Latest / Pod Save the World / Forever War (Trump's Version)

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Forever War (Trump's Version) · Pod Save the World

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Speaker 1: Terms and conditions may apply. Welcome back to pots, say
1:48
Speaker 1: the world. I'm Tommy Vietorn, I'm Ben roods Man. Spain
1:52
Speaker 1: just kicked the crap out of France in the World Cup.
1:55
Speaker 2: I didn't see that coming. I thought France was pretty
1:58
Speaker 2: much going to kind of glide. Yes, so I not
2:03
Speaker 2: that I consider my soccer knowledge to be considerable, But
2:07
Speaker 2: I definitely don't know what I'm talking about.
2:09
Speaker 1: I've been watching him for about three weeks, so I'm
2:10
Speaker 1: surprised that I'm wrong. But also it doesn't matter anyway,
2:13
Speaker 1: because it's all ripe for Argentina.
2:15
Speaker 3: I believe that I've come to believe that.
2:18
Speaker 1: It's crazy when you look at all the like replays
2:20
Speaker 1: and clips of like bullshit calls Argentina got.
2:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, rageous. Yeah, I mean that Egypt game was kind
2:26
Speaker 3: of nuts.
2:27
Speaker 1: They disallowed a goal they callout like ninety yards away.
2:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all very peculiar to me, and.
2:35
Speaker 2: Even Norway because I was deep on that bandwagon, and
2:38
Speaker 2: I felt like I had some validity on that bandwagon
2:40
Speaker 2: because I was in Norway, which by the way, is
2:42
Speaker 2: an awesome experience watching them win at a bar, but
2:47
Speaker 2: and then watching tens of thousands of Norwegians walk so Tommy,
2:51
Speaker 2: they they walk to where the Royal Palace is, which
2:54
Speaker 2: is like right in the center of Oslo, and they
2:57
Speaker 2: sit in formation and start rowing.
2:59
Speaker 3: Okay, in the middle of the night.
3:00
Speaker 1: We're gonna do some rowing. Talk at the end of
3:02
Speaker 1: the show comes out.
3:04
Speaker 2: So anyway, but Norway got kind of screwed too, like
3:07
Speaker 2: they get totally screwed.
3:08
Speaker 3: Like I don't get the penalty that they was called
3:11
Speaker 3: the dislaw that.
3:11
Speaker 1: Goal, Yeah, the ball, like the whole thing. It's just
3:14
Speaker 1: it's heartbreaking. I like arling Holland, though he looked like
3:17
Speaker 1: it wasn't taking it too hard. He was out at
3:18
Speaker 1: the clubs in Miami that night.
3:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, he had the you know, stuffed record and stuff
3:22
Speaker 3: raccoon with a tequila bottle.
3:24
Speaker 1: He had a good ass time in America.
3:26
Speaker 2: I fully support that guy's moment everyone he deserves it. Yeah, well,
3:30
Speaker 2: I'm going to be sad that World Cup's over. I'd like, genuinely,
3:32
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with all my
3:34
Speaker 2: time now. I feel like it already ended because I'm
3:37
Speaker 2: an underdog guy. And once you got to the Semis,
3:40
Speaker 2: I was like looking around and I guess, I guess
3:44
Speaker 2: I'm in for England now.
3:45
Speaker 1: I thought I thought like one underdog might win, but
3:47
Speaker 1: not a single.
3:48
Speaker 2: Not a single one. I wanted that one team to
3:49
Speaker 2: get through. I guess I'm I'm team England now. But
3:52
Speaker 2: it's not the same. I like to get behind whoever
3:54
Speaker 2: is coming out of nowhere.
3:55
Speaker 1: Me too, Me too. Well, it's great to be back
3:57
Speaker 1: in studio. We missed you in the flesh. Thank you.
4:00
Speaker 3: We're holding it down.
4:00
Speaker 1: We look you know. It's many. Was great, but we
4:04
Speaker 1: missed you. We got a great show for you guys. Today.
4:06
Speaker 1: We're got to cover the resumption of the war between
4:09
Speaker 1: the US and Iran. Who could have seen this coming?
4:11
Speaker 1: Ben estly barely paused. If we're being honest, it sort
4:15
Speaker 1: of was always a war. But we're going to talk
4:16
Speaker 1: about the Trump administrations confusing and conflicting statements about what's happening,
4:20
Speaker 1: and then tell you guys the backstory of how we
4:21
Speaker 1: got here. There's also some interesting new detail about this
4:25
Speaker 1: crazy Israeli planned to install former Iranian president Macmood Ahmadidijad
4:30
Speaker 1: as leader of Iran. I'll tell you about that. We're
4:33
Speaker 1: going to explain about how concerns about security on Air
4:36
Speaker 1: Force One have led to a massive attack on press
4:38
Speaker 1: freedom here in the United States, so that's wonderful. We're
4:40
Speaker 1: going to tell you about a story about a bridge
4:43
Speaker 1: to Canada and the price that we all pay because
4:45
Speaker 1: of government corruption. Then we're going to cover the latest
4:47
Speaker 1: from Venezuela, how terrorists are using artificial intelligence because we
4:51
Speaker 1: need more of posilic arm On the show, weird gifts
4:54
Speaker 1: at NATO, some World Cup talk at the end, and
4:57
Speaker 1: then Ben, you did our interview earlier today. Who'd you
4:58
Speaker 1: talk to?
4:59
Speaker 2: I talked to Congressman Rocanna. People may or may not
5:02
Speaker 2: have seen the news that he was on a trip
5:04
Speaker 2: to the West Bank recently. A few days ago he
5:07
Speaker 2: was threatened by a group of kind of you know, violent,
5:12
Speaker 2: heavily armed Israeli settlers. The IDF came and instead of
5:16
Speaker 2: dispersing the settlers, a detained US congressman for the first
5:20
Speaker 2: time in several decades in any country. And so we
5:23
Speaker 2: talk about his trip, what happened, what he was trying
5:25
Speaker 2: to achieve there, what he saw there, the reaction to
5:28
Speaker 2: his visit from Prime Mister nan Yaou. But also, you know,
5:31
Speaker 2: he had Democrats criticizing him for just going to the
5:34
Speaker 2: West Bank. So we talked about that as well.
5:36
Speaker 1: I was watching it on Fox News yesterday and one of
5:39
Speaker 1: the questions was kind of like, how dare you not
5:42
Speaker 1: do basically the itinerary that the Israeli ambassador to the
5:46
Speaker 1: US recommended you do, Like, how dare you not meet
5:49
Speaker 1: with families of hostages? From October seventh, which I'm not
5:51
Speaker 1: saying is like not something that's totally important and valid
5:54
Speaker 1: to do, But it's like, we're letting a foreign ambassador
5:57
Speaker 1: dictate a congressman's schedule while on a hotel. What are
6:00
Speaker 1: we talking.
6:00
Speaker 2: There's so many things that pissed me off about this,
6:03
Speaker 2: which we talk about a little bit. But the first
6:05
Speaker 2: is that even the Democrats like Josh Skottheimer and the DMFI,
6:09
Speaker 2: the Democratic majority of Israel, accused him of going on
6:11
Speaker 2: a publicity stunt. What is every single trip the APEX
6:15
Speaker 2: sponsors where you go and get photos with net Shyahoo
6:19
Speaker 2: and you visit someplace that a rocket landed, you know,
6:22
Speaker 2: at some point, And so they're mad that he went
6:26
Speaker 2: to the West Bank instead of the photo ops they like.
6:30
Speaker 2: And then they ignore the fact that the West Bank
6:34
Speaker 2: is not Israel. So why should the Israeli ambassador even
6:37
Speaker 2: you know, be the host when you're visiting what is
6:41
Speaker 2: not recognized as Israel's territory. This is under an illegal
6:44
Speaker 2: military occupation, right.
6:45
Speaker 1: The people kept saying like, well, it's a closed area
6:48
Speaker 1: under military occupations, Like yeah, that is the problem actually
6:52
Speaker 1: is sort of the structural challenges you're talking about and
6:54
Speaker 1: also people were trying to argue, well, he wasn't really detained.
6:58
Speaker 1: He was just held up for forty five minutes by
7:00
Speaker 1: civilians with M four rights.
7:02
Speaker 2: You guys all try all you you know, keyboard warriors
7:05
Speaker 2: out there. I'd like you to go somewhere, get harassed
7:09
Speaker 2: by heavily armed people, and then have a foreign military
7:13
Speaker 2: come and not allow you to leave and tell me
7:16
Speaker 2: that you're not detained.
7:17
Speaker 3: I don't know what else that's called.
7:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, And look, I mean, I'm not like it seems
7:20
Speaker 1: like the IDEAF basically was like, look, we're gonna wait
7:21
Speaker 1: here until the police come. That's how we're going to
7:23
Speaker 1: resolve this. Fine, But like these random civilians, settlers with
7:26
Speaker 1: guns held them up for like forty five minutes, and
7:29
Speaker 1: it must have been incredibly scary.
7:31
Speaker 2: I'm just going to guess too that if let's say
7:34
Speaker 2: Josh gottheimer I mentioned was in that position, the IDEA
7:38
Speaker 2: might have handled it differently.
7:40
Speaker 3: So they know who Rokan is and they know the
7:42
Speaker 3: positions he stake.
7:43
Speaker 1: Speaking of the West Bank, our friend friend of the show,
7:46
Speaker 1: Jasper Nathaniel, is doing great covers of the West Bank.
7:49
Speaker 1: He's been there for about a month check out his substack.
7:51
Speaker 1: It's infinite Jazz dot substack dot com. He was once
7:56
Speaker 1: again basically like with a group of Palestinians who got
8:00
Speaker 1: up and assaulted by a bunch of violent settlers. Jasper's
8:03
Speaker 1: a big dude.
8:04
Speaker 3: He was with Roe on this trip.
8:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Road talked about you know something, because the
8:07
Speaker 2: other good thing is he talked about the actual Palestamine
8:10
Speaker 2: stores that he got, so we didn't just talk about Roe.
8:12
Speaker 2: And he credited Jasper with with him taking the trip and.
8:15
Speaker 1: The yes, and look, Jasper is a big dude, Like
8:18
Speaker 1: he's a big jack guy. And this crazy settler was
8:21
Speaker 1: like punching him and kicking him, and it like took
8:23
Speaker 1: all of Jasper's restraint not to just beat the fucking
8:26
Speaker 1: brakes off this guy, this weirdo. But check out his coverage.
8:30
Speaker 1: Infinite Jazz is the sub deck. All right, Ben, let's
8:32
Speaker 1: talk about it. Ron. We're back of war. This conflict
8:35
Speaker 1: that was once builled as a three to four week
8:37
Speaker 1: excursion has now gone on for over four months, and
8:39
Speaker 1: Trump is openly saying that now that the ceasefire is over,
8:42
Speaker 1: that it could go on forever. He's calling us the
8:44
Speaker 1: guardian of the hornor moves straight. So we have a
8:45
Speaker 1: brand new forever war in the Middle East. I know
8:48
Speaker 1: you're excited. I can see by by your face you're
8:50
Speaker 1: pumped about this one.
8:51
Speaker 3: The Guardians of the Galaxies at little big thing, bigger, bigger.
8:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a little bigger. So check out this
8:57
Speaker 1: super cut before we talk about what happened of thisments
9:00
Speaker 1: that Trump and his team we're making when the ceasefire
9:03
Speaker 1: deal was inked and now compared to now.
9:05
Speaker 4: I'm not looking for regime change, although this is regime change.
9:08
Speaker 4: The first regime is gone, the second regime is gone,
9:13
Speaker 4: and I think the third regime is more reasonable. But
9:15
Speaker 4: we'll find out.
9:16
Speaker 5: I got to know him of this stone call crazy people.
9:19
Speaker 6: The coolest thing about the progress we've made over the
9:21
Speaker 6: last few weeks is that you see people within the
9:24
Speaker 6: Iranian system, senior leadership, even IRGC officials, say, you know what,
9:29
Speaker 6: we may have some animosity, we may have some mistrust,
9:32
Speaker 6: but we recognize the way that we've done business with
9:34
Speaker 6: the United States for forty seven years as a mistake.
9:37
Speaker 1: Let's try something else.
9:38
Speaker 5: Look memorandum of understanding. When you're dealing with sleeves, bags
9:43
Speaker 5: don't mean much it's.
9:44
Speaker 3: An international waterway. No country is allowed to charge tolls
9:48
Speaker 3: or fees on an international waterway. That's existing international law.
9:52
Speaker 5: I want to be reimbursed because we're protecting a very
9:55
Speaker 5: rich portion of the world. We're spending money, and so
9:58
Speaker 5: what we've done is we are going to be reimbursed
10:01
Speaker 5: for protection. So I put it out yesterday. I thought
10:03
Speaker 5: it was good. I was called by different people different countries,
10:07
Speaker 5: kings and emirs and all of the people that we
10:11
Speaker 5: all know and we all loved. We'd love to do
10:14
Speaker 5: it a different way. We'd love to invest in the
10:16
Speaker 5: United States with billions and billions of dollars. The Gulf
10:20
Speaker 5: States are going to invest a tremendous amount of money
10:23
Speaker 5: into the United States, and that was very satisfactory to me.
10:27
Speaker 5: I think it's actually much better.
10:30
Speaker 1: Before then, before you get the backstory and kind of
10:32
Speaker 1: the approximate causes that got us to this moment. Any
10:35
Speaker 1: thoughts on the incoherent mess of statements we just saw.
10:37
Speaker 2: There, I think that the lesson we have to take away,
10:40
Speaker 2: which I don't know why people still need to learn
10:42
Speaker 2: this in your ten of the Trump decade, is that
10:46
Speaker 2: there's like a very thick layer of bullshit that overlays
10:52
Speaker 2: like what is actually happening, that like eighty to ninety
10:55
Speaker 2: percent of what they say is just complete and utter
10:58
Speaker 2: bullshit on any given day about the success of the
11:01
Speaker 2: m o U or about the one day they're great,
11:04
Speaker 2: one day they're terror way yeah. Yeah, one day we're
11:08
Speaker 2: standing up for the principle that nobody can tell the thing,
11:11
Speaker 2: and then the next day we're trying to tell the thing. Uh,
11:13
Speaker 2: the Iranians, it's cool, it's cool how much we're talking,
11:18
Speaker 2: but then they're fucking assholes. And this is the problem
11:21
Speaker 2: with a lot of conventional media that feels like obliged
11:24
Speaker 2: to run these as if they're kind of credible argumentation
11:29
Speaker 2: for what the Trump approaches when the reality has not
11:33
Speaker 2: really changed. The Iranians control the Strait of Hormuz, this
11:37
Speaker 2: war is a catastrophe. Trump has no answer on the
11:39
Speaker 2: nuclear questions were the stated purpose of the war. The
11:43
Speaker 2: regime has not changed. It's, if anything, just gotten more hardline.
