Latest / Pod Save the World / Democracy Wins in Brazil and Serbia

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Democracy Wins in Brazil and Serbia · Pod Save the World

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  Speaker 2: Com slash world. Welcome back to Pod Save the World.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: I'm Ben Rhodes.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: And I think this is a very rare episode in
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Pod Save the World history because I think it's majority
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: good news.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, how about that for a change?
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Well, there's a big TBD with the Israeli election.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: We have some great news.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: The fact that we're having an Israeli election, I think,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: feels nice. But the first two stories are unequivocally good.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Just all good.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Good stuff. Outcomes. It's strange.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: The vibes are immaculate at Pod Save the World.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: It's a strange feeling because we're used to just dropping
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: something really weighty on you guys and then walking away
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: from it.
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: No, we got a lot of joy today, people. Turn
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  Speaker 4: the volume up. Pop that edible and just sit back.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Roll the windows down. Yeah, yeah. Tim Miller, you're not
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  Speaker 2: going to fall asleep to this one.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Tim. Stay up for this one.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: All right, so we're going to start with this stunning
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: come-from-behind victory for President Lula da Silva in Brazil in
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: the presidential runoff election. We'll explain how Lula defied all
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the odds, all the expectations to pull this off. Then
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about this incredible student-led protest movement
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: that turned into an election victory in Serbia. Another story
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: that we've been tracking for a couple of years now,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: but it's just amazing.
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  Speaker 2: To see what it's become. Both these elections, by the way,
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  Speaker 2: should be studied by progressives all over the world. Yes, yes.
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  Speaker 1: The tactics, the strategies, everything they did. Then we're going
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: to let you know what we know about the Israeli
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: elections where the polls just closed. We don't have results yet,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: so we probably won't for a while. Ben and I
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: were just— We have exits.
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  Speaker 3: We have exits.
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  Speaker 2: We have exits, yeah. College kibbutzes are still out.
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  Speaker 1: Ben and I were laughing, though, that the most likely
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: outcome here is some— agonizing non-outcome for months and months
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: and months and maybe like.
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  Speaker 2: Another election or something.
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  Speaker 3: We'll see. God help us.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: BB bombing like a 12th country or something. But we'll
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: tell you about the process, kind of the madness that
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: led up to the election. Then we're going to talk
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: about the return of opposition leader Maria Machado to Venezuela. Sadly,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: without her Nobel Peace Prize, I think, because Trump stole it.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Do we know that? Like, what happened to the actual
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: physical prize?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, he said she gave it to me.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but I've not seen it displayed. Nor have I.
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: Did she give it to him to hold for a
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: little bit, or does he literally have custody of the
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: Nobel Peace Prize?
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  Speaker 2: Here's my question for you.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Does he seem like the kind of guy who, if
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: offered the opportunity to get a big gold thing, would
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: not take it.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Or demand it?
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: He would take it.
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  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? I figured he melted it down.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: It would be somewhere on the hallway to the restroom
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: at the Saddam Hussein, the cheese cake factory that he's
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: opened up.
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  Speaker 1: It's definitely been hammered flat and just like hanging above
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: some bureau.
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  Speaker 5: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: Anyway, then we're going to talk about a surprising new
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: entry in the race to become the next U.N. Secretary
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: General and why it seems like a bad idea on
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  Speaker 1: its face.
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  Speaker 3: Not the best idea.
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  Speaker 2: In this candidate way. And then, Ben, you did our
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: interview today. What did you talk about?
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: Well, along the lines of what you were saying about
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: learning lessons, I talked to Pedro Telles, who runs or
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  Speaker 4: helps run Democracy Hub, this incredible organization that helps build
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  Speaker 4: movements and organize people to fight back.
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  Speaker 3: Against the far right and authoritarianism around the world.
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  Speaker 4: Pedro was involved in some of the mobilization efforts around
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  Speaker 4: civil society and social movements in Brazil.
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  Speaker 3: We basically just talked about how did they.
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  Speaker 4: Go from losing in the first round to to winning
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  Speaker 4: in the second round. Like what were the tactics that
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  Speaker 4: they used? How did they mobilize young people? How did
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  Speaker 4: Lula change his campaign team and his campaign tactics? How
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  Speaker 4: did they build this huge 10 million plus WhatsApp group
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  Speaker 4: that was critical? And then a little bit about, look,
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  Speaker 4: what happens next? What happens next for the far right?
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  Speaker 4: What happens next for the progressive left inside of Brazil?
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  Speaker 4: So it's very good, you know, and Pedro is very
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  Speaker 4: specific too. So you can definitely like Take out your notebooks.
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  Speaker 4: Take notes on what worked because this guy was on
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  Speaker 4: the ground and can tell us.
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  Speaker 6: Good, good, good.
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  Speaker 2: Because we'll do some of that, but I think it's
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  Speaker 2: important to get granular.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: He got quite granular. It's pretty fascinating, actually, because we
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  Speaker 4: also talked about the meta problem.
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  Speaker 2: The company or the big picture?
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: Well, both, actually.
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  Speaker 4: But the company and how they were trying to rig
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  Speaker 4: it for Bolsonaro, but how they figured out some tactics
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  Speaker 4: to kind of go around that, which is interesting, including
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  Speaker 4: these WhatsApp groups that are not subject to the same
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  Speaker 4: algorithmic bias.
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  Speaker 3: As other metaproducts.
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  Speaker 2: So it was good.
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  Speaker 1: Because, yeah, people should be studying this and stealing these tactics.
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  Speaker 1: So let's start in Brazil because the Donro doctrine got
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  Speaker 1: punched in the face by Brazilian voters. Lula da Silva
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  Speaker 1: pulled off this shocking victory in the past weekend's presidential election.
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  Speaker 2: If you have whiplash, so do we.
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  Speaker 1: Like listeners might have heard our very depressing coverage of
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  Speaker 1: the first round of the election. Lula got 45% of
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  Speaker 1: the vote. Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro,
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  Speaker 1: got 47%. goes to a runoff because nobody got a majority, 50%.
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  Speaker 1: But after that first round, every single analyst I talked
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  Speaker 1: to thought that Flavio's victory was all but assured because
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  Speaker 1: other right-wing candidates would drop out and those votes would
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  Speaker 1: seemingly go to Flavio Bolsonaro. And also, I don't think
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  Speaker 1: any candidate ever in Brazilian history has lost the first
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  Speaker 1: round and won the second.
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  Speaker 2: There's like nine elections. It's a small sample, but still.
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  Speaker 1: But instead, Lula managed to get more than 10 million
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  Speaker 1: additional votes And he decisively beat Flavio by 51.8% to 48.2%.
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  Speaker 1: So everyone wants to know how he pulled this off.
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  Speaker 1: You go deeper on this stuff. But I talked with
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  Speaker 1: our former colleague, Nick Zimmerman, again this morning. He pointed
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  Speaker 1: to three big factors. The first was something you just
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  Speaker 1: mentioned there was Lula turned the campaign over to this younger,
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  Speaker 1: more digitally savvy person. group of staffers who ramped up
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  Speaker 1: his social media presence. I think Lula bought a cell
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  Speaker 1: phone for the first time.
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  Speaker 3: For the first time, he got a smartphone.
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  Speaker 2: On this campaign.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, that might've been something you did in preparation
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  Speaker 2: for the run.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not 80, but- Know what.
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  Speaker 3: The youngins are doing.
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  Speaker 2: Just a thought.
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  Speaker 1: But there's this guy, Andre Janonez, who took over the
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  Speaker 1: digital channels, grew this 10 million WhatsApp, 10 million person
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  Speaker 1: WhatsApp group called Lula's Army. 7% of the electorate was
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  Speaker 1: like in this WhatsApp group.
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  Speaker 3: Crazy.
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  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
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  Speaker 1: And they were just, hammered, like he was like their general.
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  Speaker 1: He was telling them to crank out content like a
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  Speaker 1: couple times a day. Pro Lula, Anthony Bolsonaro. Apparently they
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: were so successful that like Claudia Sheinbaum and Pedro Sanchez
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  Speaker 1: are like summoning them to their capitals to be like,
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  Speaker 1: teach us.
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  Speaker 3: Morris Katz has got some competition now.
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  Speaker 2: I was texting with Morris this morning. I was thinking like,
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  Speaker 2: you guys should link up.
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  Speaker 1: That'd be a hell of an interesting group. Three million
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  Speaker 1: more Brazilians voted in the second round than the first.
