. Thirty years in prison. If you say that you're disapproved exactly. If you if you get a call from a stranger says do you support Vladimir Putin or not? What's your answer going to be? I Mean, what I find was strange about this eight percent is not the eight percent? But who who? Who are these twelve people who say they don't support poops there in prison? But do you see him going anywhere? Well, his objective is to stay in power until the end of his life. He has no other plans, and he really has to use every tool at his disposal to make sure that that's that happens. And he's very smart about this stuff. He doesn't he doesn't have to. He's not constrained by the same things we are. He has no he has no he has to worry about being elected. He doesn't have to worry about parliament. He doesn't have to worry about the courts, he doesn't have to worry about the press, none of the stuff that a normal world leader has to worry about, he has to worry about, and so he has degrees of freedom. And his biggest degree of freedom is that he has no morals. He will kill any number of people to stay in power. And so with a man with that, with all the tools, with with no morals, and with no constraints, he will stay in power unless something very dramatic happens. Well, it's a very scary time. And certainly this has been a very chilling conversation. So we don't end on such a terrifying note. I mean, what is your advice for Donald Trump and for Americans who are concerned about his growing use and abuse of power. And I'm talking about Putin's growing use and abuse of power, although some might argue that Donald Trump is doing the same thing. Well, if Donald Trump really wants to be a patriotic American and he wants to bring America first, he should use his strength and his eccentricity and his unconventional approach to completely um contain Vladimir Putin. That would be the right thing to do, That would be the patriotic thing to do, and that would be the thing that brings safety to American people. Vladimir Putin is much more dangerous adversary than isis can ever be. And the right thing to do, and the thing that will eventually be done by Trump or his ultimate successor, will be to surround Putin because he's the he's the guy whose interests are completely adverse to ours, Bill Browder, as I said, it's a it's a very very interesting, important conversation. I think Russia has been mentioned as often as the United States in recent weeks. You hear Vladimir Putin's name almost as often as Donald Trump. So clearly this is going to be a major story, I think in the weeks, months, possibly years to come, this strange relationship between our two countries. And we really appreciate your perspective on it today, and we really recommend your book, Red Notice, which reads like a thriller, but it is a true story and a pretty remarkable one. In fact, they're making a movie out of your book, aren't they, Bill, Um. A movie is in the process, and hopefully that will lead to many, many more Americans and people all around the world seeing Russia and Vladimir Putin for um what they really are. Well. Bill Browder, again, thanks so much for your time and best of luck to you, Thank you before we go, which is our version of Steve Harvey's just one more Thing, Brian, You and I noted during the inaugural ball, Donald Trump's rather strange selection of song for his first dance with Melania Trump with the First Lady. Yeah. He picked two songs that have really good titles, Frank Sinatra's My Way, Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You, which by Dolly Dolly. Pardon exactly, but if you listen to the first verse of My Way, for example, it sends a kind of a different message. Are you asking me to sing it, Brian? Give the people what they want, Katie. And now the end is near, and so I face the final curtain. My friends all say clear, I'll state my case, of which I'm certain there is like a little Judy Garland. It's a little bit. I think. I don't know if I would want to start my presidency with the words. And now the end is near, and so I faced the final curtain. Would you no, nor uh? If I should stay, I would only be in your way. So I'll go, but I know I'll think of you every step of the way, which is the first part of I will always love you. So I think they need maybe a little more diligence on this. If we could pick another one for the Trump's, what would we pick. I think I would go back to Franklin Roosevelt's favorite campaign song. You know what that was, Katie. Happy days are here again? Exactly, Happy days are here again for at least half the country. The skies above or clear again, so at sing a song of cheer again, Happy days are here again. But nobody wants to hear me sing Yes, Brian, please don't ever do that again. Oh my god, that's the scary voice, as always are. Thanks to Gianna Palmer for producing the show and Jared O'Connell for engineering and mixing it. Thanks this week to Joe Miller for production assistance in London. And I have to say, Mark Phillips, I love our theme music. I listened to it when I shower. Not really, but also in addition to me, uh, Mitch Simmel and Brian Goldsmith are are executive producers. And remember you can email us at comments at Kirk podcast dot com or find me on social media. I'm on it way too much, people. I'm Katie Curic on Twitter and Instagram and Katie dot Kuric on Snapchat because I am so hip and jiggy with the youngster, and because I'm not hip and jiggy, I'm only on Twitter at at goldsmith b. Best of all, you can rate and review us on iTunes. Would really appreciate it if you would subscribe to the show as well. That helps more listeners to find it and we will talk to you next time. Thanks so much for listening. By everybody,