Veteran diplomat Richard Haass discusses this unprecedented month in American politics. A new HBO documentary, “Wild Wild Space,” delves into the fortunes and failures of these space entrepreneurs, and the power they hold in a race that is reshaping our world. Evan Osnos on Biden’s address to the nation, his legacy, and the dynamics of the race with just over 100 days to go until election day.
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00:00Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amman Porn Company.
00:07Here's what's coming up.
00:09An earth-shattering month in U.S. politics.
00:12We reflect on what it means for America and the world with veteran diplomat Richard Haass.
00:18And who would think of a 13-year-old as a terrorist.
00:22ISIS targets teenagers, threatening European security as the Olympics gets underway.
00:28We bring you a report on the extremist group's fresh attempts to radicalize young people
00:33online.
00:34Then, three, two, one, go.
00:40Wild Wild Space, my conversation with director Ross Kaufman and tech journalist Ashley Vance
00:46about their new documentary tracking the intense rivalry between rocket companies.
00:51Also ahead, the legacy of Joe Biden.
00:54Director Evan Osnos joins Walter Isaacson to reflect on the president's term and what's
00:59to come.
01:18Amman Porn Company is made possible by Jim Atwood and Leslie Williams, Candace King Weir,
01:25the Sylvia A. and Simon B. Poyta Programming Endowment to Fight Antisemitism, the Family
01:32Foundation of Layla and Mickey Strauss, Mark J. Bleschner, the Philemon M. D'Agostino Foundation,
01:39Seton J. Melvin, the Peter G. Peterson and Joan Gantz Cooney Fund, Charles Rosenblum,
01:47Sue and Patricia Ewan, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities,
01:53Barbara Hope Zuckerberg, Jeffrey Katz and Beth Rogers, and by contributions to your
01:58PBS station from viewers like you.
02:02Welcome to the program, everyone.
02:05I'm Bianna Goldriga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
02:08Well, tomorrow marks one month since the CNN presidential debate, a month that upended
02:13everything and may have changed the course of history.
02:17A weekend President Biden pressured by his party to step aside, an emboldened former
02:22President Trump surviving an assassination attempt and choosing a vice presidential candidate
02:27who doubles down on his MAGA appeal.
02:30An unprecedented decision by Biden to drop out of the race and a rise to the top by Vice
02:35President Kamala Harris, who's all but secured her party's nomination.
02:40It has been a whirlwind four weeks capped by Biden's address to the nation on Wednesday
02:45night.
02:46I revere this office, but I love my country more.
02:51It's been the honor of my life to serve as your president.
02:55But in the defense of democracy, which is at stake, I think it's more important than
02:59any title, but I've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new
03:04generation.
03:06A new generation, he said, in a younger generation.
03:09Well, the world has closely followed every extraordinary twist and the consequences are
03:13enormous, particularly with the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and an emboldened China
03:18and Russia. Veteran diplomat Richard Haass joins the program to digest this
03:23momentous month. And what a month it has been, Richard.
03:26It is really good to see you.
03:28I want to begin with the president's historic speech from the Oval
03:33Office. Clearly an emotional moment for him.
03:36We saw a behind the scenes photo after his speech with his family sitting there nearby.
03:41He really characterized America as being at an inflection point right now and that
03:46this election represents a choice between two different visions
03:51for the country. That is something that he's espoused for a couple of
03:55his campaigns now, and I'm assuming that's what he was going to be pushing into
04:00November. Things change now with the Harris campaign.
04:04Clearly on many issues, they are closely aligned.
04:07I'm wondering what your perception is now of that election and the
04:12difference, the stark difference between what a Harris campaign brings and what a second
04:17Trump administration would bring.
04:20Thanks, Bianna. I thought the president's speech last night was dramatic, but it wasn't
04:24melodramatic. If you look at modern American history since World War II,
04:29in every case except 2016, 2020 and now, the similarities
04:34between the major party candidates in this country was far greater than the differences.
04:39That's not the case now. You have very different views of the world.
04:43And so we'll probably talk about specifics about the war in Ukraine, about
04:48Taiwan, about what to do about Israel and Gaza.
04:51I think it reflects an even larger difference about whether the post-World War II
04:56inheritance, the alliance system, the international institutions is essentially worth
05:00keeping, which is the Biden-Harris approach.
05:03Or whether really it's worth in marriage overturning, something much more radical, which
05:08one is sensing from Donald Trump and from J.D.
05:12Vance. And then domestically, very different views of the economy, the society,
05:17the relationship between governments and individuals, for example, in the abortion space,
05:21different policies on immigration.
05:24So this is a stark choice.
05:26And as the president said, it's not on the ballot, but it is on the ballot, which is
05:30democracy. A very different view about the relationship between individuals and
05:35the government. So I do think this is an election with real, real
05:39choices, real, real consequences.
05:42By the way, not simply for the United States, but for the rest of the world.
05:45They may not get a chance to vote, but they are affected nevertheless by what happens
05:50here. And let's talk about those stakes, because you signed a letter along with some of
05:53America's most senior foreign policy leaders expressing your confidence in Kamala
05:58Harris, saying, quote, She's the best qualified person to lead our nation as commander
06:02in chief. I know you spent a lot of time, you know, President Biden very well.
06:07And we should note that shortly after that debate, you also said that he should
06:12step aside, that it was time for him to pass the baton to someone else.
06:17So that finally, three weeks later, has happened.
06:20Have you spent much time speaking with the vice president on these issues?
06:25What gives you the assurance that she is the right person?
06:29I haven't spent much time in the last few weeks, but we have spent time over what the
06:34last five years meeting and talking, both when she was a candidate for president, when
06:39she was the vice presidential candidate, and then when she was vice president.
06:43So I've met her in all incarnations, actually, even before that.
06:48So we have had any number of conversations about American foreign policy, about the
06:52world. And she's had the best training you can get, which is being vice president.