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  Speaker 1: There's never been that big of a jump from the
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: first to the second round. And then third, there was
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  Speaker 1: this assumption that we talked about the voters who voted
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: for neither Lula nor Flavio in the first round would
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  Speaker 1: go to Flavio in the second because most of those
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: other candidates were center or far right. But about 75%
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  Speaker 1: of those voters went to Lula. And it's not totally
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: clear why, like maybe their third party votes were just
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: like middle fingers to the system votes. Or maybe they
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: had buyer's remorse because they saw how right wing the
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: parliament and the governor's seats became.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: But either way, they did not want Flavio.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I saw some people said that Lula won by promising
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: more social services, like higher welfare payments or limited debt relief.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: But Nick thought it was more likely that Flavio hurt
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: himself when one of his advisors said they planned to
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: phase out the Bolsa Família program, which is this very
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: popular and successful cash transfer program for low-income families. And
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: then another friend on the ground in Brazil said he
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: thinks the result was just like rejection of Bolsonaro more
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: than anything, approval of Lula and that Flavio got cocky
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: after the first round, started talking openly about all the
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: bad things he was going to do. And voters are like,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, we don't want constitutional changes. We don't
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: want cuts to the welfare programs. And also his corruption
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: and unsavory ties were really hammered home in the debates.
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  Speaker 1: For example, Flavio's links to militia groups in Rio that
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: extort and murder people. So Ben, initially Flavio was threatening
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: to challenge the results. The right wing U.S. mega media
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: ecosystem was eager to join him. Trump didn't get the memo.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Check out this super cut of kind of MAGA media
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: goons talking about the election followed by Trump.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: This election is extraordinarily questionable.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: There are too many anomalies. It doesn't make any statistical sense.
• 9:37
  Speaker 7: Secretary of State and then the president have to come out,
• 9:39
  Speaker 7: cut off diplomatic relationships, shut down everything in Brazil, no trade, nothing.
• 9:43
  Speaker 7: This is an illegitimate, this is a Marxist globalist government.
• 9:46
  Speaker 7: And if you don't think this is not going to
• 9:47
  Speaker 7: happen here in the United States of America, you.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Are dead wrong.
• 9:50
  Speaker 8: You want to make this the standard for elections going forward,
• 9:54
  Speaker 8: what happened in Brazil?
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: Then definitely vote Democrat, where they don't give a damn
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: about free and fair.
• 10:00
  Speaker 8: Elections i don't know if i'm ever going to trust
• 10:01
  Speaker 8: an election result like again because this is this is
• 10:06
  Speaker 8: the most corrupt election result an election process that i've
• 10:10
  Speaker 8: ever seen well.
• 10:11
  Speaker 9: It looked terrible to me i thought it was a
• 10:13
  Speaker 9: terrible looking i didn't take sides but it looked like
• 10:17
  Speaker 9: another rigged election frankly I didn't take sides, but it
• 10:21
  Speaker 9: was a terrible look for the world. It's another election.
• 10:27
  Speaker 9: You know, elections have to be indisputable, and it looked
• 10:31
  Speaker 9: very bad to me. I didn't take sides. I didn't
• 10:34
  Speaker 9: endorse anybody or anything, but I watched the election. It
• 10:37
  Speaker 9: looked so corrupt, so terrible.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Do you want to do something about the election?
• 10:43
  Speaker 9: Well, I'm not running Brazil.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: I'm running the USA.
• 10:47
  Speaker 9: I just thought that the election was... I like Lula.
• 10:50
  Speaker 9: I get along with him very well. I just think
• 10:52
  Speaker 9: it had a very bad look, the election, the way
• 10:55
  Speaker 9: it was tabulated.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: So that was Ben Shapiro, one of those TPUSA shows,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Steve Bannon, Royd raged in, Bongino, then Benny Johnson getting
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: outraged about the Brazilian election, something I'm sure they thought.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: About a lot in the past.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: I'm sure Benny Johnson follows this quite closely. Yeah, then
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Trump not caring and being like, I don't want the
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: stink of loser on me. For what it's worth, they
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: were upset because... Brazil's Supreme Court ordered the polls to
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: stay open an additional two hours, something I think both
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: campaigns asked for.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: Both campaigns asked for.
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: The implementation was a little messy. Bolsonaro seemed like he
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: was going to use that as a pretext to say
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the election was stolen, but Trump took the wind out
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: of his sails, and then he conceded. Right before we
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: started recording, it was confirmed that Flavio Bolsonaro has fled
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the country and is now in Miami.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Maybe he can bunk up with Bibi's kid down there.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: So, Ben, we can get into the challenges ahead for
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Lula to govern, but– unequivocally good news for the future
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: of the Amazon and for climate change for the Brazilian people.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: What do you make of this election? What happened here?
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: It's an incredible result. And look, Lula is an icon.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: He's an icon of the left. He's the first person
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: to be elected four times as president of Brazil. He
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: is like a generational political talent. And that's clearly one
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: part of what happened here. And he kind of found
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: his sea legs. He campaigned with an added vigor. He,
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: in addition to the list of things you identified, Tommy,
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: he also kind of threw some progressive policies out there
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: in the final days.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: I talked to Pedro about this.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: But, you know, he banned online gambling, which has been
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: a real problem in Brazil.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: It's a huge problem in Brazil.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: This was a turnout election, right?
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: We have all these debates here in the Democratic Party
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: about turnout versus persuasion.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: He turned his fucking people out. Yeah.
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: All the credit that is due to Lula, he would
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: have lost had it not been for this huge wave
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: of youth enthusiasm, this online mobilization, different movements coming together,
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: people putting whatever differences they have aside to try to
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: save Brazilian democracy from the grips of the Bolsonaro family
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: and its corruption. And again, what you have is a
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: combination of very innovative online tactics like creating these massive
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: WhatsApp groups, but.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Importantly, giving people things to do.
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: Like the important lesson to learn I take away from
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: this is not just that they had good content and
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: they had good videos and Lulu got a cell phone
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: and started doing direct to camera videos. It's that they
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: were instructing people like these are the messages to carry.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: This is the content to boost.
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: This is the investigative journalism that you need to know about,
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: about Flavio Bolsonaro. They really got their message out and
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: made people feel invested in the outcome. not just for Lula,
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: but for what they were all doing together. And you
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: saw that in the celebrations at night.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: They all won. It wasn't just Lula who won. Like
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: it was all these.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: Young people, all these different groups who came together to
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: get this done. And to do it, I mean, we
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: should just take a moment on how extraordinary this is.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: They were the incumbent party in a deeply anti-incumbent mood.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: So one of the reasons that you've had the far
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: right winning across Latin America is just you had a
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  Speaker 4: bunch of left-wing governments and cost of living.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: Is high and there's security issues and people are turning
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: away from them.
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  Speaker 4: To buck that trend with an 80-year-old guy is an
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: unbelievable achievement.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: For his fourth term.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for his fourth term, right?
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: And so, I mean, before we get into kind of
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: what happens next, I think we do have to just
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: sit with the fact that they found a recipe to
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: turn their people out, to make young people feel invested
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: in politics, which we've had trouble with in this country,
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: to be innovative, to overcome, look, meta- clearly was juicing
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: the algorithm. I mean, we can debate why they were
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: doing that. Um, and there've been a lot of legal
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: actions against meta in Brazil that they clearly didn't like. Um,
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: but you know, they were, they were making it so
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: that it was much easier to do things that favored
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: Bolsonaro than Lula and they overcame that. So they, they
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: beat big tech, they beat Bolsonaro, they beat Trump. Um,
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: they beat the, the trend in Latin American politics of
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: things moving to the right. And they did it in,
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: you know, the fourth largest country in the world. This
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: is a huge result. I mean, I don't think you
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: can overstate how important this is and how much we've
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: been gifted this result by a lot of Brazilians who
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: work their asses off.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: You know, I mean, it's a reminder that politics matters.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: I mean, the last thing I'd say, Tommy, is I
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: was on a WhatsApp group that I'm on with Pedro Telles,
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: who's the guest later, and like a bunch of other
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: activists around the world. And, you know, the thing that
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: I was reflecting on you know, after the election is,
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: this is a reminder that, like, if you're an organizer,
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: you can make a difference.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Like, this was a close election.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: Like, the efforts to turn people out, to get messaging out, like,
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: it can make the difference between whether your country stays
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: a democracy or not. And, like, that's what these people
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: achieved in Brazil. And that is, that is really something to,
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: you know, it's not just good news. And there's a
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: lot of, instant experts on Brazilian politics. As there are
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: a lot of instant experts on Serbian politics. We have
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: been following this stuff. I don't claim that we're like
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: the deepest experts. We have been following it for a while.
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: And this is not the outcome that people expected. And
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: that makes it all the better.
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: It's not just us who were surprised. I mean, Brazil's
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: stock market dropped 14% on the news, like the main
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: index and the real dropped 8% against the dollar. So
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: like The big money, the moneyed interests thought that Flavio
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: was going to be their guy and the next president
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: and said they ran his ass out of town. He's
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: sitting in Miami now because he thought he was going
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: to get prosecuted.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: Can we just say, I mean, there are a lot
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: of things that happened that remind me of how long
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: we've been doing this podcast.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Do you remember that after Yair Bolsonaro lost.