11:46
Speaker 2: Uh that that's been the status quoiyanti here for months
11:50
Speaker 2: and we go on this roller coaster ride of rhetoric
11:53
Speaker 2: that that really means nothing.
11:55
Speaker 1: And he talks so much and so often that he
11:57
Speaker 1: gets a pass for saying the exact opposite thing one
12:01
Speaker 1: day to the next, and just this total incoherence. But
12:03
Speaker 1: it drives me crazy, and it's like he's useful, I
12:04
Speaker 1: think to watch it all cut together. Yeah, because you
12:07
Speaker 1: were reminded. So just in terms of how we kind
12:09
Speaker 1: of got to this moment where the war is ramping
12:11
Speaker 1: back up, it seems like they've two things that are
12:13
Speaker 1: worth mentioning. The first was that the Israelis passed along
12:16
Speaker 1: intelligence to Trump that said Iran was trying to kill him.
12:19
Speaker 1: I guess he didn't like that. I wonder about the
12:21
Speaker 1: veracity of the intelligence. Will find out dead. I mean,
12:23
Speaker 1: there are always probably trying to be trying to kill him,
12:25
Speaker 1: but I don't know if there was some new things
12:26
Speaker 1: I didn't think. So that led to the following truth
12:28
Speaker 1: social post quote one thousand missiles are locked and loaded
12:31
Speaker 1: and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands
12:33
Speaker 1: of more to immediately follow should the Iranian government act
12:36
Speaker 1: on its threat pronounced in many corners of the globe,
12:38
Speaker 1: to assassinate or attempt to assassinate the sitting president the
12:40
Speaker 1: United States of America in this case me. So that
12:45
Speaker 1: was at But more importantly, the US in Iran, as
12:48
Speaker 1: we've discussed, had been jocking over who's going to control
12:50
Speaker 1: the straderh Jomus going forward. I remember before this war started,
12:53
Speaker 1: the straighter hoj Moves was wide open and had been
12:55
Speaker 1: open for decades, even at times of great conflict between
12:58
Speaker 1: the US and Iran. But Iran is a certain control
13:01
Speaker 1: over the strait in preparation for charging tolls in perpetuity,
13:05
Speaker 1: and they've been trying to force ships to sail through
13:07
Speaker 1: a channel that is closest to the Iranian coastline, but
13:09
Speaker 1: the US has been providing support to ships that transit
13:12
Speaker 1: the Straight of Hormuz in a channel closer to oman.
13:15
Speaker 1: The Iranians didn't like that. They started firing at ships
13:17
Speaker 1: in the Omani channel. The US fired back. We had
13:20
Speaker 1: days of air strikes on targets in Iran, and the
13:23
Speaker 1: Iranians were firing missiles and drones at US military bases
13:25
Speaker 1: in the Gulf, and here we are so Iran. This
13:30
Speaker 1: points to this really sloppy language and the ceasefire Memorandum
13:33
Speaker 1: of Understanding to justify their actions and attempts to control
13:38
Speaker 1: the strait, specifically ben paragraph five of the MoU says,
13:42
Speaker 1: upon the signing of this MoU, the Islamic Republic of
13:44
Speaker 1: Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the
13:46
Speaker 1: safe passage of commercial vehicles. And then later it says,
13:49
Speaker 1: the Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialogue with the
13:52
Speaker 1: Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime
13:55
Speaker 1: services in the Strait of Hormuz. The US side obviously
13:59
Speaker 1: says the Iranians do not control the strape because that
14:02
Speaker 1: language the Iranians say they do. I for one, am
14:04
Speaker 1: shocked that JD. Vance, Donald Trump's son and lawg Yerar
14:07
Speaker 1: Kushner and golf buddy Steve Wakoff didn't draft iron clash
14:11
Speaker 1: and diplomatic language so ben Regardless, oil futures are up
14:15
Speaker 1: like ten percent already. The Wall Street Journal reported that
14:18
Speaker 1: the resumption of fighting revived a trading strategy that Wall
14:21
Speaker 1: Street traders are now calling the nacho trade, which is
14:24
Speaker 1: an acronym for not a chance hor moves opens. Golden
14:27
Speaker 1: Sachs put out a report about efforts to build new
14:29
Speaker 1: pipelines in ports that would allow oil to get around
14:32
Speaker 1: the trader for a move. But that's like a twenty
14:34
Speaker 1: twenty seven twenty twenty eight project. And in the near
14:36
Speaker 1: term this is the new normal. It's bad, predictable, predicted,
14:40
Speaker 1: but back of war.
14:43
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean to just take up a couple of
14:46
Speaker 2: those things on these assassination threats and intelligence.
14:52
Speaker 3: I do I think.
14:54
Speaker 2: That maybe there's some aspiration that people in the Ratian
14:57
Speaker 2: system have to take a shot at Trump someday.
15:01
Speaker 1: Maybe.
15:02
Speaker 2: But do I think that Israel came across like a
15:05
Speaker 2: plot that the US and telligence community didn't uncover and conveniently.
15:10
Speaker 3: In the middle of the war that Israel would.
15:11
Speaker 1: Like to extend, and they foiled something.
15:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a little now. I will say this.
15:17
Speaker 2: One reason that for most of human history, even when
15:22
Speaker 2: countries were at war with each other, even in like
15:26
Speaker 2: world wars, you did not have assassinations of leaders is
15:30
Speaker 2: in part people were concerned about the tit for tat.
15:35
Speaker 2: People might not remember because it happened what four or
15:39
Speaker 2: five months ago that the United States and Israel assassinated
15:43
Speaker 2: the leader of Iran. I mean that we may not
15:45
Speaker 2: like the Supreme Leader, but a lot of people in
15:48
Speaker 2: Iran do. And I just suggest that it doesn't justify anything.
15:54
Speaker 2: Quite the opposite. The point is that there should be
15:56
Speaker 2: a bright line around doing that. But if you assassinate
16:01
Speaker 2: it's not just cost some so money the leader of
16:03
Speaker 2: the IRGC that Trump assassinated in his first term, like
16:07
Speaker 2: he participated and boasted about the assassination of the Supreme
16:10
Speaker 2: leader of Iran.
16:10
Speaker 1: You're setting a precedent, You're sitting a press.
16:13
Speaker 2: And unfortunately, tragically, not just Trump, but any future gust
16:17
Speaker 2: president is now in a different space. I mean, we've
16:19
Speaker 2: not talked enough about how extreme that was to just
16:23
Speaker 2: kill the leader of another country, even again, even an
16:26
Speaker 2: odious leader from our judgment. I also this loose tat
16:30
Speaker 2: of thousands of missiles. First of all, Iran is weathered
16:34
Speaker 2: both a lot of missiles and threats to destroy their civilization.
16:39
Speaker 1: There's no new ideas in that the.
16:40
Speaker 2: True social posts are so designed for American audiences and
16:44
Speaker 2: not Iranian ones. It's just so that like Trump's Lackey's,
16:48
Speaker 2: the dead enders on Fox News are like, Oh, we
16:51
Speaker 2: feel really tough because yeah, we're gonna kill some Iranian
16:54
Speaker 2: civilians and maybe we'll kill some more schoolgirls with these weapons,
16:58
Speaker 2: and we'll blow up the missile launcher that we already
17:00
Speaker 2: blew up that they rebuilt already.
17:02
Speaker 3: This is not working militarily. And then the one thing
17:06
Speaker 3: I'd just say about the Strait, the problem they have
17:08
Speaker 3: with this is Iran. Look at a map. They're there.
17:13
Speaker 3: They're not going anywhere.
17:15
Speaker 2: So the only way you're actually going to open the
17:18
Speaker 2: Straight in perpetuity is through a diplomatic deal with Iran.
17:22
Speaker 2: You can try to muscle as many tankers through for
17:26
Speaker 2: a few months or a few weeks, but like, Iran's
17:29
Speaker 2: not going anywhere, and they could two months from now
17:31
Speaker 2: mine the Straight again. They've demonstrated that they can do it.
17:34
Speaker 2: And so the only way this ends and that straight
17:37
Speaker 2: opens in a predictable and open ended way, is for
17:41
Speaker 2: there to be a diplomatic agreement.
17:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Trump and his dumb team thought that
17:46
Speaker 1: this was an economic deal, right. You always hear Jared
17:49
Speaker 1: Kushner be like, we think of diplomacy as a real
17:50
Speaker 1: estate deal. The Iranians did not. They had they just
17:53
Speaker 1: like Trump and Kushner and Wickoff, they had no understanding
17:56
Speaker 1: of the nationalism and the pride and like the race
18:00
Speaker 1: age they created among the IRGC and Iranian leaders by
18:03
Speaker 1: bombing the shit out of them, right, And then in
18:05
Speaker 1: fact that into their ability to get something done. So
18:07
Speaker 1: one thing I'm watching, Like last time we saw Trump
18:09
Speaker 1: propose an escort mission like this Mamba been Salmon. The
18:12
Speaker 1: Saudi Crown Prince basically shut it down by saying, you
18:14
Speaker 1: cannot fly through our airspace. I don't know if he's
18:18
Speaker 1: weighed in publicly this time, but I did see on
18:20
Speaker 1: Monday the Saudis bombed a runway in Yemen, in Huthy
18:23
Speaker 1: territory to prevent an IRGC plane that was carrying Houthy
18:27
Speaker 1: leaders from landing there. It was a delegation that was
18:30
Speaker 1: coming back from the Supreme Leader's funeral in Iran. They
18:33
Speaker 1: bombed the runway they were trying to land, I think,
18:35
Speaker 1: to prevent them from getting back. But also they said
18:37
Speaker 1: there was a bunch of guns on this plane. Who
18:41
Speaker 1: fucking knows, but it was just interesting to me, Ben,
18:43
Speaker 1: because you know, the Saudis and the Houthies have had
18:45
Speaker 1: this unofficial truce in their war for about four years,
18:48
Speaker 1: and the nuclear option for Iran would be having the
18:50
Speaker 1: Houthis try to shut down shipping traffic in the Red Sea. Boy,
18:55
Speaker 1: you want to see an economic calamity there you go.
18:58
Speaker 1: So this is one to watch.
18:59
Speaker 3: This is the thing is this thing can continue to
19:01
Speaker 3: get worse.
19:01
Speaker 2: I mean, if we returned to kind of a much
19:04
Speaker 2: larger scale of war and Yemen and then the Houthis
19:06
Speaker 2: are trying to shut down traffic in the Red Sea
19:08
Speaker 2: and they're firing things at the Saudias and their efforts
19:11
Speaker 2: to paralyze the golf. Again, the longer this stays in
19:15
Speaker 2: this state of off and on war, the more risk
19:20
Speaker 2: you're occurring, and the more you're perpetuating shortages of stuff
19:25
Speaker 2: not getting to the strait. They're just there's no way
19:29
Speaker 2: out of the diplomacy, Like they want to believe that
19:33
Speaker 2: we're one runway bombed or one you know, tough night
19:37
Speaker 2: of strikes on Iran from having them.
19:39
Speaker 1: Pete Hexeth's statement away from victory.
19:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, one more press conference or truth social
19:45
Speaker 2: there's a reality and then there's what they're saying, and
19:47
Speaker 2: the reality is not much has changed since around weathered
19:50
Speaker 2: our assaults, closed this straight and demonstrated the leverage that
19:54
Speaker 2: they have.
19:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just on the cost of this war. One
19:56
Speaker 1: thing worth noting is the Washington Post had this really
19:59
Speaker 1: good p over the weekend, is deeply reported expose over
20:04
Speaker 1: you know sort of the impact of the war in
20:05
Speaker 1: the Gulf. It was the headline was survivors of Iranian
20:07
Speaker 1: attack that killed six US troops say generals ignored warnings,
20:10
Speaker 1: and it details the series of failures by army leaders
20:14
Speaker 1: during the war that included moving soldiers from one place
20:16
Speaker 1: that had air defenses to a smaller one that did not.
20:20
Speaker 1: It was poorly this new place they'd moved them to,
20:22
Speaker 1: like poorly defended, easily surveilled. It talked about decisions by
20:25
Speaker 1: military leaders like prematurely asked soldiers to leave bunkers before
20:30
Speaker 1: it was safe, and then even alleges that one of
20:32
Speaker 1: the brigadier generals in charge of this unit didn't help
20:36
Speaker 1: rescue survivors after they'd been hit and like went and
20:39
Speaker 1: hit in a bunker. So it's just it's great reporting.
20:41
Speaker 1: It's worth your time that details the human cost to
20:45
Speaker 1: our service members who were hurt and killed in this conflict.
20:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a bit of a reminder just to
20:51
Speaker 2: you know, wade through the minefield of this discourse. But
20:55
Speaker 2: there's this kind of thing we do where we throwed
20:58
Speaker 2: clear and we're like, well, obviously the military did every right,
21:00
Speaker 2: but Trump's an idiot I don't know that the military
21:02
Speaker 2: did everything right. And in fact, when I look at
21:04
Speaker 2: the results of this war, I don't know what they
21:07
Speaker 2: did other than blow up a bunch of stuff and Iran.
21:09
Speaker 2: They didn't secure the facilities. They're not telling us again
21:12
Speaker 2: for the hundred time, the truth about how badly the damages.
21:15
Speaker 2: We don't know how badly these people are injured, who
21:17
Speaker 2: were hurt, We don't know. We have no idea of
21:20
Speaker 2: like what this strategy is militarily with the Iranians. Now
21:25
Speaker 2: I'm sympathetic. This is not to impugne everybody in the military.
21:28
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the people at the top. You know
21:30
Speaker 2: who run Sentcom and you know Raisin Caine. You know
21:33
Speaker 2: why we led to believe that a Pete Hegseth run
21:37
Speaker 2: military is maximally competent.
21:39
Speaker 3: I don't think it is, and I think we're seeing
21:41
Speaker 3: some evidence of that.
21:42
Speaker 2: By the way, the only last thing we say, Tommy,
21:44
Speaker 2: in the category of like what what do you no
21:46
Speaker 2: longer believe? How many times has Trump told us that
21:50
Speaker 2: the Gulf is going to spend you know, like doctor
21:53
Speaker 2: Evil and Austin Power is like, you know, ten trillion dollars.
21:57
Speaker 3: You know, does anybody believe.
21:58
Speaker 1: So this escort plan having navy ships escort all these
22:02
Speaker 1: other ships through the strato from moves. It went from
22:04
Speaker 1: we are going to charge them twenty percent per ship
22:06
Speaker 1: to now, oh, actually it's gonna be paid for by
22:09
Speaker 1: golf countries make in the US. But he's already trotted
22:12
Speaker 1: all these golf leaders to Washington and have them announce
22:16
Speaker 1: that they're going to invest, like right.
22:17
Speaker 3: Literally a trillion dollars they said that. That's the thing
22:19
Speaker 3: that they said.
22:20
Speaker 2: And does do any Americans feel that money? Are you
22:22
Speaker 2: getting that money? Does that exist in the physical.
