The Spillover

This week, host Rebecca Patterson sits down with energy and climate expert Vijay Vaitheeswaran to discuss the U.S. government's acquisition of 35 percent equity stake in a Venezuelan oil company and how managing demand and boosting efficiency are critical for long-term energy security and climate progress.
 
Host:
 
Rebecca Patterson, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
 
Guest:
 
Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, Philip D. Reed Senior Fellow and Director of the Energy Security and Climate Change Program, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
 
Mentioned on the Episode:
 
Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, “Why Nuclear Energy Is Making a Global Comeback,” CFR.org
 
Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, “Crude Calculations: Why the Iran War Hasn’t Yet Caused an Oil Shock,” CFR.org
 
Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, “Geothermal’s Time Has Finally Come,” The Economist
 
Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, “Americans’ Electricity Bills Are Up. Don’t Blame AI,” The Economist
 
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The Spillover is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the hosts and guests, not of the Council, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

The financing behind the AI boom has grown so large that treasury bond yields are approaching levels not seen since the leadup to the 2008 financial crisis. But is the risk to the financial market overblown? This week, Rebecca Patterson and Sebastian Mallaby are joined by Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo, to discuss the threat AI debt poses to the U.S. bond market.
 
Hosts: 
Sebastian Mallaby, Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) 
Rebecca Patterson, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) 
 
Guest: 
Torsten Slok, Partner and Chief Economist at Apollo
 
Mentioned on the Episode:
 
Torsten Slok, “A Slower AI Payoff Would Be Everyone's Problem,” Apollo
 
Torsten Slok, “Monitoring the AI Trade: How Growing Debt Issuance Is Reshaping the Landscape,” Apollo
 
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The Spillover is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the hosts and guests, not of the Council, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

Artificial intelligence has become the biggest variable in the U.S. economy, but is the country really positioned to win the global race for economic dominance in AI? This week, Rebecca Patterson and Sebastian Mallaby draw on Patterson's new chapter for the book Geopolitics of AI to guess at an eventual winner. The pair weighs the inputs of talent, capital, energy, and public support, and question popular assumptions about inevitable American success. 
 
Hosts:
 
Sebastian Mallaby, Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) 
 
Rebecca Patterson, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
 
Mentioned on the Episode:
 
Geopolitics of AI, Johns Hopkins University Press
 
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The Spillover is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the hosts and guests, not of the Council, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

Five months of war in Iran have completely reshaped energy markets. This week, the Baker Institute’s Kristian Coates Ulrichsen joins Rebecca Patterson and Sebastian Mallaby to examine how conflict in the Strait of Hormuz exposed the fragility of the world's maritime chokepoints, and revealed China as the quiet winner of the crisis.
Hosts:
 
Sebastian Mallaby, Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) 
 
Rebecca Patterson, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) 
 
Guest:
 
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Fellow for the Middle East and codirector of the Middle East Energy Roundtable, Baker Institute
 
Mentioned on the Episode:
 
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen and Jim Krane, “Maritime Chokepoints and Risks to Global Shipping and Energy Security,” Baker Institute
 
“China ‘Blockade Simulation’ Exposes $5 Trillion Global Danger,” Bloomberg
 
“Crossroads of Commerce: How the Taiwan Strait Propels the Global Economy,” CSIS
 
Spencer Kimball, “Oil in US Strategic Petroleum Reserve Falls Below 300 Million Barrels, Lowest Since 1983,” MSN
 
“China Is Now the World’s Great Oil Power,” The Economist
 
“The Middle East and Global Energy Markets,” IEA
 
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The Spillover is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the hosts and guests, not of the Council, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

In this episode of The Spillover, Rebecca Patterson and Sebastian Mallaby swap summer reading recommendations, including fiction and nonfiction picks covering American thinkers’ predictions for the twentieth century, an Irish murder mystery, and a Stanford student’s exposé on Silicon Valley venture capital and start-up culture.
Hosts:
 
Sebastian Mallaby, Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
 
Rebecca Patterson, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
 
Mentioned on the Episode:
 
Dave Walter, Today Then
 
Manoj Pradhan and Charles Goodhart, The Unanchored Central Banker
Tana French, The Keeper
 
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance
 
Theo Baker, How to Rule the World
 
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The Spillover is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the hosts and guests, not of the Council, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

In this episode of The Spillover, host Sebastian Mallaby sits down with Jordan Schneider, founder and editor-in-chief of the ChinaTalk podcast and newsletter, to discuss AI progress and security, as well as the U.S.-China AI rivalry.
 
