 a horrible, horrible segue into our final topic of the podcast, which is the death of Alexei Navalny, Russia's most prominent opposition leader who died in prison on Friday at the age of 47, given that he was previously poisoned, likely by Vladimir Putin's henchmen. It seems likely that his death was ordered by Putin as well. He returned to Russia from Germany despite knowing he was likely to be arrested and imprisoned and killed, and he was. In the wake of his death, there has been a real, I would say even though it was clearly going to be a big news event, there has been an outpouring in response to his death to use the cliche that has surprised even me. I wonder if we could just go around quickly and talk about one response to his death, either something that you've seen in the news or maybe just your own that really struck you. Nick, we can start with you. You, too, which has a residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas, did a tribute to him. They led the crowd enchanting his name before doing a song that works well to kind of memorialize him in this moment. It was deeply moving. The question that this raises for me is what is the type of pressure that will actually lead to change in Russia? I suspect ultimately it's great to have as many people outside Russia calling for change, but ultimately the question is how do you get that swelling up inside Russia? I don't know, but the you, too, tribute is deeply moving. Eric? I thought something that President Joe Biden said during his remarks on Friday was interesting and telling kind of to Nick's point about exterior pressure on Russia versus interior. Biden had previously promised devastating consequences, quote unquote, if Russia, to Russia, if Navalny died in prison. And then so he comes out and he gives some remarks about the news of Navalny's death. And then the first question he got asked by a reporter was exactly this. Hey, in the past, you've promised devastating consequences. What are those consequences going to be? And the answer was just, it was like a non-answer. It was a total back away from it. It was a, well, we're contemplating what else can be done. We're looking at a bunch of options, that sort of thing. And I think it really, it got to really hit on the point that there's not much the United States can do. We have tremendous economic power, which we've brought to bear in the form of sanctions and other sorts of controls against Russia in response to the war in Ukraine. We have tremendous military power, all of that. But like the ability to actually change domestic politics in Russia is well beyond our ability to really influence. And that's like, it just kind of sucks that Russia is beholden to, you know, to a authoritarian president who has at this point effectively crushed most internal dissent, it seems like. But ultimately, you know, I think Nick's right, that's where change has to come from. It's just really difficult to see how anything changes there. So yeah, I don't know. The powerlessness of Biden's response there really struck me. Jack? This was something that I think a lot of us were expecting to happen eventually, but it did hit me more emotionally than I had expected. I've got a lot of admiration for Navalny, not least of all because, you know, his methods of trying to push forth social change and political change in Russia was using digital media, using YouTube, posting exposés on YouTube and just, you know, and also just directly communicating with an audience. And he purposely did that as a way to, he felt that if he were to raise his own profile that way that it would somehow protect him. And to see that strategy ultimately end in his death, I'm not gonna say it's a failure because now he's becoming a symbol of something which may be even more powerful in death. But along those lines, I guess one of the more surprising or noteworthy things that I saw was the reaction from his widow Yulia Navalny. She put out a video on his video channels and called Putin a coward for killing her husband this way and announced that they already have an investigation underway to find out exactly how and why it happened. And it was just striking and powerful to me because at some point you'd think the temptation would just be to shrink away from that kind of nightmare. But she says that it's shameful to be intimidated and she's not going down without a fight and it's just a rare and surprising kind of courage. I was also struck by the remarks of Ilya Yashin who is another opposition leader who is currently in prison who basically said that we should not forget the hundreds of thousands of Russians who left their homes because they refused to become murderers on the orders of the government and that the world should extend a hand to those Russians for opposing the regime. So basically Russian draft dodgers and others who refused to be a part of Putin's army and I think that's just incredibly true and is a thing that the US could be doing now letting in more Russians who want to leave because their country is waging an unjust war among other things. That was a clip from the latest Reason Round table. If you want to see more clips go here. If you want to see the whole episode go here, make sure to subscribe at Reason's YouTube channel or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening, watching, or both.