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Speaker 1: squarespace dot com slash World. One other thing. So a
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Speaker 1: few weeks back, we learned about this. Israeli planned to
25:39
Speaker 1: install former Iranian president Makmud Achmedinajad as president after the
25:43
Speaker 1: conflict started. For those unfamiliar with Akman Dinnajod, not a
25:46
Speaker 1: great guy, well known for human rights abuses, stealing elections,
25:51
Speaker 1: boosting Around's nuclear program, and denying the Holocaust. So, you know,
25:55
Speaker 1: not the kind of person. It's not the obvious choice
25:57
Speaker 1: for Israel in this case. The New Times had a
26:00
Speaker 1: bunch of new details about the scheme and how they
26:02
Speaker 1: recruited him as an asset That just felt right up
26:05
Speaker 1: your ally, Ben. So the Israel used its ties with
26:08
Speaker 1: Victor Orbon in the Hungarian government to get a university
26:11
Speaker 1: in Budapest to invite am I love it to a
26:14
Speaker 1: climate change conference because he's just a big, big care guy.
26:18
Speaker 1: But obviously this was covered to facilitate this clandestine meeting
26:20
Speaker 1: with the head of Massad. Israeli operatives also met with
26:23
Speaker 1: Akmand Najad during a visit he made to Guatemala. We
26:26
Speaker 1: think they probably did for again a conference about the environment.
26:30
Speaker 1: Their plan to free okmen Na job was to bomb
26:33
Speaker 1: his compound, kill his guards, send Massad agents and I
26:37
Speaker 1: think a Peugeot to pick him up and then take
26:39
Speaker 1: him to a safe house. But I think Akimedinajad did
26:41
Speaker 1: not stay at this safe house, apparently quickly dissolutioned by
26:45
Speaker 1: the rescue operation, and now he's under house arrests Akmadinajad
26:49
Speaker 1: Is he was last seeing at the Supreme Leader's funeral,
26:52
Speaker 1: surrounded by a bunch of guards. It seemed like very
26:55
Speaker 1: much a decision to kind of show off what had
26:58
Speaker 1: happened to him. So Ben, I guess my takeaway was, look,
27:02
Speaker 1: say what you want about the messade, Like the Pager operation,
27:05
Speaker 1: I think you and I talked about the questionable morality
27:09
Speaker 1: of having thousands of pagers blow up all across Lebanon
27:12
Speaker 1: and potentially kill kids and innocent people all around them.
27:15
Speaker 1: But it was a creative technical endeavor, right. It was
27:21
Speaker 1: impressive in the sense that they were able to pull
27:22
Speaker 1: this off, make a fake patri company. Right, this seems
27:27
Speaker 1: like completely ham handed and stupid and half asked, and like,
27:31
Speaker 1: I have no sympathy for Akmadinajad, but that boy, is
27:33
Speaker 1: that guy fucked?
27:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a bit like are you a nineteen eighty
27:38
Speaker 3: four guy?
27:38
Speaker 2: Like when Winston Smith gets released from uh, you know,
27:42
Speaker 2: the detention and sure he just knows he's.
27:44
Speaker 1: Got his dead dead man.
27:46
Speaker 3: I've read that the Yeah.
27:48
Speaker 2: So, first of all, it is notable the Budapeste stangle
27:50
Speaker 2: because you know, Orbon andaw Is ties were super close.
27:55
Speaker 2: I wrote about this in my last or second book.
27:59
Speaker 2: You know, Netao's political consultants on his two thousand and
28:02
Speaker 2: nine campaign, Lo and Behold became Orbon's political consultants on
28:07
Speaker 2: his twenty ten campaign. And when Orbon people hired Black
28:13
Speaker 2: Cube same form of Messaga as a spot on me
28:16
Speaker 2: to try to like do sting operations. And you know,
28:20
Speaker 2: Project Veritas, we're going to record you know, source linked
28:23
Speaker 2: people talking about how they don't like vict Orbon.
28:25
Speaker 3: Where they leak it.
28:26
Speaker 2: Oh, they leaked it to the Jerusalem Post, and then
28:28
Speaker 2: Orbon picked it up. The symbiotic nature of not just
28:32
Speaker 2: Orbon but kind of the European far right in Israel
28:35
Speaker 2: is very notable.
28:36
Speaker 3: It's also very seemingly strange because Orbon is also kind
28:40
Speaker 3: of an anti Semite.
28:41
Speaker 2: But it just shows you that that Netta Yao and
28:45
Speaker 2: a lot of his defenders don't care about anti Semitism.
28:48
Speaker 2: So long as the people, you know, they can say
28:50
Speaker 2: all the anti Semitic stuff they want to their far
28:52
Speaker 2: right base in their European politics, as long as they
28:55
Speaker 2: allow you know, things like this to happen, right, then
28:57
Speaker 2: that's fine. I will also say it's kind of like
29:00
Speaker 2: what I was saying about, you know, Sentcom, there's this
29:03
Speaker 2: veneer of competence around the Masade when what we have
29:07
Speaker 2: seen them being able to do is kill people like
29:10
Speaker 2: they you know, they want to blow people up. They
29:13
Speaker 2: can find them and kill them, but their capacity to
29:16
Speaker 2: actually like build something.
29:17
Speaker 3: I mean, under what scenario was achmedin Jod going to
29:23
Speaker 3: leave this safe house and assume power and run like right?
29:28
Speaker 1: The question is with what army ye apparently was supposed
29:30
Speaker 1: to be this Kurdish operation which also never think.
29:33
Speaker 2: About that is like what what game of risk are
29:35
Speaker 2: these guys playing in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv that that
29:38
Speaker 2: a Kurdish army is going to come down from you know,
29:42
Speaker 2: the north and meet up with achmedenen Jod and but
29:47
Speaker 2: storm the you know, the parliament or something like. It's
29:51
Speaker 2: so nuts, And I just I beg people like we've
29:54
Speaker 2: you and I have been in these rooms like none.
29:57
Speaker 2: These people are not as all omnipotently smart as you
30:00
Speaker 2: think they are. And if you needn't prove of that,
30:02
Speaker 2: just look at the outcome of every dumb fucking war
30:04
Speaker 2: they start.
30:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's a great segue to this story about
30:07
Speaker 1: this intelligence that Israel passed along about this Iranian threat
30:10
Speaker 1: on Trump's life. So that intelligence that came from the Israelis,
30:14
Speaker 1: along with Trump deciding to ramp back up the war
30:17
Speaker 1: against Iran while he was abroad in Turkey at NATO,
30:21
Speaker 1: led to him to make a security decision, which was
30:24
Speaker 1: to fly back to the UK on his way to
30:27
Speaker 1: the US on the old Air Force one and not
30:30
Speaker 1: the new Katari bribe version of Air Force one that
30:33
Speaker 1: he flew to Turkey. He Trump said, We're sending it
30:37
Speaker 1: ahead so the troops can tour it, you know, in
30:40
Speaker 1: you know, the base in UK. He made up some bullshit,
30:43
Speaker 1: But the New York Times reported that the decision was
30:46
Speaker 1: made because the new plane is still lacking in security measures,
30:48
Speaker 1: especially missile defense systems. These reports reportedly outraged Trump, and
30:54
Speaker 1: then just two days later, a bunch of New York
30:55
Speaker 1: Times journalists were like home at night on a Friday night,
30:58
Speaker 1: and they got SERF subpoenas from I assume FBI agents
31:01
Speaker 1: demanding that they testify in front of a grand jury
31:04
Speaker 1: in like on the next Wednesday, right in like what
31:07
Speaker 1: five days? So they were issued and these openas were
31:10
Speaker 1: issued by FBI Director Cash Mattel after he apparently spent
31:13
Speaker 1: eight hours working out of the White House on Friday
31:17
Speaker 1: focused on this briefing. You know, I assume you know
31:20
Speaker 1: Steve Miller and like the political staff. So on Monday,
31:24
Speaker 1: heg Seth also announced that the Pentagon and the dj
31:27
Speaker 1: have created a joint task force to identify and prosecute leakers.
31:30
Speaker 1: So Ben I can look at this story and on
31:32
Speaker 1: some level kind of understand why you look this is
31:36
Speaker 1: a national security leak that I could imagine an administration
31:39
Speaker 1: being upset about. Now, I would argue that I think
31:42
Speaker 1: the lack of defensive capabilities on the Katari bribe air
31:47
Speaker 1: Force one were pretty well known and also.
31:49
Speaker 3: Was widely discussed, widely discussed.
31:51
Speaker 1: Also widely discussed was what people assumed would be the
31:54
Speaker 1: time frame required to install those on this plane. It
31:57
Speaker 1: seems like they did a rush job and they just
31:59
Speaker 1: don't refurbish it to the tune of a couple hundred
32:01
Speaker 1: million dollars for taxpayers like us to pay, and then
32:04
Speaker 1: off we go. Trump was riding on the thing internationally,
32:08
Speaker 1: but in practice, like what this is is a massive
32:10
Speaker 1: attack on press freedom that skipped all the normal steps
32:13
Speaker 1: in a national security leak investigation. And went straight to
32:17
Speaker 1: how do we intimidate and potentially prosecute these journalists? And
32:20
Speaker 1: that is a very new and real thing because I
32:22
Speaker 1: know there are people out there who were like, well,
32:23
Speaker 1: actually us and say, well Obama had like Eightespionage Act
32:27
Speaker 1: leak investigations or whatever. But it's like normally what happens
32:30
Speaker 1: there is you use every other means possible to figure
32:33
Speaker 1: out who broke the law, the which government employee broke
32:38
Speaker 1: the law in leaking the information. You don't go after
32:40
Speaker 1: the journalists.
32:41
Speaker 2: First of all, it's interesting to me that they made
32:44
Speaker 2: this decision. Somebody in the Secret Service and people that
32:48
Speaker 2: look at threat assessments. I've been into some of those conversations.
32:51
Speaker 2: We used to have pretty intense conversations that obviously involves
32:54
Speaker 2: a lot of intelligence gathering around say the president deciding
32:57
Speaker 2: to fly to Afghanistan where you knew there was an
32:59
Speaker 2: active threat potentially to their air Force one, and someone
33:04
Speaker 2: approved this plane without the countermeasures flying to Turkey and
33:09
Speaker 2: then didn't approve it leaving Turkey. So something happened, like
33:14
Speaker 2: some intel came in. Maybe it was bogus intel too,
33:16
Speaker 2: I don't know, but like clearly there was a shift.
33:20
Speaker 3: Well, that shift is clearly going to get the tension
33:22
Speaker 3: of journalists.
33:23
Speaker 2: So it's no surprise that people noticed the President chose
33:27
Speaker 2: to fly on a different plane.
33:28
Speaker 3: I do want to say something about the League investigation
33:30
Speaker 3: point that you made, because.
33:34
Speaker 2: I think anybody that listens with any regular to this
33:37
Speaker 2: podcast knows how much you and I are willing to
33:42
Speaker 2: talk about wrestle with reckon with things we thought should
33:46
Speaker 2: have done differently. This is wildly different in very important
33:51
Speaker 2: ways if you have an open leak investigation because there's
33:54
Speaker 2: national screet information that has made public, and the way
33:58
Speaker 2: these things normally go is you said, is these investigations.
34:01
Speaker 3: Grind on for years. You and I got.
34:04
Speaker 2: Fucked by some of these investigations even though he did
34:06
Speaker 2: nothing wrong because they cast such a wide net. They
34:09
Speaker 2: talk to anybody and everybody that had access to that
34:12
Speaker 2: information before they even think about.
34:15
Speaker 3: Looking at journalists. It disappears from the White House.
34:18
Speaker 2: It's all in the DOJ back in the days when
34:20
Speaker 2: the DJ had independence, and just like or US attorneys
34:24
Speaker 2: or US attorneys who's sometimes like Rod Rosenstein was the
34:28
Speaker 2: US attorney investigated the leak investigation of the Stucksnet issue
34:31
Speaker 2: in the Obomba years.
34:33
Speaker 1: The guy was a very conservative Republican. Yeah, you were
34:35
Speaker 1: not like safe because he worked for the administration and
34:37
Speaker 1: DJ was doing the investigation, was he got the opposite If.
34:39
Speaker 2: You can't say or if you're so intent on kind
34:42
Speaker 2: of virtue signaling or like settling some score you feel
34:45
Speaker 2: like you have with like Obama, that you can't see
34:47
Speaker 2: the difference between the President of the United States getting
34:50
Speaker 2: really mad about a story and the same fucking day
34:53
Speaker 2: his FBI director canceling his trip to see his girlfriend
34:56
Speaker 2: play a country concert in a parking lot somewhere and
34:59
Speaker 2: sitting up in like the city to my favorite detail detail,
35:02
Speaker 2: sitting there for eight hours and then and then the
35:06
Speaker 2: within like what twenty four to forty eight hours, you've
35:08
Speaker 2: got reporters getting like the threaaten like that that has
35:12
Speaker 2: not happened. Yeah, And so like, let's focus on the
35:14
Speaker 2: thing that matters here, which is the President United States
35:18
Speaker 2: directing the FBI director to run an investigation out of
35:21
Speaker 2: the White House that immediately targets journalists, not the people
35:24
Speaker 2: that handle the classified information or the information decision maker
35:27
Speaker 2: around Air Force One is a total new rubicon that
35:30
Speaker 2: was just crossed in this country, and it should scare people.
35:33
Speaker 2: It's it's it's fucking pudinesque behavior.
35:35
Speaker 1: It's incredibly shilling. Also, there was a reporter who her
35:39
Speaker 1: name is escaping me at the Washington Post who had
35:41
Speaker 1: her devices searched not long back because of some leak
35:44
Speaker 1: investigation about a story. I forget what it was, but yeah,
35:46
Speaker 1: I mean, it really does sound like there was direct
35:49
Speaker 1: coordination between the White House and Cash Betel on this story.
35:52
Speaker 1: And then they literally summoned the guy to work out
35:55
Speaker 1: of the White House workspace to prepare this thing and
35:57
Speaker 1: turn it on fast one to watch and very scary
36:00
Speaker 1: for these reporters. Ben It's just a little corruption watch here.
36:04
Speaker 1: So this one, I want to tell you a story
36:05
Speaker 1: about Canada, a corrupt billionaire and a hockey legend named Gordia.
36:10
Speaker 1: How you ready?
36:11
Speaker 3: Yeah?
36:11
Speaker 1: So okay. There's a brand new six lane bridge spanning
36:15
Speaker 1: the Detroit River linking Detroit to Windsor, Canada. It's been
36:18
Speaker 1: ready to go and you know, have people going across
36:21
Speaker 1: it since June ninth. So it's named after Gordia, how
36:23
Speaker 1: Canadian hockey legend who played most of his career at
36:25
Speaker 1: the Detroit Red Wings. I think he was a big fighter.
36:28
Speaker 2: No, yeah, yeahdia because with some of the old school
36:30
Speaker 2: pictures when they didn't have helmets too, it is fucking
36:32
Speaker 2: wild these guys skating around.
