Why Vladimir Putin’s Family Is Learning Mandarin 32:58

Can we talk about the ultimate drop by? So, OK, there's a state dinner. There's really only one person I know who can just drop in and drop by. I've never heard of a drop by. Barack Obama. Here's my question. So he drops by the state dinner. What else is he doing? Where does he go after that? What is he like? Oh, I'd love to stay, but I got to. Also, he was wearing a tuxedo, which I noticed like if it's a drop by at.

And no Michelle Obama. This is very interesting. Obviously, Barack Obama is the only president in American history who has Kenyan roots. We're giving a state dinner for the leader of Kenya. They need to give us a little bit more explanation. I think you need to take the rest of the day and do some reporting on this, Frank.

Jane, I think you can get to the bottom of anything. Honestly, I think it is the ideal way to go to a state dinner. Drop by. Drop by, but got to go. And then 25 minutes later, you're in your pajamas. I noticed that. Enjoying life. You know, who wants to really be there all night anyway? For the fifth course. I noticed that Bill and Hillary Clinton were there and they didn't drop by. I think they stayed from the first Ritz cracker to the last aperitif.

That's very Clinton, though, isn't it? He was always the last person to leave the room. Welcome to The Political Scene, a weekly discussion about the big questions in American politics. I'm Jane Mayer, and I'm joined by my colleagues Evan Osnos and Susan Glasser. Hi, Evan. Good morning, Jane. Hi, Susan. Hey there. Great to be with you.

Over the past several weeks, much of the political discourse has been consumed by the goings-on inside a New York City courtroom. But the world outside that courtroom hasn't stopped.

In fact, we've recently seen a variety of dramatic international developments. These are things that would have dominated our conversations in any other year. Things like the sudden death of Iran's president, the meeting between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, and the worsening situation in Ukraine, to name just a few. Yet the Biden and Trump campaigns haven't focused much on foreign affairs and policy.

They've taken a backseat to domestic issues like reproductive rights and the economy. But these recent global events deserve serious attention. They signify a possible shift in the balance of power and the rise of certain U.S. foreign adversaries.

So today, we wanted to make sense of things by examining a few key developments abroad, how they fit into the bigger picture, and why our presidential candidates aren't talking about them. All right. So, Evan, you know as much as anybody about U.S.-China relations. What do you make of this meeting between Putin and Xi? It was very interesting. I mean, it had some of the usual kind of authoritarian bunting. You had lots of

frantically waving children, cheering at Putin's arrival. Not many places he can go in the world, of course, because he's under an arrest warrant. But Beijing is one place he can go. The most notable thing about it, and I think this was really glaring, was how sort of lopsided it was.

There was this very clear sense that even though these two guys, Putin and Xi, are very close personally, they've described each other as best friends and so on, that this was very much an encounter between a dominant power and a supplicant power.

I mean, just to give you an example, there was all this praise from Putin's side about how terrific the Chinese economy is. And this remarkable thing you don't hear from him saying very often, which is that he and his family, he said, are studying Mandarin. I mean, this is not something that Putin generally announces that he's cribbing to try to learn the language of another country. Just another thought on this that's interesting, the Chinese have become increasingly –

luxuriant in how they talk about their dominance over Russia. There have been maps that have been published in the last few years in which Chinese maps now use the old Chinese names for Russian cities in territory that was given over to Russia in the 19th century. No wonder Putin's having to learn the language. Exactly. So I think there is that very distinct kind of lopsided quality. That's what jumped out at me.

It was 20 years ago, back when the United States and Russia were still in friend territory, when George W. Bush met Vladimir Putin for the first time and looked into his eyes. Remember that? Well, Putin announced at that time he was studying English. So I think there's a sort of a full symmetry here. But Evan's

point is an extremely important one. I don't think people understand that in some ways the price of Putin's war in Ukraine is mortgaging his country's future to China. And as the United States and the West have isolated Russia as a consequence of their invasion of their neighbor, the result has been to basically accelerate increasingly

incredibly rapidly the dependence and the transition of the Russian economy so that it's literally gone up

by more than 60% from pre-war levels, the trade between Russia and China today. Essentially, without China, there would be no ability for Russia to continue to finance and to conduct this war in Ukraine. And, you know, also there is this kind of sense of an autocratic alliance forming, right? This is very notable that just weeks before the Russian invasion in 2022,