06:57She's had three and a half years up close in the Situation Room, in the Oval Office.
07:02And I actually think that's the single best opportunity to get a feel for the issues, how
07:08foreign policy is made.
07:10She's traveled around the world meeting foreign leaders.
07:14So it's hard to hard to imagine a better preparation for being president than being
07:20vice president, particularly given the last three and a half years, foreign policy has
07:24not been on the back burner, as you know, better than anybody.
07:26It's been very much on the front burner.
07:29On issues related to foreign policy, it's expected that a Harris campaign will be
07:36closely aligned with a Biden-Harris administration on issues like Ukraine, on Asia,
07:42on alliances.
07:43But I do want to ask you specifically on the issue of Israel and the Gaza war, because
07:49at least during the administration, she played a role and publicly spoke out much more
07:56passionately about the plight of Palestinians and about the death toll there and the
08:03humanitarian crisis.
08:04Some may have interpreted that.
08:05Well, listen, this is the Biden administration having her focus on the plight of the
08:10Palestinians while and being tougher on Israel, while perhaps he was there to give the
08:14bear hug to Israel.
08:16Are we reading too much into potential daylight between how these two may perceive this
08:22issue and the region itself and the Israel-U.S.
08:26relationship? Or do you think that there will be a stark difference?
08:31I think there is some daylight.
08:33In part, it's generational.
08:34Joe Biden comes from a generation obviously older.
08:37I think it's difficult for the president to disagree with Israel.
08:40For nine, 10 months now, he has patiently been advising the Israeli prime minister about
08:45what we, the United States, think is the best course of action.
08:49Let's be honest. Let's be blunt.
08:50Most of that advice has been rejected.
08:52Israel has gone about the war in Gaza in ways the United States specifically asked it not
08:57to. It has not put forward ideas for what comes after in Gaza.
09:01It's not put forth anything politically for the Palestinians in the West Bank to work
09:07with. So I think it hasn't been a success.
09:11I'll just be blunt. And I think it's not simply then support for Palestinians.
09:15I think what you also could see from the vice president as she becomes a candidate is
09:21greater willingness to differentiate herself from Israel.
09:24Doesn't mean you're anti-Israel when you do that.
09:26I'm actually prepared to have the argument.
09:28What does it mean to be pro-Israel?
09:30And if Israel's doing things that you don't think are in its own self-interest, you don't
09:33think it's in the interest of the United States, I actually believe you have the
09:37responsibility to speak out.
09:40So I would expect and I would hope that the vice president and as a candidate, and if
09:45she were to get elected as president, would be willing to stake out a more independent
09:49American position, for example, pushing publicly for what needs to happen in Gaza,
09:54pushing publicly about settlements and why they need to be stopped, pushing publicly
10:00about what ought to be the contours of a Palestinian state and the conditions that would
10:05have to be met before the United States could support it.
10:09So I actually think there's lots of area where an American, either a candidate for
10:14president or a president, should be willing to differentiate him, in this case
10:19herself, from the Israeli prime minister.
10:22And this is some of the advice that you have given to President Biden himself and you
10:26have been critical of what appeared to be at times Prime Minister Netanyahu setting the
10:30agenda and publicly airing some of the behind the scenes differences and disputes
10:36between the two allies.
10:38And you also suggested over the course of the year that it wouldn't be a bad idea for
10:43President Biden to give a speech before the Knesset.
10:45I mean, we've seen the prime minister an unprecedented number of times now, four times
10:50speaking for a joint session of Congress.
10:52Would you advise the vice president on the campaign trail perhaps to travel to Israel
10:58and to address the Knesset?
11:01I would probably have to think about it, but my guess beyond that might be inappropriate
11:05as a candidate for president.
11:07It's not exactly clear who you're speaking for.
11:09Again, I think I've thought all along the president should visit Israel.
11:14I like the idea of his taking a page out of Bibi Netanyahu's book.
11:18As you say, the Israeli prime minister's addressed Congress four times.
11:23I was not particularly thrilled with yesterday's address, both what he said and
11:28didn't. But I like the idea of a president of the United States speaking over the head of
11:31this Israeli government, which is the most right wing government in Israel's history,
11:35speaking directly to the Israeli people about what it is we would like to see and why.
11:41And I think if she were elected, I think, yes, at some point I would love to see a
11:45President Harris go to Israel and, if you will, speak truth to power.
11:49I'd say the same thing if Donald Trump were elected.
11:51Again, the measure of being pro-Israel is not to give Israel our unconditional support.
11:56That's not what an alliance is based on.
11:58We ought to urge them privately to either do or not to do things.
12:02Here are our preferences of why.
12:04And if Israel won't take our advice, then I think we have to be prepared to publicly
12:09react with words or possibly independent policies of our own.
12:14Yeah, and it's important to emphasize that Prime Minister Netanyahu is extremely
12:19unpopular right now among Israelis.
12:22Three quarters of Israelis would like to see him leave office sooner rather than later.
12:27And I think it's pretty fair to say that he probably wouldn't have received that kind of
12:32reaction and response speaking before the Knesset that he said that he received
12:36speaking before Congress.
12:38Let me talk about some of the other issues that a Harris campaign and a Harris
12:43administration would have in her inbox, as you like to say, because clearly the only
12:49issue is the issues exceed far beyond the war in Gaza.
12:52She's going to be inheriting a war in Ukraine.
12:55Obviously, a lot of concern and focus on China and Taiwan.
12:59There's Latin America. There's the border crisis.
13:01There's a lot going on.
13:02So what would be some of her top priorities?
13:07Well, let's just very quickly go through them, I think, with Ukraine, a very strong
13:10statement of long term American military support for Ukraine.
13:15Russian aggression should should not succeed.
13:19At the same time, I don't think it's realistic to say that our definition of success is
13:23that Ukraine is going to militarily liberate all the lands that are rightfully theirs,
13:29Crimea and the east.
