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How Will the Blue Wave Change US Foreign Policy? (Live from Crooked Con) · Pod Save the World

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: What's up, worldos? Wow.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I love you back.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I love you, Ben Rutz.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: I love you too, man. I love everybody right now, right?
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Well, not everybody, but most people.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Most people. Not you, Stephen Miller.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Posse of the World, live from CrookedCon.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: I'm Ben Rhodes.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: How of an election we had Tuesday, huh?
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, did that happen? That's a thing that happened in
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: the world.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Ben was in Istanbul, Turkey, where.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: On brand.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: When things go badly, tanks are in the streets in elections,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: so it was exciting. It does seem like... Trump is
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: ready to take a lesson from the result. Extend a hand. Yeah.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Name Steve Miller. It's cheap as that.
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: Really an olive branch that he extended there with hair Miller.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good stuff. So as you all know, Ben
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: and I are card carrying globalists here at Crooked Media.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: So today we want to talk about the impact of
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: the election in particular on U.S. foreign policy. So we
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: want to focus on the Iran war and how we
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: might end it. We want to talk about how our
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: election folds into this broader fight against right-wing populism and authoritarianism.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: And then Ben and I are going to do a
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: little wish casting for the 2028 Democratic Party field, things
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: we hope they will talk about.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: There are going to be like 400 of them.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: We'll be quick.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: We should be able to snag like one candidate to
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: talk about our stuff. So that's the first part of
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: the show. That'll be our A Block. Then we are
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: going to welcome Congressman Jason Crow and Congresswoman Yasemin Ansari
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: to the stage.
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: To talk about opportunity for Democrats on Capitol Hill to
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: conduct oversight and hold the Trump administration accountable for its terrible,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: corrupt foreign policy. But first, the midterms were clearly a
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: referendum on the Iran war. Voters hated it. It drove
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: up gas prices. It led to more inflation. It was
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: a broken promise. And they rendered a clear verdict to
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the point where Donald Trump, I think in an interview
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: with the Wall Street Journal, conceded that the Iran war was, quote,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: a piece of why they lost. Vice President J.D. Vance
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: went a little further. He tweeted the following. The reason
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: we lost is the war. But Ben, despite that clarity,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth has not been fired. There's no meaningful progress
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: that we've seen on peace talks. The U.S. still has 50,000
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: service members and two aircraft carriers in the region that
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: could strike Iran at any time. And so the war
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: is no closer to being over. And the question is,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: how can Democrats force Donald Trump's hand? One point of
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: leverage is a government funding deadline on December 11th. The
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: government has been funded up to that date. If it's
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: not extended, there will be a government shutdown. A lot
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: of progressives are saying Democrats should insert language into that
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: funding bill that says none of this money can be
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: used to wage war with Iran. And that is how
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the Vietnam War ended. Feels like a no brainer politically, Ben.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I guess the question is, like, what does that then
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: mean in practice? Is Iran just kind of de facto
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: in charge of the Strait of Hormuz? How are you
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: thinking about this?
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: First of all, it's been made very clear to Donald
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: Trump that the American people absolutely reject this war. It
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: is an absolute bipartisan feeling. And so elections should have consequences.
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: People want this war to end. And I think we
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: can make a mistake that, you know, assuming that we
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: shouldn't do this, we shouldn't cut off funding because it
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: could leave a mess, it could leave the Strait of
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: Hormuz open. That presupposes that if we funded it, these
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: people would competently with a plan end the war. And
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: they're not going to do that. In fact, we've seen
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: them bomb Iran.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: Twice during negotiations.
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: We've seen Donald Trump threaten to commit war crimes and
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: bomb civilian infrastructure as part of his plan to escalate.
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: We know if that happens, the Iranians will hit targets
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: across the Middle East. Gas prices will keep to go up.
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: People will continue to get killed. And so, first of all,
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: the Democratic Party should be responsive to its voters and
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: not provide another dollar for this war. And then in
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: terms of what happens, there are countries in the region
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: who are trying to negotiate the end of the war.
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: They're not waiting for the United States to do it
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: because nobody fucking believes that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff can.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Or will end this war.
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: And so, look, a lot of people want the Strait
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: of Hormuz open. The people in the Gulf want the
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: Strait of Hormuz open. The Qataris who are negotiating with
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: the Iranians right now want the.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: Strait of Hormuz open.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: So I think if you pull the plug on the war,
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: you pull the plug on the funding, people that actually
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: know how to negotiate things will be in a better
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: position to get a deal, to reopen that strait than
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: if we just continue a war. So we have to
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: be willing to step, oftentimes we accept the uncertainty of
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: the war over the uncertainty of ending it.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: We have to reverse that paradigm. The paradigm should.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: Be that we want peace, we want the war to end,
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: and that we will frankly leave it to people in
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: the Middle East who have a shared stake in this
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: to get that done.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: You don't think Pete Hegseth is the guy?
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: He's at the top of my list, by the way.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There's a long, excellent TikTok story about the midterms
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: and the results from the New York Times. My favorite
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: anecdote then was they were holding White House Situation Room
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: meetings where their pollsters were telling them how bad the
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: war was polling. And so they talked about ways to
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: hide it from the American people. That's a That's what
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: we should expect from these people if we don't end it.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So let's take a second to dig into this op-ed
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: length Twitter screed from J.D. Vance. For those who didn't
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: read it, congratulations. Here's part of it. Quote, the reason
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: we lost is the war. The president himself said so
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: last night, kind of. If you'd like to argue it
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: was worth it that losing the Senate for the next
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: six years was worth it, then do so. Argue it
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: at least honest, but everyone knows why we lost and
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: any conversation about where we go from here must start there.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Vance in that tweet also names the US relationship with
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Israel as a top four issue Republican voters that left
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: the party are mad about. So then I just found
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: this to be just the perfect Vance-ian text. He's like
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Tim Robinson in the hot dog costume saying we're all
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out who did this. And also like
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: that again, What Trump said to the Wall Street Journal was, yeah,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: the Iran war was part of why we lost, but
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: also that I'd do it again and that it was
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: the right thing to do. What did you make of J.D.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Vance's spin here? What crowd is he appealing to?
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's so many remarkable things about these times.
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: One is that the vice president of the United States does,
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: in his typically pedantic form, an op-ed-length tweet as if
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: he's not a member of the administration anymore. that launched
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: the war. As if he didn't go out and defend
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: the war. And look, I think it's pretty pathetic that
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: he had to write several hundred words on X to
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: try to get himself booked on Tucker Carlson. But he's
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: clearly preparing to run for president. And he's clearly preparing
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: to run for president with the idea that he can
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: somehow both inherit the mantle of MAGA and say, I
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: was against all the shitty things, though, that have happened when, frankly,
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: everything that has happened is shitty and he is responsible
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: for it. I do think that the important point here, though,
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: is there actually is an opportunity in this moment, which
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: is that we've lived through 25 years of war.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: And the one thing that.