Xi and Putin met, they announced a, quote, no limits partnership. Well, now, a couple years on, this meeting, to me, seems like, you could argue, it may be one of the more significant events of 2024, even as we're focused on kind of the micro news of the campaign here, uh,

I mean, do you regard this as unforeseen and unforeseen consequence of our support for the war in Ukraine and then the sanctions against Russia? Or was this something that was moving in that direction anyway? No, I think it was very much moving in that direction. I think we'll talk a little later about some of these kind of deeper forces. I mean, it is really, I think Susan is exactly right. It is a profound force.

tectonic movement in the way that we imagine the possibility of alignment and alliance and who can be peeled away and who is fused with whom. I mean, that is over the last few years, as we've been so focused on our own domestic politics, it has been easy to lose sight of this new disposition of power and partnership that I think is going to define

America's place in the world as much as anything that's happening within our own borders. Danielle Pletka: I mean, also, while we're just taking a quick look at the recent news in foreign policy, China has also been sending weapons, has it not been, to Iran. And we've had a tremendous amount of news out of Iran with the unexpected death in the helicopter crash of the Iranian president. How do you see that as shifting?

Well, it's really interesting, right, because Raisi was a hardliner. He was very so closely associated, in fact, with the Supreme Leader that he was considered to be a possible successor to him at some point. Now, I haven't seen any real sense from those who follow Iran very closely that this is going to mark a major shift in policy. There has to be a new presidential election. I think it's within 50 days of this. But, you know, what's happened

been in the last few years with Iran is kind of the story with a lot of America's adversaries. They've dug into their positions. Perhaps they've seen weakness in our own internal divisions. They have actually started working together much more closely. And that's where, you know, this word acts

is almost like a forbidden word in American politics. It is triggering. But the truth is, perhaps you could argue that back when George W. Bush used that word and talked about a quote-unquote axis of evil, that it was either premature or unfounded. But now there is actually increasing evidence to suggest there really is, if not an axis, a nexus

very much, as you pointed out, Jane, between China, Iran, Russia, and these major conflicts that are destabilizing the world today, whether it's Russia, Ukraine, or in the Middle East. Iran is at the center of that, providing weapons, drones to Russia, and becoming, in fact, an increasingly important supplier of those weapons. At the same time, obviously, funding proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis that are

actively engaged in conflict with U.S. allied forces throughout the region. Yeah. Kareem Sajapur, who's a great Iran expert, has a terrific way of conceptualizing where Iran is politically. He says the government wants to be North Korea and the people want to be South Korea. Yeah.

And Ibrahim Raisi was very much an agent of that North Korean vision. And he was, as Susan said, he was very much a hardline ally of the supreme leader. There's, you know, the general expectation is that whoever succeeds him will probably be very much in that tradition. I mean, the sort of takeaway from this is there is not a reformer or a centrist that appears on the horizon. If anything, Iran has been moving more sharply under Raisi and is squarely in this

camp with Russia, with China. There is this arrangement of power that is really distinct. And I will add something that's important, though, which is that

Iran is also very fragile. I mean, Raisi was immensely unpopular. He had overseen this hardline crackdown on things like the wearing of the headscarf, personal freedoms, and there's tremendous inflation. Right now, the Iranian currency is now $570,000 to the dollar or something. So there is a tremendous amount of brittleness and uncertainty in the public. And that's something that you see as well in other places in this authoritarian crescent.

And that tension between how much can these hardline leaders hold on to power versus how much can they suppress the forces of disorder within, that's one of the key dynamics. Right. The balance between stability and not. I have to say, I'm glad you brought up this incredible crackdown inside Iran. You know, there have been all these memes that I have to admit I've been following online on social media after the helicopter crash, you know, images by artists of Iran.

the women of Iran and their hair pulling down the helicopter. It is an extraordinarily, not only is Iran an extraordinarily repressive society, but in some ways, Xi and Putin are sketching out a future of a kind of

techno-authoritarianism that unfortunately has given all of these regimes incredible new powers that in some ways they could have only dreamed of back when Putin came to power more than 20 years ago. Yet, when you think of them as being techno-authoritarian, part of the reason I gather that the helicopter crashed was it had such completely backwards kinds of engineering. It was something that dated back to the... It was an ancient American Vietnam era helicopter. From the era of the Shah. And...