13:30I think there needs to be diplomacy, perhaps some type of an armistice or interim
13:35ceasefire. We've seen it in other conflicts in other parts of the world.
13:39So I would hope that conversation would begin privately with Ukraine at some point in
13:44in public. So I would like to think 2025 or 2026, there could be a moment for finally
13:50some diplomacy with Ukraine.
13:53And I think it'll only happen when Russia is persuaded that the costs of continuing the
13:57war are great and more war will not work to Russia's benefit.
14:02I think Taiwan, we've got to make clear that we're there to defend them.
14:05What's called strategic clarity.
14:07The president, President Trump, the other day, excuse me, talked about the United States
14:11as simply an insurance company for Taiwan.
14:14No, we have a real strategic partnership with Taiwan.
14:18And I think China needs to understand that they do not have a green light to use
14:22aggression against Taiwan, as The Wall Street Journal pointed out the other day.
14:26That's the end of the American alliance system that has worked to keep order and peace
14:31in what's arguably the most important part of the world going into the 21st century,
14:36which is the Asia Pacific.
14:39Yes, we've got to do more about our border.
14:42It's got to be much more closed.
14:44But we've also got to have mechanisms for dealing with legitimate asylum cases, for
14:49dealing with legal immigration.
14:51The question is after the election, whether there's the possibility of teeing up again
14:56what what was teed up a few months ago, which is the possibility of some type of
15:00comprehensive, comprehensive approach.
15:04There's no shortage of foreign policy issues, as you say, that will pile up high in the
15:08inbox. And then another Trump administration inbox would have its own policies.
15:15And we've seen them laid out explicitly.
15:17The former president has been very vocal about what another term would look like.
15:22This one would be he'd be a bit more comfortable in the job.
15:25He's had experience and they would be really in lockstep, I would imagine, with his last
15:32term in the sense that he is very he's dubious about alliances.
15:37He's very transactional.
15:39What we heard through the Republican convention was all about peace through strength and
15:43an argument that the difference between these two administrations is that these wars
15:48never occurred in a Trump administration.
15:51What what priorities would you have in a Trump administration that we need to focus on
15:57the most that you're most concerned about?
16:01What I'm most concerned about is backing off from support for Ukraine.
16:06What I would hope is that the Trump administration would, again, support Ukraine as a
16:11way of teeing up negotiations, not war for the purpose of war, but war for the purposes
16:18of setting up peace and challenge our Russia.
16:21Mr. Trump brags about his relationship with Vladimir Putin.
16:24Well, here's a time to test it, to basically say, we call upon you to to stand down, to
16:31accept to accept an interim ceasefire.
16:34Russia has dreams for Ukraine that will not be realized.
16:37So I what I'm hoping is he pushes back against Putin.
16:41I'd like the president Trump to rethink his willingness to move away from Taiwan that he
16:46communicated in the long Bloomberg interview the other day.
16:50I would hope he would not give Israel unconditional support.
16:53I'm not sure it's in Israel's interest.
16:55It's certainly not in in ours.
16:58I think he's well positioned to have a stronger position towards the border.
17:02That doesn't include the idea of massive deportations.
17:05That's a that's not nonstarter.
17:08I think the big issue for Donald Trump, though, is whether his relationship with the world
17:11and you were getting at it. To what extent does he strengthen alliances?
17:16Yes, get more from our allies, particularly in Europe, but also make clear what we're
17:20prepared to do and not simply see everybody through an economic lens.
17:24What worries me more than anything is his approach to the world is not geopolitical,
17:28but it's economic. We put we put tariffs on everybody and we're essentially we're willing
17:34to be bought off if we get what we want at the trade front and we're willing to
17:38compromise on geopolitical concerns.
17:41I would hope that would not come to pass during a second Trump presidency.
17:45Finally, Richard, I do want to ask you about what we heard from President Biden this
17:48week and a very ambitious list of things that he still wants to achieve over the
17:54past the next six months of his lame duck term, as we would describe it.
18:00If there was one initiative that you think probably has the best chance of succeeding,
18:06given everything that he laid out from the cancer moonshot to a ceasefire deal to
18:10resolution in Ukraine and reforms to the U.S.
18:15Supreme Court, which one do you think it would be?
18:18As much as I like reforms to the Supreme Court, I don't think that's going to happen.
18:24He does have, by the way, as you said, six months, that's 12, 13 percent of his term.
18:28So this is a meaningful amount of time.
18:30I think the two issues we've been talking about, I'd like to see a real push for a
18:36diplomatic initiative on Ukraine.
18:38I'd like to see stronger support for Taiwan.
18:42And I'd like to see him articulate views for both the future of Gaza and the future of
18:48the Israeli-Palestinian relationship writ large.
18:51Let's get those ideas on the record.
18:53Let's get these new ideas out there to shape the conversation moving forward.
18:57Yeah, and to really cement his legacy as well.
19:00Richard Haass, thank you so much for joining us.
19:04Thanks again for having me.
19:06And now to Paris, where millions of visitors and thousands of athletes have flocked for
19:10the Summer Olympic Games.
19:12But the great unknown for organizers is the potential risk of protests, cyber attacks
19:17and terrorism.
19:18And ISIS, once a defeated terror group, is now back and radicalizing teenagers on social
19:24media. Nick Pittenwalsh has this report.
19:28Once battered, but now flourishing in the shadows, ISIS seemed crushed in Syria.
19:34But ahead of the French Olympics, extremism experts are seeing a troubling resurgence.
19:42One disturbingly targeting teenagers, using social media platforms like TikTok to recruit.
19:48According to a landmark study by researcher Peter Newman, nearly two thirds of ISIS related
19:53arrests in Europe in the past nine months have been of teenagers.
19:58We're also seeing groups like ISK, Islamic State Khorasan, specifically targeting young
20:05teenagers. And a lot of these young teenagers, they may not be very useful.
