Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #167

1. 0:00 – 2:41

   Introduction

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      The following is a conversation with Saagar Enjeti. He is a DC-based political correspondent, host of The Rising with Krystal Ball, and host of The Realignment podcast with Marshall Kosloff. He has interviewed Donald Trump four times, and has interviewed a lot of major political figures and human beings who wield power. He loves policy and loves history, which makes him a great person to sail through the, uh, sometimes stormy waters of political discourse. He showed up to this conversation with a gift of the second volume of Ian Kershaw's biography on Hitler, a two-volume set that is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, most definitive studies of Hitler. Nothing wins my heart faster (laughs) on a first meeting or a first date (laughs) than a great book about the darkest aspects of human nature and human history. I think I started saying that as a joke, but actually there's probably a lot of truth to it. I love it when we skip the small talk and go straight to the in-depth conversation about the best and worst of human nature. A quick mention of our sponsors: Jordan Harbinger Show, Grammarly grammar assistant, Eight Sleep self-cooling bed, and Magic Spoon low-carb cereal. Click the sponsor links to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that for better or for worse, I would like to avoid the trap of surface political bickering of the day. I do find politics fascinating, but not the talking points produced by the industrial engagement complex of red versus blue division. Instead, I'm fascinated by human beings who seek power and how power changes them. I don't have a political affiliation. And my ideas, at least I hope so, are defined more by curiosity and learning in the face of uncertainty and less by the echo chambers who tell me what I'm supposed to think. I'm constantly evolving, learning, and doing my best to do so without ego and with empathy. Please be patient with me. As far as I'm aware, I do not have any derangement syndromes nor do I get a medical prescription of blue, red, white, or black pills. If I say something, I say it because I'm genuinely thinking and struggling with the ideas. I have no agenda, just a bit of a hope to add more love to the world. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, support it on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter @lexfriedman. And now, here's my conversation with Saagar Enjeti.

2. 2:41 – 7:01

   Hitler

   1. LFLex Fridman2:41

      There's no, uh, better gifts in this world-

   2. SESaagar Enjeti2:44

      (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman2:44

      ... than a book about Hitler, so thank you so much (laughs) . I- I've gotten a gift when I was... what? We were just talking about-

   4. SESaagar Enjeti2:49

      Yes. Right, right.

   5. LFLex Fridman2:50

      ... wine, the watch from Joe Rogan, and this almost beats it. So, uh-

   6. SESaagar Enjeti2:55

      (laughs)

   7. LFLex Fridman2:56

      So tell me what, uh, this particular book on Hitler is. So this is volume two?

   8. SESaagar Enjeti2:59

      Yes. So this is Ian Kershaw. He wrote the famous two-volume on Hitler. I'm a big book nerd and, uh, I spend a lot of time reading biographies, in particular. So this one, um, if you need a one-volume, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, right? I think you talked about that, William Shire-

   9. LFLex Fridman3:15

      Yeah.

   10. SESaagar Enjeti3:15

       ... because that's like, Hitler's rise, Nazi Germany, the war, et cetera. But I like bios because it's the st- a good biography is story of the times, right? And so this one, the first volume, it does exactly that, which is that it doesn't just tell the story of Hitler. It's the context of poor, you know, this kid in Austria and he's got all these dreams, but then actually pretty courageous in terms of World War I, right? Gets pinned a medal on by the Kaiser. And then what it's like to have... to lose World War I and actually, like, lose this, this stain, and then the rise within. Everybody knows that story, the Beer Hall Putsch and all of that. This one I like, and the reason I like Kershaw, is obviously, number one, it's English, which is actually hard, right? Like, in order to write that story who can do both the primary source material and then translate it for people like us, but he tells the dynamic story of Hitler so well, um, in the second volume, just, like, the- the level of detail. And you've- you've talked about this, Lex. Like, what was it like inside that room-

   11. LFLex Fridman4:14

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SESaagar Enjeti4:14

       ... inside with Chamberlain?

   13. LFLex Fridman4:16

       Yeah.

   14. SESaagar Enjeti4:16

       Like, what was it like in terms of who was this, like, magnetic madman who did convince the smartest people in the world at the time? And, you know, up until, like, 1940, the Soviet gamble, like, was a tr- it took tremendous risks, but, like, highly calculated-

   15. LFLex Fridman4:34

       Yeah.

   16. SESaagar Enjeti4:34

       ... thinking, "No, no, no, I'm not gonna pay for this one. I'm not gonna pay for this one." And put himself... he had a remarkable ability not just to put himself in the minds of the German people, but in terms of his adversaries, like with when he was across from Mussolini, calculate. He's like, how exactly did Mussolini, the guy who created fascism, becomes, like, second fiddle to Hitler? I think it's an amazing bio. And yeah, like, Ian Kershaw along with Richard Evans, two of my favorite authors on the Third Reich. No question.

   17. LFLex Fridman5:00

       Do- do you think he was born this way, that charisma, whatever that is, or was it something he developed strategically? That's like the question you apply to some of the great leaders. Was he just a madman who had the instinct to be able to control people when in the room together with them, or is this like he worked at it?

   18. SESaagar Enjeti5:18

       I think he worked at it, and but- but also there is an innate quality. I'm forgetting his name, his lifelong... Ru- Rudolf H- the one who flew to Berlin in, like, 1940. I- I forget his name.

   19. LFLex Fridman5:28

       I've forgotten his names.

   20. SESaagar Enjeti5:28

       Anyway, so he- he helped Hitler write Mein Kampf, and he was like slavishly-

   21. LFLex Fridman5:33

       Yeah.

   22. SESaagar Enjeti5:33

       ... devoted to him in prison. This is 1925 or something like that. And so you read that and you're like, "Well, how does he get this, like, f- you know-

   23. LFLex Fridman5:42

       Yeah.