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: The election, he too decamped to Florida and we were
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: making fun of him like eating fast food. Yeah, he's
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: in Orlando and he's like eating alone at fast food
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: restaurants and stuff. Like son, like father here, you know,
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: like following the same playbook.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Have a good time.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: Florida is the exile land for every, like, right-wing autocratic.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Every misfit right-wing toy.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro's allies. Now, so a little bit of, you know,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: wet blanket here. So Bolsonaro's party and its allies have
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of seats in Brazil's parliament. If you add
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: them up on certain issues, like kind of like the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaroistas and the kind of like.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: The right wing has a majority.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you could get to kind of like.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: close to veto proof majorities on some issues. But, um, with,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: with Flavio Bolsonaro, like, you know, running off to Miami,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: you do wonder if that kind of collapses the entire
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: kind of movement and coalition.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: We'll see, I guess. Um, I don't get too hopeful.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Lula is going to have some, some, uh, real like
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: fiscal financial problems. Like they're going to have to, uh,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: pay for the things he proposed in this election. He's
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: getting pushed to make budget cuts. The bond markets are
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: kind of swirling similar to what we talked about in France. Um,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: So what's interesting is, like, first of all, the right
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: wing countries in South America and Latin America, like they
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: did not wait one second for Trump to weigh in
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: or they didn't buy Flavio's bullshit about the election being stolen.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Like right wing hardline leaders in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: all recognize Lula's victory in advance of Trump.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: That's a good thing.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, they know that Brazil is the
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: biggest fish in the region. They probably didn't want to
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: piss off Lula. It's interesting that Trump just doesn't seem
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: to care. I mean, you know, I'm still a little worried, Ben,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: that there are kind of ideologues and Bolsonaro allies deep
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: in the State Department and other U.S.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Agencies.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: But Trump kind of seems to like Lula.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: And I kind of think that Lula is talking to Nick.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: It seems like. Like, Lula's going to do a lot
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: of foreign.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Policy, a lot of, like, legacy burnishing stuff. I don't
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: know that he's going to pick a lot of fights
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: with Trump. Like, I don't know if it's in his interest.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Do you think?
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: I don't think so.
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: I mean, the one thing that might be an outlier
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: there is Cuba, where Lula's had kind of a certain
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: kind of solidarity with the Cuban government over the years.
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: So if there's an invasion of Cuba, I think Lula
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: would definitely break from that.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: I think, yeah, it's interesting. Like, Lula is.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: an iconic, charismatic politician, a deeply flawed one, too, when
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: I'm around here just to blow smoke. But Trump kind
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: of recognizes that, like the kind.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: Of game, understands game thing, you know?
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: What I will also say about the hemisphere, though, and
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: then about Brazil specifically, in the hemisphere, yeah, acknowledge this
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: right-wing trend that we've seen, and we've talked a lot
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: about it. But at the end of the day, you know,
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: by population, Brazil and Mexico are Two biggest countries, you know,
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: are governed by outright leftists and very, you know, very
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: strong politicians in Claudia Sheinbaum and Lula.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: And then Mark Carney, our guy, you know, in Canada.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: I mean, so this is a bit of, sure, they
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: can like dunk on us about Ecuador or something.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: But I mean, there's a.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: There's a meaningful counterweight in the hemisphere, and that's important.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: And it kind of, it punctures this sense of inevitability.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: And part of the thing that I've been struck by,
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: and we'll get to the Serbian election, but there's this
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: sense of like, the far right is always inevitable.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: And actually, I feel like, you know, we succumbed a
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: bit to that.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: We psych ourselves out.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: But so did even like mainstream media, you know, like
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: it's like, oh, this is this inevitable wave. No, like
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: people get to decide here, you know, and hopefully what
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: this does is puncture that sense of inevitability. This will
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: be a wind in the sails to opposition parties in
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: all these other countries in Latin America that are facing
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: right-wing governments. Then in Brazil specifically, as you say, the
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: Amazon- Was on the fucking ballot, man. Because if, like,
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: Bolsonaro wins and they open this thing up to logging, like,
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: we've seen the reports that you could have an irreversible
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: destruction of the Amazon.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: And they're apparently, like, wildcat loggers who are, like, calling
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: villages and threatening them and saying, we're about to come back.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: We're just waiting for, like, Flavio to take office. And
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: now they're going to have a real check from Lula. Like,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: that's a thing he can do.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: That's a thing he can do that matters, right?
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: And so, you know, that's important. I think the fact
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: that Meta you know, that they called out what Meta
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: was doing. I don't know what Brazil is going to do,
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: but it's not going to be good for Meta. I mean,
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: it's good to see an American tech company, you know,
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: step on a rake like this because they shouldn't be
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: able to fuck around in the politics of other countries
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: like that.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: So that's important. And then, yeah, like going forward, it's
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: going to be tough.
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: And I will say this, though, and Pedro made this
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: point at the end of our interview, but like The
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: Bolsonaro family was uniquely dangerous. Like they, you know, would
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: pay tribute to Brazil's military dictatorship. They're wildly corrupt. They
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: are seemingly in bed with some of these criminal organizations.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: You know, the right wing will win an election in
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: Brazil someday. You know, like you don't get to win
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: every election. It is better that it is not this family.
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: And if at least this kind of ends the Bolsonaro
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: threat to Brazilian democracy, that alone is something.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: really important.
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: And I think what's going to happen next is some
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: of these young people that helped organize this campaign are
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: going to have to take the torch from Lula because
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: he's not running again. And you're going to have to
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: see the Brazilian left regenerated into something else. And whether
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: they can do that or whether they fracture without Lula,
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: I think will determine a lot of how the next
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: few years.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: It's a little unnerving that now Flavio Bolsonaro and his
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: other brother, they're both in the U.S. now, and they're
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: going to be able to plot and plan with Marco
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Rubio and Trump to the extent he cares. But then
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the brother younger than Flavio won a seat in the Senate,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I think. Jair's wife is also going to be a senator.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I think that maybe the son won a seat in
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the other house.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Either way.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're still around.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: A couple other Bolsonaros got elected, but I was told
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: that the wife- hates the sons and thinks they're morons.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: So I think it's from a different marriage. So maybe
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: it always kind of familial dysfunction.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: But yeah, no, there, there is still a real threat.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, as we saw Jair sitting in jail somewhere,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: he's not going anywhere. Like the, the family's around, but, um.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Good news.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Good news.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Good news.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Speaking of the global South, Ben, let's talk about the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: American South. If you've not heard long play crooked media
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: is limited series about the ever-changing political landscape of the
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• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Last season on Long Play, our former White House colleague,
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  Speaker 1: Jennifer Palmieri, and award-winning journalist Aaron Haynes introduced us to
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the battleground states in the South that could define this
• 23:20
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• 23:23
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  Speaker 1: they decided it was time to get back on the
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• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Democrats are competing in to win back the South. Whether
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  Speaker 1: you heard first season or you did not, it's a
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  Speaker 1: evolving midterm. Subscribe to Long Play on YouTube or wherever
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• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Speaking of good news, let's turn to this incredible set
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: of events and elections in Serbia today. where President Alexander
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Vucic and his 12-year reign is now over. Vucic was
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: deposed by a leaderless student movement.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Like, that's a thing. There's no leader that deposed him.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: It was this movement of students.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: And to understand the story, you really have to go
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: back to November of 2024, when a newly renovated train
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: station collapsed and killed 16 people in Serbia. Protesters, they
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: blamed corruption and negligence in state contracting. It kicked off
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: this massive protest movement. that was led by university students.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: They occupied buildings, they blocked traffic. Over time, these protests expanded.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: It got beyond students. There's farmers and lawyers and professors.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: And the government, as they always are, was slow to respond.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: And when it did respond, they kind of reshuffled things.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: They didn't really make real changes or hold people to account.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: And so the protests grew and they got, and they
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: asked for more. And then another big inflection point was
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: March of 2025. There were the largest protests in Serbia's history.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I think the estimates were over hundred thousand people in
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Belgrade alone. And the government response, it got hardened, it
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: got more violent, but the students kept organizing and they
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: did it via this series of plenums, which was group
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: meetings basically. And they organized themselves. I figured out next steps.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: And it was like kind of a slow, I would
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: imagine agonizing process of just like meeting after meeting after
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: meeting and, you know, these overlapping plenums and organizations. But
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: over time they went from demanding accountability for the train
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: station collapse to calling for new elections and And the
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: opposition parties in Serbia were so weak that the students
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: basically replaced them. And then they built this list of
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: political candidates to run that included professors, academics, actors, a
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: basketball player, other public figures, like anyone they thought would
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: not be seen as tainted by corruption or the status quo.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: So fast forward to this year in September, parliament is dissolved,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: which is called snap elections for October 25th. And over
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the weekend, the student list of candidates got about between
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: 135 and 140 seats in the 250-seat parliament, while Vucic's
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: party got 105, which was just a drubbing. And so
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: you have this extraordinary moment where this brand new political
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: movement just won power in Serbia, but again, it has
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: no leaders. So that is incredible, but it's challenging going
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: forward because they organized around the low-hanging fruit of opposing Vucic,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: but now they have to figure out what comes next,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: who leads them, who's the prime minister, who's the president.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: I was talking to a guy earlier today, Ben, his
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: name is Egon Malici.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: A non-resident senior fellow at the atlantic council he's based
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: in albania we actually talked about those protests for a
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: little bit too um i was just asking like what
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: to expect he said that you know a lot of
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: the international media is focused on kind of geopolitics like
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: what does this mean for serbia's relationship with russia or
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: china or the eu but that these students were really
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: just focused on domestic issues like rule of law and corruption.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: So he said, don't expect big swings on foreign policy.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Don't expect like movement on normalization with Kosovo, for example.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: If anything, they'll probably pull back from that process.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: But another challenge for them will be Vucic isn't going anywhere.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: His party got 40%. Over the last decade, he has
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: captured every part of the state in the media space.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: in the industry is much like Viktor Orban. So they're
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: going to have to figure out kind of like they
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: did in Hungary, like who to purge, when do they
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: purge them? And, you know, this is just unprecedented because
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: like even in Hungary, like, you know, that came from
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: a former member of the Fidesz party, right? Like this
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: is just unprecedented. It's a bunch of students running random people.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: So incredible story, an inspiring one, but any other takeaways
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: for you?