And partly because of the sanctions that the U.S. has imposed on Iran. No, that is in some ways the takeaway from it is the it's a measure of Iran's isolation. You know, they were flying on a helicopter that literally hasn't been manufactured in years. And Iran was quick to blame the United States to say it was this sanctions regime that prevents us from being able to maintain our independence.

It's America's fault. Of course. The Great Satan again. But I think that isolation, isolation and xenophobia, and that is one of the themes, and we'll talk about it more, that unites these powers. So listen, when we come right back, I think we should dig in a little bit further to Russia and China, since this is really a major world shift. ♪

It's Madeline Barron from In the Dark. I've spent the past four years investigating a crime. Believe it or not, sooner or later, we will kill some of these folks who need to be killed. A crime that for almost 20 years has gone unpunished. I heard an M-16. They went into the room and they were just taking shots. Me and Noor, we were under the bed. He get his rifle in the bed and start shooting at us.

I remember I opened a Humvee and I just see bodies stacked up. How did they not perceive that these were children? A four-year investigation, hundreds of interviews, thousands of documents, all in an effort to see what the U.S. military has kept from the public for years. You know, I don't know what's to be gained by this investigative journalism. Season three of In the Dark is available now.

wherever you get your podcasts. So, Evan, I'm actually interested in the personalities of these leaders. I mean, do you think there is actually a budding bromance between Xi and Putin? I mean, is this something that's personal or is there something else going on here? It's a mature romance at this point. But more importantly, and this is where I think

It's easy to lose sight of it. In fact, because we sometimes fixate on the guys at the top. No, this is really like a profound shift in how Russia looks at its natural partners. There was a really smart piece by Sasha Gabuev at Carnegie.

who is describing the way that if you go back to the czarist era, Russia was always kind of gazing at the West. You know, it was sort of trying to navigate its relationship with Europe. It was relying on imports from the West. And that was always the great fixation. You're seeing a really big change now where it is really turning its orientation. It's not just about, you know, Vladimir Putin's family studying Mandarin. It's about the fact that you now have Russia

the major industrial fortunes. Some of the oligarchs in Russia are saying openly that they are going to be shifting their focus of production to China. You have wealthy families that no longer see their children going to school in the United States. They're now saying, OK, how do we get our children into school in Beijing and Hong Kong? And it even resonates on the level of literature that, you know, you now have Western authors, people like Stephen King,

as Sasha wrote, that they're no longer allowing themselves to be translated and published in Russia. And so you see more Chinese literature for sale. So there is this way in which you have this more than just an economic condition or a pivot. It's much more like a reorientation of how they see themselves living with what they used to imagine. Remember, China was always the junior partner in

Well, I mean, what are they going to do when they send their children to be schooled in Beijing and discover that the oligarchs of China have sent their children back to the United States and have moved into Vancouver? Look, to a certain extent, you're, you know, making stone soup here. I mean, this is a consequence of an extraordinary response by...

by not just the United States, but the countries of Europe in sort of locking Russia out. And I think, first of all, it has profound consequences for the West in terms of realizing that its sanctions aren't going to be effective as long as there is an

alternate hole here. And that is something that Iran has proved for many years. But to Evan's point, it's really more, I would say, the cycles of Russian history, which have been described really as an ebb and flow between this desire to be westernized, to have a window on the West. That was the entire concept behind the building of St. Petersburg by Peter the Great. But, you know, there's been this...

It's not just what we always wanted to be European. There's also the pull of what you might call the Russian exceptionalists, the Slavophiles, this idea that Russia occupies a special mystical place of its own between East and West. The Chinese-Russian relationship became so fraught during the communist era, during the Soviet era. And there was an incredible rift between

between Maoist China and that of the Soviet Union. It was the one that was exploited by Nixon and Kissinger who came in, who essentially their entire American foreign policy in the mid to late Cold War was prying apart Russia and China and returning Russia to this idea that there's a European existence for it. And what's amazing to me, though, is that this kind of economic shift

that is happening right now. Even in the Soviet era, Europe was the market for Russian energy and gas. Europe was sort of the location in which Russians placed themselves. And I think that's being challenged.