20:09They may mess up. They may change their mind.
20:12But at the end of the day, some of them may actually be quite useful, not least because
20:17they are less suspicious.
20:19Who would think of a 13 year old as a terrorist?
20:22This study collates public data on the arrests, some startling.
20:27Two teens aged 16 and 18 arrested in April and May for plots on the Olympics, one with
20:32a bomb belt. A 14 year old on a mall, a 15 year old on a synagogue and a 15 and 18 year
20:38old plotting together.
20:40Germany, too, made arrests of an 18 year old for a knife attack plot and also three teens
20:45aged 15, 15 and 16 for an ISIS inspired plot.
20:49So ISK is by far the most ambitious and aggressive part of ISIS right now.
20:56They are trying to target young people on the Internet with a lot of social media
21:01outreach. We've seen a lot of platforms like TikTok especially attracting younger
21:07people, teenagers, young teenagers, almost through algorithmic amplification, drawing
21:14them into bubbles.
21:16TikTok said they stand against violent extremism and take down 98 percent of terror
21:20promoting content before it's reported to them.
21:25The new reach of ISIS's remnants emerges as their latest offshoot.
21:29ISIS-K, originally based in Afghanistan, becomes increasingly focused on the West and
21:34powerful in nearby Turkey.
21:36A UK security source telling CNN the so-called directed terror threat plots instructed by
21:42remote from afar have become a greater concern over the last 18 months, with ISIS-K the
21:47most potent group under scrutiny.
21:50ISIS-K reappeared violently in Istanbul earlier this year with this brutal attack on a
21:55Catholic church and Turkish court documents obtained by CNN portray a vast network of
22:01ISIS-K radicals in the city.
22:03Some detainees from a plot to attack the Swedish consulate describe how they got
22:07orders from ISIS-K's external operations chief, known only as Rustam, hiding in the
22:13Pakistan-Afghanistan border area.
22:16One said how Rustam deletes his telegram messaging accounts every 15 to 20 days as a
22:21precaution after he would contact me with another username.
22:26Turkish police have launched a vast wave of raids against ISIS-K, one shown here.
22:32Last year alone, saying 426 ISIS suspects were arrested in 122 operations.
22:40Yet ISIS-K's ambition grows with experts fearing they seek to make their brutal name and
22:46that the red lights of terror are blinking again.
22:50Our thanks to Nick Payton-Walsh reporting there.
22:52Now, just above our heads, a new space race is underway, but it's no longer superpowers
22:57leading the charge. Now, a handful of tech companies and billionaires are vying for their
23:02piece of the sky, launching thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit.
23:07Those satellites impact everything from GPS and package delivery to weather tracking and
23:13intelligence gathering.
23:14A new HBO documentary, Wild Wild Space, delves into the fortunes and failures of these space
23:20pioneers and the power they hold in a race that is reshaping our world.
23:25Five, four, three, two, one, go.
23:38You've heard about the billionaire space race.
23:42This isn't that movie. We're in the midst of a revolution in space.
23:47It's like the Wild West.
23:49I spoke with Ross Kaufman, the director of the film, and Ashley Vance, the author of the
23:53book that inspired it and a tech journalist for Bloomberg.
23:57Take a listen. Ross and Ashley, thank you so much for joining the program.
24:01What a fun film.
24:02Wild Wild Space, obviously a play on the word Wild Wild West.
24:07And really, you've opened viewers up to a new frontier, and that is space exploration,
24:12particularly in a private sector.
24:14And Ashley, this is an industry you've been covering so closely for many years, and it's
24:19fascinating to see how much it's grown just exponentially over just the last few years
24:24with regards to technology, innovation, finance, investment and real interest.
24:30And let's just start with the number of satellites that we saw in space, because prior to
24:342020, there were about twenty five hundred.
24:36That is growing now more than doubled.
24:38And you're anticipating that that will continue to grow exponentially.
24:42How does that impact the everyday American, everyday human on planet Earth?
24:47Well, it's a it's just a huge change, you know, for 50 or 60 years, space really was
24:53governed by a handful of governments.
24:55They moved relatively slowly.
24:58It was quite controlled.
24:59Wealthy people in the past and corporations had tried to commercialize space and failed
25:06over the last 20 years.
25:07And then and then, as you mentioned, in the last five years, this all suddenly started to
25:11click. And so with the book and the film, I just wanted to you know, I would say they're
25:16both they're both funny.
25:18They're they're generally optimistic in a lot of ways.
25:22But I wanted people to be aware that this regime that had been in place for decades
25:27where governments controlled space has changed and companies now control space.
25:31And this is going to have a big deal for the rest of us.
25:34People hear about Starlink all the time, which is SpaceX's Internet satellite service
25:39delivering high speed Internet all over the world.
25:41We're imaging our planet like never before.
25:44And so there's this incredible amount of activity in space.
25:47It has nothing to do with space tourism, going to Mars, going to the moon.
25:51It's building a business right above us.
25:53And so, you know, this is to me, it's going to impact all our lives because this is the
25:58next step of our modern infrastructure being created right above our heads.
26:02Yeah. And it's impacting everyday life, as you see.
26:04But so much of the film and what makes the film work are these rich characters and these
26:09entrepreneurs who were friends, who were rivals, who have this vision, their own
26:15visions. But a lot of this is a corroboration, a collaboration between these
26:21visionaries and these also businessmen turned businessmen.
26:25And Ross, I want to let's talk about these characters.
26:28They include Chris Kemp, who was the founder and CEO of Astro Space.
26:31Peter Beck is the founder and CEO of Rocket Lab.
26:34Will Marshall, the co-founder and CEO of Planet Labs.
26:37And Pete Worden, a retired U.S.
26:40Air Force general. You could make a film about each of these individuals on their own.
26:45But what surprised you the most when you learned more about their backgrounds and about
26:53their visions? I mean, first of all, there are several amazing characters to choose from.