36:34
Speaker 1: No helmet, no helmet, very few teeth, few teeth. Yeah,
36:37
Speaker 1: just been a pretty good player to hell of a player.
36:38
Speaker 1: Don't cross that guy. So the opening of this bridge
36:40
Speaker 1: was delayed for weeks because of the US and Canada wrestling
36:43
Speaker 1: over the financial term. So the backs around this thing
36:45
Speaker 1: is Detroit to Windsor. That border crossing is really important.
36:49
Speaker 1: Nearly one quarter of trade via truck go between the
36:52
Speaker 1: US and Canada moves through that Detroit area crossing. It's
36:55
Speaker 1: like hundreds of millions of dollars a day and around
36:57
Speaker 1: one hundred billion a year. For years, there were only
37:00
Speaker 1: two options for getting across the Detroit River. There's a
37:03
Speaker 1: tunnel owned jointly by Detroit and Windsor, and then there's
37:06
Speaker 1: this privately owned bridge, the Ambassador Bridge. Yes, it's very
37:09
Speaker 1: weird that this bridge is owned by one family. And
37:12
Speaker 1: the bridge is especially important because trucks can't fit in
37:14
Speaker 1: the tunnel, so they all have to go over the
37:15
Speaker 1: bridge and it's super shitty. And so as cross border
37:20
Speaker 1: trade continued, to grow, especially after NAFTA. The Canadians in
37:25
Speaker 1: particular were increasingly desperate to find some other means of
37:28
Speaker 1: getting stuff across the border, and they were fought tooth
37:32
Speaker 1: and nail by this billionaire troll family that owned the
37:34
Speaker 1: Ambassador Bridge, this notorious Detroit slumlord named Maddie Maroon, who's
37:38
Speaker 1: also a major Republican donor and so Maroon. He obviously
37:41
Speaker 1: didn't want competition for his bridge. He was willing to
37:43
Speaker 1: fight dirty to prevent it. Long interesting story there that
37:45
Speaker 1: we won't go into. Finally, Canada offers to pay for
37:48
Speaker 1: the bridge itself at the cost of four point seven
37:50
Speaker 1: billion dollars and then recoup the cost via tolls, which
37:53
Speaker 1: seemed like a great deal, including to Trump in his
37:56
Speaker 1: first term. Then you fast forward to this year, Matthew Maroon,
38:00
Speaker 1: son of the aforementioned and now dead Maddie Maroon, donated
38:04
Speaker 1: one million dollars to Trump's a Trump aligned superpack. Then
38:07
Speaker 1: he met with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik a couple weeks later,
38:10
Speaker 1: and then hours after that meeting, Trump posted this insane
38:14
Speaker 1: screen on true social that you probably remember that included
38:17
Speaker 1: a claim that China was going to terminate all hockey
38:19
Speaker 1: being played in Canada. Do you remember this?
38:22
Speaker 3: I don't remember, and get rid of the Stanley Cup,
38:24
Speaker 3: I think, oh, now I remember this, and that one also.
38:27
Speaker 1: Said quote, I will not allow this bridge to open
38:28
Speaker 1: until the United States is fully compensated for everything we've
38:31
Speaker 1: given them. And also importantly, Canada treats the United States
38:34
Speaker 1: with the fairness and respect that we deserve. And we'll
38:36
Speaker 1: start negotiations immediately with all that we have given them.
38:39
Speaker 1: We should own perhaps at least one half of this asset. Right,
38:41
Speaker 1: so that brings us to June, the opening ceremony, this
38:44
Speaker 1: bridge is canceled. Trump goes for one chance to shake
38:47
Speaker 1: Canada down on this bridge project that they paid for
38:51
Speaker 1: in full. Finally they cind of deal that says Canada
38:54
Speaker 1: the US will split the net proceeds of tolls with
38:56
Speaker 1: the US for fifteen years, meaning Canada will still get
38:59
Speaker 1: repaid because those hoss will get recovered before any net profits.
39:03
Speaker 1: And then the US will have to approve increasing tolls
39:05
Speaker 1: by ten percent or cutting tolls below comparable bridges. Right,
39:09
Speaker 1: so they have this provision for their billionaire donor that
39:12
Speaker 1: just shays this new bridge can't undercut the prices he's
39:16
Speaker 1: charging without US approval. So Trump goes on social media
39:20
Speaker 1: brags about this. But in Canada it has become political fodder.
39:23
Speaker 1: So here's Conservative leader Pierre Poliev Thanks still around, Yeah yeah,
39:28
Speaker 1: followed by Mark Carney, who I just want to warn
39:31
Speaker 1: those who are watching that listening, he's wearing kind of
39:33
Speaker 1: an unfortunate cowboy look that you just have to get past.
39:36
Speaker 1: Let's watch.
39:37
Speaker 7: Canada paid for the entire six point four billion dollar
39:42
Speaker 7: price tag. We even funded the infrastructure on the American
39:45
Speaker 7: sider of the river, all with the understanding that we
39:48
Speaker 7: would collect one hundred percent of the tolls until we
39:50
Speaker 7: recouped our money. Carney just agreed to give half the
39:53
Speaker 7: tolls to a Michigan economic development body that did not
39:57
Speaker 7: pay a dime to build the thing.
39:58
Speaker 1: This is our grand master negotiator.
40:03
Speaker 7: Carney's approach of elbows up what he thinks the President
40:06
Speaker 7: is not looking and sucking up to his face is
40:10
Speaker 7: not working.
40:11
Speaker 8: The word net does a lot of work in this.
40:14
Speaker 8: We are sharing after Canada's paid back, so we get
40:19
Speaker 8: the revenues, then the servicing of the costs of the
40:22
Speaker 8: bridge and paying the debt of the bridge, and then
40:25
Speaker 8: what's left over, there's a split of that for fifteen years,
40:29
Speaker 8: there's not going to be a lot of net to split,
40:32
Speaker 8: so look, it's a good deal for Canada.
40:34
Speaker 1: It's such an interesting story about how corruption has real
40:36
Speaker 1: world applications, economic applications for people in Detroit in Canada.
40:40
Speaker 1: I saw that all the Santa candidates in Michigan have
40:42
Speaker 1: actually been making content about this issue and trying to
40:45
Speaker 1: highlight it and make a part of their campaign. We'll
40:47
Speaker 1: see if they're successful. But hopefully our guy A Duels
40:51
Speaker 1: making made a great video on it. So it's just
40:53
Speaker 1: an interesting and interesting story, something to watch and just
40:56
Speaker 1: the latest like kind of little sprinkling corruption that we've
40:59
Speaker 1: learned about knows what we have.
41:00
Speaker 2: Again for people not watching the YouTube, the cowboy looks
41:03
Speaker 2: a little weird, but Pierre Pallia like, why is he walking?
41:09
Speaker 2: Like I get when sometimes you're I mean, why is
41:14
Speaker 2: he on the go for this video that.
41:16
Speaker 3: He's doing, Like it's just a little dissuenting.
41:18
Speaker 2: Look, the one takeaway you have to have from this
41:21
Speaker 2: because it does matter a lot that the amount of
41:24
Speaker 2: trade that goes across these bridge crossings and places like Michigan,
41:26
Speaker 2: Canada is extraordinary. The main takeaway is in this administration,
41:33
Speaker 2: if you point a camera at something and pause it,
41:37
Speaker 2: you find something like this, like if this is happening
41:40
Speaker 2: on this bridge, it's happening on how many trade deals
41:44
Speaker 2: it's happening on how many export controls of chips getting
41:47
Speaker 2: sold around the world. Like these guys are treating the
41:51
Speaker 2: entire United States in all of these ancillary pieces of
41:56
Speaker 2: commerce and trade like a big fucking fruit to squeeze
42:00
Speaker 2: all the juice out of so they can get rich,
42:03
Speaker 2: so their donors can get rich, so they can get
42:06
Speaker 2: contributions to things. It's just a big shakedown operation. It's
42:09
Speaker 2: kind of how by the way, it's how like certain
42:12
Speaker 2: really corrupt countries in the world are run where there's
42:15
Speaker 2: not a sing like like Russia, Like there's not a
42:18
Speaker 2: bridge built in in Russia that you know doesn't have
42:21
Speaker 2: like some kickback for you know, either prudent or some
42:24
Speaker 2: friend of his or some oligarch or some local official
42:26
Speaker 2: or whatever.
42:27
Speaker 3: Like this is now what the United States is like.
42:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, this story is just like the reason the story
42:32
Speaker 1: was interesting is it's just like one of countless stories
42:34
Speaker 1: like this, some we've heard of the majority we have.
42:36
Speaker 3: That's the point the majority we haven't heard of.
42:38
Speaker 2: And I also love the fact that, like there's a
42:40
Speaker 2: similar cast that shows, like Howard Latinnick is always.
42:43
Speaker 1: Showing up with things like this. His kids are off
42:44
Speaker 1: in there.
42:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, his kids are there wit cough Kushner. Like there's
42:48
Speaker 2: just this kind of inner circle of grifters and corrupt
42:50
Speaker 2: like crooks basically like running the US government like a
42:55
Speaker 2: like a like a mafia family. And you know, it's
42:58
Speaker 2: like a nice bridge you got there, and how much
43:02
Speaker 2: can we squeeze out of this?
43:03
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think what's amazing is how brazen it is.
43:05
Speaker 1: I mean, right before we started recording, a New York
43:07
Speaker 1: Times story posted with the headline Trump paid two million
43:10
Speaker 1: by South Korean company facing trade exstigation.
43:13
Speaker 3: It's just like there's so many things caught him.
43:15
Speaker 1: A check, it was like a not it was described
43:19
Speaker 1: as a non refundable development pe fee in his financial
43:22
Speaker 1: disclosure report. He's not even trying to.
43:23
Speaker 2: Hide and people will be writing about this corruption for
43:25
Speaker 2: like one hundred years because it's we were we are
43:28
Speaker 2: just seeing. I mean this the expression holds like this
43:32
Speaker 2: is a tip of an iceberg, Like the amount of
43:34
Speaker 2: stuff happening and why is there trillion a half dollar
43:39
Speaker 2: Pentagon budget up like sixty percent. Like well, because it's
43:44
Speaker 2: like a huge trough that thin. Can you know that's
43:45
Speaker 2: the easiest money to the.
43:46
Speaker 1: Trump boys are investigating all these companies that are connected.
43:49
Speaker 3: Everything is being monetized by Trump.
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Speaker 1: so they know we sent you. All right, we want
46:26
Speaker 1: to check in on Venezuela and up update you guys
46:28
Speaker 1: on the latest in the earthquake recovery. And also just
46:31
Speaker 1: like what is life like in a country that is
46:33
Speaker 1: being run from Washington by Marco Rubio? Literally, so, the
46:37
Speaker 1: latest death toll is nearly forty five hundred people have
46:40
Speaker 1: been killed in over sixteen thousand have been injured, but
46:44
Speaker 1: as many as fifty thousand people could be missing still,
46:47
Speaker 1: so that it's almost certainly a pretty drastic undercount. The
46:50
Speaker 1: Trump administration is pledged three hundred million dollars in aid.
46:53
Speaker 1: It's being funneled through organizations like the Red Cross in
46:56
Speaker 1: the un to damn, Shane bend that we don't have
46:58
Speaker 1: an entity and organization within the government that does disaster
47:02
Speaker 1: relief and aid in situations like this.
47:05
Speaker 3: You know, if someone could come up with an idea
47:07
Speaker 3: for how to do that.
47:08
Speaker 1: We move with that. Elon Musk could think of something.
47:11
Speaker 1: All the political ramifications are kind of playing out in
47:13
Speaker 1: real time. There are countless agonizing stories about Venezuelan's who
47:18
Speaker 1: are like you know, interviewed by a reporter next to
47:21
Speaker 1: a pile of rubble. They were hoping the government would
47:24
Speaker 1: come and help them rescue their loved one. That loved
47:26
Speaker 1: one is no longer alive. They're hoping for help now
47:30
Speaker 1: for just like body recovery operations and President Elsie Rodriguez.
47:34
Speaker 1: She did herself no favors by sporting a thirteen hundred
47:38
Speaker 1: dollars ski jacket while out visiting with victims, so that
47:41
Speaker 1: didn't go for very well. And there's all the like
47:43
Speaker 1: The Times at a story that said, quote, you know,
47:45
Speaker 1: repression turns to rage after quakes in Venezuela. It's about
47:48
Speaker 1: people just like openly criticizing the government and losing their fear.
47:51
Speaker 1: So we'll see if this becomes a political problem. And
47:54
Speaker 1: then speaking of Trump, then the Times at a big
47:56
Speaker 1: story about how Marco Rubio, a Secretary of State. Marco
47:58
Speaker 1: Rubio is literally running Venezuela from Washington. He's not visited
48:01
Speaker 1: the country since the Delta Force operation did oppose Maduro,
48:06
Speaker 1: but he decides how Venezuela's money is spent, what businesses
48:09
Speaker 1: can operate there. He's even vetting some of DLCI Rodriguez's
48:13
Speaker 1: social media and media appearances. It's like that level of micromanagement,
48:18
Speaker 1: which is I think what all of us assumed was
48:20
Speaker 1: happening on some level, but to read the level of
48:23
Speaker 1: micromanagement in black and white was still kind of shocking
48:27
Speaker 1: to me.
48:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, but my.
48:28
Speaker 2: Takeaway from that story is to what end Marco Rubio's
48:32
Speaker 2: egos being satiated? But is life any better for Venezuelan?
48:37
Speaker 1: No?
48:37
Speaker 2: No, no, the government is repressive and corrupt. It's just
48:41
Speaker 2: now corrupt in a way that probably benefits some of
48:44
Speaker 2: Trump's cronies.
48:46
Speaker 3: Are Americans better off for this? Are you better off?
48:49
Speaker 9: Like?
48:50
Speaker 2: Are the prices down at the pump because of some
48:52
Speaker 2: windfall of Venezuelan oil?
48:54
Speaker 1: No?
48:54
Speaker 2: And so I kind of don't like this, you know, wow,
48:58
Speaker 2: like we're running it when Marco's text chain well running?
49:01
Speaker 2: What like, can anyone detail give me a list of
49:06
Speaker 2: how things are better for Americans or Venezuelan's because Marco
49:09
Speaker 2: Rubio is able to approve Delsi Rodriguez's social media and
49:13
Speaker 2: media appearances. Has he freed everybody who's in jail for
49:18
Speaker 2: political crimes? Has he set an election date for like
49:22
Speaker 2: a free and fair an election Venezuela? Like, like, what
49:25
Speaker 2: are we getting for this other than the kind of
49:28
Speaker 2: ego of a late nineteenth century gunboat diplomacy colonial enterprise.
49:33
Speaker 1: It's just crazy that we have a there's a viceroy,
49:36
Speaker 1: I mean, Rubio is literally the vice roy Venezuela and
49:38
Speaker 1: he's sitting in Washington.