   24. SESaagar Enjeti5:42

       ... crank wacko to basically believe he's, like, the second coming, help him write this book?" I mean, literally st- they lived together in the prison cell and they would wake up every day, and as he was composing Mein Kampf and because of the Beer Hall Putsch and all that, had this, like, absolute ability to gather people around him. I think his greatest skill was, is he was just a very good politician, truly. I mean, if you look at his ability in order to read coalitional politics and then convince exactly the right people-... in order to follow him. I think I heard you ask this once, and I've thought about it a lot, which is like, who could have stopped Hitler-

   25. LFLex Fridman6:16

       Yeah.

   26. SESaagar Enjeti6:16

       ... in Germany, right? It's always like the ever present question. Of course, like the whole baby Hitler thing. Really, the answer is Hindenburg, like Hindenburg was the person who could have stopped and had the immense standing within the German public. The only, you know, real like war hero, definitely was personally skeptical of fascism and Nazism.

   27. LFLex Fridman6:34

       And didn't like Hitler.

   28. SESaagar Enjeti6:35

       But he was too... And didn't like him.

   29. LFLex Fridman6:36

       (laughs)

   30. SESaagar Enjeti6:36

       And he knew he was full of shit. He was like, "Yeah, I think this guy is dangerous. I think this guy could do a lot of damage to the Republic." But he acceded basically to Hitler at the time, and I think that he was one of the main people who could have done something about it.
3. 7:01 – 8:20

   Evil

   1. LFLex Fridman7:01

      There's, there's something I often think about 'cause we just reading books about these people. I think about what like Jeffrey Epstein, for example.

   2. SESaagar Enjeti7:08

      Oh, yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman7:09

      Like evil people, not evil, but people who have done evil things. Let's not (laughs) go to the Dan Carlin thing of what is evil.

   4. SESaagar Enjeti7:18

      (laughs)

   5. LFLex Fridman7:18

      Uh, y- people that do evil things, I wonder what they are like in a room because I know quite a lot of intelligent people that were, uh, um... did not see, uh, did not see the evil in Jeffrey Epstein and spent time with him and not, were not bothered by it. In the same sense, Hitler, it seems like he was able to get... just even on a, before he would have power, 'cause people get intoxicated by power and so on.

   6. SESaagar Enjeti7:48

      Yep.

   7. LFLex Fridman7:48

      They wanna be close to power. But even before he had power, he was able to convince (laughs) people. And it's unclear, like is there something that's more than words? It's like the way you... I mean, that people talk, tell stories about like this piercing look and whatever.

   8. SESaagar Enjeti8:05

      Right.

   9. LFLex Fridman8:05

      All that kind of stuff. I, I wonder if that, if that's somehow a part of it, like that has to be the base floor of any of these charismatic leaders. You have to be able to, in a room alone, be able to convince anybody of anything.

4. 8:20 – 18:51

   Donald Trump

   1. LFLex Fridman8:20

   2. SESaagar Enjeti8:20

      So, I can tell you from my personal experience, one of the best educated lessons I got was when I got to meet Trump. So, I interviewed Trump four different times as a journalist, spent like two and a half hours with him in the Oval Office, not alone, but like me and one person, and like the press secretary, and that was it. So, I actually got to observe him. And as a guy who reads these types of books, right? And, you know, you think of Trump, obviously most people, what they see on television-

   3. LFLex Fridman8:49

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SESaagar Enjeti8:50

      ... you know, in articles and more. But being able to observe it like one-on-one, I was closer to him than, you know, than I am right now from you. That was one of the most educational experiences I got because it's like you just said, the look, the, the leaning forward, the way he talks, hi- the way he is a master at taking the question and answering exactly which part he wants. And then if you try and follow up, he's like, "Excuse me. Ex-" You know?

   5. LFLex Fridman9:16

      Yeah.

   6. SESaagar Enjeti9:17

      Like, he, he, he knows, and, a- and then whenever you're talk... It's not that he's annoyed about getting interrupted. If he realizes he's been meandering and then you interrupt him, all good. But if he's striving home a point which he has to make sure appears in your transcript-

   7. LFLex Fridman9:30

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SESaagar Enjeti9:31

      ... or whatever, it's, it's like, it really was fascinating for me to look at. And what was also crazy with Trump is I realized how much he was living in the moment. So, like when I went to the Oval, you know, I've read all these biographies and like I walk in and I'm like, "Holy shit."

   9. LFLex Fridman9:48

      (laughs)

   10. SESaagar Enjeti9:49

       You're like, "I'm in the Oval Office," like-

   11. LFLex Fridman9:50

       Were you interviewing him in the Oval Office?

   12. SESaagar Enjeti9:52

       In the Oval, every time was in the Oval Office.

   13. LFLex Fridman9:53

       You were scared shitless? Sorry to...

   14. SESaagar Enjeti9:55

       Well, I wasn't scared. I was just, "Look, it's the Oval Office," right?

   15. LFLex Fridman9:59

       Yeah.

   16. SESaagar Enjeti9:59

       I mean, I'm, I'm this nerd. He was like this kid. I, when, I'm so... I will admit this year. Like, I printed out on my dad's label maker when I was like seven, and I wrote like the Oval Office on my bedroom. So I was like, you know, a huge cult- nerd.

   17. LFLex Fridman10:11

       Yeah.

   18. SESaagar Enjeti10:12

       Like obviously egomaniacal, even from seven.

   19. LFLex Fridman10:14

       (laughs)

   20. SESaagar Enjeti10:14

       But, so like for this, I mean, it was huge, right? I'm like this 25-year-old kid, and like I walk in there. And like I see the couch, right?

   21. LFLex Fridman10:22

       Yeah.

   22. SESaagar Enjeti10:22

       And I'm like, "Oh, man. Like that's Kissinger," like, you know? And I'm like, "That's where like Kissinger and Nixon got on their knees." And then you see over by the door, and you're like, "Are the scuff marks still there from when Eisenhower used to play go." You know, this is all running through my mind.

   23. LFLex Fridman10:34

       Yeah.

   24. SESaagar Enjeti10:34

       With Trump, none of it was there.

   25. LFLex Fridman10:35

       Yeah.