27:00Ashley's book covers the whole world and a lot of these entrepreneurs who are, you know,
27:06working in the space.
27:07So at a certain point, we had to really sort of cut down and figure out, all right, who
27:12are we going to choose? Who are we going to focus on?
27:15And at a certain point, I felt that there was this idea of a found family, which I love.
27:22And a lot of my films sort of are end up being about a found family.
27:27And where Pete Worden is this kind of father figure to these young, young entrepreneurs
27:35and at a certain point, just engineers, young scientists.
27:40And Pete Worden found them in NASA or brought them into NASA.
27:44Yeah. Let's play a clip featuring one of these characters, Chris Kemp.
27:48This is our last day in our launch window.
27:52We're going to get it this time.
27:58It's going to happen. It's going to happen.
28:00I think so, too. Counting down.
28:03Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, go.
28:22What's fascinating, Ashley, is that so much of the success of these companies, in fact,
28:30all of their success is based on just a few seconds of all of their hard work, years of
28:35collaboration, years of investment.
28:39It's all about these launches and whether or not they are proven to be a success.
28:43And even watching this, I was watching it with my 12 year old.
28:46It was sort of a nail biter.
28:47I was like, do you think it'll do you think it'll launch?
28:48You think it'll be a success? Like, I don't know.
28:50And at some point they all have their own successes.
28:53But it is interesting, as you chronicle in the book and as we see in the film, they all
28:58have their peaks and valleys.
29:00So, you know, it ebbs and flows in terms of success.
29:03And I guess that's the that's the model, right?
29:06It's a big risk that comes with a lot of opportunity, but a lot of potential loss, too.
29:12Absolutely. I mean, it was one of the joys of making this movie is I think most people
29:17anytime we've seen a space story historically, it's our it's our best and brightest.
29:22And maybe there's a problem and it's being solved by these, you know, a room full of
29:26a thousand MIT PhDs.
29:30It tends to be these glorious affairs.
29:32And what I wanted to show, what we wanted to show in this film is what it looks like
29:37day to day. I mean, it is the most binary industry you could be in.
29:42Your product either works or it blows up in front of everybody else.
29:47And there's a lot of struggle that goes into that.
29:49That clip with Astra, you know, that was that was one of the sort of few moments where
29:54everything works right.
29:55And everything on these rockets has to work every time or your business evaporates.
30:00Ross, I'm wondering, you know, as opposed to Ashley, who spent a lot of time focusing
30:04on this specific area for you, I would imagine that that was not the case.
30:09What did you learn coming out of this project in the sense that the takeaway for you
30:16is not that this is just an investment, I would imagine, in billion dollar companies,
30:20but but it's also an investment in the future and how it impacts our lives here on
30:25Earth? Absolutely.
30:28I was. Kind of.
30:33Taken by the idea that no one we don't know about this area of space right now, low
30:39Earth orbit has so much.
30:42Potential, but it also is fraught with issues and difficulties like we're dealing with
30:49down here on Earth, explain low Earth orbit, because that's where all of this takes
30:53place. Go ahead, Ashley.
30:57This is part of the heart of what we're trying to talk about is, again, people focus so
31:01much on space tourism and all these other things, but low Earth orbit is where the
31:05action is. That's where the money is.
31:06It's about 120 miles.
31:09It starts 120 miles up from the surface of Earth.
31:12It's really where most of our satellites go.
31:14So most of our communications infrastructure, imaging science is taking place in that
31:20area. I think of it as kind of like a computing shell that's surrounding the planet.
31:24And so, yes, that that's the heart of what we're looking at in this film.
31:28And Ross, continue your thought about the perils and the rewards of what's taking place
31:33here in low Earth orbit.
31:35Yeah, there's so much at stake and it really is controlled by a few.
31:42Of course, there's Elon Musk, but there are these satellite companies that are looking
31:47down on us every day.
31:48Now, they can be doing some amazing work and some work that helps the planet.
31:54They can look at the environment.
31:56They can really do incredible things.
32:00But that also on the flip side, there's privacy issues.
32:04And there's huge there.
32:08There's such a responsibility for these private individuals to hopefully make the right
32:14decisions and do the right thing.
32:16But it's capitalism, you know, and a lot of times it comes down to the bottom line.
32:21And you sort of hinted at Elon Musk earlier.
32:25Let's just go there now.
32:27Ashley, you wrote a book, one of the first Musk's biographies.
32:33It's funny how you talk about it in the film and Elon's reaction to that.
32:38You still communicate, though, so I'm not I'm not sure what your relationship is at
32:44this point. But without taking away any credit that he really deserves about the
32:49investment that he made in this field, in particular with Starlink and the impact that
32:56those satellites have had around the world.
32:59And we've come to know them in our vernacular covering the war in Ukraine, for
33:03example. It does raise the question of how much power can one man have?
33:08And is this sort of a benevolent dictatorship that can be turned off and on regarding
33:14his control over these satellites and having the capability that no government,
33:19including the United States, really has?
33:22Yeah, I mean, we're in we're in a new era.
33:24You mentioned earlier going from twenty five hundred satellites in twenty twenty.
33:28We just crossed over ten thousand, you know, so this this number has been doubling
33:33almost every year. SpaceX is the largest driver of this huge increase in the number of
33:39satellites. Starlink has thousands upon thousands of satellites now and is the world's
33:44biggest satellite company.
33:46You know, to your point, that a lot of this is the function of of Elon and SpaceX moving
33:51very quickly and doing what other people had only dreamed of.
33:54The U.S. government has spent decades hoping to make a satellite Internet system and
34:00just kind of failed to do it.
34:02But now we find ourselves in this spot where this this one individual, this one very
34:07mercurial individual and this one company that really has no rival in space at the
34:13moment. There are some coming.
34:15And so, you know, I think this issue will lessen over time.