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: I think that, again, the main takeaway here is, number one,
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: an anti-corruption message can really resonate today.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: Talk about a lesson for us.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: This was entirely rooted in a sense of just disgust
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: with accumulated corruption over a decade of Vucic's domination of
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: Serbian politics. We've covered some of these corruption scandals because
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: our buddies like Jared Kushner and Rick Grinnell would occasionally
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: make these cameos in in Serbian corruption, right? So they're
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: all swimming in that sea of grossness that we've talked
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: about a lot. And so an anti-corruption mobilization message is
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: one lesson. Another, again, young people, there's something happening. You know,
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: you hear a lot of criticism of the passivity of
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: younger people. Well, like, look at Serbia. Look at what
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: people just did in Brazil. Look at, you know, even
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: the movement in France, which is obviously went a little
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: sideways with the rioting. you're starting to see, you know,
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: young people that are just fed up with a politics
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: that doesn't represent them.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: And that's because of corruption.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: It's also because of, you know, the state of education
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: in these countries, the state of opportunity for younger people,
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: AI coming online. So that's the second big lesson to
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: me from Serbia is that a youth movement can go
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: all the way, you know.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: Now, you're right.
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: They have a problem in that in Hungary, you had
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: Peter Magyar, who, you know, Had given a lot of
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: thought to the day after.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: A lot of time.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: Remember when he won, it was like immediately like he
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: was literally changing the interior.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: Talk about Trump.
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: I mean he was changing like how things looked and
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: he had lists of people that he was going to purge.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: So they have work to do here.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: But again, Serbia, I mean I don't– would I like
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: them to orient their foreign policy differently?
• 32:17
  Speaker 9: Yes.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: More important for them to just get their own house
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: in order.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Here, right?
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: But this has been, with Vucic, it was a playground
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: for Putin.
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: I mean, it was just a playground for right-wing corruption and,
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: you know, bringing them into a certain foreign policy agenda.
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: We had reports that we've talked about here of literally
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: like training camps for like Russian saboteurs in.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Serbia, right?
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: So this is a huge shift in a country that
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: people might not have expected to take this step. And
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: if you again, you see a lot of warning signs
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: of the far right. You still have the French election
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: coming up next year, but like Hungary and Serbia flipping
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: and flipping so decisively that Vucic and Orban, you know,
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: acknowledge defeat right away. That tells you, again, there's nothing
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: inevitable about these far right politics, even in the countries
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: where it's hardest to overcome.
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: A couple of things.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: First of all, I mean, To people that like scoff
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: at protest movements, I think they learn from each other
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: and they grow. And, you know, everyone like builds courage
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: when you see others succeed. Like we saw this in
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: the Arab Spring.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't want to be at Iran and Albania.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't either.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: I think that the Serbian protests have already emboldened the
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: protesters in Albania.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: And those protesters were emboldened and inspired by what happened
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: in Hungary. And everyone was learning from the Gen Z protests.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: So it's all like kind of building and growing.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: Italy, you're seeing this in Italy now?
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: And then it's just, I think we have to just
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: hammer home how big of a fixture Vucic has been
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: in Serbian politics. I mean, this is a guy who
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: served in the Milosevic era in the 90s. He was
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: the information minister. Not a good guy. He came back
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: as deputy prime minister in 2012, became prime minister in 2014,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: president in 2017. It seemed like he was trying to
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: return to the position of prime minister and just.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Kind of be in charge for a decade.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Paul Putin.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And these students sent his ass packing. Like that's extraordinary.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: It is extraordinary.
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: And again, with self-mobilization, self-organization, like not some like ex-political
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: leader coming and kind of taking over the movement. They
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: just built this themselves. And that's really extraordinary.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: And the kicking off point was corruption, right? Look around
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: this country.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: That's the thing.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: What is happening in Washington right now? What is upsetting
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: people the most? Corruption.
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: Again, if we want to connect some lessons here, it
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: is like focus like a laser on corruption. Like the
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: democracy issues are corruption issues. Tie those corruption issues to
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: the shitty outcomes.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: In your own lives.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: Give young people a reason to participate. From Brazil, take
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: platforms and find innovative and new ways, not just to
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: use them, but to use them to give people something
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: to do so that they feel like they have agency
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: in breaking up these systems of.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: Power that govern their lives. Tons of good lessons to mine.
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: And I will say like, if the, we'll get to
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: the Israeli election, but if the U S election goes
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: knock on wood, the way we hope it goes, if
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: you stack up, you know, the U S election and
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: the Serbian and Brazilian elections, like that's some meaningful momentum.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: Um, Pedro Sanchez, hopefully, can hang on in Spain.
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: Like, there's a real opportunity here to kind of shift
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: the needle away from the direction of the far right.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: Capture populism on the center left to left. You know,
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: populism has been captured by the far right. This in
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: Serbia was a very populist election that shows you that
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: populism can come with a reform-minded message.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: It's not a far right message.
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: And then you got to deliver on some of your problems,
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: at least.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: That's the hard part.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: All right, let's turn to Israel.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: So Israeli voters just concluded their first election since October 7th, 2023.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: It is fair to say that I think most of
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: the world is hoping that Israelis send Bibi Netanyahu packing,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: maybe to prison, but we don't have the results yet.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: So the early exits show that Netanyahu's Likud party has
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: a small lead over his chief rival, but that the
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: anti-Netanyahu bloc is maybe beating the Netanyahu bloc.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: So basically, we know nothing.
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: It's like the last I saw was like 53-50 for
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: the Eisenkot bloc versus the Netanyahu bloc.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: But the Likud party, the single biggest vote getter among
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: the parties.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's probably a decently sized margin of error.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, those could shift.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: We know the turnout's very high. Tens of thousands of
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Israelis flew home for this election. You can't just vote absentee.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: You have to go home. But that's how much they care.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: They flew back.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: The government formation process could go on for weeks. If
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: it's unsuccessful, it could trigger a new election. So basically,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: don't hold your breath here. But just some background on
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: the process and then kind of the mood music leading.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Up to it.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: So just for context, folks should know the Israeli prime
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: minister is not directly elected the way we directly elect
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: a president here in America. They have a nationwide proportional
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: representation system. So you vote on a list of candidates
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: to serve in Israel's parliament, the Knesset. Parties need to
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: get 3.25% of the vote to get a seat. There
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: was a recent Times of Israel poll that suggested like
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: 10 or 11 parties will meet that threshold.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: So it's a motley crew. It's on our two-party system.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: If one party were to get an outright majority of seats,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: that's 61 out of 120, they could then immediately form
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: a government. And that leader of the party would become
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: prime minister. But that has never happened in Israel. And instead,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: what happens is the Israeli president typically taps the party
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: that won the most seats to negotiate, to build a coalition,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: to get 61 seats and form a government.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: There's some wrinkles and other details, but that's the gist.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: So Netanyahu's main rival, as you just mentioned, Ben, is
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: the former IDF chief of staff, Gadi Eisenkopf. He was
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: part of Bibi's war cabinet for eight months after the
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: October 7th attacks and then quit. To be clear, like,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Eisenkot is no liberal. He opposes the creation of a
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Palestinian state. He says he will curb violence in the
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: West Bank but support settlements. He says he will force
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: a reckoning for October 7th, some sort of inquiry that
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: will include Netanyahu, who's the only person who's escaped any accountability.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: He will hopefully purge the government of Netanyahu's corruption. Remember,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: the guy's facing multiple charges for accepting gifts and other
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: sketchy shit. I hope that he would be less of
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: a reckless warmonger than Netanyahu. I mean, Eisenkot's son was
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: killed serving in Gaza. I believe his nephew was killed also.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: So he gets the war, understands it in a pretty
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: profound way. He wants to force the ultra-Orthodox to serve
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: in the military. Speaking of warmongering, Ben, in the week
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: leading up to the election— there was reportedly a massive
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: internal fight between Netanyahu and the IDF chief of staff
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: because Netanyahu wanted to either renew airstrikes on Iran or
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: take some sort of action that was just short of
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: an overt strike that was likely to provoke Iran into
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: firing at them. Um, Netanyahu publicly has framed this vote
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: as existential. He suggested his loss could lead to a
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: second Holocaust. He posted a photo of an AI generated
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv. So he's been very subtle.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: Um, I know we don't have the results.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: What do you make of what you've seen so far?