49:39
Speaker 2: But they can't even articulate, like what because Delsi Rodriguez
49:43
Speaker 2: is a communist, you know, and and a repressive one
49:47
Speaker 2: at that and a corrupt figure. So they can't even
49:51
Speaker 2: explain to us whose interest this is in the detail.
49:54
Speaker 2: I rest on is approving business deals because that probably
50:00
Speaker 2: tells me that there's like Trump Florida cronies, like people
50:03
Speaker 2: that hang around mar Lago who want to, like, you know,
50:06
Speaker 2: to build infrastructure in Venezuela and they're getting contracts and
50:08
Speaker 2: Marco is like suggesting Delsi approved.
50:11
Speaker 3: Right, It's it's it's no different than the Canadian bridge.
50:13
Speaker 1: Right, It's just a bribe.
50:14
Speaker 3: It's the same.
50:15
Speaker 1: It's an avenue for bribes, all right, Ben switching gears
50:17
Speaker 1: heres because there's not enough anxiety in your life already.
50:20
Speaker 1: We want to talk about how terrorists are using artificial intelligence.
50:24
Speaker 1: This comes via a research paper by the University of
50:28
Speaker 1: Cambridge titled God has Helped Us in soulil Ai. How
50:31
Speaker 1: the terrorist group Boko Haram uses Frontier AI. So the
50:35
Speaker 1: New York Time's got to first look at this paper,
50:37
Speaker 1: wrote it up. The paper's now online that the paper
50:40
Speaker 1: itself includes interviews with twenty seven former Boko Haram soldiers
50:44
Speaker 1: and commanders who talk about using these lllms like Claude
50:47
Speaker 1: and chet g Ebt and Crock. But what's interesting is
50:50
Speaker 1: they're using it to actually improve their tactics on the battlefield.
50:55
Speaker 1: It's not just like AI for propaganda recruitment stuff, it's
50:59
Speaker 1: like day to day operations. The report says. Specifically, the
51:03
Speaker 1: group uses AI to plan attacks, design explosive devices, service
51:07
Speaker 1: and troubleshoot weapons, and improve operations. Security. ISIS has provided
51:11
Speaker 1: AI training for Boco Haam. I guess both groups have
51:14
Speaker 1: dedicated AI units. A couple of quotes that jumped out
51:17
Speaker 1: of me ben from some of these Bocoharam members quote.
51:20
Speaker 1: We mostly used it three ways. The first one is
51:22
Speaker 1: to learn how to assemble and use guns and how
51:23
Speaker 1: to manufacture bombs. The second one is for surveillance and
51:26
Speaker 1: how to improve our surveillance strategies to monitor what is
51:29
Speaker 1: happening in our camps and also better understand our enemy
51:31
Speaker 1: and prepare attacks. The third one is to make plans,
51:34
Speaker 1: like when we come up with new ideas on how
51:36
Speaker 1: to attack, we ask it for tactics on how to
51:38
Speaker 1: make it work. In practice and to be successful. Another
51:41
Speaker 1: person said, before the bomb explosion was not that big,
51:44
Speaker 1: but then they studied it. AI told us what chemicals
51:46
Speaker 1: to put in that made the explosive heavier, so chilling stuff.
51:51
Speaker 1: For what it's worth, this is describing activity from twenty
51:55
Speaker 1: twenty three and twenty twenty four. All the spokespeople who
51:58
Speaker 1: are asked to respond to the timestar already got very
52:00
Speaker 1: defensive and they said, well, the models are more powerful now,
52:03
Speaker 1: but it's all everything is so much safer. I don't
52:05
Speaker 1: know that I believe any of that. I guess we'll
52:07
Speaker 1: find out. Ben, What do you make of this kind
52:09
Speaker 1: of nightmare story and what it tells us?
52:11
Speaker 2: It is a nightmare story, and it's eminently predictable in
52:15
Speaker 2: the sense that you know, when you first had that
52:18
Speaker 2: quote unquote chech gpt moment when it was released for
52:21
Speaker 2: the first time, like one of the very first things
52:23
Speaker 2: people started to talk about in kind of security circles
52:25
Speaker 2: is well, wait a second, why couldn't this develop the
52:28
Speaker 2: recipe for biological pathogens or god forbid, you know, dirty bombs,
52:33
Speaker 2: or all the way down to the more tactical level,
52:36
Speaker 2: just things like how do you create better explosives, or
52:39
Speaker 2: how can we get better targeting for some extremist group
52:42
Speaker 2: or some dictatory leader. And this is what happens when
52:46
Speaker 2: you build technologies without developing the guardrails, because you've convinced
52:51
Speaker 2: yourself that you're either in some race against the Chinese
52:56
Speaker 2: or you know, you've got frontier companies that need to
53:00
Speaker 2: get as big an IPO as possible, so they have
53:02
Speaker 2: to move as fast as possible without regulating or self regulating,
53:06
Speaker 2: because we are building a technology that I don't know
53:11
Speaker 2: how many people are asking for, Tommy, and not many
53:13
Speaker 2: people in my life are asking for it without regulating it,
53:16
Speaker 2: without legislation, without any international discussion about things like this
53:20
Speaker 2: and how you can guard against it. And by the
53:23
Speaker 2: way in the reporting it suggests they we're using you know,
53:27
Speaker 2: American models. But even if even if open AI and anthropic,
53:34
Speaker 2: if chat, GPT and CLAUDE for instance, have a better
53:38
Speaker 2: you know, trigger to say, I can't tell you about that,
53:42
Speaker 2: Like if you open source any bit of this, these models,
53:46
Speaker 2: the replica ais are gonna be able to do the
53:48
Speaker 2: same thing.
53:49
Speaker 10: Right.
53:49
Speaker 3: So, in the same way that there's a dark web,
53:52
Speaker 3: there's a dark internet.
53:52
Speaker 2: So if you want to you know, buy and sell
53:55
Speaker 2: arms or drugs or god forbid, you know, engage in
53:58
Speaker 2: human trafficking and pedifili Like people of a dark Internet,
54:02
Speaker 2: there will be a dark AI and we're just not
54:04
Speaker 2: even having conversations about regulating it. All the conversations are
54:08
Speaker 2: about you know, the scale of investments and the IPO
54:13
Speaker 2: for you know, the stock market. Yeah, the stock market,
54:16
Speaker 2: and this is happening, this is going to happen.
54:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would. The other day, I just jumped on
54:20
Speaker 1: the phone with this guy named HANSA. Chaudery from the
54:22
Speaker 1: Future of Life Institute. It's this organization that they're like
54:25
Speaker 1: trying to raise awareness about technologies like AI or like
54:29
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons and just sort of steer us all away
54:32
Speaker 1: from the extreme risk towards you know, behaviors that actually
54:36
Speaker 1: benefit humanity. And I was just struck by how many
54:39
Speaker 1: different policy touch points they're trying to work on in DC.
54:43
Speaker 1: There is like securing the AI tech, the chips, and
54:45
Speaker 1: then the models themselves, because like you know, you worry
54:47
Speaker 1: about China just stealing the model weights. It's another way
54:49
Speaker 1: they can just you know, leap progress. There's like the
54:52
Speaker 1: sort of soft cyber abuse use cases, which is like
54:56
Speaker 1: using AI to supercharge phishing and trying to get your
54:58
Speaker 1: password or financial skill or disinformation. Then there's like the
55:02
Speaker 1: major cyber operation which we saw with the Mythos model,
55:04
Speaker 1: the claud model, which is using it to find zero
55:07
Speaker 1: day exploits, go after governments, go after big companies. And
55:11
Speaker 1: then there's the integration of AI into military systems, which
55:14
Speaker 1: raises huge questions about targeting. For example, right like you're
55:19
Speaker 1: hearing people say, well, with AI, we can generate thousands
55:23
Speaker 1: of targets per day, and no one's really asking the
55:26
Speaker 1: question like is there any moral version of war where
55:30
Speaker 1: you're bombing thousands of targets a day? Like is that effective?
55:34
Speaker 1: Or target that's crazy? There are all the debates on
55:38
Speaker 1: China that you just mentioned, and then the scariest one
55:41
Speaker 1: to me, ben is the is the biothreats Because AI
55:45
Speaker 1: hopefully will help us cure diseases and find new drugs
55:48
Speaker 1: and all these good things, but like that same exact
55:50
Speaker 1: technology can make it easier for people to build dangerous
55:54
Speaker 1: biological pathogens and do it faster and maybe even make
55:58
Speaker 1: something novel, like something that doesn't currently exist, and like
56:00
Speaker 1: we will the process for catching up to that kind
56:04
Speaker 1: of development is just going to be inherently always be
56:07
Speaker 1: slower than the process for developing this stuff.
56:10
Speaker 11: Yeah.
56:10
Speaker 2: I and look to be clear, just so we're not
56:14
Speaker 2: all negative about everything here. I get it like this
56:18
Speaker 2: technology is going to be developed. It's going to have
56:21
Speaker 2: some benefits, you know. I think curing disease is going
56:25
Speaker 2: to be very high up on that list. I'd like
56:27
Speaker 2: to see what it can help do with clean energy
56:29
Speaker 2: and deal with climate change. The issue I have is
56:33
Speaker 2: like the manner in which you develop the technology. I
56:37
Speaker 2: don't think we've seen a technology if we take the
56:40
Speaker 2: people's words for it, who are developing it, a technology
56:44
Speaker 2: that is this transformative that is being developed entirely in
56:49
Speaker 2: private hands with no government involvement really whatsoever. The proprietary
56:54
Speaker 2: information and all the tech companies far exceeds what governments
56:57
Speaker 2: even know about it. No guardrails regulatory framework around it,
57:01
Speaker 2: no legislative regulatory framework around it, no dialogue between the
57:06
Speaker 2: United States and China, the two AI superpowers, and it's
57:09
Speaker 2: inevitably going to lead to all of these issues. I mean,
57:15
Speaker 2: just to I'll we can continue to talk about this
57:18
Speaker 2: because it's such an important issue and other shows.
57:20
Speaker 3: I'll just pick up on one.
57:22
Speaker 2: For instance, if you're running one of these companies, your
57:25
Speaker 2: interest is like beating your competitor, because that's what capitalism
57:27
Speaker 2: is about. I'll add one to your list. Like who's
57:33
Speaker 2: vetting the employees?
57:34
Speaker 1: Do you know?
57:35
Speaker 11: Easy?
57:35
Speaker 2: It would probably be for the Chinese or Russians to
57:38
Speaker 2: try to I won't name a company because I'm not
57:40
Speaker 2: trying to put a spot on it, but like, you know,
57:42
Speaker 2: we want to get somebody in the door.
57:44
Speaker 3: And you know, if you work at a.
57:46
Speaker 2: National lab associated with the US nuclear weapons, you know
57:49
Speaker 2: you get pretty vetted before you enter that facility. Are
57:53
Speaker 2: they vetting who they're hiring? Like just all there's a
57:56
Speaker 2: million questions like this.
57:57
Speaker 1: You know, Nicole pearl Roth, who is a spend like
58:00
Speaker 1: a decade of the New York Times working on cybersecurity,
58:02
Speaker 1: digital espionage, all this stuff has an entire series out
58:06
Speaker 1: right now about the North Koreans training people to be
58:10
Speaker 1: like expert coders and then getting them hired at major
58:13
Speaker 1: companies as it employees. So they have like godlike access
58:17
Speaker 1: to these systems, and apparently these companies are like, well, actually,
58:19
Speaker 1: you know, we don't want to fire this guy. He's
58:21
Speaker 1: like a really good employee is really good suffer, you know,
58:24
Speaker 1: but they're they're just this pervasive problem and like they
58:27
Speaker 1: have no idea how how deep it goes.
58:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it just it's indicative of there's many things like.
58:33
Speaker 2: This, right, and again I don't in some ways like
58:39
Speaker 2: the companies are doing what companies do in capitalism, like
58:42
Speaker 2: the government government to step in, like I'm not I'm
58:45
Speaker 2: actually not even just picking on Sam Alman here though.
58:47
Speaker 2: You know, it's the US government and is not performing
58:51
Speaker 2: its function and regulator regulating a transformative technology because it's
58:55
Speaker 2: totally dysfunctional and corrupt and there's no international community. We
59:00
Speaker 2: we in any normal times there would be un convened
59:03
Speaker 2: summits with every country in the world, like we'd be
59:07
Speaker 2: in like round twenty of than those negotiations if this
59:09
Speaker 2: happened twenty years ago.
59:11
Speaker 3: It's crazy if that's not.
59:12
Speaker 1: And yeah, we pick on opening as sometimes and because
59:15
Speaker 1: Sam Altman is annoying mostly and because he seems so duplicitous.
59:19
Speaker 1: But you know, for everything you're worried about what they're doing,
59:21
Speaker 1: like groc Is Town, there are.
59:22
Speaker 2: Far more response and like well, Meda has been you know,
59:26
Speaker 2: meta released back in you know, not that long ago.
59:29
Speaker 3: They were the ones whore like we're going to release
59:31
Speaker 3: our model, and.
59:31
Speaker 2: Then the Chinese pop up thank you deep seek and
59:34
Speaker 2: are like hey, yeah, like thank you for doing that.
59:35
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of there's not there's not one
59:38
Speaker 2: villain to this story, and the overall villain is just
59:40
Speaker 2: that we can't control ourselves. We can't we can't slow
59:44
Speaker 2: this thing down and put some rules around.
59:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, bet So the when we were in
59:49
Speaker 1: the Obama world, in the Obama administration, our track record
59:51
Speaker 1: was not perfect when it came to gifting foreign heads
59:55
Speaker 1: of state gifts. So Obama gave British Prime Minister Gordon
59:59
Speaker 1: Brown DVDs ones that were formatted to play only in
1:00:03
Speaker 1: North America. Well, yeah, Obama, a penholder carved from timber
1:00:08
Speaker 1: from a Victorian era anti slave ship.
1:00:11
Speaker 3: That was they gave a little more thought on that.
1:00:13
Speaker 1: We gave the Queen an iPod. So look, we tend
1:00:16
Speaker 1: to tread lightly on the subject.
1:00:17
Speaker 2: I thought, you're coming back, is this by the way, No,
1:00:19
Speaker 2: there's like a gen z like, yeah, we're going in all.
1:00:22
Speaker 1: Off your phone. Yeah that's good. But even I was
1:00:25
Speaker 1: a little surprised when I read about Turkish president type
1:00:27
Speaker 1: aired one's gift to all the other NATO leaders who
1:00:29
Speaker 1: came to the summit in Okra. Check out this video.