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: Has total bipartisan support in this country, because J.D.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Vance, J.D.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: Vance doesn't believe a thing. J.D.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: Vance just got his finger to the wind here. The
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: one thing that is clear is that people don't want this.
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: People don't want the war in Iran. They don't want
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: the forever wars in the Middle East. They don't want
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: to spend a trillion and a half dollars on defense.
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: And we cannot let J.D. Vance claim the anti-war mantle.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: Like this has to be the Democratic Party.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: We let Trump do that.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: The Democratic Party is the anti. We let Trump do it.
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: We let Trump do it three times. The Democratic Party
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: has to be the anti-war party. The Democratic Party has
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: to be the party that is not going to get
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: us into other wars. The Democratic Party has to be
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: the party that's going to dismantle the apparatus of the
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: war on terror. The Democratic Party has to be the
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: party that's going to stop spending a trillion dollars on
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: defense and stop bombing other people's children and start investing
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: in our children.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: And J.D. Vance can't, you know, he can tweet all
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: he wants. He's not the guy.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: He is not the guy. All right. So we've talked
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: a lot on Pod Save the World about the growing
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: strength of right-wing populists and authoritarian governments. This was happening
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: in Latin America, where there were seven consecutive right-wing presidential
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: victories starting in 2025. Earlier this year, we saw the
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: far-right AFD party make huge gains in Germany, including winning
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: some major regional elections outright. The far-right and Rally Party
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: is leading in the polls ahead of France's 2027 presidential election.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: But then last month, Alexander Vucic, the longtime autocratic leader
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: of Serbia, was toppled by a protest movement led by students.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: In Brazil, President Lula da Silva pulled off a shocking
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: upset to defeat the right wing candidate Flavio Bolsonaro in
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: a presidential runoff. For those who don't know Flavio, he
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: is the Don Jr. of Brazil. So the pendulum feels
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: like it's swinging back. Ben, how do you think our
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: midterm election result fits into that story? Because, you know,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: we've talked about all the ways that these elections kind
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: of are interconnected and kind of take solidarity from each other?
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that one of the things we've learned
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: over the last decade is that there's a lot of
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: interconnectivity between what's happening in the world. And so the
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: authoritarians have had the momentum. So there's been a symbiosis
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: between Vucic in Serbia, a Viktor Orban in Hungary, a
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: Bibi Netanyahu in Israel, a Donald Trump in the United States,
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: a Bolsonaro family in Brazil.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I could go on.
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: And they've tried to create and have actually succeeded in
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: some cases in creating a sense of inevitability, right? That
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: this is just happening, that this is the direction of
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: global politics. And you should be made to be so
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: cynical by what's happening that you think that nothing really
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: matters or so apathetic about what's happening that you think
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: that you can have no power, that you don't even
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: have agency. that there are these forces in the world
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: that are bigger than you. These technological forces, these oligarchs,
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: this rampant inequality in the world, this nationalism that is
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: on the rise everywhere. There's a version of a culture
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: war everywhere. And they just want us to give up.
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: And unfortunately, for the better part of the last decade,
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: America has been on the wrong side of this equation, right?
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: It helped aid these groups and help bring them together
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: through organizations like CPAC and a lot of right-wing billionaire money.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: We've really been, you know, kind of lighting the fire here.
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: We've been both in a very practical sense, like you
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: just said, Trump and the MAGA movement has been the
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: actual international, right? And also in the sense of momentum,
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: as I travel a lot, when people see what's happening
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: in the United States, when they see the tableau at
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: our inauguration, they think, this is the most powerful country
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: in the world, there's this kind of unstoppable momentum. But
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: they don't get to decide. We get to decide what
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: the momentum of things is. And I can tell you,
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: I was in Istanbul and I was with activists from
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: all across the world the day our election went down.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: And these people from all over the world were in tears.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: And they were saying things to me like, That's the
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: America that I thought was gone. That's the America that
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: I thought... I had people from Africa, from Asia talking
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: to me about the statewide races in Texas, about Annie
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: Andrews in South Carolina, about congressional districts coming in from Colorado.
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: What we have to realize here is that we are
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: all in this together. I knew that some of the
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: organizers from Serbia, from Brazil, We can share and learn
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: from one another what strategies work. We can learn what
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: communication strategies work. We can learn what kind of populism works.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: But most of all, we can stand together in a
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: sense of solidarity. and see that you can overthrow a
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: dictator in Serbia at the ballot box. They said Bolsonaro
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: was inevitable after the first round of the election. He
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: was not inevitable. Trump looked inevitable here after 2024 election.
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: We just found out that we had the biggest political
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: realignment of my lifetime.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: At the ballot box here. And everybody saw that around
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: the world.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: So there's nothing inevitable about the AFD or about.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: Marine Le Pen or about all of these people.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: Like this wave that happened here, this blue wave that
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: happened here is a wave that can spread around the
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: entire world. Not because it's just us, because it's us
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: and all these other people around the world who don't
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: want the far right, who don't want nationalism and want
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: to actually reclaim power from the people that have taken
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: it away from us.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: And there's common threads and common themes. I mean, one
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: incredibly potent issue in Serbia, in Israel, was corruption. And
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: it's been a potent issue here. But we have to
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: connect the role of corruption in the cost of living
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: and how it's making your life worse. Another common thread
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: is just modernizing our communications tools. Lula da Silva reportedly
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: did not own a smartphone until... after the first round
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: of the Brazilian elections, he got one before the runoff.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: And then he handed over his campaign to this younger,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: more digitally savvy set of advisors who literally built something
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: called Lula's Army, like a 10 million person strong WhatsApp
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: group to put out instructions and messaging every day that
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: brought literally millions of more people to the polls. And
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I also think one of the things that was so
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: remarkable about Serbia was that it was entirely anti-establishment. I mean,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: it was these students who led the protests and then
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: they built a list of candidates that was completely outside
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: of politics. It was professors, an actor, a basketball player,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: like people who were just not tied to the corrupt
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: system and then they won. And so it's just, it's
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: a lesson of where the electorate is everywhere. and how
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: to harness those like powerful emotions and actually win elections.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: And to give people power, like Lula's army wasn't just
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: messaging too.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: It gave people something to do. You have agency, like
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: you can do something here.