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: How are you feeling about our chances in this one?
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: So I think we do have enough results to know
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: one thing, which is that part of the high turnout
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: was that the Arab parties, the Arab voters really turned out, right?
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: And remember.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: there's a significant population of Palestinian Israelis who are citizens
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: and can vote. And based on some of the projections,
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: they may have gotten up to 17 seats, right? And
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: so what's interesting about that is that Eisenkot no liberal,
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: no even centrist really, he's just less of a right-winger,
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: but is a right-winger.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: Has suggested he would not form a government with Arab parties.
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: Well, now he has a pretty interesting choice to make
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: because if he's the one who's going to have to
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: form a coalition, he can't do it without the Arab parties.
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: And so he either has to say, I will form
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: a coalition with with these Arab parties that obviously don't
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: support the settlement movement and obviously don't support annexation of
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: the West.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: Bank, or he probably can't form a government.
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: And, you know, there's some kind of protracted caretaker, Bibi's
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: the prime minister still, there's another.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: Election, right?
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: So the thing I would suggest people watch is, because
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: we know Bibi would never form a government with the
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: Arab parties, will Eisenkot be willing to form a government
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: if it means having to go into coalition with a
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: bunch of, Arab political parties. Because that's also a tell
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: about what he would do as prime minister. If he's
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: so adamant that he doesn't want an Arab political party
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: in his coalition, it's probably not someone that's going to
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: pursue markedly different policies in the West Bank.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: That's the main thing.
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: What Bibi's counting on, and this has worked for him
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: in the past sometimes, it appears he may have lost,
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: but then nobody else can form a government.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: He's kind of the last man standing.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: He's the caretaker prime minister and you know, he nudges
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: up his support in the next election. That seems to
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: be the play that he'll run. Just a word about Eisenkot.
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, one reason to be pessimistic, one reason to
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: be optimistic.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: Like, the reason to be.
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: Pessimistic is, like, in addition to kind of being against
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: the Palestinian state and having a right-wing outlook, even as
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: a general, like, the doctrine that he is most associated
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: with is one of kind of collective punishment of people
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: that attack Israel.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: It started in Lebanon.
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: You know, we have to not enough to target the
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: Hezbollah commanders and fighters.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: We have to like level neighborhoods, right?
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: So that, you know, bear in mind that this guy probably,
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: probably wouldn't have been quite as, you know, unhinged as
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: Nenya was in launching wars against however many countries, but
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: no moderate with the Palestinians. That said, on the positive side,
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: and Jasper made this point last week, he's not going
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: to have Ben-Gavir and Smotrich in his coalitions. So the
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: aggression in the West Bank is likely to be curbed.
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: The kind of constant effort to draw America into wars
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: in the Middle East that is Netanyahu's forte is probably
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: not likely to happen either. So it would be objectively
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: better if Eisenkot was prime minister, even if it doesn't mean, oh,
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: all our.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: Problems are solved with Israel and we no longer have
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: to think about that.
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: No, all the problems are still going to be there,
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: but Life will get like marginally less bad for the Palestinians,
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: I think, under an Eisencoat. And Israeli democracy itself won't
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: have this kind of cancer of corruption that Netanyahu represents.
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: And frankly, it'd be nice to see Bibi Netanyahu exit
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: stage right and potentially go to prison for all of his.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Listen, man, I don't know who's coming after Vladimir Putin.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: It's probably not going to be good, but I'll be
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: really happy when it happens.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: I'll be happy to see the guy go.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: I feel the same way.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: I feel the same way.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: He's a real piece of shit.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: And to your point about collective punishment, like on Friday,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: two Palestinian militants shot and killed two Israeli soldiers near
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Hebron in the West Bank. It was like a 20-minute firefight.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Three other people were wounded. Since then, Israel– they killed
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: the two guys, but since then, Israel has leveled the
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: neighborhood they were from, displacing hundreds of families. So this
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: collective punishment– policy is in place, whether, you know, Guy V.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Eisenkot wins or not.
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: Collective punishment is a war crime. That's not like our opinion.
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: That's like what a war crime is.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: I think the three kind of scenarios are no government,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: elections again in a couple months, terrible, but, you know,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. An Eisenkot coalition with at least one
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Arab party, which would mean him going back on what
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: he had said. Then there's this idea of a unity government,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: that would be Eisenkot and Netanyahu kind of gluing together.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Netanyahu knowing him would say, well, I have to be
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: prime minister first, and he'd probably do what he did
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: the last time, which is make sure the other guy,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: the government collapses before the other guy takes power. But
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: that would hopefully mean that you would jettison Ben-Gabir and
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Smotrich from that coalition. And, you know, it's a net benefit.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: It's not a great government, but it's a net benefit.
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: He might say, because Trump is such a supporter of Netanyahu, okay,
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: I'll be prime minister for the remaining two years of
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: Trump's term. And then I'll exit, you know, then and
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: hand it off, which is a pretty shitty outcome.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: Trump and Netanyahu for two more years, you know. Yeah,
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: It would be great if we just had like a
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: little bit better of a leader over there.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: But yeah, fingers crossed. Pod Save the World is brought
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  Speaker 1: six months when you go to quo.com slash world. That's
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Q-U-O dot com slash world. Okay, Ben, another interesting update
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: from Venezuela. So on Sunday, the Venezuelan opposition leader, Maria Machado,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: announced she was back in Venezuela. For folks who don't
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: know Machado, like for years, she was a very extreme
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: kind of hardline opposition leader in the country.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: Very right wing, by the way.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: But she refused, you know, any talks with the government,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: any appeasement. Then, you know, her politics evolved in 2023.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: She kind of ran in and won this de facto
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: opposition primary that was outside of the government process and unsanctioned.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: But it was like she was overwhelmingly the choice of
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: the opposition movement. The regime bars her from running in
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: the actual election. So she selects this kind of like
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: figurehead placeholder candidate to run, but she's really the person
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: running behind the scenes.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: They win. The regime steals the election. Machado goes into hiding.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: She finally leaves the country in December of 2025 to
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: go accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway that Trump
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: then stole from her. So this return to Venezuela was
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: a long time coming. I think she was out of
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: the country for like 10 months. And for a while, like,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: It's very clear that the Trump administration prevented or at
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: least strongly discouraged her from returning to Venezuela. They wanted
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: to work with Delce Rodriguez, who was Maduro's number two
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: and kind of have this puppet regime controlled by Marco Rubio.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Reuters said that Machado's return was approved by Trump, that
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: it was coordinated by the U.S., Panama and Colombia.
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: So.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Here's Trump talking about Machado and Venezuela at a couple of,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: it was a conversation with reporters and then an event recently.
• 49:07
  Speaker 9: I don't know anything about it, but I think she's
• 49:09
  Speaker 9: a very nice woman.
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: She gave me her Nobel Prize.
• 49:13
  Speaker 9: So how can.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: I say anything else?
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: And I hope she's safe.
• 49:17
  Speaker 9: She's a very nice woman.
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: But we're doing really well in Venezuela. They're making hundreds
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: of billions of dollars. Our country is on oil. And
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: then on top of it, we have Venezuela and we
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: have Greenland because Greenland has a lot of oil. So
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: we're making hundreds and hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars.
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: They said, I don't give a damn. I'm going to
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: say it. We'll make it a freaking fortune.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Earlier this month, Rubio met with some other Venezuelan opposition
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: leader in Washington. It's not clear if Machado is going
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: to be part of those kinds of talks going forward.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: So I don't know, Ben, curious what you make of
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: all this. I think it goes without question that she's
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: got a lot of guts. She's probably not necessarily safe
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: on the ground in Venezuela right now. It'll be interesting
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: to see how willing she is or is not to
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: criticize the Trump administration's progress towards elections or how hard
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: she pushes for elections.
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: Or that oil deal, which can't be very popular.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, us just looting their oil fields. What do you think?
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: What happened here, do you think? How did she get
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: back in?
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: I have an absolute theory of everything.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: I want to hear it. I want to hear it.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: Because they were.