1:00:32
Speaker 1: It's from Slovakia's president. He's opening up his gift from
1:00:36
Speaker 1: air to one. Let's watch he opened up a box
1:00:38
Speaker 1: there and inside we see a huge gun with a
1:00:42
Speaker 1: note and then I believe there are six bullets next
1:00:46
Speaker 1: to it. This is the more I think the official
1:00:48
Speaker 1: photo of the gun and AMMO that was presented to
1:00:51
Speaker 1: the leaders at the NATO summits quite beautiful. So this
1:00:56
Speaker 1: is a personally engraved vintage Turkish pistol. It's a three
1:01:00
Speaker 1: fifty seven magnum with six live rounds, because obviously you
1:01:04
Speaker 1: don't give someone an empty gun. That's just rude and
1:01:06
Speaker 1: so hilariously, though, Ben, this meant for a bunch of
1:01:08
Speaker 1: these European leaders they had to figure out what to
1:01:11
Speaker 1: do with these things to avoid running a foul of
1:01:12
Speaker 1: gun laws in their own countries. For example, Belgium's Prime
1:01:15
Speaker 1: minister realized that he had transported a firearm across international
1:01:19
Speaker 1: lines after he landed back home and had to like
1:01:22
Speaker 1: hand its to the cops. Ursula Vonderlion that the European
1:01:25
Speaker 1: Commission president said thanks, and then I think donated it
1:01:28
Speaker 1: to a military museum. Other leaders had to leave their
1:01:31
Speaker 1: guns at their embassies in Turkey with plans to decommission them.
1:01:35
Speaker 1: According to The Guardian, Canada's Mark Carney quote took his
1:01:38
Speaker 1: revolver with him but left the ammunition in Turkey. They
1:01:41
Speaker 1: did not explain why. So fun fact here, Turkey is
1:01:44
Speaker 1: now the third biggest exporter of small arms in the world.
1:01:47
Speaker 1: So this bit of marketing from Airedwan, what do you
1:01:49
Speaker 1: make of the gift here? Is there a subtle message.
1:01:50
Speaker 2: And the inclusion of bullets is quite extraordinary to me
1:01:53
Speaker 2: because you could actually take the gift and immediately shoot something,
1:01:58
Speaker 2: kill somebody. Yet that's so I look, it's not the
1:02:02
Speaker 2: gift i'd go for. Doesn't scream peace or defensive alliance
1:02:05
Speaker 2: to me. But but the inclusion of ammunition.
1:02:10
Speaker 3: Is wild to me.
1:02:12
Speaker 2: How quaint that there are countries with gun laws that
1:02:15
Speaker 2: you can't bring it in. I will tell you what
1:02:17
Speaker 2: came into my mind though, which again we're getting old
1:02:21
Speaker 2: enough that we keep revisiting like things from the internet.
1:02:24
Speaker 3: But do you.
1:02:24
Speaker 2: Remember the Olympics, that Turkish guy who looked like a
1:02:28
Speaker 2: like a aging middle aged man and he was in
1:02:31
Speaker 2: the shooting competition and he was just like holding out
1:02:33
Speaker 2: like like sideways, like totally like people google that Turkish
1:02:39
Speaker 2: gun Olympics and you see what I'm talking about, because
1:02:41
Speaker 2: it looks like that's kind of Whateerdonam was gifting everyone.
1:02:43
Speaker 1: Else had like perfect for him and was posing and
1:02:45
Speaker 1: like sniping targets and this guy looked like he had
1:02:47
Speaker 1: like a heater in his mouth and was just like
1:02:49
Speaker 1: pop it off like slide style.
1:02:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it did bring that back to me. That's
1:02:52
Speaker 3: the good I take away from this. But yeah, like
1:02:53
Speaker 3: it's just this the world doesn't feel It's kind of
1:02:57
Speaker 3: not what you want happening at the NATO summit, you
1:03:00
Speaker 3: like doves released or something.
1:03:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone's an odd duck, all right. Finally, the World
1:03:05
Speaker 1: Cup is almost over again. We talked about the Spain
1:03:07
Speaker 1: France game on Wednesday, of the day this comes out,
1:03:10
Speaker 1: England is going to play Argentina rigged. You were in
1:03:14
Speaker 1: Norway for some of the games, so we talked about
1:03:16
Speaker 1: the Norway fans doing the Viking row. Folks might have
1:03:19
Speaker 1: seen this. They did it in stadiums, they did it
1:03:21
Speaker 1: on the street, they did it on escalators, They did
1:03:22
Speaker 1: it all over the place, Ben, did you see the
1:03:24
Speaker 1: one fan who refused to I did, I did.
1:03:27
Speaker 3: I consumed all the Norway kinds.
1:03:29
Speaker 1: I love this guy. His name is Emil Honors Lapin.
1:03:33
Speaker 1: Here's how he explained himself in an interview with Sky News.
1:03:35
Speaker 3: Let's watch this is a meal.
1:03:37
Speaker 12: Anda's Lappin in the middle of a crowd of rowing fans,
1:03:41
Speaker 12: but he went viral for refusing to join in a
1:03:44
Speaker 12: little earlier.
1:03:45
Speaker 8: I asked him why.
1:03:50
Speaker 12: First of all, I just find it really stupid. That's
1:03:56
Speaker 12: that's the thing I thought when they came up with it,
1:03:59
Speaker 12: that it was stupid, annoying, and I didn't want to
1:04:03
Speaker 12: do it. And then it it's a lot of what
1:04:08
Speaker 12: the Iceland we're doing, and it's factually wrong. They didn't roll,
1:04:13
Speaker 12: they sailed over the Atlantic.
1:04:15
Speaker 1: I love his oars in the background, Like this guy's
1:04:17
Speaker 1: pro Yeah, you know it's rowing.
1:04:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I appreciate it.
1:04:22
Speaker 2: I always appreciate someone who's not gonna just go with
1:04:26
Speaker 2: the crowd and just take you know. At the same time,
1:04:29
Speaker 2: like it was just kind of fun to pretend row.
1:04:32
Speaker 2: I mean, I think people seem like they're having a
1:04:34
Speaker 2: good time.
1:04:34
Speaker 1: Doorway fans were having a play.
1:04:35
Speaker 2: Like I'm not sure the historical accuracy was the point, like,
1:04:38
Speaker 2: you know, they were just digging it. But hey man,
1:04:41
Speaker 2: you do you uh and if you want to correct
1:04:44
Speaker 2: the record on how they got Iceland, like that's totally fine.
1:04:46
Speaker 1: I get it. You know, point taken, point taken. We
1:04:48
Speaker 1: gotcha last week battles. So I talked with Meddi about
1:04:51
Speaker 1: the controversy around flow ball. Again one of the great
1:04:54
Speaker 1: American players. He got a red card. He was supposed
1:04:57
Speaker 1: to have to sit out the game against Belgium, and
1:04:59
Speaker 1: then Trump called the I I did, and Maddie actually
1:05:03
Speaker 1: called it out on the show, and then Trump calls
1:05:06
Speaker 1: the head HEADAFIFA. The problem is magically solved. Flaib Balagin
1:05:10
Speaker 1: and gets to play against Belgium. Doesn't matter, and you know,
1:05:13
Speaker 1: for the for the result of the game, we got
1:05:15
Speaker 1: our asses catch, so it didn't really matter. But it
1:05:17
Speaker 1: was pretty sketchy and pretty shady. Check out this new
1:05:20
Speaker 1: detail on how it all went down. This is from
1:05:22
Speaker 1: Dan Patrick on The Dan Patrick Show.
1:05:25
Speaker 13: When that decision was made to lift the automatic ban,
1:05:30
Speaker 13: which is an unprecedented action, it was done by one
1:05:35
Speaker 13: person and one person only from what I'm told Chairman
1:05:39
Speaker 13: Mohammad al Kamali of the United Arab Emirates. The committee
1:05:45
Speaker 13: was neither informed nor consulted. The UAE is a top
1:05:52
Speaker 13: tier relation to the Trump family's business interest and government relationships.
1:06:00
Speaker 13: This was one person who made this decision. So when
1:06:03
Speaker 13: President Trump said he is the one that made this happen,
1:06:07
Speaker 13: he probably did. But my source said that this came
1:06:11
Speaker 13: from the Chairman Mohammad al Camali of the United Arab Emirates,
1:06:17
Speaker 13: so the committee wasn't even told of this.
1:06:19
Speaker 3: The least surprising news ever, it's the least surprising thing
1:06:22
Speaker 3: that the United Arab Emirates might have somebody in the
1:06:26
Speaker 3: middle of a corruption scandal associated with both Donald Trump
1:06:29
Speaker 3: and international sports. Like what a shocker. You know, it's
1:06:33
Speaker 3: exactly what is amazing. But the Trump error is just
1:06:36
Speaker 3: how easy it is to predict how things went down,
1:06:39
Speaker 3: because this is what I thought, not again, anybody would
1:06:42
Speaker 3: know this, like where's the corruption, it's the golf And
1:06:47
Speaker 3: if Trump went something fixed there, who's going to go through?
1:06:50
Speaker 3: And sure enough it's the Amarati chair of some fake
1:06:53
Speaker 3: committee for you know, his sycophantic FIFA president friend. I
1:06:58
Speaker 3: will I will say Tommy to do a little sports
1:07:01
Speaker 3: media criticism. Good, by the way, good for Dan Patrick,
1:07:04
Speaker 3: because I I on my podcast died of a lot
1:07:07
Speaker 3: of sports podcasts.
1:07:07
Speaker 2: I'm not even call any of them ou because it's
1:07:09
Speaker 2: not worth it. But like I heard some people like
1:07:12
Speaker 2: actively running away from the importance of the story, you know, like, hey,
1:07:16
Speaker 2: like we I mean, you know, you know, Trump did
1:07:18
Speaker 2: that thing, but like we don't need to talk about
1:07:20
Speaker 2: that wasn't that important? And and I sense people being
1:07:24
Speaker 2: afraid of their audience. You know, I get you don't
1:07:28
Speaker 2: like to mix sports and politics, but fucking president of
1:07:31
Speaker 2: the United States like clearly intervenes. I can tell you
1:07:35
Speaker 2: who was interested in that story. Every other sports fan,
1:07:38
Speaker 2: soccer fan in.
1:07:39
Speaker 1: The world, every human being, awall, every human.
1:07:41
Speaker 3: Being on earth following the World Cup. And so we
1:07:43
Speaker 3: can't like pretend like and by the way, like I'll
1:07:46
Speaker 3: be the smart, like the liberal that people get mad at. Like, ah, no, I.
1:07:51
Speaker 2: Don't think Trump did one good thing, Like he would
1:07:54
Speaker 2: have if we had won, which I wanted us to do.
1:07:57
Speaker 2: He would have fucked it up because everybody in the
1:07:59
Speaker 2: world have been like they cheated and that's the only
1:08:01
Speaker 2: reason they won.
1:08:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, my takeaway was I didn't think it should be
1:08:05
Speaker 1: a red card. I thought it was a bad call. Yeah,
1:08:07
Speaker 1: I obviously what Trump did is sketchy, but honestly, like
1:08:12
Speaker 1: I was less grossed out by him because on some level,
1:08:15
Speaker 1: like presidents advocate for their countries, FIFA is a disgusting,
1:08:20
Speaker 1: utterly corrupt, rotten to its core organization, and this will
1:08:24
Speaker 1: be something that is hung around their neck forever. And
1:08:27
Speaker 1: like I think the pushback you here is like FIFA
1:08:30
Speaker 1: is so corrupt. You know, there's all the DOJ, there's
1:08:34
Speaker 1: the DJ indictments from twenty fifteen, there are the allegations
1:08:38
Speaker 1: of you know, taking bribes to give various countries like
1:08:41
Speaker 1: Russia or Qatar the World Cup location that it's almost
1:08:45
Speaker 1: like kind of washes over you because it's such a
1:08:47
Speaker 1: broken organization. But I actually think that this was medi
1:08:51
Speaker 1: did too. I think this is actually different because it
1:08:52
Speaker 1: impacted the play of the game during the Cup, not
1:08:56
Speaker 1: like who gets a sponsorship deal, Well that's.
1:08:58
Speaker 2: The thing, and you know, we like you know, I
1:09:00
Speaker 2: mean it maybe it took me back to being a
1:09:02
Speaker 2: kid and learning about like the ways in which the
1:09:04
Speaker 2: Soviets used to fuck around with like the Olympic judges
1:09:07
Speaker 2: and stuff, you know, like when you get into the
1:09:09
Speaker 2: because do I think you should have gotten red card? No?
1:09:12
Speaker 2: I also don't think, you know, I think Egypt got screwed.
1:09:14
Speaker 2: I think I normally got screwed on the goal. Like,
1:09:16
Speaker 2: you know, I don't I bitch about calls. I'm insane.
1:09:19
Speaker 2: People just go look at my Twitter feed, which the
1:09:23
Speaker 2: majority of my Twitter feed for the last six months
1:09:25
Speaker 2: has been complaining about calls against the Knicks, and it
1:09:27
Speaker 2: got so out of hand that I actually went back
1:09:29
Speaker 2: and like deleted some of this.
1:09:31
Speaker 3: I was embarrassed of someone like searching the volume of Vike.
1:09:34
Speaker 2: So, like, I get it, like complaining about calls, bitching
1:09:36
Speaker 2: about calls, but like I would like the integrity of
1:09:40
Speaker 2: sports to be settled on the field. And I feel bad,
1:09:44
Speaker 2: you know, for our guys because they become villains internationally
1:09:47
Speaker 2: and they didn't. I don't blame any of them, you know, Yeah.
1:09:50
Speaker 1: It sucks. And then you know, Belgium rubbed it in
1:09:52
Speaker 1: our face by doing like the Trump dance every time
1:09:54
Speaker 1: they scored and stuff, which.
1:09:55
Speaker 3: Was pretty funny.
1:09:56
Speaker 1: We just looked bad. Not a great outcome all around.
1:09:59
Speaker 1: All Right, We're going to to take a quick break,
1:10:00
Speaker 1: but when we come back, you're gonna hear Ben's interview
1:10:02
Speaker 1: with Congressman Rocanna about his time in the West Bank
1:10:05
Speaker 1: getting detained by settlers and all things that he observed
1:10:09
Speaker 1: while he was there. So stick around for that. Podzi
1:10:17
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Speaker 2: Okay, I'm very pleased to be joined by Congressman Roe
1:11:42
Speaker 2: Kanna from Silicon Valley, who serves an Armed Services Committee,
1:11:46
Speaker 2: the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United
1:11:48
Speaker 2: States and China, and on the Oversight An Accountability Committee.
1:11:52
Speaker 13: Row.
1:11:53
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me
1:11:55
Speaker 2: Ben Okay, so you know you and I've been in touch.
1:11:59
Speaker 2: You just got back from a trip to the West
1:12:01
Speaker 2: Bank that drew a lot of attention. I want to
1:12:04
Speaker 2: just start with your decision to visit the West Bank
1:12:08
Speaker 2: where you were detained by Israeli settlers, and the idea
1:12:11
Speaker 2: of which we'll get to. But you know, my experience
1:12:15
Speaker 2: in politics is it most visits to that part of
1:12:18
Speaker 2: the world are basically, you know, an Israeli government kind
1:12:22
Speaker 2: of facilitated tour of what the Israeli.
1:12:25
Speaker 14: Government wants you to see.