   26. SESaagar Enjeti10:35

       None of it, right? So, like s-

   27. LFLex Fridman10:36

       It's all in the moment.

   28. SESaagar Enjeti10:37

       Even, even the desk, like I put my phone on the desk to record-

   29. LFLex Fridman10:40

       Yeah.

   30. SESaagar Enjeti10:40

       ... and I'm like, "This is the fucking Resolute desk."
5. 18:51 – 24:12

   Teddy Roosevelt

   1. SESaagar Enjeti18:51

      if you look at Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt in particular, this was, I mean, a voracious reader. Not of just American history, all history. He wrote-

   2. LFLex Fridman19:00

      That guy's just such a badass. Jesus.

   3. SESaagar Enjeti19:01

      ... some history. Incredible.

   4. LFLex Fridman19:02

      (laughs)

   5. SESaagar Enjeti19:03

      The only, the only president who willed himself to greatness.

   6. LFLex Fridman19:07

      Yeah.

   7. SESaagar Enjeti19:07

      That's, like, the amazing thing about him. He wasn't tested by a crisis, right? Like, wasn't... Nah, he didn't have the Civil War, he didn't have World War II. He didn't have to found the country, literally. Or like-

   8. LFLex Fridman19:15

      Mm.

   9. SESaagar Enjeti19:15

      ... you know, didn't have to stave off that. Or he didn't buy, you know, the Louisiana Purchase, like all-

   10. LFLex Fridman19:20

       Mm-hmm.

   11. SESaagar Enjeti19:21

       He literally came into a pretty, you know, static country, and he could have just governed, you know, with, with... I mean, he was... If the person who came before him was assassinated, like he easily could have coasted, but he literally willed the country into something more. And that is, that's always why I focus a lot on him too, 'cause I'm like, that... In many ways, I wouldn't say it's easy to be great during crisis. I mean, like look at Trump, right?

   12. LFLex Fridman19:46

       Yeah.

   13. SESaagar Enjeti19:46

       But like, but there... It can bring out the best within you.

   14. LFLex Fridman19:49

       Yes.

   15. SESaagar Enjeti19:49

       But it's a s- it's a whole other level to bring out the best within yourself just for the sake of doing it.

   16. LFLex Fridman19:54

       Yeah.

   17. SESaagar Enjeti19:54

       That's, I think is really interesting about him.

   18. LFLex Fridman19:56

       The speeches were amazing. I'm also a sucker for great speeches-

   19. SESaagar Enjeti20:00

       Mm-hmm.

   20. LFLex Fridman20:00

       ... 'cause I, I, I tend to, uh, see the role of the president as in part, like, inspirer-in-chief, sort of, uh, to be able to... I mean, that's what great leaders do, like CEOs of companies and so on, establish a vision, a clear vision-

   21. SESaagar Enjeti20:17

       Yes.

   22. LFLex Fridman20:17

       ... and like, n- like hit that hard. But the way you establish the vision isn't just like... Not to dig at Joe Biden, but-

   23. SESaagar Enjeti20:25

       (laughs)

   24. LFLex Fridman20:25

       ... like, like sleepy, boring statements. You have to sell those statements, and you have to d- y- you know, you have to do it in a way where everybody's paying attention, everybody's excited.

   25. SESaagar Enjeti20:36

       Yes.

   26. LFLex Fridman20:37

       And, uh, that, uh, uh, Teddy Roosevelt is definitely one of them. Obama was a, I think, at least early on, I, I, I don't know, uh, was incredible at that. It does feel that the modern political landscape makes it more difficult to be inspirational in a sense, 'cause everything, it becomes bickering and division.

   27. SESaagar Enjeti20:55

       Yes.

   28. LFLex Fridman20:55

       I do want to ask you-

   29. SESaagar Enjeti20:56

       Please.

   30. LFLex Fridman20:57

       ... uh, about Trump. (laughs) Uh, so you're now a successful, uh, podcaster.
6. 24:12 – 29:08

   Nazi Germany

   1. LFLex Fridman24:12

      we stick on, uh, Hitler for just minute, uh, what lessons do you take from that time? Do you think it's a unique moment in human history, that World War II... I mean, both Stalin and Hitler, you know, is it, is it something that's just, um, an outlier in all of human history in terms of the atrocities or is there, uh, lessons to be learned? You mentioned (laughs) , we mentioned o- offline that you're not just a student of the entirety of the history, but you also are fascinated by just different, like, policies and stuff.

   2. SESaagar Enjeti24:49

      (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman24:50

      (laughs) . Like, what's the immigration policy? What's the-

   4. SESaagar Enjeti24:52

      Yeah.

   5. LFLex Fridman24:52

      ... policy on science and, uh-

   6. SESaagar Enjeti24:53

      Well, look, Third Reich in Power, let me plug it, by Richard, uh, Richard Evans, I think is what it was, 'cause that actually will tell you, like, what was it like to live under the Nazi regime without the war.

   7. LFLex Fridman25:04

      Yeah.

   8. SESaagar Enjeti25:04

      Um, yeah, it's a hard question in terms of the lessons that we can learn 'cause there's a lot. And it's actually been over, it's been over-indexed almost.

   9. LFLex Fridman25:13

      Yeah.

   10. SESaagar Enjeti25:13

       Everything comes back to Hitler-

   11. LFLex Fridman25:15

       Yeah.

   12. SESaagar Enjeti25:15

       ... in a conversation. So, I kind of think of it within Mao, Stalin, and Hitler, as (sighs) I don't wanna say payments for, but, like, the endpoint payment for the sins and the problems of the monarchical system that evolved within Europe, basically, like, 1400-

   13. LFLex Fridman25:37

       Mm-hmm.