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: And your corruption point is so important because it's not
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: just about democracy in the abstract. You know, it's not
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: just like we want to defend institutions. It's about, no,
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: we want power. We want governments to solve our problems
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: instead of just enriching these people over here. And so
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: we can unify all the different messages around the economy,
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: cost of living, corruption, war. It's all one message that
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: we have to communicate about who has power in the
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: world today.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: And then we got to do something with it. OK,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: so pretty much every Democrat in Washington is about to
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: run for president. And the world is their oyster in
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: terms of sketching out a new policy, a foreign policy
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: agenda in visions. So Ben and I, we have our
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: little kind of internal wish lists and we want to
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: do a speed round of things. We just want to
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: hear people talk about or propose. So I'll fire off
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: a couple. Then I'll fire off a couple. We'll riff
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: until we welcome our guests onto the stage. So Ben,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: we've talked a lot of how Donald Trump is trying
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: to increase the Pentagon budget to $ 1. 5 trillion. That is
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: batshit crazy. I would like to see a Democrat talk
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: about cutting the Pentagon budget.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: And- One by a lot, by a lot.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: And one unfortunate consequence of the Iran war that is
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: also an opportunity is the Iranians blew half our bases
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: in the middle East to shit and they are rendered unusable.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: So now might be a good time to close some
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: of them down less than our footprint in the middle East,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: because in a world where, you know, you can build
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: a drone, you know, with a grenade and a lawnmower
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: engine for $ 30, 000, like those bases are not powerful. They're
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: a liability, um, because we can be attacked. Um, Another
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: thing that is not on the front pages that concerns
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: me a lot is the Trump administration has let all
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: of these arms control agreements lapse. And it is a
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: more dangerous world now than it was before because of that.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: We need to re-engage Russia in these conversations. We need
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: to engage the Chinese because they are drastically ramping up
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: their production of nuclear weapons. And then we also need
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: to make AI safeguards a part of that. So that's
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: a big meaty one. Last thing and I'll turn it
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: to you, Ben. I want to see a Democrat make
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: a major speech about how they would end the war
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: in Sudan, which started as a civil war, now as
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: a proxy war, and has become the world's largest humanitarian crisis.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: It is completely disheartening to see what's happening in Sudan
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: on a million different levels, but in part because we
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: grew up at a time in politics in the Bush
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: administration when everything sucked, but there was this massive bipartisan
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: movement to try to save people's lives in Sudan. And
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: we need to build back that connective tissue and that
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: infrastructure and just get people to care again.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, I'll give a few quick things. I talked
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: about ending the war on terror. I want to be
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: specific about this. It's not just about bringing some troops home.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: It's about dismantling the war on terror. We are still
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: fighting a war on the authorization to use military force
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: was passed after 9-11.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: That should be repealed.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: The next Democrat who wants to be president should say,
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: I will not go to war or commit an act
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: of war, a drone strike, a bombing, without a new
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: authorization from Congress. Without a vote, we won't do it.
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: You start to dismantle this network of bases, like you said,
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: that we have around the world.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: By the way, dismantling the war on terror comes home.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: You abolish ICE that was set up after 9-11 in
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: the Department of Homeland Security, and you return immigration enforcement
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: to where it should be, which is in a justice
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: department that actually follows the rule of law, right? You
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: look at all of these authorities over the last 25
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: years for mass surveillance in this country, right? from FISA
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: to the Patriot Act, and you dismantle the wartime mass
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: surveillance apparatus of the US government, right? That's dismantling the
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: war on terror. How about we follow our laws that
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: say that we don't provide or sell arms to countries
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: that commit war crimes or human rights abuses or that
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: prevent aid from getting to a civilian population? If Democrats
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: want a policy on Israel that makes sense, all they
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: have to do is follow our laws and that you
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: would not sell a single weapon to a government that
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: is committing war crimes with those weapons right now.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: Full stop.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: How about we recognize a Palestinian state at the beginning
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: of a democratic administration? How about we say that we're
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: going to sanction illegal settlements in the West Bank, right?
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: And then I just wanna come back to something you said.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: The biggest foreign policy issue probably for the next administration
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: should actually be negotiating with the Chinese and other countries
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: around the world, meaningful safeguards on artificial intelligence. Instead of
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: a race with China, we should be working to put
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: in place safeguards on artificial intelligence. And then lastly, cause
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: I just came from an event in Istanbul that was
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: focused on climate change.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Remember climate change? It's hot out there, people.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: The United States needs to rejoin a global effort that
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: is taking seriously the need to have a clean energy
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: transition and phase out fossil fuels in the world and
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: actually deal with the existential challenges we have, which are AI,
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: climate change, and nuclear weapons.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Great lists. Super speed rounds. Super speed round. USAID 2.0.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: What does it look like?
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: Can't be exactly the same.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: We got to build it back, especially PEPFAR. Bernie Sanders
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: in 2020 talked a lot about the global oligarchy and
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the threat to democracy. Someone needs to pick up that
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: mantle and run with it. We should hire Democrats. Too often,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Democratic presidents, including Barack Obama, you end up hiring old
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Republicans or retired generals for certain national security positions. Stop
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: doing that. Get people who match your values. We should
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: be nice to Canada. They're pissed at us. We got
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: to fix that. How about we stop starving the island
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: of Cuba to death, Ben?
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love this. And I'll end here.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: Jason and Yasmeen, I'll just say that on the rebuilding
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: the U.S. government, it's not a renovation project.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: This is a rebuild project. You mentioned developing an agency.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: How about we, if we rebuild the State Department, how
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: about we also try to bring in young people and
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: different people and diverse people and say, we're going to
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: hire thousands of people to work at the State Department
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: and USAID, and we're going to hire different types of
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: people than we have before so that there's a different
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: face that we're showing to the world in the making
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: of our foreign policy. And by the way, as we
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: do that, we're going to have to take a look
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: and see what MAGA ideologues have been implanted in the government,
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: what corrupt Contracts have gone out to the Elon Musks
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: and Palantirs of the world so that we actually reclaim
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: a government that can actually represent who we are and
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: what our values are.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Well said.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: That felt good. Yeah.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Plot off my chest there. Pod Save the World is
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: brought to you by Mint Mobile. Remember being a kid
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  Speaker 1: and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. Let's welcome our excellent guests
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: to the stage. Representatives Jason Crow and Yasmin Ansari.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: Great to see you.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 25:11
  Speaker 6: Well, you all just covered it, pretty much everything. So
• 25:13
  Speaker 6: I'm not sure what we're going to talk about now.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: We can talk about whatever.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: We can just throw in from the cheap seats. You
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: guys actually have to do the work. Yeah, really.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: So Politico had a piece out this week that I
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: think kind of summarizes the opportunity and the challenge you
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: all are facing in Congress, which was Democrats face oversight pileup.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: There's just so many things we've got to look at.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: It's so much worth scrutiny. So let's start at the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: very top, the Trump family. There's the crypto business. There's
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Jared Kushner's billion-dollar kickbacks from the Saudis and the Emiratis
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: and the Qataris. There is Don Jr. and Eric. They
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: own drone companies and mining deals. Where do you begin?
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Because there's so much to look at. Yasmeen, can you
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: explain what investigative powers you have, how you all are
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: thinking about prioritizing this list?
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:04
  Speaker 7: So first of all, thank you for having us. I
• 26:08
  Speaker 7: am really looking forward to as a member of the
• 26:10
  Speaker 7: House Oversight Committee, Trump family corruption is actually one of
• 26:13
  Speaker 7: the one of four main lanes we are going to.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Be focused on.
• 26:18
  Speaker 7: So and this has been a lot of preparation has
• 26:22
  Speaker 7: gone into this. And obviously every single committee in Congress
• 26:25
  Speaker 7: will focus on oversight. There's there's no lack of work
• 26:28
  Speaker 7: to do. But we, you know, I want to highlight
• 26:31
  Speaker 7: a couple of things. I think there's a lot of
• 26:35
  Speaker 7: investigations that we need to do as it pertains to
• 26:37
  Speaker 7: the Trump family and the.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: War in Iran. And what I am.