1:12:27
Speaker 2: Maybe occasionally you go to Ramala in the West Bank
1:12:29
Speaker 2: and see the Palestine authority. What led you to make
1:12:32
Speaker 2: this decision to center your visit more on the West
1:12:35
Speaker 2: Bank and the conditions there than the more conventional type
1:12:38
Speaker 2: of an approach that most members of Congress take.
1:12:40
Speaker 10: Well, honestly, I was inspired by your insights and Jasper
1:12:45
Speaker 10: Nathaniel's insights, and Jasper's a journalist on the ground who
1:12:52
Speaker 10: has done protective presence, which is protecting some of the
1:12:55
Speaker 10: Palestinian villages from settler violence, and.
1:13:00
Speaker 11: Him and a young guy works for me.
1:13:02
Speaker 10: Cam Caasky said, the only way you're going to really
1:13:05
Speaker 10: see this is if you have a tour on the
1:13:08
Speaker 10: West Bank, if you go there and you actually have
1:13:10
Speaker 10: Palestinians leaded, go into Palestinian homes, go see Hebron from
1:13:15
Speaker 10: Palestinian eyes, go talk to Palestinian Americans. And so that's
1:13:21
Speaker 10: what I wanted to do. And it's interesting that what's
1:13:24
Speaker 10: really upset if you look at some of the Israeli
1:13:26
Speaker 10: government statements, was really upset them is that I did
1:13:29
Speaker 10: not coordinate with them. Of course we notified them that
1:13:31
Speaker 10: I was going notify the American embassy, but they're just
1:13:34
Speaker 10: not used to this idea that an American politician would
1:13:37
Speaker 10: dare go to the West Bank or a Palestinian led
1:13:39
Speaker 10: tour and not make the obligatory stops in Israel.
1:13:43
Speaker 11: Yeah.
1:13:43
Speaker 2: No, And I think it bears saying, because I've seen
1:13:46
Speaker 2: some of the criticism, which we'll get to, that the
1:13:48
Speaker 2: West Bank is not Israel, so you're visiting what is
1:13:52
Speaker 2: supposed to be under your national law, Palestinian territory. But
1:13:57
Speaker 2: I do want to let's talk about the incident that
1:14:00
Speaker 2: your experience while you're there. We've had Jasper Nathaniel on too,
1:14:04
Speaker 2: and obviously he's been very powerful in his journals and
1:14:06
Speaker 2: people should check him out, follo him on substack. He's
1:14:09
Speaker 2: been recording a lot of these types of incidents that
1:14:12
Speaker 2: happened to you. Now you are a sitting member of Congress.
1:14:16
Speaker 2: You had a video that you posted online this weekend
1:14:19
Speaker 2: in which armed Israeli settlers blocked your convoy. The IDEF
1:14:24
Speaker 2: showed up and basically ended up detaining you instead of
1:14:28
Speaker 2: dispersing the settlers.
1:14:30
Speaker 14: What happened? Can you walk us through what your experience was.
1:14:33
Speaker 10: So this was the one part of the tour that
1:14:35
Speaker 10: actually was not Palestine led. It was led by Nadav
1:14:38
Speaker 10: of Breaking the Silence. And Nadav is a former IDF
1:14:43
Speaker 10: officer who believes that the occupation is unjust and started
1:14:47
Speaker 10: breaking the silence to help Israel and the occupation. And
1:14:52
Speaker 10: he's taken people there many times before. In fact, just
1:14:55
Speaker 10: four or five months ago, he took members of Congress there,
1:14:57
Speaker 10: Congressman cast In and congress Woman Rosa de Laro. And
1:15:02
Speaker 10: so we went to Zunata Village. This is a village
1:15:04
Speaker 10: that has been destroyed by Yanan Levy, who is an
1:15:08
Speaker 10: extremist settler and as an outpost which is illegal even
1:15:13
Speaker 10: under Israeli low it's a settlement that even Israel Israel
1:15:16
Speaker 10: recognized is illegal. And your non Levy was quat on
1:15:20
Speaker 10: camera murdering Ottawa Palestinian. And so he raised this village
1:15:26
Speaker 10: and we were taking pictures of the elementary.
1:15:28
Speaker 11: School that he had raised. Suddenly a two.
1:15:32
Speaker 10: Hoodlums and they're around twenty one to twenty two come
1:15:34
Speaker 10: one brandishing an M four and I'm told get in
1:15:37
Speaker 10: the van, get in the van.
1:15:38
Speaker 11: We all get in the van and.
1:15:40
Speaker 10: They have parked their car outside right in front of
1:15:43
Speaker 10: our van, so we can't leave, and are cursing at us,
1:15:49
Speaker 10: wiping our windows, videotaping us. And then the IDF comes
1:15:52
Speaker 10: twenty thirty minutes later. I say, okay, thank you, we're
1:15:55
Speaker 10: going to be free. Here to go, and the IDF
1:15:58
Speaker 10: actually says, no, we're on the side of the settlers,
1:16:00
Speaker 10: and we think you're in an illegal area. Now even
1:16:04
Speaker 10: the IDF has acknowledged it wasn't an illegal area, but
1:16:08
Speaker 10: we have to wait seventy five minutes and finally we
1:16:10
Speaker 10: get someone on the American Embassy, a great career official,
1:16:15
Speaker 10: David Brownstein, who contacts the Israeli government and the police
1:16:19
Speaker 10: come and we are let out. But if we were Palestinians,
1:16:23
Speaker 10: we would have, I'm one hundred percent sure, face some violence.
1:16:27
Speaker 10: The fact that we were Americans that were probably a
1:16:30
Speaker 10: little bit more careful though, so they said we don't care,
1:16:33
Speaker 10: and they didn't care enough to let us, let us go.
1:16:36
Speaker 14: And did anybody apologize to you for this?
1:16:38
Speaker 10: I thought when I came back, the Israeli government would
1:16:41
Speaker 10: do kind of what Netanyahu did, which is say, oh,
1:16:43
Speaker 10: these are juvenile delinquents, and then maybe just say I'm
1:16:45
Speaker 10: sorry this happened to Americans. It's not typical of what happens.
1:16:49
Speaker 10: This was not reflective on who we are, and we
1:16:52
Speaker 10: apologize to not just me, but two other Americans and
1:16:57
Speaker 10: the New York Times photo journalists and others who were
1:17:00
Speaker 10: in our delegation. But instead they have basically said, well,
1:17:05
Speaker 10: I didn't coordinate the trip. They've said that it wasn't
1:17:08
Speaker 10: a detention because we weren't held at gunpoint. Yeah, we
1:17:12
Speaker 10: weren't held at gunpoint. But having people brandish their guns
1:17:15
Speaker 10: and block the only road out of the Zunata village,
1:17:20
Speaker 10: you could call it false imprisoned detention.
1:17:22
Speaker 11: You know.
1:17:22
Speaker 10: If one person said, it's just like being delayed in traffic,
1:17:25
Speaker 10: I mean so it's just mind boggling how they have
1:17:28
Speaker 10: been describing the incident.
1:17:31
Speaker 2: Let's play the clip of Primister and how he responded
1:17:34
Speaker 2: to this on Meet the Press when he was asked
1:17:36
Speaker 2: about what happened to you. I want to play that
1:17:38
Speaker 2: and then get your reaction to the Prime Minister.
1:17:43
Speaker 9: In the West Bank and Judean Siberia, we've had thousands,
1:17:47
Speaker 9: thousands of attempted attacks and warnings against terrorist activities against
1:17:54
Speaker 9: innocent as well as families mother where their children driving
1:17:57
Speaker 9: along the road, they're stopped by terrorists and they kill them.
1:18:01
Speaker 9: There is a vigilante effort, not by the settler community.
1:18:05
Speaker 9: There are ninety nine point nine percent law abiding citizens.
1:18:12
Speaker 9: They work, they serve in the army and so on.
1:18:14
Speaker 9: There are one hundred and fifty juvenile delinquents that are
1:18:18
Speaker 9: not part of that community. They come from the other
1:18:21
Speaker 9: parts of Israel, and we are working to put them
1:18:23
Speaker 9: under the law. But I think if we put things
1:18:25
Speaker 9: in perspective, we should see that we have thousands of attacks. Israel,
1:18:30
Speaker 9: unlike our neighbors, is a democracy and a country of law,
1:18:35
Speaker 9: and we act against those who break the law.
1:18:37
Speaker 2: So all right, I'm going to lead a bit with
1:18:39
Speaker 2: a question here. But is the structural dynamic he describes,
1:18:42
Speaker 2: which is that this is like a hotbed of terrorism
1:18:45
Speaker 2: with a handful of juvenile delinquents. Is that the reality
1:18:49
Speaker 2: you experienced not just in your detention, but in what
1:18:51
Speaker 2: you saw in general during your visit to the West Bank.
1:18:57
Speaker 10: Well, he's right that it's a hotbed of terrorism against
1:18:59
Speaker 10: the Pellians. I mean, the people who are being terrorized
1:19:02
Speaker 10: are the Palestinians, the ummel care, the village.
1:19:06
Speaker 11: I was at the home of Solman.
1:19:09
Speaker 10: I remember it so vividly, in settlers rattling the windows
1:19:14
Speaker 10: of his home, throwing things at his home, his eighteen
1:19:17
Speaker 10: year old daughter saying, I can't study, I need to
1:19:20
Speaker 10: go somewhere else, and this happening night after night after night,
1:19:23
Speaker 10: and then they planted an Israeli flag over a Palestinian home.
1:19:28
Speaker 10: I was in one of the rich areas of Palestine
1:19:31
Speaker 10: where Palestinian Americans were living, who had done very well here,
1:19:34
Speaker 10: worth millions of dollars here, having beautiful homes there. And
1:19:38
Speaker 10: they said to me, we are still treated as brown
1:19:42
Speaker 10: Palestinians with no standing. One father talked in tears about
1:19:46
Speaker 10: his fourteen year old who was killed by the IDF
1:19:50
Speaker 10: and how he still has the room unchanged in his house,
1:19:54
Speaker 10: and other gentleman talked about how the settlers came and
1:19:59
Speaker 10: vandalized to his home, destroyed his car, beat a lady
1:20:04
Speaker 10: in the car, and no justice. He went to a
1:20:07
Speaker 10: school where there was a school shooting and I saw
1:20:10
Speaker 10: the blood of the fourteen year old who had died.
1:20:12
Speaker 10: Now we have school shootings in America. The difference is,
1:20:15
Speaker 10: even though we don't agree on gun policy, we all
1:20:17
Speaker 10: agree ninety nine percent at least that the school shooter
1:20:20
Speaker 10: should be brought to justice. Here, the principle was not
1:20:24
Speaker 10: consulted about the shooting. No one in the school was
1:20:27
Speaker 10: asked about the shooting. I said, what happened to the
1:20:29
Speaker 10: school shooter? Principal said, I don't know. The idea or
1:20:32
Speaker 10: the police never asked him.
1:20:34
Speaker 11: It is awful. You can't imagine it unless you experience it.
1:20:38
Speaker 10: The only people in the West Bank that I saw
1:20:41
Speaker 10: were being terrorized were the Palestinians by these extreme settlers
1:20:44
Speaker 10: and by the idea.
1:20:46
Speaker 2: And I just want to ask you, you know, you
1:20:48
Speaker 2: get detained like that as an American member of Congress,
1:20:52
Speaker 2: which you know I can't imagine happening. Just you know,
1:20:57
Speaker 2: just went anywhere in the world at this point, but
1:21:01
Speaker 2: you also know that you go to work in a
1:21:05
Speaker 2: building where people vote regularly to either through direct financing
1:21:11
Speaker 2: and assistance or through military sales to arm this government
1:21:15
Speaker 2: where they're you know, regularly resolutions expressing support for this
1:21:20
Speaker 2: Israeli government, where you know this idea that they're a democracy,
1:21:25
Speaker 2: including a democracy. I guess that you know governs people
1:21:28
Speaker 2: who have second class citizenship, if that in places like
1:21:31
Speaker 2: the West Bank or under military occupation. What is that
1:21:35
Speaker 2: like to to recognize that you are, you know, at
1:21:40
Speaker 2: least briefly victimized by the impunity that the Congress where
1:21:44
Speaker 2: you work has kind of supported with this blank check
1:21:47
Speaker 2: of support.
1:21:48
Speaker 10: It's ironic because I've voted in the past for the
1:21:51
Speaker 10: AID that led to arguing my own detention. I mean,
1:21:55
Speaker 10: I of course voted against the AID after October seventh
1:21:59
Speaker 10: and voted against the two hundred and twenty billion dollars
1:22:02
Speaker 10: to net Yao. But before that, I was a member
1:22:04
Speaker 10: of Congress would vote every year for the three billion
1:22:07
Speaker 10: dollar AID. And now it's literally leading to the detention
1:22:10
Speaker 10: of Americans and to the detention of Palestinians. Palestinian Americans.
1:22:16
Speaker 10: But it's relevant now because this week we're going to
1:22:19
Speaker 10: have a vote on the Massy Amendment to zero out
1:22:22
Speaker 10: the AID, which I support, and Greg kasar Is, the
1:22:25
Speaker 10: chair of the Progressive Caucus, actually talks about what happened
1:22:29
Speaker 10: to me and other Americans, saying how can we vote
1:22:32
Speaker 10: for eight? And while I don't want to make this
1:22:35
Speaker 10: about me, I'm glad it's got an attention. I'm hoping
1:22:37
Speaker 10: that we'll actually get to show the Palestinian videos and
1:22:40
Speaker 10: that that's what's going to become the topic of conversation.
1:22:43
Speaker 11: I will just say, factually, as.
1:22:45
Speaker 10: Someone pointed this out, that the last time a member
1:22:48
Speaker 10: of Congress was overseas and either shot at or detained
1:22:52
Speaker 10: by people who had guns was in nineteen seventy eight
1:22:56
Speaker 10: with Leo Ryan and the Jonestown massacre in Guyana. And
1:22:59
Speaker 10: so this is not a common occurrence, and you would
1:23:02
Speaker 10: think that Israel would be profoundly apologetic instead of hunkering
1:23:07
Speaker 10: down in their corner and trying to justify what happened.
1:23:10
Speaker 11: Yeah.
1:23:11
Speaker 2: I want to talk about the Democratic Party here too, though,
1:23:13
Speaker 2: because you're not that surprising that you had certain Israelian
1:23:16
Speaker 2: Republican voices in this country criticizing you. But I also
1:23:20
Speaker 2: saw the Democratic Majority for Israel, the DMFI, which is
1:23:24
Speaker 2: kind of like an apac light that spends a lot
1:23:28
Speaker 2: of money trying to elect Prosroel Democrats come out and
1:23:32
Speaker 2: attack you and essentially call this like a publicity stunt.
1:23:35
Speaker 14: That wasn't you know?