   14. SESaagar Enjeti25:37

       ... and more. I basically think that 1400, the wars between the sta-, you know, wars between France, England, the balance of power, eventually World War I, and then serfdom within Russia, the Russian Revolution that birthed Stalin. Same thing, the kaiser and Imperial Germany and this, like, incredibly crazy system of balance of power in World War I. And then same thing within China in terms of the warring states and then the disintegration, the European, you know, how, this is how they think of it, you know, which is, like, the century of humiliation, and they had to have something like this. I think of it, I try to think of it within the context of that. I don't wanna ca- think of... I don't wanna sound like an inevitabilist, but I think of it as... I like to think about systems, es- especially here in DC, that's why I got into politics, which is that you have to understand systems of power and the incentives within systems and the disincentives and the downside risk of what you're purp- of what you're creating, because it, that is what leads and creates the behavior within that system. I was just talking to my girlfriend about this yesterday. It's kind of funny, like, I read these, I'm obsessed with these books, um, by Robert Caro, the biographies of Lyndon Johnson. He's written, like, 5,000 pages so far-

   15. LFLex Fridman26:54

       Yeah.

   16. SESaagar Enjeti26:54

       ... and it's still not done.

   17. LFLex Fridman26:55

       Yeah.

   18. SESaagar Enjeti26:55

       Okay? (laughs) So, like, these are, these are, like, books I base my life on. And look, these are Washington and the story of the post-New Deal era and forward. Not much has changed. Like, the Senate is the, still the Senate. So, many of the same problems with the Senate are still there. Um, (laughs) in some cases, no, not, not anymore, but for a while, some of the people who were there with Johnson are-

   19. LFLex Fridman27:17

       (laughs)

   20. SESaagar Enjeti27:17

       ... actually still, um, one of them is the President of the United States. Just a joke. And you think about also, same with the media relationship, right? Like, there's this media rela-... They may have come and gone, like the, the people who were in the media and who were cozy with the administration officials. I mean, they just recreated themselves. It's like this, it's like an ecosystem, which doesn't change. And the, that's why I'm like, "Oh, it's not that was a specific time." That's just DC. Like, that is DC, because of the way the system is architected. It's pretty much been that way since, like, 1908, whenever, like, you know, Teddy Roosevelt was dining with these journalists, and he would yell at them, and then he would go over to the society house. And, like, in many ways, that's now instead of going to Henry Adams' house, like, the people are con- congregating in Kalorama, um, which is the richest neighborhood here, at somebody else's house. Like, it's the same thing. So you have to think about the system and then the incentives within that system about what the outcomes that they're producing if you actually wanna think about, "How can I change this from the outside?" That's also why it's very difficult to change, because the system is designed in order to produce actually pretty specific outcomes that can only be changed in extraordinary times.

   21. LFLex Fridman28:34

       Yeah, and sometimes hard to, to predict what kind of outcomes will result from the incentive, uh, the system that you create, right?

   22. SESaagar Enjeti28:42

       Right.

   23. LFLex Fridman28:43

       In the case, because especially when it's novel kind of situations. With Trump, we actually created a pretty novel situation, and a lot of the, uh, things that we've seen in the 20th century were very novel systems where people were very optimistic about the, the, the outcomes, right? And then it turned out to not have the results that, uh, they predicted. I, in terms of, like, things being unchanged for the past 100 years and so on,

7. 29:08 – 33:04

   The balance of power in US government

   1. LFLex Fridman29:08

      can you, um, like, Wikipedia style-

   2. SESaagar Enjeti29:12

      (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman29:12

      ... or maybe, like, in, in a musical form, like I'm Only a Bill, describe to me, uh (laughs) -

   4. SESaagar Enjeti29:17

      (laughs) I, I still sing that to my head sometimes.

   5. LFLex Fridman29:20

      (laughs)

   6. SESaagar Enjeti29:20

      << I'm just a bill >> (laughs)

   7. LFLex Fridman29:24

      (laughs) Uh, I don't know what the rest of the song is-

   8. SESaagar Enjeti29:27

      Yeah.

   9. LFLex Fridman29:27

      ... but let's, let's, uh, let's leave that to people's imagination. Uh, how, how does this whole thing work? How does the US political system work, the three branches? Is, how do you think about the system we have now-

   10. SESaagar Enjeti29:40

       Mm-hmm.

   11. LFLex Fridman29:40

       ... if you were to, to try to describe? If aliens showed up and asked you, like, they didn't have time, so this is an elevator (laughs) -

   12. SESaagar Enjeti29:48

       (laughs)

   13. LFLex Fridman29:49

       ... thing.

   14. SESaagar Enjeti29:49

       Elevator pitch.

   15. LFLex Fridman29:49

       Should we destroy you?

   16. SESaagar Enjeti29:51

       Yeah.

   17. LFLex Fridman29:51

       And, and be, as you plead to avoid destruction-

   18. SESaagar Enjeti29:55

       (laughs)

   19. LFLex Fridman29:55

       ... well, how, how would you, uh, describe how this thing works?

   20. SESaagar Enjeti29:58

       I would say, we come together, and we pick the people who make our laws. Then we pick the guy who executes those laws, and they together pick the people who determine whether they or the president is breaking the law, at the most basic level.

   21. LFLex Fridman30:16

       Okay.

   22. SESaagar Enjeti30:16

       That's how I would describe it, right.

   23. LFLex Fridman30:18

       ... the-

   24. SESaagar Enjeti30:20

       So that's kind of, the people who make the laws are Congress.

   25. LFLex Fridman30:22

       Mm-hmm.

   26. SESaagar Enjeti30:22

       The executive is, is charged with executing the laws as passed by Congress, the system, the branches of government. And the Supreme Court is picked by the President, confirmed by the Senate, which then decides whether you or other people are breaking the law, in terms of interpretation of that law. That's basically it. Oh, and they, they decide whether those laws are in, they fall within the, they fall within the restrictions and the want of the founders as expressed by the Constitution of the United States, which is a set of principles that we came together in 1787? I wanna make sure I get this right.

   27. LFLex Fridman31:08

       (laughs)

   28. SESaagar Enjeti31:08

       Um, 1787, and decided that we were gonna live the rest of our lives barring a revolution and more, and we've made it 200 and something years, in order, under that system.