We met recently with Anatoly Chubais, who is one of the most polarizing and important figures in kind of Russia's transition from the Soviet Union. He was the architect of the much hated privatization in Russia of many of these companies. You could say he was sort of one of the creators of this oligarchic

capitalist system. He's left Russia because of the war in Ukraine. At the same time, what he was most profoundly shaken by, Evan, was this idea that whenever this horrible war in Ukraine is over, and we can talk about that, that Russia would have mortgaged its future, would have become essentially an economic vassal of China. And that's what he was talking about on this visit. Well, I'm

I'm interested in the other end of that equation, which is what does it mean for the war if China is now supplying all of these weapons to Russia? Well, it's interesting. There's a dispute, Jane, on the question of the weapons. China is no question essentially giving...

Russia, the economic lifeblood, to continue fighting. Just this week, there was an interesting kind of back and forth where British intelligence said they finally had specific evidence of China supplying lethal aid. The United States has said that's one of its red lines. I heard a comment from the White House, Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, saying, no, we're not exactly sure that's happened yet. But in a big picture sense, it's

absolutely the case that without China's assistance, this war wouldn't be going on. But I have to say, the news from the battlefield suggests that, you know, there's a reason for Vladimir Putin's public confidence. Russia was always a bigger power, not just in terms of demographics, you know, millions and millions more people.

than Ukraine to draw upon for its fighting power, enormous economic resources, which Ukraine does not have. And of course, then there's the question of the inconstant supply of weapons from the West. And all of that means that this summer could be really terrible for Ukraine on the battlefield. Russia is on the offensive.

offensive right now. They are actively threatening Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city. It's less than 50 miles from the Russian border, Kharkiv. I'm not sure that people really realize that. And so one of the restrictions that Ukrainians have been very frustrated with from the United States from the very beginning of the war is that we're supplying billions and billions of dollars of weapons. Ukraine could not keep fighting the

to be clear, without them. But at the same time, we've imposed this condition that we're not to use those weapons to strike inside of Russia. Well, Russia is so close to the border with Kharkiv that that is almost a crippling kind of liability. So you're seeing a big internal debate playing out right now in Washington. I don't know, Evan, do you think- Yeah, that's one of the signs of, you know, this is one of the ways that the U.S. can kind of signal that there may be some movement on this, that, you know, from the beginning, Biden has been saying we have to do everything to

prevent World War III, meaning don't use U.S. weapons inside Russia. But there are now prominent pieces that are beginning to run that basically say that's in play. And this is a way of telling both Kyiv and Moscow that this thing is entering a potentially new phase. And we're going to talk about in a second. This is also very dependent on who is the president for the next four years. Exactly. All right. Well, let's take a break. And when we come back, let's talk about how this plays out in the campaign and beyond.

At Radiolab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but, we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing, or politics, country music, hockey, sex.

Of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew. Radiolab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcasts.

Evan, might as well just pick right up where we were. You know, what is the Biden administration's position at this point about escalating the war in Ukraine and potentially using U.S. weapons to strike at Russia? Well, you know, Biden administration has had

a frustrating time trying to maintain a supply of weapons to Ukraine because of the obstacles and the failures in Congress. Eventually, that was able to be passed using Democratic votes. But in some ways, we're getting a very clear sign already of how different the world could look under a Trump presidency when it comes to Ukraine.

And I think there is becoming a clearer and clearer sense that that is, in fact, what a Trump policy could look like.

and that a quote unquote ceasefire would be in effect handing Vladimir Putin the territory that he has taken in Ukraine and, and I think this is important to point out, signaling to China and other powers that might makes right

and that this is a new modus operandi in the Trump era 2.0. Isn't this really basically the position that Paul Manafort was pushing in the last campaign and then he's recently popped up again for a minute or two advising the Trump campaign, but basically giving Putin what he wants?

I don't think Donald Trump needs Paul Manford to tell him to give Putin what he wants. Donald Trump has been an admirer of Vladimir Putin for many, many years, even going back to his business career. This is a guy who wrote Vladimir Putin a mash note when he was on the cover of Time magazine many years ago.