34:18But but for right now, if Elon wants Starlink working in Ukraine, he can have that if
34:24he wants to turn it off in different regions, as he has done in the past, he can do
34:27that. And there really is there's no backstop that the European government has, even the
34:32Chinese government has or the U.S.
34:34And, you know, I think we see this pattern repeating as as billionaires take on more
34:40and more of the the role that maybe governments had in the past.
34:44Like today, the world's largest AI supercomputers are not being built by governments.
34:49They're being built by companies like OpenAI and Microsoft and Google.
34:52And so, you know, this is kind of par for the course, I think, in this this modern era.
34:56Yeah. And governments, including our own here in the States, are contracting out to these
35:00companies. I mean, that's how that that's how they gain luster and momentum and
35:04investment is when they can win that big government contract.
35:07Quite a difference from where things were a few decades ago.
35:11Let me ask you, Ross, about something else that we've become very familiar with,
35:15especially in regards to covering wars now, and that is open source reporting.
35:19And a lot of that is thanks to these satellite images.
35:23Planet Labs is one of the companies that's featured heavily in this film, and that's
35:27their area of focus in particular.
35:29Let's show a clip and then talk about it.
35:32Planet was the very first company ever to be able to take photos of every spot on Earth
35:38every day. And this is useful for a lot of things.
35:41You can gather environmental data around things like deforestation, land use and
35:47drought, and then some very practical things like helping a farmer decide when to
35:54harvest their crops.
35:55This was a company and Will Marshall, who was the co-founder and CEO of Planet Labs,
36:00this was a company in watching this film, Ross, where I saw instantly the real life
36:05impact that a company like this has on our everyday life here, whether it's in
36:11covering wars, whether it's covering climate.
36:14I'm wondering if that was sort of the takeaway you had.
36:16And wow, this isn't even something that we have to imagine in the future.
36:20This is already happening right now.
36:23Absolutely. I was just taken with not only what is happening with the satellite
36:31industry and what Will Marshall and Robbie Shinglen Planet Labs are doing, but the
36:36fact that this is controlled by a couple of very kind of genius scientists, but also in
36:49the beginning, they're well-meaning.
36:50They're kind of space hippies.
36:52And as the film progresses, we understand that there's more to it.
36:58And it's very complicated.
37:00They have a huge amount of responsibility.
37:03And, you know, the future is in the hands of these young entrepreneurs.
37:11And I kind of liken it to the Internet.
37:14You know, things have gone awry in a way with the Internet, with social media.
37:20And all of this really is uncharted territory with regards to what happens on low Earth
37:24orbit in space as well.
37:27So maybe there are some lessons to be learned.
37:29But it is a fun film to watch, a wild ride.
37:31And I have to say it brings out the best in you in terms of just entrepreneurship and
37:35feeling excitement to watch these launches happen.
37:40So thank you so much, Ross and Ashley.
37:42We appreciate the time.
37:44Thank you for having us.
37:47The HBO original documentary film Wild Wild Space is available to stream now on Max.
37:53And now returning to our top story, Joe Biden's farewell to the Oval Office.
37:58The New Yorker staff writer Evan Osnos calls Biden's decision to step aside an act of
38:03selflessness. He joined Walter Isaacson to discuss the president's address to the nation,
38:08his legacy and the dynamics of the race with just over 100 days to go until Election Day.
38:15Thank you, Bianna. And Evan Osnos, welcome back to the show.
38:19Thanks for having me.
38:20So what did you think of President Biden's speech earlier this week explaining why he
38:25was dropping out of the race?
38:28Just on a purely historical level, it was a landmark moment.
38:32We haven't had one of these, as you know, in more than half a century, a president who
38:36gets up and says, I'm actually not going to run for reelection.
38:41So on it's just on that basis, it was a remarkable thing to watch on a human level.
38:48It was also fascinating to see this person, this man wrestling in in clear ways with what
38:55it is that he's done. I don't think, Walter, that
38:58he is at peace with this decision.
39:00He may never be entirely at peace with this choice.
39:03But I think he is also clear that the political requirements, the political judgment left
39:10him no option but to make this change.
39:14And in that way, we're watching something play out on the public stage that is in its
39:20own way kind of intimate.
39:22And I was quite struck by that.
39:25You talk about the political judgment forced him into this.
39:29But you saw that speech.
39:31It was clear he's a lion in winter, very much in winter.
39:35And he didn't talk about the real issue here.
39:38He didn't. Could he have said something like, and you know, in the past few months, past
39:44year, recently, I've slowed down a bit.
39:46We're all getting older. It's time for a younger generation to come along.
39:51Yeah, that was a it was a in its way, a kind of conspicuous omission.
39:56He just couldn't bring himself to talk about the reality of his physical limitations.
40:03I think this is an indication of a blind spot.
40:05And it's been a piece of him over the course of the last two years.
40:10But it goes back a long way.
40:11You know, I remember asking him for the first time probably a decade ago about how he
40:17would eventually know when it was time to retire.
40:19Back then, of course, he was just 71.
40:21And he said he answered the question by saying, I once encouraged my father to retire.
40:28And I think now it was a mistake.
40:30He said, I think he could have kept working.
40:32It was an interesting that was where his mind went to that question.
40:35He's always been alert to the sense that he can somehow defy the expectations.
40:41But I think when he gave this speech, he wasn't yet ready.
40:45You could see it on his face, even though in his voice it was soft.
40:48It was diminished. It was raspy.
40:51He couldn't quite address it head on.
40:53And so he framed it in the language of protecting democracy, passing the baton to a new
40:58generation. The only moment of recognition to this question of age was when he said it's
41:03time for new voices, fresher voices and, yes, younger voices.
41:07Do you think that there's been a cover up in ways from his age and even people like
41:13yourself in Washington who see him every now and then?
41:16I mean, why didn't we know more about this?