   29. LFLex Fridman31:19

       S- so there's a balance of power that's because you have multiple branches, there's a tension and a balance to it, as designed by those original documents. Uh, what, which is the most dysfunctional of the branches? Which is your favorite? Like, uh, in terms of talking about systems and like-

   30. SESaagar Enjeti31:35

       Mm-hmm.
8. 33:04 – 41:38

   Bureaucracy

   1. SESaagar Enjeti33:04

      interested in here.

   2. LFLex Fridman33:05

      Do you think, at this point, the amount of power that the President has is corrupting to the, to their ability to lead well? Is this, you know, uh, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

   3. SESaagar Enjeti33:16

      Mm-hmm.

   4. LFLex Fridman33:17

      Are we, uh, is there too much power in the, in the presidency?

   5. SESaagar Enjeti33:21

      Yeah, there definitely is. And part of the problem, and I, one of the things I try to make come across to people is, if you're the president, unless you have a hyper-intentional view of how something must be different in government, your view doesn't matter. So for example, like, if you were Trump, let's take Trump even, and even with a pretty intentional view. He was like, "I'm gonna end the war in Afghanistan and Iraq," right? And he came in, and he gets these generals in, and he's like, "I wanna end the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Oh, and I wanna withdraw these troops from Syria."

   6. LFLex Fridman33:54

      Mm-hmm.

   7. SESaagar Enjeti33:54

      And they're like, "Okay, well, give us, like, six months." He's like, "Okay." And this is the thing about Trump, he doesn't realize that it's bullshit.

   8. LFLex Fridman34:00

      Yeah.

   9. SESaagar Enjeti34:00

      So, they're like, he's like, "Uh, six months. Seems fine," right? So, then six months comes-

   10. LFLex Fridman34:04

       (laughs)

   11. SESaagar Enjeti34:04

       ... and he's like, he's like, "So," and then he'll announce it. He'll be like, "And we're getting out of Syria. It's great." And then the generals freak out. They're like, "Whoa, whoa. We don't have a plan for that." He's like, "But you guys told me six months." He's like, "I don't know, now we need another six months in order to figure this thing out."

   12. LFLex Fridman34:17

       Yeah.

   13. SESaagar Enjeti34:17

       So that's how, and by that time, now you're midterms. So, now what?

   14. LFLex Fridman34:20

       Yeah.

   15. SESaagar Enjeti34:20

       Now you gotta run for re-election. So, more what I mean by that is, if you don't have a hyper-intentional view about how to change foreign policy, if you don't have a hyper-intentional view about how the Department of Commerce should do its job, they are just gonna go on autopilot. So, there's, this is part of the problem. When you asked me about the presidency, it's not the presidency itself, like the president himself, which has become too powerful. It's that we have less democratic checks on the people and the systems that are on autopilot. And I would say that basically since 2008, we have voted every single time to disrupt that system, except in the case of 2020 with Joe Biden, and there are a lot of different reasons around why that happened.

   16. LFLex Fridman35:06

       Mm-hmm.

   17. SESaagar Enjeti35:07

       And in every single one of those cases, Obama and Trump, they all failed, in order to, in order to radically disrupt that. And then that just shows you how titanic the task is. And I'm using my language precisely, 'cause I don't wanna be like deep state and all. But, like, obviously there's deep state.

   18. LFLex Fridman35:23

       Deep state, I guess, has conspiratorial-

   19. SESaagar Enjeti35:24

       Exactly.

   20. LFLex Fridman35:25

       ... uh, uh, t- tensions to it. But- so you're, what you're saying is the true power currently lies with the autopilot.

   21. SESaagar Enjeti35:31

       Yeah.

   22. LFLex Fridman35:31

       AKA deep state. (laughs)

   23. SESaagar Enjeti35:32

       Well, but, see, it's not pow- this is the thing, too. I wanna make it clear, 'cause I think people think conspiratorially that they're all coming together to intentionally-

   24. LFLex Fridman35:41

       Yes.

   25. SESaagar Enjeti35:41

       ... do something. No, no, no, no, no.

   26. LFLex Fridman35:43

       Yeah.

   27. SESaagar Enjeti35:43

       They are doing what they know, believe they are right, and don't have real democratic checks within that. And so now, they have entire generations of cultures within each of these bureaucracies where they say, "This is the way that we do things around here."

   28. LFLex Fridman35:59

       Yeah.

   29. SESaagar Enjeti35:59

       And that's the problem, which is that we have a culture of, within many of these agencies and more ... I, I think the best example for this would be during the Ukraine, you know, gate with Trump and all that, with the impeachment. And I don't wanna, I'm not talking about the politics here, but the most revealing thing that happened was when the whistleblower guy, Alexander Vindman, was like, "Here you have the president departing from the policy of the United States." And I was like, "Well, um-"... let me educate you, Lieutenant Colonel.

   30. LFLex Fridman36:31

       (laughs)
9. 41:38 – 43:54

   Money

   1. SESaagar Enjeti41:38

      that happened?

   2. LFLex Fridman41:38

      What role does money play in all this? Is money a huge influence in politics, uh, Super PACs, all that kinda stuff, or is this, is this more just kind of a narrative that we play with? Because from the outsider's perspective, it seems to have, th- that seems to be one of the fundamental problems with modern politics.

   3. SESaagar Enjeti41:56

      So, I was just having this conversation, Marshall and I, M- Marshall Kosoff, my cohost on The Realignment, and it's funny because if you do enough research, we actually live in the least corrupt age in American f- uh, campaign finance. As in, it's never been more transparent.

   4. LFLex Fridman42:13

      Mm-hmm.