• 26:42
  Speaker 7: Particularly interested in investigating and what we have already started
• 26:47
  Speaker 7: while we were in the minority is how the Trump sons,
• 26:51
  Speaker 7: Eric Trump and Don Jr. in particular, have made billions
• 26:55
  Speaker 7: of dollars off of the war in Iran. We know
• 26:57
  Speaker 7: that they are partners in something called 1789 Capital. The
• 27:01
  Speaker 7: 15 companies they are invested in have made $ 3. 2 billion
• 27:10
  Speaker 7: since the start of this Trump presidency.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: So the investigations, we're.
• 27:15
  Speaker 7: Doubling the capacity, tripling the capacity of investigators within our committee,
• 27:19
  Speaker 7: the staff. And this is what we're going to be
• 27:22
  Speaker 7: laser focused on. Trump family corruption, corporate corruption, ICE and DHS,
• 27:26
  Speaker 7: as well as the Epstein investigation.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: That's a good list.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: I just want to say before we begin, because we
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: get to podcast, this is the man that was the
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: head candidate recruiter for the DCCC. So give Jason an applause.
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: Yasmeen's been putting herself on the line at ICE facilities
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: for the last few years. She's been like taking the
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: fight around the country. So I wanna thank you guys. Yasmeen,
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: one question for you. Building off of that, you mentioned
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: the war in Iran. The role, the murky role that
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: Jared Kushner plays, where he's simultaneously not a US government
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: employee and the chief negotiator with the Iranians and the Russians.
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: He's gotten billions of dollars from the Saudis. He's negotiating
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: deals with the sovereign.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: Wealth fund in Russia.
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: How do you both, Get to the bottom of that.
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: And is there also a capacity to begin to think
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: about how to prevent something like that from happening again,
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: where family members of people who are in those positions
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: are just profiting wildly off of it?
• 28:34
  Speaker 7: Yeah, well, first of all, I think it's absolutely bullshit
• 28:37
  Speaker 7: that we talk about them like they are somehow separate
• 28:42
  Speaker 7: from the administration. Like, oh, you know, leave the kids
• 28:45
  Speaker 7: out of it or leave the family out of it. Or,
• 28:48
  Speaker 7: you know, no, these are people who are quite literally,
• 28:51
  Speaker 7: to your point, negotiating on behalf of the United States
• 28:54
  Speaker 7: without any formal role whatsoever.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: And they need to be.
• 28:58
  Speaker 7: Held accountable to the fullest extent of the law, as
• 29:01
  Speaker 7: you all said, that we already have on the books. And,
• 29:05
  Speaker 7: you know, Jared Kushner is top of the list for
• 29:09
  Speaker 7: somebody who needs to be investigated. His own, you know, company,
• 29:13
  Speaker 7: firm Affinity Partners, has taken billions of dollars from royalty, from,
• 29:19
  Speaker 7: you know, foreign governments, and now he is somehow handling
• 29:24
  Speaker 7: the most consequential foreign policy decisions that this country has.
• 29:27
  Speaker 7: If our current laws are not sufficient, then it's up
• 29:30
  Speaker 7: to Congress to make sure things like this never happen again.
• 29:34
  Speaker 7: But I really, really think it would be a colossal
• 29:36
  Speaker 7: mistake to not fully prosecute these individuals to the fullest
• 29:41
  Speaker 7: extent that we can because then I mean it's hard
• 29:46
  Speaker 7: to imagine another Trump like regime in the future but
• 29:49
  Speaker 7: it's certainly possible and if we don't make sure these
• 29:52
  Speaker 7: people are held accountable then it will make room for
• 29:55
  Speaker 7: a future worse version um.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: So Jason, I want to ask you about Pete Hexeth, uh,
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: and the Pentagon.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Here we go.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Um, you have, uh, been a leader in.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: Trying to conduct oversight for the minority. Um, you were
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: among a group of people that, uh, you know, almost
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: you were targeted for prosecution by this administration, just cause
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: you pointed out that people should actually follow the law.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: There's, there's obviously so.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: Much, right. When you look at the scale of the
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: Pentagon of what Pete Hex has done, uh, Where do
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: you even begin? You know, you're on the Armed Services Committee.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: What are you thinking about as priorities as you begin
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: to kind of peel back the rotten onion that is
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: the HEGSF Department of War?
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: Well, it is good to be here, but you're right.
• 30:45
  Speaker 6: They have now twice tried to throw me in prison,
• 30:47
  Speaker 6: so it's good not to be in federal prison right now. But,
• 30:51
  Speaker 6: you know, it's the most telling thing that when you
• 30:53
  Speaker 6: just say, follow the law, follow the Constitution, obey lawful orders,
• 30:57
  Speaker 6: and you don't have to obey, you should not obey
• 30:59
  Speaker 6: unlawful orders. that that's a treasonable offense by the president.
• 31:03
  Speaker 6: And Pete Hegseth, of course, has said the same thing.
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: You had talked earlier, Tommy had mentioned about people, getting
• 31:12
  Speaker 6: people in positions, and that I've been the battleground co-chair
• 31:16
  Speaker 6: for House Democrats. We can have all the policy slogans,
• 31:21
  Speaker 6: all the ideas, we can have the best policy positions
• 31:24
  Speaker 6: and papers in the world, but all of this has,
• 31:26
  Speaker 6: in my book, all of this comes down to people,
• 31:29
  Speaker 6: getting the right people involved, which is why if you
• 31:32
  Speaker 6: want to change the Democratic Party, get the right candidates,
• 31:35
  Speaker 6: get different candidates involved, which is why if you want
• 31:38
  Speaker 6: to change the State Department, develop a different pipeline. Pete
• 31:41
  Speaker 6: Hegseth knows that, which is why he has tried to
• 31:44
  Speaker 6: change the entire face of the military by shutting down
• 31:47
  Speaker 6: recruiting stations in certain areas and opening them up in others.
• 31:51
  Speaker 6: By purging the top ranks of the military, 10% of
• 31:54
  Speaker 6: our top generals and admirals are gone, over 80, including
• 31:58
  Speaker 6: one just the other day. And then the people who
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: are vying for those promotions are hiring his private lawyer,
• 32:06
  Speaker 6: Tim Parlatori, and paying him to get on the promotions list.
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: So I'm going to start with people, right?
• 32:12
  Speaker 6: We have to make sure that we're going after those
• 32:14
  Speaker 6: who have monetized our federal government. We're going after those
• 32:17
  Speaker 6: who have turned their back on the oath and the constitution.
• 32:19
  Speaker 6: We're getting them out and we're restoring a merit-based system.
• 32:25
  Speaker 6: And then for me, This begins and ends with making
• 32:29
  Speaker 6: sure we protect our service members. We have young men
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: and women from around this country that have served, signed
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: up to serve.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: As you did.