41:19You know, I sometimes think that it's less about a cover up than it was about an
41:23accumulation of events and anxieties in the sense that you had this period in which he
41:31was clearly getting criticized from the right about the possibility that he was
41:38declining. And so the White House went into a defensive crouch about those kinds of
41:43criticisms. They said, well, these are bad faith.
41:47And they didn't take them seriously.
41:49It was kind of easy to dismiss them when they were coming from the fringes of the
41:52Internet. The reality was that they were beginning to limit the kinds of ways in which
41:58he would expose himself to criticism, taking, for instance, the shorter staircase down
42:04Air Force One, avoiding events that might make him look weak.
42:09But it wasn't as if there were people in the White House who thought, well, we have to
42:14keep this guy covered up as far as we know now.
42:17And I think this is a credible question that is worthy of more journalism.
42:20But it would have been odd for them to push for a debate as early as they did to pursue
42:27that kind of encounter if they thought he wasn't capable of it.
42:30On the contrary, they thought putting him on that stage opposite Donald Trump was going
42:35to redound to Biden's benefit.
42:36And, of course, they were wrong.
42:38And I think a whole lot of people were shocked by what they saw on that debate stage.
42:43You know, I was reading your book that came out right when he was taking office as a
42:49president. And you mentioned his speech at the 2008 Democratic Convention.
42:56And he says, failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is
43:02unforgivable.
43:03That's a pretty strong thing.
43:05Does that help explain why he took so much time to figure out that he had to give up
43:10the reins of power?
43:12Yeah, you're absolutely right.
43:13I've been thinking of that line a lot recently, that for him is a kind of central
43:19mantra of his life.
43:21It had become this, you know, it could sound like it's just a political model.
43:26But for him, it had all of this very deep personal resonance because, of course, he had
43:30been through these tragedies in his personal life, in his political life.
43:34And his solution to them in a way that almost like a philosophical solution was to say
43:41that surrender is a moral sin.
43:44You simply cannot give in.
43:46And that when you are pressed, when you are put on the defensive, that's a signal that
43:51you're supposed to drive harder.
43:53And so in some ways, when this moment arrived, particularly even after the debate, when
43:58he was so knocked back further than he probably had been since any moment that he
44:04entered politics in half a century, his instinct was to dig in.
44:10It was to say, no, the very suggestion of surrender is wrong.
44:14And I think that in some ways delayed and slowed his capacity to recognize the
44:19political fact that his path was closing.
44:22And that explains, I think, part of the reason why it took so long.
44:25The speech showed him really as a lion in winter.
44:28It's in the older, raspy voice.
44:33When do you think that decline started to happen?
44:38Was in the last few months?
44:39Was it in the past year?
44:42The reporting on this is beginning to clarify some of the things that have happened.
44:47I think it's clear that you began to get a greater drumbeat of concern from people who
44:53would encounter the president over the last few months, meaning let's call it five, six
44:59months. I don't know.
45:00And I think this is a subject that history will want to dig into.
45:05But, you know, I think there were ways in which he was up and down.
45:09I'll just give you an interesting kind of coincidental fact.
45:12I saw him last on January 17th of this year.
45:16And it just turns out that was the day when he also saw his neurologist for the last
45:20time, according to the White House.
45:22And so on that day, the person that we saw was kind of more or less consistent with the
45:26one we saw on the State of the Union Day, meaning he was clearly physically slower.
45:31His voice was weaker, clotted, as I described it in The New Yorker.
45:36But his answers to the questions were essentially the same kinds of answers I would
45:40have gotten from him a few years earlier.
45:42So I think there is a way in which this variability in his performance became more
45:48pronounced over the course of the last few months, I'm guessing.
45:52And I think that's part of how you get to where we are today.
45:56He said that the idea, the ideal of America lies in our hands, your hands, he was
46:02saying. What does he mean by that?
46:04Or is that just some trope that his speechwriters gave him?
46:08Well, in some ways, I feel as if this moment, this period in which he is accepting,
46:14accommodating the reality that his electoral future is closing, you know, that that has
46:21relieved some of the pressure around this question of what will it take to save
46:26democracy? Because it's no longer consumed by the very real incredible issue of is his
46:31age preventing Democrats from prevent from stopping Donald Trump from coming back to
46:36the office? It's now really a question of whether voters will choose to put Donald
46:41Trump back in office or whether they will choose another path.
46:45It struck me as he was giving that speech that it was almost like a moment of delivery.
46:49He's delivering, in a sense, the baton to his successor, to Kamala Harris.
46:56But he's also saying to the voters, delivering the very reality that it is now on our
47:02shoulders. It is no longer a question of whether Joe Biden is going to step aside,
47:07whether he's blocking the path of new talent.
47:09That matter is closed.
47:11It really now is a question of, as he sometimes says, what kind of country do we want to
47:15be? Do we want to be Donald Trump's country or do we want to be another thing?
47:20And I think that feels feels right to me as a matter of decision making.
47:26Why didn't he spend more time extolling Vice President Harris?
47:30It's a good question. I think he, as he put it, was, as he described her, she's strong,
47:36she's capable.
47:38What I heard in him, Walter, was the fact that I think he's still consumed a bit by the
47:45sheer drama of his own of his own decision to step back.
47:50It is just so consuming as a fact.
47:54I'm not sure that he's quite prepared yet to be a muscular voice on the national stage
48:00on her behalf.
48:02I'm not sure if that's about misgivings about her capacity.
48:04I'm not sure it is. I don't think he would have stepped aside and endorsed her if he
48:08thought that it was a path to failure for Democrats.
48:12But I spoke to somebody who was on that very first call that he made with senior staff
48:18in the White House just a few minutes before it went public.
48:21And I said, what was his mood like?
48:23What was he what did he do?
48:25What did he say?
48:27And this person told me, you know, he he really just read his letter word for word.
48:32He was not in a position to give a pep rally, to buck us up.