Hosts:
Sebastian Mallaby, Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) 
 
Guest:
Jordan Schneider, Founder and Editor in Chief, ChinaTalk
 
Mentioned on the Episode:
Jordan Schneider, “ChinaTalk” podcast and newsletter
 
“DeepSeek: The Quiet Giant Leading China’s AI Race,” translation of Liang Wenfeng’s interview with Waves
 
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The Spillover is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the hosts and guests, not of the Council, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. 

In this episode, The Spillover’s Sebastian Mallaby is hosted by Dan Kurtz-Phelan, editor of Foreign Affairs, to discuss the “AI trilemma”—the challenge U.S. policymakers face in encouraging enough innovation to stay ahead of China while addressing public anxiety about AI. Drawing on Mallaby’s recent Foreign Affairs essay and his new book, The Infinity Machine, this episode explores the stakes of the AI race and how its trajectory will reshape economies, societies, and global politics.
 
Host:
 
Dan Kurtz-Phelan, Editor, Foreign Affairs
 
Guest:
 
Sebastian Mallaby, Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
 
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The Spillover is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the hosts and guests, not of the Council, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

Rebecca Patterson and Sebastian Mallaby are joined by Rahm Emanuel, who served as President Bill Clinton’s political strategist, President Barack Obama’s first White House chief of staff, and President Joe Biden’s U.S. ambassador to Japan. The trio discuss Emanuel’s recent speech in Israel, the state of the U.S. Democratic Party, and the outlook for the upcoming midterm elections.
 
Hosts:
 
Rebecca Patterson, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
 
Sebastian Mallaby, Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
 
Guest:
 
Rahm Emanuel, Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan (2022–2025), Former Mayor of Chicago (2011–2019), Former White House Chief of Staff (2009–2010)
 
Mentioned on the Episode:
 
Emma Graham-Harrison, “Israeli Former Leaders and Security Chiefs Threaten Legal Action Over ‘Jewish Terrorism’,” The Guardian
 
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The Spillover is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the hosts and guests, not of the Council, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

On this episode of The Spillover, Rebecca Patterson and Sebastian Mallaby, joined by CFR expert Jonathan Hillman, examine the U.S. government's rapidly growing portfolio of equity stakes in private companies, including a potential stake in OpenAI.
Hosts:
 
Rebecca Patterson, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
 
Sebastian Mallaby, Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
 
Guest:
 
Jonathan E. Hillman, Senior Fellow for Geoeconomics, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
 
Mentioned on the Episode:
 
Jonathan E. Hillman, “Washington’s Growing Portfolio: Tracking U.S. Government Investments,” CFR.org
 
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The Spillover is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the hosts and guests, not of the Council, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

Cohosts Rebecca Patterson and Sebastian Mallaby stage a friendly debate over two so-called dollar alternatives—gold and bitcoin—weighing whether either has truly earned its reputation as a store of value. Patterson defends gold’s centuries of institutional credibility and diversification track record, while Mallaby makes the bull case for bitcoin’s finite supply and upside potential.
 
Hosts:
 
Rebecca Patterson, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
 
Sebastian Mallaby, Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
 
Mentioned on the Episode:
 
SPDR Gold Shares (GLD): The largest and most highly traded physical gold ETF, holding bullion in secure London vaults. It carries an expense ratio of 0.40 percent. This is just for information; it is not a trading recommendation.
 
Rebecca Patterson, “Gold as an Equity Hedge Requires Patience,” Financial Times
 
“CLARITY Act Countdown: Crypto Bill Misses July 4 Target, August 7 Deadline Looms,” Yahoo Finance
 
“Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey 2026,” World Gold Council
 
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The Spillover is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the hosts and guests, not of the Council, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.