• 32:40
  Speaker 6: And these young men and women are at great risk
• 32:44
  Speaker 6: because of the incompetence and the corruption of Pete Hegseth
• 32:47
  Speaker 6: and his cronies. So on the Armed Services Committee, we
• 32:52
  Speaker 6: need to start with what are those things that that
• 32:55
  Speaker 6: we need to do to protect those men and women,
• 32:57
  Speaker 6: including let's start by bringing those 50,000 plus service members
• 33:01
  Speaker 6: in the Middle East fighting this war home.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Jason, you're on the Intel committee. I worry about what
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: we don't know. I mean, Kash Patel is the FBI director.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Bill Pulte is the director, acting director of national intelligence
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: or was for a while. These are unqualified.
• 33:23
  Speaker 6: I was afraid it was going to be the MyPillow
• 33:25
  Speaker 6: guy at one point.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: I guess it always could be worse.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: He always comes back, by the way.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: How does this guy have so much money? How many
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: pillows has he sold?
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: Never advertised on Crooked Media, though.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what the fuck? These are totally unqualified partisan hacks.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Before that, we had Tulsi Gabbard. All of a sudden
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: you wake up one day and she's like in Fulton County, Georgia,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: like raiding a voting site. Like, what are you able
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: to do from the committee to kind of like peel
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: back the curtain on what's going on? Because I think
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: all of us are gravely concerned about potential abuses because,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, why else do you have Kash Patel at
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: the FBI other than kind of serving as your private henchman?
• 34:12
  Speaker 6: So this is how I think it plays out. We're
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: going to retake control of the committees. We're going to
• 34:17
  Speaker 6: have subpoena power. We're going to have appropriations power. My
• 34:20
  Speaker 6: view is we need to be extremely aggressive in using that.
• 34:23
  Speaker 6: Gone should be the days where we feel as though
• 34:26
  Speaker 6: we're treating it as business as normal, like we have
• 34:30
  Speaker 6: to be in a wartime footing.
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: On oversight.
• 34:34
  Speaker 6: We're going to start issuing subpoenas to the administration. I
• 34:39
  Speaker 6: suspect that we're going to have to litigate those subpoenas
• 34:42
  Speaker 6: because they have a long history of ignoring them. But
• 34:45
  Speaker 6: then we have to look at the private sector. It
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: has been open season in the private sector. People have
• 34:51
  Speaker 6: bellied up to the Donald Trump trough in a pay-to-play way,
• 34:56
  Speaker 6: donated to his campaigns, donated to the gilded ballroom, as
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: if this would never end. Well, it's ending.
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: And those bills are now going.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: To come due.
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: So if you're a company.
• 35:12
  Speaker 6: You're a CEO who has operated as if the law
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: doesn't matter, that you can donate money to the Trump
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: family and not have people come and ask questions. We're
• 35:23
  Speaker 6: going to come and ask questions. And those subpoenas are
• 35:25
  Speaker 6: going to come and you have to be accountable for it.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk saying he was feeding USAID into the wood
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: chipper feels like a lifetime ago. But obviously the damage
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: from that decision is playing out. Do you all anticipate
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: inquiries into Musk's role? What happened at Doge? What he
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: did at USAID? There's all these reports that maybe Doge
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: staffers improperly accessed data or took government data with them
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: to whatever their new startup is in the private sector.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Is that a thing you guys are thinking about?
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 36:01
  Speaker 7: I mean, I don't think there's one Democrat that doesn't
• 36:04
  Speaker 7: want to subpoena Elon Musk and make sure he comes
• 36:06
  Speaker 7: before Congress and answer for so many questions. So many
• 36:10
  Speaker 7: of his actions, I mean, what is it, 600,000 people,
• 36:13
  Speaker 7: they say, have been killed or, you know, have died
• 36:17
  Speaker 7: because of the dismantling of USAID.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: So he quite literally has blood on his hands.
• 36:23
  Speaker 7: I also think that Elon Musk needs to come forward
• 36:26
  Speaker 7: to talk about AI security and as do the rest
• 36:30
  Speaker 7: of those AI CEOs as well.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, it's highly concerning.
• 36:36
  Speaker 7: And that's why I think no matter what type of
• 36:38
  Speaker 7: corruption we are looking at, we can't just look at
• 36:40
  Speaker 7: the very top. We need to go all the way down.
• 36:42
  Speaker 7: And Doge is a prime example of that. Every single
• 36:45
  Speaker 7: one of the Doge bros or whatever they were called,
• 36:48
  Speaker 7: need to come before Congress and need to be investigated
• 36:51
  Speaker 7: and need to be held accountable. The damage that they
• 36:56
  Speaker 7: caused is still ongoing. I mean, so many of our
• 36:59
  Speaker 7: federal agencies have been impacted with the firings that took place.
• 37:04
  Speaker 7: I mean, services are not operating as usual from the VA.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: To Social Security because of that.
• 37:09
  Speaker 7: And so that needs to be top of our list
• 37:12
  Speaker 7: and oversight will certainly be looking at that.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: I really want to see a subpoena addressed to Dearest Mr.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Big Balls. He respectfully requests.
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• 38:59
  Speaker 4: Yes, I mean, you said something that caught my attention too,
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: which is you were talking about the corruption around the
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: war in Iran.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: As related to the Trump family.
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: And it got a question in my head that actually
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: wasn't even on our list, Tommy, which is that I noticed,
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: as did other people, that when there were these kind
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: of huge swings where we'd be bombing Iran and then
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: we'd be in talks, and then there'd be like a leak,
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: usually to broadcast Rabide at Axios, that there was going
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: to be a deal tomorrow. And then there'd be Lucy
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: with the football, it'd come back. And then there were
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: these reports of massive stock trades that were taking place
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: around this kind of information or massive prediction markets bets
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: being made that it felt like some people might have
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: had advance notice before market moving information was put out.
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: Is there any way to try to get at this
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: pattern of who might have been profiting from prediction markets
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: or actual markets off of this kind of constant back
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: and forth?
• 40:06
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, we can legislate for that. We can
• 40:09
  Speaker 7: ban members of Congress and the cabinet and anyone surrounding...
• 40:13
  Speaker 7: The administration from trading stocks and from taking part in
• 40:18
  Speaker 7: prediction market trading. There's also legislation. I think we're both original.
• 40:23
  Speaker 7: It might even be your bill. I don't recall the
• 40:25
  Speaker 7: Betsoff Act to prevent prediction markets from.
• 40:32
  Speaker 7: Engaging on issues like war and terrorism because it's crazy.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: And when you look at the data, you can see
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: that it's like, I.
• 40:40
  Speaker 7: Think it was 0.3% of the majority of the profits
• 40:45
  Speaker 7: or something like 97% of the profits were going to 0.3%
• 40:49
  Speaker 7: of the people making those bets. And therefore it's obviously
• 40:52
  Speaker 7: people with close information, insider information about what is going
• 40:56
  Speaker 7: to happen.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: So that all needs to be banned immediately.