Trump's predilection for Vladimir Putin and for other authoritarians like Xi Jinping, it's been, I would say it's one of the ways in which Trump is the most un-American of our leaders. Really, there's no president I can ever imagine who has had such a consistent predilection for America's adversaries while at the same time denigrating America's

And I think that what you would see in another Trump term would be kind of that policy on steroids. Now, as far as the war in Ukraine goes, what you're looking at is, I think, Evans Wright, a kind of a land for peace policy.

arrangement that, by the way, Ukraine would not go along with. So this idea is a fallacy. And I think it's really important because I hear this from Americans all the time. When you say Ukraine wouldn't go along with it, what are its options? They will keep fighting, Jane. And I think that this is an incredible fallacy. And you hear it from parts of the American left as well as the right. This idea that the American president is simply going to decree, cut a separate piece with Vladimir Putin, say we're not fighting anymore.

sorry, make this deal. I don't, unfortunately, I don't think that's how it would play out. And, you know, the catastrophe, of course, is that Ukraine would be left to fight along. There are other allies of Ukraine

Ukraine, who are much more immediately impacted countries like Poland, for example, which is one of the strongest powers in the region, other NATO allies. It's not conceivable that they're simply going to say, OK, Vladimir Putin can carve up Ukraine as the territory stands right now. And I just think we're looking at a kind of a disastrous situation.

in which a military cutoff by the United States, Donald Trump has already openly questioned the viability of NATO. Going forward, he said, for example, on the campaign trail that Putin should feel free to do whatever the hell it wants.

with other NATO allies if they don't contribute enough to the alliance. And so I think what you're looking at is essentially a fundamental destabilization of the entire European security order in ways that we can't even really imagine. And not to bring us too far down the doom loop here, but it's not just Europe. I mean, we are talking about this right at the moment that China is conducting military exercises around Taiwan, and for the first time they're involving their coast guard in it,

which is a significant – these are these kinds of little incremental steps that are important to take note of. What it means is that they are signaling, OK, this is what we could do in the event of what they are describing as this is an exercise to demonstrate its ability to, quote, seize power. So they're not being very subtle about it. The reason why it matters is what is preventing China from going into Taiwan? A big piece of it is deterrence.

from the United States. And if you have an incoming American president, conceivably, who is signaling quite audibly that he is willing to allow a big power to go in and do what it wants, that is a message that is read and heard very clearly. These are not abstractions. And very much the opposite message that Biden has sent by supporting Ukraine. Totally right.

In case there's any doubt on this, people should listen to the speech that Trump gave just this week in the South Bronx. When you see President Xi of China, when you see Kim Jong-un of North Korea, when you see Putin and you see all of these people, they're at the top of their game, whether you like it or not. And they can't believe it.

that this has happened to the United States. We have lost respect all over the world. He basically name-checks, calls out, and admires the dictators of the world. And it's absolutely clear that I think he'd be the first...

President of the United States that doesn't value democracy. Jane, do you think that the politics of this matters at all? I mean, I'm fascinated actually by how we can talk about Ukraine in particular, but on China, Ukraine, Republicans, they still love these kind of muscular Reagan-esque words. Nikki Haley this week, here she is blustering on that Joe Biden's too weak, but at the same time endorses

Donald Trump says he's going to get her vote. I mean, I think if the Democrats made it an issue and pointed out that the Republican Party is actually split on foreign policy between isolationists and hawks, you could make some hay on this. But I don't see the White House doing that right now. Instead, we've kind of got

Biden, who's taking a traditional kind of moderate measured balancing act approach to world affairs, trying to support democracies. And he keeps getting put in a box from both sides, you know, not hawkish enough.

not anti-war enough. And he's on the defensive. There is an issue that could be exploited, but I don't see it being exploited right now. You know, it's very interesting. I think that if you look, for example, on the White House website, they actually do the only foreign policy thing that they list, because I was curious and I went to look at it before this conversation.

is actually the extraordinary amount of support that the United States has offered to Ukraine since the invasion. That's the only thing that Biden's own administration touts as an accomplishment. However, you don't hear him talking about it really at all in a campaign context. And my guess is that you won't. And the reason is, first of all, I think there's a bracing concern about

what kind of military disaster for Ukraine could possibly occur on the battlefield in the next few months. Ukraine is on the defensive. Russia's on the offensive. You know, is there the possibility to take back significant territory before that? Will they be blamed for something? So that's one aspect, I think, that is preventing and stopping Biden from talking about the war now is that the war is not going well for Ukraine. But then the flip side is,