48:37It was very somber.
48:38And I think he is a man really grappling with that most of all now.
48:45Did he help get delegates to support Vice President Harris?
48:50Did he rally him?
48:51And did he even think, on the other hand, of maybe not making an endorsement and
48:56letting the process be more open?
48:58I think the truth is that the delegates have surged around Kamala Harris mostly because
49:03of the efforts on her part and on people around her who have wanted her to succeed.
49:10It has not been largely a Joe Biden project.
49:14But there has been this and I think he has been as surprised as any of us.
49:19This surge of enthusiasm, almost as if this process has been uncorked and all of this
49:25years of pent up demoralization and frustration on the part of Democratic voters,
49:30particularly young voters, has come to the surface.
49:33So, no, he has not been the prime mover behind this.
49:37This has really been a reflection of something, a piece of dark matter in politics that
49:43hadn't yet been described, this idea that there were people who want to be enthusiastic
49:48about a Democratic candidate and hadn't had the opportunity over the last two years.
49:52And now you're seeing that in pretty dramatic fashion.
49:56What do you think his legacy will be in policy terms in particular?
50:01I think that there is an indelible, concrete legacy that you cannot dispute.
50:06The fact that he has done things like pass legislation that will have generations of
50:11benefit when it comes to climate change or prescription drug costs or, in a sense,
50:17articulating the argument against authoritarianism at home and abroad.
50:22Those are real things and they won't ultimately depend on what happens over the course of
50:26the next 105 days.
50:28But the fact is his ultimate legacy, the way that history will describe him, Bill Clinton
50:33sometimes says you only get one sentence for your presidency in history.
50:39That will depend on if he succeeds in having a Democrat prevent Donald Trump from coming
50:46back to office.
50:47He has defined for himself the project of protecting democracy.
50:51And we don't yet know if he waited so long that that became impossible.
50:56We'll have to see whether Kamala Harris and who she chooses as a running mate are
51:00capable of picking up that baton in this extraordinarily short period of time and
51:07succeeding on the project that he started.
51:09You write about how Biden had a sobering case for moral decency, for reasonableness.
51:15These are words you've used before, and that he might offer us some solace, a language
51:21of healing. I thought a few years ago when Biden became president that maybe the poison
51:27and the partisanship would leach a bit out of the system.
51:30He's somebody who's worked across the aisle.
51:33He was just a, you know, a unthreatening, unintimidating person.
51:38Why isn't that more of his legacy that he was able?
51:41Why wasn't he able to calm down some of these, the divisiveness in our society?
51:47You know, in some ways, he's a hard man to hate, you would think.
51:51He's a person who is a sort of a moderate by nature, by temperament.
51:56As he said himself after about a year in office, he said, I'll be honest with you, I
52:00was surprised I was wrong.
52:02He said that I thought that Republicans, once Donald Trump had left the stage, would
52:08come to their senses, as he said, that in some ways the fever would break.
52:11That didn't happen. In fact, he became a kind of unlikely target of this very intense
52:16scorn. And I think there's an interesting way in which he never reciprocated.
52:24You never saw him become a sort of sneering, bitter, taunting politician.
52:32That's not his tone. You know, he would get severe sometimes.
52:35He would talk about the grave threat to democracy that he thought in Donald Trump.
52:39And he certainly has a profound personal dislike for Trump.
52:42But you didn't see him take on some of the body language of a Marjorie Taylor Greene or
52:47a kind of the language of Matt Gaetz, God knows.
52:50But I think that in the end, the forces that drive our politics into this desiccated,
52:58toxic form that he is contending with are larger than any one person.
53:03They're larger than him.
53:04And it was never a reality.
53:06It was never a possibility that he could somehow individually repair that.
53:11I think that his, in a way, his fluency in the language of suffering and healing was
53:18helpful in a particular case, which was the pandemic.
53:23This was a country that was literally grieving.
53:25I mean, just grieving the sheer number of lives lost.
53:28And the fact that he knew that in a way that a lot of presidents in the modern age don't
53:33have that much familiarity with personal suffering is and was useful.
53:41But it was by no means the end of the story.
53:44Will he or should he speak at the Democratic convention and out on the campaign trail?
53:51I think he will to some degree.
53:53I think you'll see him out on the campaign trail, particularly in places where he can be
53:58politically helpful.
53:59Let's remember, one of the key questions here is going to be whether Kamala Harris can
54:03maintain those crucial states in the upper Midwest, whether she can hold on to the so
54:08called blue wall of Pennsylvania and Michigan, Wisconsin.
54:12He is at home in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and you may well see him out there
54:16trying to do some of that work.
54:18But it is an inescapable fact that we are seeing a man now in the final chapter of his
54:23political career.
54:25And I think that one of the theories has been that he could serve in effect at the
54:31convention as a kind of eminence grise, a non-executive chairman.
54:35There may be a moment of coalescence, of gratitude to him for stepping aside.
54:41But there's no question now, Walter, we are into a different phase.
54:45And politics is an unsentimental business.
54:48People move on extremely fast.
54:50And he is already now shifting into the rearview mirror.
54:55And I'll tell you, one person who knows that is Joe Biden.
54:59It's part of the reason why I think he's held on so, so avidly for so long.
55:04Evan Osnos, thank you so much for joining us.
55:08My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
55:11And finally, as elite athletes and excited fans flock to the Paris Olympics this week,
55:16displaced Palestinians in Jabalia, Gaza, organized a football tournament of their own in
55:22the UNRWA school that they're taking refuge in.
55:24Boys and men of all ages joining together in the midst of war, their families cheering
55:29from the sidelines and the balconies above.
55:32In another life, they might have been able to watch their loved ones compete on the
55:35global stage. But as the conflict rages on with no end in sight, taking so much from
55:40so many, this tournament sends a message of humanity and resilience.
55:45And that is it for now. Thank you so much for watching and goodbye from New York.