• 41:03
  Speaker 6: Which we can do, by the way. I mean, no
• 41:05
  Speaker 6: legislation is required. Right out of the gate in January,
• 41:08
  Speaker 6: we can ban members of Congress by rule from trading stocks.
• 41:12
  Speaker 6: We can ban members of Congress and their staff from
• 41:15
  Speaker 6: engaging in prediction markets. And members of Congress shouldn't be
• 41:19
  Speaker 6: taking corporate PAC money anymore. I've never taken any of
• 41:21
  Speaker 6: that money. You need to pressure them to stop it.
• 41:24
  Speaker 6: This is stuff you can just do.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Do you think it'll happen?
• 41:27
  Speaker 6: I mean.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Could this finally happen? Do you think it will happen?
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Will we ban stock trading? We've been talking about it forever,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: but it never happened.
• 41:35
  Speaker 6: It would be an enormous mistake if we didn't come
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: out of the gate in January and say, we are
• 41:42
  Speaker 6: going to lead by example. We're going to just start
• 41:44
  Speaker 6: doing things, which, by the way, is enormously... One of
• 41:48
  Speaker 6: the lessons of the midterms is that these are actually
• 41:53
  Speaker 6: really bipartisan issues. That working class folks, whether they're red
• 41:58
  Speaker 6: or blue... have been uniquely screwed over in the last
• 42:02
  Speaker 6: 40 years. And they're done. And they're looking for the
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: people who are willing to fight for them and defend them.
• 42:10
  Speaker 6: And they have realized, many of them have realized Donald
• 42:12
  Speaker 6: Trump lied to them. And now they're looking for us
• 42:15
  Speaker 6: to fight for them and defend them. And if we
• 42:17
  Speaker 6: aren't willing to stop the hypocrisy and to lead by example,
• 42:22
  Speaker 6: then they're going to look elsewhere.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: I'm glad you point out that this is not like
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: a progressive agenda. Banning stock trades is something that would
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: appeal to anybody. Another piece of this on foreign policy
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: is something that often gets cast as something that progressives
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: care more about. And it enters in the accountability space.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: But I think it's actually something that people everywhere should
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: feel discomfort about. And forgive me for returning to the
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: Hegsethian Department of War here.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: Jason, but the boat strikes.
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: You know, what's interesting about these from my vantage point
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: is you and I have talked a lot about the
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: authorization to use military. I stole Jason's idea, by the way,
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: the repealing and requiring a vote in Congress.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: What's remarkable about the boat.
• 43:16
  Speaker 6: I will take nobody seriously in Congress if they're unwilling
• 43:20
  Speaker 6: to repeal the AUMS and start taking votes for these things,
• 43:24
  Speaker 6: as you rightfully pointed out.
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, but what's remarkable about the strikes in
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: the Caribbean and in the ocean against these boats is
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: that they didn't even have a pretense that they were legal.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: Like they're actually not even war crimes because there's not
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: even a war.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: They're just crimes.
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: And and people have been killed.
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: And we have pretty, pretty good reporting that some of
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: these a lot of these people perhaps were not even
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: not that it would have been OK, even if they
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: were narco traffickers, because there's no authorization.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: But the fishermen may have been killed.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Or like follow-up strikes on people floating on wreckage.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: Double-tap strikes on people floating in the ocean.
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: Is there a way to establish both what happened, how
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: it happened, and how we can– can we stop these
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: boat strikes from happening?
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, how are you thinking about that from the
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: Armed Services Committee?
• 44:15
  Speaker 6: Well, we need to stop it by cutting off funding, right?
• 44:18
  Speaker 6: That's the first step. That's– I mean, President Trump is
• 44:21
  Speaker 6: still the president and they still have control of the military.
• 44:24
  Speaker 6: We have to be serious about what tools we have
• 44:26
  Speaker 6: and what we don't. The biggest one is cutting off
• 44:28
  Speaker 6: funding for Iran, for the boat strikes, for other operations.
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: And I have seen the video.
• 44:37
  Speaker 6: I have seen the double-tap video, which was one of
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: the first strikes in September, last September of 25. There's
• 44:43
  Speaker 6: a reason why they haven't released that video. We know
• 44:47
  Speaker 6: that Pete Hegseth can release videos with remarkable speed if
• 44:50
  Speaker 6: he wants to. They haven't released that one because, you know,
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: as a former military commander who has been sent to
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: war that I shouldn't have been sent to and asked
• 45:03
  Speaker 6: to do things that no American should have been asked
• 45:06
  Speaker 6: to do, you know, I'm haunted by what I saw.
• 45:11
  Speaker 6: And that's why I created four years ago, the Protection
• 45:15
  Speaker 6: of Civilians in Conflict Caucus, and we created a center
• 45:18
  Speaker 6: of excellence within DOD to prevent civilian casualties because of this,
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: not just the moral trauma to our service members, but
• 45:25
  Speaker 6: our own violations of our own laws. So I'm going
• 45:31
  Speaker 6: to push to have this video released because America needs
• 45:34
  Speaker 6: to see what happened. There is no justification for that
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: particular strike and others, and there needs to be accountability.
• 45:42
  Speaker 6: And Starting at the top, but also the commanders below
• 45:48
  Speaker 6: as well. If you committed murder, there needs to be accountability.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: So on election night, I think, you know, in addition
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: to hearing cheers from liberals all over the country, I
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: think we also heard the shredders kind of ramping up
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: in Washington at all the agencies at the White House
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: and the Trump residence. And this is an administration that
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: has stonewalled Congress unlike any other in history. They just
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: refuse to provide information. They refuse you guys briefings. They
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: won't do basic, just provide basic information or records. Witnesses
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: refuse to testify. They lie under oath. So I guess
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: the question is, what tools do you have to create
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: consequences for this kind of behavior? And make it so
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: that there's a real cost for doing these things. Yasmeen?
• 46:48
  Speaker 7: Well, you nailed it right there because one prime example
• 46:52
  Speaker 7: of that is Todd Blanche. He has been– we subpoenaed
• 46:56
  Speaker 7: him on the oversight committee many, many, many months ago.
• 46:59
  Speaker 7: And the current chairman, James Comer, despite promising, has refused
• 47:03
  Speaker 7: to bring him forward. Another example is– Leon Black in
• 47:07
  Speaker 7: the Epstein investigation. One tool that we have is to
• 47:11
  Speaker 7: hold people in criminal contempt of Congress, and that is
• 47:14
  Speaker 7: no joke. I think that we will see over the
• 47:19
  Speaker 7: next two years an attempt to defy our subpoenas, an
• 47:23
  Speaker 7: attempt to refuse, you know, what the law says. But
• 47:30
  Speaker 7: Two years will be up. A Democratic president will come.
• 47:33
  Speaker 7: And I think that the administration would be very, very
• 47:38
  Speaker 7: unwise to defy Congress, especially if they're held in criminal contempt.