   5. SESaagar Enjeti42:13

      It's never been more up to the FE- FEC, uh, yeah, and all of that. If you go back and read not even 50 years ago, we're talking about Lyndon B. Johnson handing people like literally as they, he came up in his youth.... paying people for votes. Like, the boss of the, you know, the person who, like, had all the Mexican votes, like the person who had it, and he was, like, giving out briefcases for... This is, like, within people's lifetimes, who are alive in America. So, that doesn't happen anymore. But I don't like to blame everything on money, although I do think money is obviously a huge part of the problem. I actually look at it in terms of distribution. Um, which is that, how is money distributed within our soc- within our society? 'Cause I firmly-

   6. LFLex Fridman42:56

      Okay.

   7. SESaagar Enjeti42:56

      ... believe that politics, and this is gonna get complicated, but I think politics is mostly downstream from culture. And culture, obviously, I'm using economics because there's obviously a huge interplay there, but like, in terms of the equitable or lack of equitable distribution of money within our politics, what we're really pissed off about is we're like, "Our politics only seems to work for the people who have money."

   8. LFLex Fridman43:19

      Mm-hmm.

   9. SESaagar Enjeti43:20

      I think that's largely true. Um, I think that the reason why things worked differently in the past is because our economy was structured in different ways. And there's a reason that our politics today are very analogous to the last Gilded Age, because we had very similar levels, levels of ec- economic distribution and cultural problems too at the same time. I don't want to erase that, 'cause I actually think that's what's driving all of our politics right now.

   10. LFLex Fridman43:45

       So, that's interesting. So, see-

   11. SESaagar Enjeti43:46

       Yeah.

   12. LFLex Fridman43:46

       ... as one... So, in that sense, representative government is doing a pretty good job of representing-

   13. SESaagar Enjeti43:51

       Yeah, it is.

   14. LFLex Fridman43:51

       ... the state of culture and the people-

   15. SESaagar Enjeti43:52

       Yeah. (laughs)

   16. LFLex Fridman43:52

       ... and so on. Yeah.

10. 43:54 – 47:57

    UFOs

    1. LFLex Fridman43:54

       Uh, can I ask you, uh, in terms of, um, you know, the deep state and conspiracy theories-

    2. SESaagar Enjeti43:59

       Mm-hmm.

    3. LFLex Fridman43:59

       ... there's a lot of talk about... So, again, from an outsider's perspective, if I were just looking at Twitter, it seems that at least 90% of people in government are pedophiles.

    4. SESaagar Enjeti44:10

       (laughs)

    5. LFLex Fridman44:11

       90, 90 to 95%. I'm not sure what that number is.

    6. SESaagar Enjeti44:14

       Yeah. (laughs)

    7. LFLex Fridman44:15

       If I were to just look at Twitter, honestly, or YouTube, I would think most of the world is a pedophile.

    8. SESaagar Enjeti44:20

       (laughs)

    9. LFLex Fridman44:20

       I would almost feel like-

    10. SESaagar Enjeti44:22

        Right. And if-

    11. LFLex Fridman44:23

        ... who-

    12. SESaagar Enjeti44:23

        ... if you don't fully believe that, you're a pedophile. (laughs)

    13. LFLex Fridman44:25

        (laughs) Yeah.

    14. SESaagar Enjeti44:26

        Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    15. LFLex Fridman44:26

        I would start to wonder, like, "Wait, am I..."

    16. SESaagar Enjeti44:28

        Yeah.

    17. LFLex Fridman44:28

        Like, "What? Am I a pedophile too?"

    18. SESaagar Enjeti44:30

        (laughs)

    19. LFLex Fridman44:31

        Like, I'm either a communist or a pedophile, or both, I guess. Uh, yeah, that's gonna be clipped out. Thank you-

    20. SESaagar Enjeti44:36

        Yeah, yeah.

    21. LFLex Fridman44:36

        ... internet. (laughs)

    22. SESaagar Enjeti44:39

        (laughs)

    23. LFLex Fridman44:39

        I look forward to your emails.

    24. SESaagar Enjeti44:41

        Yeah.

    25. LFLex Fridman44:41

        Uh, but is there any kind of shadow conspiracy theories that, uh, give you pause? Or, um, so the flip side, the response to a lot of conspiracy theories is like, "No, the reason this happened is because it's a combination of just incompetence." So, where do you land on some of these, uh, conspiracy theories?

    26. SESaagar Enjeti45:06

        I think most conspiracy theories are wrong. Some are true, and those are spectacularly true. And if that makes sense.

    27. LFLex Fridman45:14

        Yeah.

    28. SESaagar Enjeti45:15

        Um, I-

    29. LFLex Fridman45:15

        And we don't know which ones, though.

    30. SESaagar Enjeti45:16

        I don't know which ones.
11. 47:57 – 1:01:18

    Jeffrey Epstein

    1. SESaagar Enjeti47:57

    2. LFLex Fridman47:57

       Yeah, so the-

    3. SESaagar Enjeti47:57

       Yeah, like-

    4. LFLex Fridman47:57

       ... those kinds of conspiracy theories are interesting. I mean, there's other ones for me personally that touched... Uh, so from the institution that, that means a lot to me is the MIT and, uh, you know, Jeffrey Epstein.

    5. SESaagar Enjeti48:09

       Yeah, I want to hear a lot more. I want to hear about that. I talk about Epstein a lot, so I'm like-

    6. LFLex Fridman48:13

       Oh, you do? Okay.

    7. SESaagar Enjeti48:13

       Yeah. And he... I was gonna say, in terms of conspiracy theory, that one changed my outlook, 'cause I was like-... I was like, "Whoa." Like, you have this dude who convinced some of the most successful people on earth that he was like some money manager, and it looks like it was totally fake. Like Leon Black. I mean, this is one of the richest men on Wall Street, nine billion dollar net worth. Why has he given him over a hundred million dollars between 2015 and 2019?

    8. LFLex Fridman48:42

       Yeah.

    9. SESaagar Enjeti48:42

       What's going on here? Lex Wexner, same thing. So yeah, I want to hear because you know people who met him.

    10. LFLex Fridman48:48

        Yeah.

    11. SESaagar Enjeti48:48

        And the only person I know who met him was Eric Weinstein. I've-

    12. LFLex Fridman48:50

        Yeah.