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: Preventing her from going before. Remember, she wanted to go
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: after the earthquake and they said no.
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, yep.
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: What is a week from today?
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Our midterms.
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: So last week, Marco Rubio pops up and he tweets,
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: now is the time for the Cuban people to rise up,
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: and the CIA will.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Work with you if you're discreet about it.
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: And oh, then all of a sudden, Maria Machado pops
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: up in Venezuela, and Marco Rubio's out there saying, oh,
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: this is a part of the process we're negotiating because
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: we want democracy in Venezuela. Well, in Florida, there is
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: a very large Cuban vote, and there is a very
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: large Venezuelan vote. And a lot of those people feel like,
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: on the Venezuelan side, for instance, They're originally very excited
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: about Maduro's removal, but then very disillusioned by the government,
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: the U.S. government that is revoking temporary protected status for
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: Venezuelans and deporting them out of the country. And like
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: stiff arming Maria Machado. I frankly believe, the cynic in me,
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: this is just a play. It's like a Florida election play.
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: You know, we got to make sure we hold the
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: governor's seat there. Like, you know, make sure Angie Nixon
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: has no shot. Make sure that we hold a couple
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: of these vulnerable house districts. I honestly think that's what's happening.
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: It's like we're just like throwing a bunch of churn
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: to the right wing Cubans and Venezuelans in Florida.
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: Keep them happy. Get them turned out.
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: I see them demonizing Angie Nixon now on she's not
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: stridently enough against the Cubans.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: Honestly, I just think that's what's happening. Now.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: What's weird about it is it's a little more subtle
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: and sophisticated than what Trump is doing, which is like,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: I'll give you five grand.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: If you vote for me.
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll give you one million dollars if you find fraud.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: I'm not used to hearing a sophisticated political plan.
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Rubio's a little more sophisticated, but no less craven.
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: Because that... What else explains the timing of this?
• 52:11
  Speaker 7: Yeah, nothing.
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: You know, coup call in Cuba and Maria Machado showing up, oh,
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: just right before election. Now, they have made promises that
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: there'll be some roadmap to elections, though.
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: And so.
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: The thing to watch there is, is that true? Will
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: that continue after the midterm elections? Because all Trump seems
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: to care about is getting the oil. I don't think
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: Trump cares whether there's an election in Venezuela. Rubio cares
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: because it's Rubio's political future that is tied to those communities.
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: If there are elections, do they actually let people run?
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: Are they free and fair? Will they abide by the results?
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of questions to be answered still. I
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: find this to be, I'm glad she's there. She's not
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: my politics.
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: Like, she should be clear. She's like a right wing person.
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: But she's a small D Democrat.
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: I'd prefer a elected small D Democrat right winger to
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: a corrupt Delce Rodriguez.
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: So, you know, like like like I admire what she's doing.
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: But but we'll see, because I, you know, Trump gives
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: away the game every time he opens his mouth about Venezuela.
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: There's nothing to democracy when Trump is. Rubio pays lip
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: service to this.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: Trump.
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: He's not said a word about democracy since the House
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: of Maduro. It's just this oil. It's just the money
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: coming in.
• 53:22
  Speaker 9: No.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: And he knows Delsi will keep the money coming in.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Same with Iran, too. Remember, he was going to ride
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: to the rescue of the Iranian protesters. Now he could
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: care less. He's trying to starve them all out.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: It's awful.
• 53:33
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: So last issue for us before we get to Ben's interview.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: So we want to talk about the race to become
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: the next UN Secretary General. This person is basically the
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: CEO and the top diplomat at the UN.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: You run the organization. You try to mediate conflicts.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: You bring— big issues to the fore and get attention
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: and serve as kind of the spokesperson for the U.N.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: It's a big job. It's an important job, but also
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: a tough one because the U.N. Security Council and its
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: member states have the real power.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: And they hate each other.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: And they hate each other. And you don't have an army.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: And they do. So they have many armies.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: So there's a new entry into this contest that has
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: shaken things up a bit. The UAE-nominated Lena Zaki Nasebe.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: She's the former deputy foreign minister. They nominated her this week.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: A little bit of background on her. She's a 47-year-old
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: Palestinian from Jerusalem. She spent the majority of her career.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: As a diplomat.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: I think her family moved to the UAE after the
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: war in 1967. Her dad was an advisor to the
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: founding father of the UAE. So she's like highly connected
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: in the Emirates. In 2023, she helped pass a UN
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: resolution that facilitated humanitarian aid into Gaza. And that's a
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: thing she deserves credit for, but a lot of folks
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: are focusing on when they talk about her.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: So it seems like her candidacy is.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: gaining steam because she's a known quantity at the UN.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: The UAE has a lot of political swat, despite its
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: small size. You're seeing people vouching for her on Twitter,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: her professionalism, her competence, including very senior people like Brett McGurk,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: who worked.
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: For Joe Biden.
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: People with business interests in the Middle East.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: People with business interests in the Emiratis.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: What is weird and gross about this, though, Ben, is,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: and this is not about her necessarily, is that everyone...
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: that is vouching for her is just looking past the
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: UAE's human rights record. So we've covered in detail the
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: way the UAE is funneling arms to the RSF in Sudan.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: The RSF is one half of the civil war in Sudan.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: It's a rebel group, militia group that has been fighting
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: there for several years now. And it's, you know, the
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: worst humanitarian conflict on the planet.
• 55:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: And the UAE has been providing them with drones and
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: all kinds of weapons. The AP reported that Nisebe was
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: the UAE's point person for a while, assuring other governments
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: that they were not backing the RSF.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: Which they were.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: Which they were, which was just a lie. So the
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: UAE is also, you.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Know, a key backer of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Ethiopia.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: We've talked about his militarism, pick and fights with Eritrea,
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: the Tigrayans, etc. So, I don't know, where do you
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: think this candidacy came from? What's behind it?
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: What is happening here?
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a real cynical one.
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: Because, okay, first of all, there's already been like a
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: pretty prolonged series of campaigns to be the next UN
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: Secretary General, right? And one of the things you hear
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: about her is that, oh, we need a woman. Well,
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: there are a number of women who've already been running
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: for Secretary General and mounting campaigns. The leading candidate is
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: a former vice president of Costa Rica. who's currently running
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: the UN Trade and Development component. You've got a series
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: of other women, mainly from Latin America. So don't buy
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: this thing that like this is the woman candidate. Antonio
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: Gutierrez has said that it should be a woman and
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: most of the people running are women.
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: I think what's.
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: Happening here is the UOE wants maximum political influence around
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: the world. Like it's not subtle. I had heard a
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: lot of rumors about this candidacy Because the UAE was
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: kind of going around and trying to line up support
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: for her. So one of the reasons why you saw
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: a lot of well-crafted tweets that seemed ready to go,
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: they've been prepping the ground for this campaign for weeks.
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: This is Mohammed bin Zayed, the leader of Abu Dhabi,
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: the leader of the Emirates, getting behind her with all
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: of his political muscle, which is considerable, and trying to
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: get her in there.
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: The problem with.
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: This is you mentioned most acutely there's support for the RSS.
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: and the role she played in kind of running cover
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: for that.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: Also, the war in Yemen, I mean, which we've talked about.
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: The UAE's, like, utterly calamitous involvement in the Yemeni civil war.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Saudis got most.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: Of the blame for it, I think, probably rightly, but
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: they were their key partner.
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: Key partner.
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: The Emiratis.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: They basically divided the country in half. I think the...
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: Emiratis took the south and they took the north. Yeah.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: That's how they broke it up.
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: And then you mentioned Ethiopia.
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: I mean the problem with this beyond just the fact
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: that the UN secretary– the reason it tends to come
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: from places like Costa Rica or Kofi Annan was from
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: Ghana or Gutierrez is from Portugal. The reason you tend
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: to have people from these kind of smaller countries– is
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: that they're not countries that fuck around and commit human
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: rights abuses, you know? So they have a credibility of,
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: you know, I don't have all this baggage. And the
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: other problem with it is, where is the UN, as
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: we've talked about, where is it most needed? It's most
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: needed in places like Sudan, where there's no government and
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: you need someone to kind of come in and mediate.
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: It's needed in places like Ethiopia, where you have to get,
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: you know, negotiated ceasefires to get humanitarian assistance in. And so, look,
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: I don't know her. She may be a quite capable person.
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: I just don't think anybody that comes from a government
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: like the UAE's should, I.
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: Don't frankly think an American.
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: Should be the secretary general because we cause all kinds
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: of fucking problems.
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: In the world too.
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: Like there's a reason you kind of turn to these
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: more neutral countries to produce the leadership.
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: So I just find this all kind of cynical.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: It does feel a little cynical. I mean, maybe there's
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: a way to demand some sort of trade. Like, yes,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: we'll support her if you affirmatively cut off support for
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: the RSF.
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: Stop doing these things.