• 47:42
  Speaker 7: I mean, there is no reason why people cannot and
• 47:46
  Speaker 7: should not and will not eventually go to jail for
• 47:48
  Speaker 7: the crimes that they are committing.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: What about impeachment? I think we all watched. Look, I
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: have watched. personal views on this. I think we all
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: saw sort of the political fallout of the impeachment of
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, but you could impeach Pete Hegseth. Is that
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: something you think is on the table and should be
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: on the table?
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: It is on the table and it should be on
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: the table.
• 48:09
  Speaker 6: I mean, I know a fair amount of impeachment because
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: I prosecuted the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump. I
• 48:14
  Speaker 6: was one of the House managers that took that trial
• 48:16
  Speaker 6: to the Senate. And I sat on the Senate floor,
• 48:19
  Speaker 6: you know, six plus years ago, and I warned these senators.
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: I looked in the face of Mitch McConnell and I
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: warned them all. Susan Collins, all of them, that Donald
• 48:28
  Speaker 6: Trump was a danger to our democracy and how this
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: was going to play out.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: And they ignored us.
• 48:32
  Speaker 6: So, you know, here we are. But impeachment, I always
• 48:36
  Speaker 6: point out, is a tool, right? Impeachment isn't an end, right?
• 48:41
  Speaker 6: Impeachment is a tool. There's several different tools. What we
• 48:45
  Speaker 6: have to do is start with what do we want
• 48:47
  Speaker 6: the goal to be? What are we trying to achieve?
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: Like, if the goal is, let's get rid of Pete Hegseth, then.
• 48:54
  Speaker 6: We have to figure out what tool or combination of
• 48:56
  Speaker 6: tools you bring to bear to accomplish that, how many
• 48:58
  Speaker 6: votes we have for each of those tools. So maybe
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: impeachment's the right one. And if it is, I won't
• 49:04
  Speaker 6: hesitate to use that. But there are other tools available too.
• 49:15
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• 51:14
  Speaker 4: I want to talk to you guys about a couple
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: of things that I've been in conversation with each of
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: you on.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: And I'm going to start with you, Jason.
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: I saw a report because part of what we can
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: do now that I think is important is I was
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: talking before you guys came out about how the world.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: Has been looking at America and what have they seen?
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: They've seen Donald Trump and Pete Hexeth and and all
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: this grift and meanness and cruelty. And sometimes there's stories
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: that seem small, but they actually reflect a much larger problem.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: In terms of how we treat human beings.
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: And so the question I have for you, Jason, I
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: saw this story recently that we are deporting Afghans that
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: worked with the United States in Afghanistan and you served
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: in Afghanistan And because there are laws against deporting them
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: to Afghanistan, restrictions on that, we're deporting them to Pakistan,
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: where we know that they will then be deported to Afghanistan,
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: where we know that they may have their lives at
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: risk from the Taliban. Is there anything that can be
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: done to try to keep our promise to the Afghans
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: that worked with us, that are here and that are
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: now finding ICE? Imagine if you worked with the United
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: States put your life on the line for the things
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: that we said we believed in there, and that you
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: were resettled here because of the promise we made to you,
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: and then ICE is going to come and deport you back.
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: Is there any way to get at that? Have you
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: thought about that?
• 52:48
  Speaker 6: Well, money, number one, but that's not going to happen
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: quick enough. I think this goes to my earlier point
• 52:54
  Speaker 6: about finding the alternative pathways and mechanisms of accountability and
• 52:59
  Speaker 6: finding ways of putting pressure.
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: So if you have folks.
• 53:02
  Speaker 6: Who, you know, with Stephen Miller, obviously the cruelty is
• 53:04
  Speaker 6: the point with him, right? You know, he's, you know,
• 53:08
  Speaker 6: a white nationalist and a particularly cruel and vile individual.
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: So he's not going to change his mind. But you
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: pointed out that they have to go through Pakistan.
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: Well, how about this?
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: How about we put Pakistan on notice that if you're
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: going to participate in this, you're going to take our
• 53:26
  Speaker 6: allies and folks that have come here seeking refuge and
• 53:28
  Speaker 6: you're going to move them to their sure death and
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: send them to the Taliban, that there's going to be
• 53:33
  Speaker 6: accountability there too.
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: That we are watching, right? We can do it.
• 53:38
  Speaker 6: We can do it through private companies, through executives, through
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: other countries. The general message should be that all of
• 53:47
  Speaker 6: this is coming to an end. It's not coming as
• 53:51
  Speaker 6: quick as I would like it. We'd all like it
• 53:52
  Speaker 6: to be here right now and over right now. But
• 53:56
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump still sits in the White House. It's coming
• 53:58
  Speaker 6: to an end. It's coming to an end fast. And
• 54:01
  Speaker 6: if you're a foreign country, a private company, a private citizen,
• 54:05
  Speaker 6: and you're going to participate in this, we're going to
• 54:08
  Speaker 6: come asking questions and we're going to find ways of
• 54:10
  Speaker 6: seeking accountability. And there are other ways of imposing costs
• 54:14
  Speaker 6: on folks, right? Talk about the fact that they tried to,
• 54:17
  Speaker 6: you know, they tried to indict me twice. Well, that's
• 54:19
  Speaker 6: abuse of process. Well, you can lose a law license
• 54:22
  Speaker 6: over that, right? And That's that's managed by the states,
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: not by the federal government. No pardon is going to
• 54:30
  Speaker 6: is going to keep your law license.
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: So keeping names is also important. You know, people shouldn't five,
• 54:37
  Speaker 6: 10 years from now when we're through this and we've
• 54:40
  Speaker 6: built a new country and a new democracy that actually
• 54:43
  Speaker 6: delivers for folks, which I think is going to happen.
• 54:46
  Speaker 6: We're going to look back and there's going to be
• 54:48
  Speaker 6: all sorts of people that are going to pretend this
• 54:51
  Speaker 6: didn't happen. And all sorts of people that pretend they
• 54:54
  Speaker 6: weren't a part of the corruption and the cronyism. And
• 54:58
  Speaker 6: they're going to try to pretend situation is normal. Well,
• 55:01
  Speaker 6: you know, good thing we know who was on what side.
• 55:06
  Speaker 6: And folks shouldn't be.
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: Able to just go on with their life as if
• 55:08
  Speaker 5: it never happened.
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: And the Pakistan point you made is like the perfect
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: segue to this.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: Because Yasmin, you went to El Salvador, right?
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: And, you know, again, it's It seems like this two
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: years has been 100 years, but people may recall the
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: deportations to Seacott, this gulag that Nayib Bukele, the self-proclaimed
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: world schoolist dictator, has built down there. That's another guy
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: who seemed like he thought everything was permanent. How do
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: you think about, Yasmeen, the oversight both of ICE and
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: the deportation process, but also to Jason's point about putting
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: people on notice, a guy like Bukele– who's reveling in
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: the fact that he's essentially taking, you know, people that
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: had committed no crimes in the United States and throwing
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: them in, into this kind of facility. I mean, how
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: do you think about for all you've done on ice
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: and on El Salvador, how to begin to restore, even
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: though we can't really solve the problem for a couple
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: of years, how do we begin to address the injustices
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: that you've seen in that pipeline?