    13. SESaagar Enjeti48:50

        ... I've heard his, right.

    14. LFLex Fridman48:52

        Oh, boy.

    15. SESaagar Enjeti48:52

        (laughs)

    16. LFLex Fridman48:52

        So, I, listen, I'm still in, and Eric is fascinating and, like, Eric is full on saying that, uh-

    17. SESaagar Enjeti48:59

        Right. He was a Mossad or whatever.

    18. LFLex Fridman49:01

        ... y- yeah. There's a- a front for something-

    19. SESaagar Enjeti49:03

        He was

    20. NANarrator49:04

        Big.

    21. LFLex Fridman49:04

        ... uh, something mu- much, much bigger. Um, and there's, uh, whatever his name, Robert Maxwell, all the-

    22. SESaagar Enjeti49:10

        Mm-hmm.

    23. LFLex Fridman49:10

        ... all those stories is, it, like, you could dig deeper and deeper that Jeffrey's just like the tip of the iceberg. I just think he's an exceptionally charismatic... Listen, this isn't speaking from confidence or like-

    24. SESaagar Enjeti49:23

        Mm-hmm.

    25. LFLex Fridman49:24

        ... deep understanding of the situation. But from my speaking with people, he just seems like, at least from the side of his influence and interaction with researchers, he just seems like somebody that was exceptionally charismatic, uh, and actually took interest. He was unable to speak about interesting scientific things, but he took interest in them.

    26. SESaagar Enjeti49:51

        Mm.

    27. LFLex Fridman49:52

        So he knew how to stroke the egos of a lot of powerful people, like, well-

    28. SESaagar Enjeti49:56

        Yeah.

    29. LFLex Fridman49:56

        ... like, i- in- in different kinds of ways. I suppose, I don't know about this 'cause I don't have, like, if a really... Okay, this is- this is weird to say, but-

    30. SESaagar Enjeti50:06

        Mm-hmm.
12. 1:01:18 – 1:12:02

    Left and Right

    1. SESaagar Enjeti1:01:18

       forgotten.

    2. LFLex Fridman1:01:18

       Do you think when you go, when you dig to the core, there is a big d- there's a big gap between left and right? Is there a, is that division that, that's perceived currently real? Or are most people like center left and center right?

    3. SESaagar Enjeti1:01:33

       It's so interesting because that's such a loaded term, center left. What does that mean? Like, to you, I think what, the way you're thinking of it is, "I'm not like a..." Well, even this, like, "I'm not a radical socialist, but I'm, uh, I'm marginally left on cultural issues and economic issues." This is how we've traditionally understood things.

    4. LFLex Fridman1:01:58

       Yeah.

    5. SESaagar Enjeti1:01:58

       Um, and then when, when in popular discourse, like center right, like what does it mean to be center right? Like, I am marginally right on socially c- on conser- on social issues and marginally right on economic issues.

    6. LFLex Fridman1:02:10

       Yeah.

    7. SESaagar Enjeti1:02:10

       But that's just not politics. Like, if you look at survey data, for example, like, uh, stimulus checks, people who are against stimulus checks are conservative, right? Well, 80% of the population is for a stimulus check, so that means a sizeable number of Republicans are for stimulus checks. Same thing happens on, like, a wealth tax. Um, same thing happens on... Okay, Florida, voted for Trump 3.1%, more than Barack Obama 2008. On the same day, passes a $15 minimum wage at 67%.

    8. LFLex Fridman1:02:43

       Yeah.

    9. SESaagar Enjeti1:02:44

       So what's going on? So that's why I-

    10. LFLex Fridman1:02:46

        What is going on?

    11. SESaagar Enjeti1:02:47

        Well, that's gonna be my entire career.

    12. LFLex Fridman1:02:49

        So...

    13. SESaagar Enjeti1:02:49

        (laughs) I mean, like-

    14. LFLex Fridman1:02:50

        No, but, but it seems like-

    15. SESaagar Enjeti1:02:51

        Yeah.

    16. LFLex Fridman1:02:51

        ... uh, so that's, that's fascinating.

    17. SESaagar Enjeti1:02:53

        Yeah, yeah.

    18. LFLex Fridman1:02:53

        The conversation is different than the policies.

    19. SESaagar Enjeti1:02:57

        Well, it's different than reality, that's what I would say.

    20. LFLex Fridman1:02:59

        Okay.

    21. SESaagar Enjeti1:02:59

        Which is that the way we have to understand American politics e- today, it didn't always used to be this way, is it's almost entirely along basic... I, I would say the main divider is e- 'cause even when you talk about class, this misses it in terms of socioeconomics, it's around culture. Which is that, it's basically if you went to a four-year degree granting institution, you are part of one culture. If you didn't, you're part of another. I don't wanna erase the 20% or whatever of people who did go to f- college degree who are Republicans or vice versa, et cetera, but I'm saying on average, in terms of the median way that you feel, we're basically bifurcating along those lines. And 'cause people get upset, be like, "Oh, well, you know, there are rich people who voted for Trump." And I'm like, "Yeah, but you know, you know who they are? They're like plumbers or something." Like, they're, they're people who make $100,000 a year but they didn't go to a four-year college degree and they might live, who are in a place which is not an urban metro area. And then at the same time you have, like, a Vox writer who makes, like, 30 grand but they have a lot more cultural power than, like, the plumber. So you have to think about where exactly that line is, and I think in general that's the way that we're trending. So that's why wh- when I say, like, "What's going on? Are we divided?" Yeah. Like, but it's not left and right. I mean, w- like, and that's why I hate these labels.

    22. LFLex Fridman1:04:26

        So it's more...

    23. SESaagar Enjeti1:04:27

        It's like-

    24. LFLex Fridman1:04:27

        It's more just red and blue, like teams. They're arbitrary teams.

    25. SESaagar Enjeti1:04:30

        Yeah.

    26. LFLex Fridman1:04:31

        Are they, so how arbitrary are these teams, I guess is another-

    27. SESaagar Enjeti1:04:34

        Completely arbitrary. Yeah.