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: That's a creative idea. You know, yeah. Now you're– no
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: bad ideas and.
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: Bad– potentially good ideas. We're just winging it here.
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a weird one.
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: It does feel like they're just kind of creating this
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: like– Then there was this rumor that Trump was backing
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: like Viktor Orban or something.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God. I forgot about that.
• 59:26
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: But that almost felt like.
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: The conspiracy theorist to me was like, hey, let's create
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: such an objectionable candidate. But now she's like the neutral candidate.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: You're going to Goldilocks that shit?
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: Goldilocks this shit. Like, hold my beer. Like, we're going
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: to have Viktor Orban as the secretary general.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine?
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: Would he want that job?
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: Maybe he would. He just wants power at all costs.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: He's a troll.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: It's a great trolling job. Yeah, he's a troll. Viktor Orban.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: Anyway, well, it was nice to talk about some hopeful stuff, Ben.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break, but when we
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: come back, you'll hear Ben's conversation with Pedro tell us
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: about more granular detail about how the hell Lula pulled
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: this victory off in Brazil. So stick around for that.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: Get out your notebook, as Ben said. Write some stuff down.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: Steal some good ideas, because we've got to do this
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: all over the world. Pod Save the World is brought
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  Speaker 4: Okay, joining me now from Sao Paulo to talk about
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: what it's been like on the ground in Brazil, how
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: Alula managed to achieve this massive turnaround upset victory, is.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: My friend Pedro Telles.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: He's the program director at DHUB, that's Democracy Hub, an
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: organization that provides support for anti-authoritarian movements around the world.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: We've heard, actually, Niko Kovac, who runs DHUB on this podcast,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: another friend of mine.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: But Pedro, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: joining us.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: A pleasure.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: All right, Pedro, let's just start with like election night, actually.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: You and I were on a massive WhatsApp thread. I
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: was getting my updates from you and others on the
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: ground in Brazil. Where were you on election night? Where
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: were you when you heard the news that Lula had won?
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: The scenes that we saw on television and online were extraordinary.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: I mean, what was your experience of that that night?
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 6: I was with a group of NGOs and social movements
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 6: that worked together monitoring the process and ensuring it would
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 6: go smoothly. As you probably know, it did not go smoothly.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 6: There was a change in the voting hours. There was confusion.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 6: But in the end, Lula won, and I was very
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 6: happy about it.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: Well, I want to get into how this happened. So
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: let's start with the first round of the presidential election
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: on October 4th when Lula came in. in second place,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: pretty far behind Flavio Bolsonaro. What was the mood on
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: that night? And how much did you think it was
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: still possible for Lula to win after that first round
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: election result?
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 6: Well, that was a very tough night for all of
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 6: us and a tough day after as well, because not
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 6: only Flavio was ahead, the four other main candidates running
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 6: were all right-wingers. And polling was showing us the most
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 6: voters for those candidates would also move towards Flavio. So
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 6: it looked like a near impossible task. And for a
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 6: couple of days, I guess everyone was like, what do
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 6: we do now? But then loads of spontaneous, organic, decentralized
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 6: organizing started happening and really energized people. And here we are.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: In the end, it worked out.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm curious, you know, because part of what's
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: interesting about the Brazil result is... It's not like in
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: Serbia where, you know, we had an uprising against a
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: longstanding corrupt incumbent.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: Here, Lula was the incumbent.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: How much, and we can get into the different pieces
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: of it, but how much of what happened was adjustments
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: that Lula himself made versus how much of this was
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: a kind of organic mobilization, like you said, by social movements,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: by organizers, by young people? What happened when you all
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: shook off the defeat on the first round?
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 6: Where did the energy come from? Look, there was no
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 6: silver bullet. There was no magic trick. It really was
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 6: a collection of effective efforts. And most of them not
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 6: coming from the campaign. So Lula's campaign, it's worth highlighting this.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 6: It wasn't the most organized and the best structured campaign
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 6: to begin with. There were some conflicts and infights in
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 6: the campaign team, as usually happens. There was not really
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 6: a consistent strategy that much. And then what happened for
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 6: the runoff was, on the one hand, Lula did change
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 6: the way he was behaving and his team was behaving.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 6: He even changed the campaign leadership for that. I would
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 6: say that the two main changes were, one, Lula really
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 6: started pushing for a series of policies that he was
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 6: able to approve during the runoff that had high popular support, right?
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 6: So one, Lula approved the change in labor law. to
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 6: end what we call the six by one work week.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 6: So in Brazil, labor law would allow people to work
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 6: up to six days, uh, per week. Now, uh, it's
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 6: only five days per week maximum. And he approved this
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 6: during the runoff. Uh, and, and that reduction, uh, came
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 6: with the assurance that wages would not be reduced, right?
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 6: That was like majorly popular support, uh, for this, uh,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 6: He also secured an increase in the cash transfer program,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 6: Bolsa Família, that reaches millions of Brazilians. He also banned
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 6: betting platforms that had also huge popular support, especially among women.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 6: So that was one thing. He was really pushing one
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 6: thing after the other during the runoff with high popular support.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 6: And he, at the same time, He invited a group
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 6: of young, newly elected MPs who have this profile of
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 6: influencer politicians that are really popular on social media. He
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 6: had a gathering with them and said, look, it's now
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 6: all or nothing. And I need your support.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: And I need you.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 6: And I know that you know what you're doing, that
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 6: you got elected like this and you're amazing at this.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 6: And I want to give you my support. Do your magic.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 6: So he was on the one hand, validating politically the
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 6: work that those newly elected MPs were doing online, asking
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 6: for their help and giving them freedom to run and
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 6: to do their magic. So there were some changes in
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 6: the way that the campaign was behaving that was important.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 6: But in addition to this, there were loads of efforts
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 6: that did not come from the campaign.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: They were critical.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 6: The most famous one, you may have heard of this
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 6: by now, is the Lula's Army What's Up organizing effort
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 6: led by a member of parliament, Andres Janonis. Jean Nonis,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 6: he's a famous politician for a while now. He also
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 6: has this profile of being a great content creator and
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 6: a great digital organizer. So a few days before the runoff,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 6: he set up this WhatsApp channel. And I'm not sure
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 6: how familiar you are in the US with WhatsApp channels.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 6: I know in Brazil it's a bigger thing. But in
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 6: WhatsApp channels, you can have millions of people. There's no
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 6: limit to how many people. It's a broadcast platform. And
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 6: what he did was, on the day after, of the
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 6: first round, he came and said, look, here is what
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 6: we're going to be organizing to win the second round.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 6: And this guy, he already has his following and he's
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 6: very charismatic and very energetic. He really behaves as a general.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 6: And what he managed to capture was there were millions
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 6: of Brazilians who were like desperate and wanted to do something.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 6: The campaign leadership didn't really have a clear plan or
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 6: structure to deal with people who wanted to volunteer, to
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 6: deal with decentralized groups. That was a weak spot in
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 6: the campaign. And Janotis captured the energy of people who
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 6: wanted to do something. And this channel became a channel
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 6: with nearly 11 million people by election day. And every
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 6: day he will be there sending people missions and saying,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 6: you know, today we got to make this content viral.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 6: Today we got to be inviting people to come to
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 6: this rally. Today we're going to have a live Alula.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 6: Come join this live. So this really became the kind
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 6: of the biggest case study on WhatsApp organizing. And the
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 6: strength of WhatsApp organizing is that people are there in
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 6: groups with their families, their friends. The people you reach
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 6: on WhatsApp is different from those you're reaching in like
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 6: algorithm mediated Instagram, for example.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 6: Uh so that was a critical element uh plus there
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 6: were loads of uh decentralized get out the vote efforts
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 6: very important uh civil society played a key role in
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 6: pushing for mobilizing elderly people to go vote uh and
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 6: in brazil the vote for the elderly people is not
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 6: mandatory yeah and we knew for a fact that uh
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 6: Four years ago, 50% of this group didn't go vote,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 6: 70 plus years of age. That's 8 million people in total.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 6: So getting out the vote for this specific constituency and
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 6: a couple others are crucial. Loads of civil society afterwards
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 6: for that. And a critical element that I want to
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 6: highlight is that of investigative journalism. So one thing that
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 6: was necessary for Flavio Toulouse was to convince voters of
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 6: other candidates not to go vote for Flavio, right? In
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 6: addition to turning out votes for Lula, you had to convince.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 6: And there were a few investigative journalists that really managed to,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 6: day after day, be breaking news stories about Flavio's scandals,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 6: Flavio's complicated relationships, Flavio's relationship with criminals or criminal activities
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 6: that kept Flavio on the defensive. And that really helped
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 6: Lula to have space to be able to grow.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: That's such a great summary.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: So basically, I mean, just to recap it, you've got this,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: you know, 80-year-old legendary progressive political figure who kind of,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: you know, he goes into the well of progressive policies,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: banning online gambling, shortening the work week. But he also,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: this is a man that never had a smartphone in
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: his life. He started listening to different people.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: He got one. He started doing direct-to-camera videos.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: Then you have this organic effort.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: Lula's army is constructed. People are given something to do.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: People may have seen the picture after Lula won of
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: a man in a Brazilian national team jersey hugging Lula.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: That's the guy who ran Lula's army, right?