1:23:37
Speaker 2: I saw Josh Gotdheimer, a colleague of yours in the
1:23:40
Speaker 2: Democratic Caucus of the House, you know, come out and
1:23:43
Speaker 2: say you went somewhere you shouldn't have. And at the
1:23:45
Speaker 2: same time, we see these primary results where you know,
1:23:49
Speaker 2: there are a lot of reasons why we've seen five
1:23:52
Speaker 2: incumbents defeated in primaries, but you know, a through line
1:23:55
Speaker 2: in all those is that the challengers to those incumbents
1:23:59
Speaker 2: took a different position on support for Israel. When you
1:24:03
Speaker 2: see those kinds of attacks from your colleagues in the
1:24:05
Speaker 2: Democratic Party, do you talk to those people privately?
1:24:08
Speaker 14: Do you reach out to them? What is that like?
1:24:11
Speaker 10: I haven't seen Josh. I know Josh, well, we came
1:24:13
Speaker 10: into Congress together. We usually have a pretty good rapport.
1:24:17
Speaker 10: I was surprised by him, and I was surprised by
1:24:19
Speaker 10: Kathy Manning. We had a decent rapport.
1:24:21
Speaker 11: I would have just thought they would say, look.
1:24:24
Speaker 10: This volunt shouldn't have happened, and we're glad Congress are
1:24:28
Speaker 10: kind of safe. We disagree with his views. We don't
1:24:30
Speaker 10: think that this was deliberate on Israel's part. It was
1:24:33
Speaker 10: a mess, but we understand settler violence is bad. But
1:24:36
Speaker 10: you know, their attack on me is not just an
1:24:39
Speaker 10: attack on my policy positions on Israel that i've said
1:24:42
Speaker 10: genocide or then i've said the facts on the ground
1:24:45
Speaker 10: or apart. They want to discredit my character. They want
1:24:49
Speaker 10: to say he's a liar, he's just in this for publicity,
1:24:52
Speaker 10: he's just doing this to further his own ambitions. He
1:24:56
Speaker 10: has no credibility because they're threatened by the narrative. And
1:25:02
Speaker 10: they know as a Indian American of Hindu faith, who's
1:25:06
Speaker 10: not Muslim, who was a supporter of Israel for many
1:25:12
Speaker 10: years in Congress, who represents Silicon Valley, who worked for
1:25:16
Speaker 10: as a junior person for the Obama administration, that they
1:25:19
Speaker 10: can't just paint me as fringe. They can't just say, ah,
1:25:22
Speaker 10: this guy's out in left field. And so what they're
1:25:24
Speaker 10: trying to do is show that, yeah, this guy's not
1:25:27
Speaker 10: in the mainstream, he's not to be trusted to discredit
1:25:32
Speaker 10: my criticisms of Israel. And it's a very cynical strategy.
1:25:37
Speaker 10: But it's why members of Congress are reluctant to speak out.
1:25:40
Speaker 10: It's not just the APEC money, it's the assault that
1:25:44
Speaker 10: you face in terms of your character and your values. Now,
1:25:48
Speaker 10: what we've seen though is politically, at least in some
1:25:52
Speaker 10: of these primaries, being attacked by some of these folks
1:25:54
Speaker 10: actually is one of the biggest markers to the progressive
1:25:58
Speaker 10: base and young people that you're willing to fight and
1:26:00
Speaker 10: it's almost a badge of ponder.
1:26:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, what frustrated me is I can accept, you know,
1:26:06
Speaker 2: policy differences. There was like a wilful effort to discredit
1:26:10
Speaker 2: even the idea of visiting the West Bank, as if
1:26:13
Speaker 2: that's somehow you know, it's a publicity stunt to go
1:26:16
Speaker 2: to the West Bank, but not to go and get
1:26:18
Speaker 2: your picture taken with you know, beaby Nenyahu or.
1:26:21
Speaker 11: Something other than interrupt. But no one, no one, and
1:26:24
Speaker 11: nor do I think it is.
1:26:25
Speaker 10: But no one is like Ram Emmanuel, you know that's
1:26:27
Speaker 10: a publicity stunt to go to Tel Aviv and give
1:26:29
Speaker 10: a speech to run in twenty twenty eight, right, whereas
1:26:32
Speaker 10: he was explicitly giving a speech outlining his vision. No
1:26:34
Speaker 10: one's calling that a publicity stunt. But going to the
1:26:37
Speaker 10: West Bank is so foreign to these folks. How could
1:26:41
Speaker 10: you do it?
1:26:42
Speaker 11: And the reason they're attacking me is they don't want
1:26:43
Speaker 11: other people to do it.
1:26:44
Speaker 2: They want people to see the Palasinians and what's going
1:26:47
Speaker 2: on there. You know, this is clearly going to be
1:26:49
Speaker 2: a huge issue. It already is in this cycle, it's
1:26:52
Speaker 2: going to be in the presidential primary. I saw Hakeem
1:26:55
Speaker 2: Jeffries come out today in support of you know, you know,
1:26:59
Speaker 2: he would not support an end to military assistance Israel.
1:27:03
Speaker 2: What do you make of that, having a leadership that
1:27:07
Speaker 2: feels so out of step with where most Democrats are.
1:27:11
Speaker 10: Yeah, I was disappointed and surprised. Obviously, I'm going to
1:27:14
Speaker 10: support it. I'm a collead of that amendment. With Massy,
1:27:19
Speaker 10: I will say I came at least, you know, he
1:27:21
Speaker 10: reached out to me and a day after the whole
1:27:24
Speaker 10: incident happened.
1:27:25
Speaker 11: It was very, very supportive.
1:27:28
Speaker 10: But I think that the party is not understanding where
1:27:31
Speaker 10: the base is and they're underestimating how important an issue
1:27:35
Speaker 10: this is. I'm not sure. Claire Veldez, Brad Lander. Certainly Darrel,
1:27:41
Speaker 10: Lisa mellot an A Lilia or Adam Hamawi would have
1:27:47
Speaker 10: won their races if it weren't for this issue. Not
1:27:50
Speaker 10: saying they don't have other great attributes to them, but
1:27:54
Speaker 10: this was one of the biggest issues. And the reason
1:27:56
Speaker 10: it's become a big issue is people are saying, if you,
1:27:59
Speaker 10: if you can't be honest about what we're seeing with
1:28:01
Speaker 10: our own eyes and willing to take on this power structure,
1:28:05
Speaker 10: how how can we trust you? So it's become a
1:28:08
Speaker 10: charricter test not just a question of the details of
1:28:11
Speaker 10: are you for calling it a genocide or apart right,
1:28:13
Speaker 10: it's are you willing to take on power to fight
1:28:16
Speaker 10: for a more just world? And uh, I think a
1:28:20
Speaker 10: lot of the our political base is just out of
1:28:23
Speaker 10: touch about where the party is on this.
1:28:26
Speaker 11: Where the where the base of the party is.
1:28:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I clearly it's it's also a threshold test
1:28:34
Speaker 2: of whether you're willing to take on powerful interests like
1:28:37
Speaker 2: a pack or whether you're willing to.
1:28:39
Speaker 14: Say what's happening in the world.
1:28:40
Speaker 2: I do want to get in the of the policy,
1:28:42
Speaker 2: because you know you were there looking at the West
1:28:44
Speaker 2: Bank and obviously experienced settler violence. You've talked about the
1:28:49
Speaker 2: need to uh, you know, ban military assistance. What about
1:28:54
Speaker 2: the settler issue in particular?
1:28:56
Speaker 14: What what what.
1:28:58
Speaker 2: Kind of policies do you think could be you to
1:29:00
Speaker 2: introduce some accountability for this violence and to try to
1:29:04
Speaker 2: create some leverage over what is seemingly an unaccountable situation
1:29:08
Speaker 2: in the West Bank of settlers feeling like they have impunity.
1:29:12
Speaker 10: Oh, we should have sanctions on the banks. We should
1:29:15
Speaker 10: have sanctions on the construction companies, sanctions on the government
1:29:18
Speaker 10: officials pushing this policy right now, as you know, they're
1:29:22
Speaker 10: subsidizing basically the settlement. So if you're Israeli, and even
1:29:26
Speaker 10: if you don't have a sense of the greater Israel,
1:29:29
Speaker 10: you can get just cheaper land and free childcare and
1:29:34
Speaker 10: government assistance if you move to the settlements. And there
1:29:36
Speaker 10: needs to be an end to that. But on a
1:29:39
Speaker 10: very immediate basis, a new administration should come in and say,
1:29:42
Speaker 10: within one hundred days, here's the people we want.
1:29:44
Speaker 1: To rest it.
1:29:45
Speaker 10: You know, on Levy, there are a number of these
1:29:46
Speaker 10: other extremest settlers are terrorizing folks. Here are the outposts
1:29:50
Speaker 10: that we expect IDIDF to destroy within one hundred days.
1:29:53
Speaker 10: And this is not some kind of dialogue or peace plan.
1:29:55
Speaker 10: This is what the United States expects you to do.
1:29:58
Speaker 10: Because the Palestinians that I met, they first just need
1:30:02
Speaker 10: to stop being terrorized. They need to stop feeling that
1:30:07
Speaker 10: they could be subject any whim, any moment to the
1:30:10
Speaker 10: whims of a settler. And we have all this, I
1:30:13
Speaker 10: guess this is the thing that I saw on the ground.
1:30:15
Speaker 10: We have all these grandiose ideas of will it be
1:30:18
Speaker 10: a two state solution or a confederacy.
1:30:20
Speaker 11: Will it be how do we get to peace.
1:30:22
Speaker 10: And what do we do with Hamas? And right now,
1:30:24
Speaker 10: a lot of these folks they just want to live
1:30:26
Speaker 10: a normal life and they see the United States as
1:30:29
Speaker 10: not having lifted a finger to make that possible. And
1:30:33
Speaker 10: what they want is to see some action to stop
1:30:36
Speaker 10: their harassment and threats on a daily basis.
1:30:40
Speaker 2: Well, the last thing I want to ask you, then,
1:30:42
Speaker 2: is is there something that a Palsinian that you met
1:30:46
Speaker 2: with said to you or that you saw in terms
1:30:49
Speaker 2: of their experience that stuck with you that you'd want
1:30:52
Speaker 2: to share with people about what life is like in
1:30:56
Speaker 2: the West Bank.
1:30:57
Speaker 11: Well? Sure, two things, I mean, I.
1:31:01
Speaker 10: Will share walking down the street of Hebron, where shop
1:31:05
Speaker 10: owners were pointing up top and saying, here's where they
1:31:08
Speaker 10: throw the metal parts and the rotten vegetables. And then
1:31:11
Speaker 10: when we put a stronger barricade so that the settlers
1:31:15
Speaker 10: above ground level couldn't throw that at us, they started
1:31:18
Speaker 10: urinating on us and putting acid on us. And I
1:31:22
Speaker 10: just said, of how dehumanizing, how utterly dehumanizing. And then
1:31:26
Speaker 10: they fathers, a couple of fathers I met whose children
1:31:31
Speaker 10: were either detained or killed and felt totally powerless. They'd
1:31:34
Speaker 10: go to one of them whose son was detained an
1:31:38
Speaker 10: American citizen said there was no trial. He was detained
1:31:41
Speaker 10: for ten months.
1:31:41
Speaker 11: He went in.
1:31:43
Speaker 10: Looking like a normal healthy kid, came out totally emaciated
1:31:46
Speaker 10: and scarred. It went from Florida. But I'll tell you
1:31:48
Speaker 10: what struck me, because they invited me into their homes
1:31:52
Speaker 10: that were so warm. I was there with it in
1:31:55
Speaker 10: some parts, with Jasper's Jewish American and Cam Caskei, a
1:31:58
Speaker 10: young Jewish American park n survivor, and they welcome us.
1:32:02
Speaker 11: They give us a Moe loop.
1:32:04
Speaker 1: This.
1:32:06
Speaker 10: Delicious dish, and they hugged Cam, and they hugged Jasper
1:32:11
Speaker 10: and All they had for us was love.
1:32:14
Speaker 11: And decency and warmth.
1:32:17
Speaker 10: And I said, no bitterness towards Jewish Americans. There were
1:32:23
Speaker 10: one time there was an Israeli nadab with us. No
1:32:26
Speaker 10: bitterness towards Israeli. They just want peace, they want a
1:32:32
Speaker 10: better life. And that gave me hope because I was
1:32:36
Speaker 10: inspired by Cam and Jasper and the commitment. I mean,
1:32:40
Speaker 10: Jasper's lily pulling his body on the line every night
1:32:42
Speaker 10: as a Jewish American for protecting Palestinians. Cam Is you know,
1:32:46
Speaker 10: he's always pushing me, is saying I'm not strong enough
1:32:49
Speaker 10: on the issue. Is anytime I equivocate in the slightest deal,
1:32:52
Speaker 10: send me a long email. He's twenty five years old.
1:32:55
Speaker 10: So they see the possibility of peace, and the Palestinian
1:33:00
Speaker 10: I believe won't hold a bitterness. They're not going to
1:33:02
Speaker 10: be resentful. There's a large population that would embrace that.
1:33:07
Speaker 10: And so that's what gave me hope that something better
1:33:11
Speaker 10: is possible. And you know, I'm not one to romanticize
1:33:15
Speaker 10: the younger generation, but on this issue, they certainly have
1:33:18
Speaker 10: it much more right than past generations have.
1:33:22
Speaker 3: Well, that's a great note to end on Rocanna.
1:33:25
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for you know, the trip you
1:33:27
Speaker 2: took and for coming on to share some some reflections
1:33:30
Speaker 2: on it. So we'll continue to watch what you're doing.
1:33:32
Speaker 2: People should follow what you're doing on social media and
1:33:35
Speaker 2: other spaces and we'll keep in touch.
1:33:37
Speaker 11: Thank you, Ben, thank you for your work on this.
1:33:44
Speaker 1: Thanks again to Corxs mcconnor for joining the show. That's
1:33:46
Speaker 1: it for us this week, but we're gonna have a
1:33:47
Speaker 1: bonus pod for you guys later in the week. Ben
1:33:50
Speaker 1: and I are going to go hang out with us
1:33:53
Speaker 1: some blobby friends out and asking a security conference see
1:33:56
Speaker 1: if they'll let us in. I kind of think they
1:33:58
Speaker 1: might be trolling us.
1:34:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
1:34:03
Speaker 1: It'll be fun.
1:34:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, that'll be good and it's nice to you know,
1:34:06
Speaker 3: who doesn't want to be in Colorado this summer?
1:34:08
Speaker 1: Exactly.
1:34:09
Speaker 14: Yeah.
1:34:09
Speaker 1: Pods of the World as a Crooked Media production. Our
1:34:12
Speaker 1: show is produced by Alona Minkowski, Michael Goldsmith and Nisia Bonnergy.
1:34:15
Speaker 1: Our team includes Matt de Grote, The Heathcote, Jordan Canter,
1:34:18
Speaker 1: Kenny Moffatt, David Toles, and Ryan Young. Our staff is
1:34:21
Speaker 1: proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
1:34:28
Speaker 3: Yeah.