It's actually an incredible weakness, it strikes me, politically for Trump. And one of the reasons that he doesn't talk all that much about foreign affairs right now is because it's actually not a good look for anyone, a Republican nominee or a Democratic nominee, to be such a slavish admirer of Vladimir Putin. And by the way, were Russia to be winning back big territory and leveling a city like Kharkiv up,

in the immediate run-up to our election, well, that wouldn't actually play very well for Donald Trump either. So I don't know. He can't stop himself. He gets up in the Bronx and begins prattling on about how much he loves to eat. And this week he had an incredible true social, Evan, and I don't know what you make of this, in which he's bragging that he has such a great relationship with Vladimir Putin that he's going to release the unjustly imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich,

as soon as Trump is elected. Now, I read that and I thought it was disgusting. First of all, it's anti-American. The idea, if he has such a great relationship with Putin, then why the heck isn't he doing everything he can to get him out now? But it's practically inviting Putin to keep this relationship

reporter a hostage until our election. I mean, it's all just nonsense, too, though. I mean, it's magical thinking that overnight, 24 hours in office, and Trump has somehow fixed the world. And, you know, basically what he said during the campaign about foreign affairs in 2016 bore no resemblance to what he actually did when he was actually president. And it's hard to take anything he's saying as a reliable indicator of what he would do other than the consistent theme that he loves strongmen.

Yeah. I mean, to bring it back to something we started with today, one of the pseudo high-minded ideas that you hear from his foreign policy advisors is the sense that they could borrow something from history, as Susan mentioned, the Sino-Soviet split.

back in the Cold War was this moment of opportunity when the United States could go in and pry those two apart, could build a relationship with China, isolate the Soviets. The theory now, and this is, you know, this really... And by the way, that was Steve Bannon's fever dream back then. I mean, then it shaped it. So the whole idea is, you know, that is their delusion that Donald Trump, by giving Vladimir Putin a big clammy bear hug, would somehow pry apart China and Russia, which...

Which ignores everything we've been talking about. The reality is that there is this fundamental ideological and strategic kinship between these two now. It's not going to last forever, but it is important for these two powers and the notion that Donald Trump could somehow win.

pick that lock is a delusion and it's an offense. If anything, the events of the last few years have not only accelerated this China-Russia relationship, but, you know, we ourselves with our internal weakness, our uncertainty about America's place in the world, and these conflicts in Ukraine, in the Middle East, they are like an accelerant on the fire that are

pushing these countries closer together. In some ways, I think that Joe Biden's view of the world as at a moment of, you know, we kind of smirk at it here in Washington, this idea of an inflection point where there are, you know, essentially the world is dividing up once again between authoritarians, between democracies and autocracies. I think that

That Biden view of the world, unfortunately, reflects the reality that we're seeing. The question that I have going into this election year is, what is America's answer to that dilemma? Well, at the rate that we've been watching this campaign, I don't feel that we're likely to get a whole lot of answers to that because it's really not been on the front burner in terms of the conversation in the campaign. And

I mean, there's always the possibility with foreign affairs that something will erupt and make it a top priority. But right now, it seems as if it's the subject nobody wants to address. Except here on the political scene. Except right here.

The old thinking chain in the foreign policy world, you know, when I was the editor of Foreign Policy Magazine, there was a sense like if your issue is being talked about in American politics, you're losing. Like you do not actually want America. They'd rather just do it behind the scenes, fix it behind the scenes. I mean, really, traditionally, it's not that often that foreign policy is a top issue in American presidential campaigns. Usually it sort of pops up as a question of, you know,

which one of these people would be able to handle a nuclear crisis. You know, there's the red phone ads and all of that sort of thing. But this is an unusual situation where you have basically two incumbents. So you can't really play that card quite as well. When the red phone rings for Donald Trump at 3 a.m., he'll still be up tweeting.

This has been The Political Scene from The New Yorker, and I'm Jane Mayer. We had production assistants today from Alex D'Elia and Sheena Ozaki, with editing by Gianna Palmer, mixing by Mike Kutchman. Stephen Valentino is our executive producer, and our theme music is by Alison Leighton Brown. We'll be back next week. Thanks for listening. ♪

Hi, I'm Nicholas Bleckman, The New Yorker's Creative Director. We've designed a collection of stylish and fun products for all seasons and ages, from beach towels and umbrellas to t-shirts and baby onesies. These and other items, including limited edition tote bags, are available only in The New Yorker store, carefully crafted and featuring work by the magazine's celebrated artists.

Visit store.newyorker.com and enjoy 15% off with the code NEWYORKERPOD at checkout. That's store.newyorker.com.