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: So you're building this big organic movement that connects young people.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, it felt like Lula, who's.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: An older generation politician, kind of whether it was an
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: alliance of convenience or a genuine one, there was this
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: connectivity between younger people and this progressive icon.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: Is that essentially the energy that was unleashed?
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 6: Yes, that is. And one strength of Lula is that
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 6: Lula has always respected people who have votes. So historically,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 6: if you look and look at Lula's history, he always
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 6: tried to get as close allies as mayors, governors, MPs,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 6: who actually showed that they're able to get votes, to
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 6: mobilize voters. And that's what he did again this time.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 6: Like he said, like, you guys, you rocked in the
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 6: first round, and I need you and your strength and
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 6: your energy to win in this runoff.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: Well, I think there's a lot of lessons for us
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: to take from this globally.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: I also want to ask about the other side of
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: this is that, you know, we heard a lot from
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: Lula and his allies about Meta, which owns WhatsApp, but
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: also Instagram and Facebook. tilting algorithms, tilting their platforms, particularly
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 4: the ones with algorithms like Instagram and Facebook, in the
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: direction of Flavio Bolsonaro. How real was that? I mean,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: what was happening? What was Meta's role in this campaign?
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: And what role did that play?
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 6: That's the biggest story from this election apart from Lula's win, right?
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 6: So the first thing that started happening was that loads
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 6: of content creators who were supporting Lula started reporting that
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 6: their accounts were being banned or shadow banned or their
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 6: posts taken down for no clear reason. And there's an
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 6: organization that I'm actually a board member of, a confounder
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 6: called Control-Z, that we set up a form saying, look,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 6: we're getting many reports. Let us know here, let's formalize this.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 6: And let us know if you're being banned, suffering with this.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 6: In a couple of days, there were more than a
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 6: thousand reports from people like showing, explaining how their content
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 6: or accounts were being banned. And once we started organizing
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 6: this evidence, this became news. Because Meta is pretty good
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 6: at dismissing cases when it's like individual cases. But when
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 6: you come up to them and say like, there's actually
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 6: a thousand cases. This effort was so successful that Lula's
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 6: campaign replicated and built its own platform to start collecting evidence.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 6: And then Lula starting himself talking about this, but it
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 6: was more, it was not just this. Lula's campaign was
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 6: blocked from doing advertisements on meta platforms for a full day.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 6: If you looked for Lula's name on like Instagram or WhatsApp,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 6: you would not find Lula's channel.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: He wouldn't show up.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 6: It was kind of shadow banned in this sense. But
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 6: if you look for Flavio's, Flavio would show up. There's
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 6: evidence that Flavio's campaign paid 33 to 40% less than
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 6: Lula's campaign for advertising. to reach kind of the same audiences.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 6: And finally, what really turned this into a global story,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 6: when the New York Times reported, for example, in the US,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 6: was if you go to Meta's AI on WhatsApp, you
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 6: can ask Meta's AI to do anything, right, on WhatsApp.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 6: If you go there, and if you asked Meta's AI
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 6: to create a poster for Lula, it would say, sorry,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 6: I cannot do this. But if you ask it to
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 6: create a poster for Flavio, it would say, yes, here
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 6: it is, and gladly do it. And more than that,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 6: If you asked Meta's AI to say, like, can you
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 6: do a poster for my dog? He's running for president.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 6: He would do a poster for your dog and he
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 6: would attach a number to it because in Brazil, in Brazil,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 6: we use numbers to vote. And he would attach a
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 6: number even if you didn't ask for a number. And
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 6: that number would be 22, which is Flavio's number. So
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 6: clearly there was a clear algorithm bias towards Flavio there.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 6: Meta claims, of course, and now this is going through,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 6: I mean, Lula's campaign started official legal action. This is
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 6: going to be investigated. Meta claims that there was no
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 6: active meddling. But even if Meta didn't actively meddle with
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 6: the systems to favor Flavio, it's very clear that there
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 6: is an inherent bias towards Flavio and that that impacted
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 6: Lula's campaign. So that's a big story and we'll continue
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 6: to investigate and hopefully it's going to lead Meta to
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 6: be held accountable.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I think this is really important because we're
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: seeing this kind of exponential rise in power for tech
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 4: oligarchs like Mark Zuckerberg. And, um, that is a chilling
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: story of, of, of how much these platforms that are
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 4: in our lives, uh, can be manipulated. I want to
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 4: ask just close by asking about the future of the
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 4: left and the right. Um, uh, let's, uh, let's start
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 4: with the right just cause, uh, there's like news today,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: obviously a Flavio Bolsonaro, uh, flying the coop and leaving
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 4: the country. Um, You now have, you know, the elder
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 4: Jair Bolsonaro, he's in prison for the insurrection that he
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 4: led after he lost an election. Now you have Flavio
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: leaving the country. What is the future of this far-right
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 4: movement in Brazil? Obviously, there's control and Lula has to
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: deal with a divided government.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 3: There's control.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of parliamentary power for the right. Where
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 4: does the far-right go after this loss?
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 6: Well, the far-right right now, even though they lost elections,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 6: the presidential race in Congress, they're very strong. So Bolsonaro's
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 6: party alone has a third of the Senate and a
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 6: fourth of the lower house. Brazil, different from the US,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 6: we have 30 political parties in Brazil. So a single
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 6: party having a third of a house and a fourth
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 6: of the other, it's quite a lot, right? So they're
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 6: in a very strong position in Congress, stronger than ever.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 6: I guess what is at stake here is not so
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 6: much the strength of the far right, Like if we
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 6: dismiss the far right because of this defeat for the presidency,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 6: we're going to be making a mistake. They're still strong.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 6: They're still organized. But I guess the dominance of the
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 6: Bolsonaro family is now at stake, right? To which extent
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 6: they're going to be able to still kind of centralize
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 6: the far right strategy and space and roles. I guess
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 6: that's the main question regarding the far right here. We're
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 6: on the left, on the other hand. Then it's something
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 6: else because Lula, everyone knows Lula. this was Lula's last dance, right? Even,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 6: I mean, he was elected and that's great, right?
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: For democracy.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 6: But it is inevitable that among leftists, now people are
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 6: going to start fighting for who is going to occupy
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 6: the vacuum that Lula is going to leave. And it
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 6: will be a tragedy in my view if this leads
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 6: to a level of infight that gets us like fragmented
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 6: and not able to fight a far right.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: Let's see how it goes.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 6: But that's the challenge for the left now. How do
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 6: we stay united while people are fighting for a looter space?
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: And do you think that this kind of organic movement
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 4: to defend democracy, that can lead to infighting? Are there
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 4: ways that could lead towards a more constructive building of
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 4: movements that can revitalize Brazilian democracy after this kind of
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: 80-something-year-old lion exits the stage?
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 6: Honestly, we did not do a good job over the
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 6: last four years, right? So we managed to win again
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 6: this time, and that's brilliant. But as you can see,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 6: the Bolsonaro family in the far right, I mean, they
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 6: continue to be very strong and very present. My hopes
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 6: is that for the next four years, we're not going
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 6: to lower the guards in the same way that we
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 6: did in the last four years. And I hope that
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 6: the lessons that we've learned from this tight election and
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 6: from seeing these guys come back and almost get to
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 6: power again is going to lead us to really go
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 6: deeper and have more consistent efforts looking forward. And that's
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 6: what I'm going to be working for. But I don't
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 6: take it for granted. I think it's going to be
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 6: hard work.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 4: Well, look, Pedro, for the time being, though, I hope
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 4: you can enjoy this victory because it's just an extraordinary
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 4: achievement for an incumbent to hold on like this, to
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 4: buck the momentum in Latin America, where you've seen the
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 4: ship to the far right. I know that it took
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 4: a lot of movement building, when the election results are
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 4: close like this, everything mattered.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 3: Every organizer mattered. Every organization mattered.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 4: So for the time being, congratulations and enjoy yourself before
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 4: you get back to work, as I know you will.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Ben.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 6: And best of luck for your elections there. I know
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 6: it's coming and I know it's going to be tough.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 4: So yeah, we'll try to keep the momentum going, man.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 4: I appreciate it, Pedro. Good to talk to you.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: Thanks again to Pedro Tellez for joining the show. And
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: we'll talk to you guys next week. Positive World is
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Ilona Minkowski,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: Michael Goldsmith, and Anisha Banerjee. Our team includes Matt DeGroat,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Kenny Moffitt, David Tolles, and Ryan Young.
• 1:19:47
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• 1:19:49
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