    28. LFLex Fridman1:04:36

        So, and well, you kind of imply-

    29. SESaagar Enjeti1:04:37

        Yeah.

    30. LFLex Fridman1:04:37

        ... that there's, I don't know if you're-
13. 1:12:02 – 1:37:28

    How to fix politics

    1. SESaagar Enjeti1:12:02

       and I think that econ- the reason I focus almost 99% of my public commentary on economics is because you asked an important question at the top, how do we fix this?

    2. LFLex Fridman1:12:12

       Yeah.

    3. SESaagar Enjeti1:12:12

       Well, what did I say about the stimulus checks? Stimulus checks have 80% approval rating, so that's the type of thing, if I was Joe Biden and I wanted to actually heal this country, that's the very first thing I would have done when I came into office. Same thing on, uh, when you look at anything that's gonna increase wages. Um, I, I said on the show, I was like, "Look, I think Joe Biden will have a 80% approval rating if he does two things, if he gives every American a, a $2,000 stimulus check, and gives everybody who wants a vaccine, a vaccine." That's it. It's pretty simple. 'Cause, here's the thing, I don't really like Greg Abbott that much, we have like very different politics, I'm from Texas, but my parents got vaccinated really quickly.... that means something to me. I'm like, "Listen, I don't really care about a lot of the other stuff. He got my family vaccinated." Like, that, well, f- I will forever remember that and that's how we remember the checks. This is a part of the reason why Trump almost won the election, and why, if the Republicans had been smart enough to give him a 2000... another round of checks, 100% would have won, which is that people were like, "Look, I don't really like Trump, but I got a check with his name on it, and that meant something to me and my family." I'm not saying for all the Libertarians out there that you should go and, like, endlessly spend money and buy votes.

    4. LFLex Fridman1:13:30

       Mm-hmm.

    5. SESaagar Enjeti1:13:31

       What I am saying is lean into the majoritarian positions without adding your culture war bullshit on top of it.

    6. LFLex Fridman1:13:39

       Yeah.

    7. SESaagar Enjeti1:13:40

       So, for example, what's the number one concern that AOC says after the first round of checks got out? "Oh, the checks didn't go to il- illegal immigrants." I'm like, "Are you out of your fucking mind?" Like, this is the most popular policy America has probably done in 50 years, you know, since, like, Medicare and you're inserting-

    8. LFLex Fridman1:13:58

       You go ruin it, yeah.

    9. SESaagar Enjeti1:13:58

       ... you're ruining it.

    10. LFLex Fridman1:13:59

        Yeah.

    11. SESaagar Enjeti1:14:00

        And then on the right is the same thing, which is that they'll be like, "These checks are going to, like, you know, low level blah, blah, you know, people who are lazy and don't work." I'm like, oh, there you go. You know, like, you're just playing a caricature-

    12. LFLex Fridman1:14:13

        Mm-hmm.

    13. SESaagar Enjeti1:14:13

        ... of what you are. Like, if you lean into those issues, and you gotta do it clean. This is the, this is what everybody hates about DC, which is that Biden right now is doing the $1400 checks, but he's looping it in with his COVID relief bill and all that. That's his prerogative. That's the Democrats' prerogative. They won the election, that's fine. But I'll tell you what I would have done if I was him. I would have come in and I would have said there's five United States senators who are on the record, Republicans, who say they'll vote for a $2000 check, and I would put that on the floor of the United States Senate on my f- you know, first or s- the first day possible, and I would have passed it and I would have forced those Republican senators to live up to that, vote for this bill-

    14. LFLex Fridman1:14:51

        Mm-hmm.

    15. SESaagar Enjeti1:14:52

        ... come to the Oval Office for a signing, so that the very first thing of my presidency was to say, "I'm giving you all this relief check. This ni- long national nightmare is over. Take this money. Do with it what you need. We've all suffered together." The thing about Biden is he has a portrait of FDR in his, in the Oval, which kind of bothers me because he thinks of himself as an FDR-like figure.

    16. LFLex Fridman1:15:15

        Mm-hmm.

    17. SESaagar Enjeti1:15:16

        But this is, you have to understand the majesty of FDR. We're talking about a person who passed a piece of legislation five days after he became president, and he passed 15 transformative pieces of legislation in the first 100 days. We're on day, like, 34, 35, and nothing has passed. The reconciliation bill will eventually become law, but it'll become law with no Republican votes, and again, that's fine if, but it's not fulfilling that legacy and the urgency of the action. And the mandate, which I believe that history has handed, it handed it to Trump and he fucked it up, right? He totally screwed it up. He could have remade America and made us into the greatest country ever coming out on the other side of this. He decided not to do that. I think Biden was again handed that, like a scepter almost. It's like all you have to do, all America wants is for you to raise it up high.

    18. LFLex Fridman1:16:07

        Yeah.

    19. SESaagar Enjeti1:16:07

        But he's keeping it within the realm of traditional politics. I think it's a huge mistake.

    20. LFLex Fridman1:16:11

        Why... So this is, everything you're saying-

    21. SESaagar Enjeti1:16:14

        Yeah.

    22. LFLex Fridman1:16:14

        ... makes p- perfect sense, like take- (laughs)

    23. SESaagar Enjeti1:16:15

        (laughs) Yeah.

    24. LFLex Fridman1:16:15

        Okay. It's like-

    25. SESaagar Enjeti1:16:17

        (laughs)

    26. LFLex Fridman1:16:17

        It's like, again, if the aliens showed up-

    27. SESaagar Enjeti1:16:19

        (laughing) Yeah.

    28. LFLex Fridman1:16:19

        It's like the obvious thing to do is like-

    29. SESaagar Enjeti1:16:22

        Yeah.

    30. LFLex Fridman1:16:22

        ... what's the popular thing, like 80% of Americans support this? Like, do that clean. Uh, also do it, like, with, like, grace where you're able to bring people together, not like in a political way-

Episode duration: 3:09:02