• 56:18
  Speaker 7: Well, As it pertains to ICE and the Department of
• 56:23
  Speaker 7: Homeland Security, I mean, I think we talked about this
• 56:26
  Speaker 7: a little bit last year, but I see it as,
• 56:28
  Speaker 7: quite frankly, a foreign policy issue because the way that
• 56:33
  Speaker 7: the United States is quite literally torturing people physically and
• 56:38
  Speaker 7: psychologically inside these for-profit prisons is going to have reverberating
• 56:44
  Speaker 7: consequences for our reputation around the world. I mean, the
• 56:47
  Speaker 7: people that are being held every day, 65,000 people are
• 56:51
  Speaker 7: inside a detention center. I've been about 14 times, uh,
• 56:56
  Speaker 7: to ones in Arizona, the Dilley detention center in Texas
• 56:58
  Speaker 7: and one in Florida. And I've met people from all
• 57:01
  Speaker 7: over the world. You talked about Afghans met Afghans. I've
• 57:04
  Speaker 7: met Iranians, Iranians.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: Who fled during the women.
• 57:09
  Speaker 7: Life freedom protests in 2022, uh, and have now been
• 57:14
  Speaker 7: stuck inside these detention centers and are literally being deported
• 57:18
  Speaker 7: back to Iran. in the middle of our war and
• 57:22
  Speaker 7: in the midst of severe government repression by the regime
• 57:26
  Speaker 7: in Iran.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: That's just one example.
• 57:27
  Speaker 7: I have constituents with cancer who have been inside ICE
• 57:31
  Speaker 7: detention centers for two years.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: I just went a few weeks.
• 57:33
  Speaker 7: Ago and talked to a 24-year-old woman who is pregnant,
• 57:39
  Speaker 7: five months with a high-risk pregnancy, and they barely let
• 57:42
  Speaker 7: her see a gynecologist. So we need to go after
• 57:46
  Speaker 7: this system very, very hard. We also need to go
• 57:49
  Speaker 7: after not just ICE, but the two for-profit prison companies,
• 57:54
  Speaker 7: CoreCivic and GeoGroup, that are making billions of dollars and
• 58:00
  Speaker 7: refusing to provide clean.
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: Water to people.
• 58:03
  Speaker 7: Like they literally put a like a cooler there and
• 58:08
  Speaker 7: melts ice. And I've heard from dozens of detainees about
• 58:12
  Speaker 7: worms and mosquitoes literally in the water. They have to,
• 58:16
  Speaker 7: they make them pay $ 2 for a bottle of.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: Clean drinking water. So it is just disgusting. We need
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: to dismantle ice.
• 58:24
  Speaker 7: We need to prosecute people and we need to end
• 58:27
  Speaker 7: for-profit prisons in this country once and for all. On
• 58:33
  Speaker 7: the question of our foreign policy and accountability, I thought
• 58:37
  Speaker 7: Jason's point was excellent. It's going to take a lot
• 58:40
  Speaker 7: of work to restore our credibility around the world. I
• 58:44
  Speaker 7: think we can do a lot in the next two years.
• 58:46
  Speaker 7: I mean, you know, we've worked on, Ben and I
• 58:48
  Speaker 7: have worked on climate policy. over the years together.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: And we'll be.
• 58:53
  Speaker 7: Going to the COP this year in a couple weeks.
• 58:56
  Speaker 7: And it's going to take a lot of work for
• 58:59
  Speaker 7: members of Congress to be able to convince the international
• 59:02
  Speaker 7: community yet again that, you know, yes, we elected Donald
• 59:07
  Speaker 7: Trump again, but we, you know, things are changing and
• 59:09
  Speaker 7: things will change for the better. And I think with
• 59:11
  Speaker 7: our allies, we're going to have to do that. And
• 59:13
  Speaker 7: with our adversaries, they're going to have to understand that
• 59:17
  Speaker 7: it's going to, you know, it's a new, it's a
• 59:19
  Speaker 7: new day in the United States.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: It's a new day. Final question for you both. We
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: have two more years of the Trump administration. I want
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: to ask about Congress's role in storytelling about the Trump era.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Ben and I were in the White House on the
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: day of the Benghazi attacks, and we were in endless
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: meetings for weeks and months after. And the story to us,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: having lived it, was always one about embassy security and
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: the risks of serving in dangerous places. And it was
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: a tragedy and there were some government failings, but that
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: was basically it. but Republicans used oversight to tell a
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: very dishonest story about Benghazi that took it from this
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: kind of niche security issue to this global thing, this
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: global conspiracy, whatever it was. And so I'm just wondering
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: how you're thinking about storytelling via the oversight powers you have,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: and if there are items that kind of wash away
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: in the Trump era that you wanna bring back, like
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: you could imagine digging into Signalgate. Feels like a long
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: time ago, but there's a story there about information security.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: There's the Qatari jet. Remember that thing? That's a story
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: about corruption. There's Don Jr. 's wedding gift from a
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Russian oligarch. I'm just curious, what's on the list and
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: what are things you're thinking about in that storytelling vein?
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 6: Well, it has to be centered on Americans, and I
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 6: think it should be centered on working class folks. You
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 6: can tell all the stories you want, but Trust is
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 6: broken between working class folks, right, who I grew up with,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 6: where I'm from.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: And the D.C.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 5: Bubble, the swamp, so to speak.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 6: And they want to see big change. They want to
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 6: see different people in positions of power. And it should
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 6: all begin and end with their story and their struggle.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 6: We talk about national security and foreign policy, and Ben,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 6: we've had a lot of these discussions. And one of
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 6: the biggest problems right now is that Americans don't see
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 6: themselves reflected in their foreign policy and national security, right?
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 6: Our national security is run primarily by people that have
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 6: gone to the same two universities who grew up within
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 6: 100 miles of an ocean, right? There are 200 million
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 6: Americans that live in so-called flyover country where I'm from, right?
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 6: And we were failing to tap into that talent. So
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 6: what I think is we have this new crop of
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 6: amazing leaders who are coming in people who just won.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: Really tough street fight races. They're tough. They're disciplined.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 6: They largely come from outside of politics. Most of them
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 6: have never run for anything before this. They were raising families,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 6: running small businesses, working at public health clinics, working for
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 6: government until they got dozed. These are some of our
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 6: best messengers right now in our party, in our country
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 6: right now. They are grounded in their communities. They know
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 6: what this fight is actually about. It's not some abstract
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 6: political gamesmanship. It's about the real lives of the people
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: they represent. Let's put these folks front and center in
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 6: telling the story of how the corruption and graft of
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 6: this administration has devastated Americans and farmers and ranches and
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 6: small businesses that they have been and will continue to
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 6: tell that story.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: And I want to end on kind of like the
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: positive spin on this, too, because Part of what's really inspiring,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: just like even sitting on stage with the two of you, right?
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: I know you both well.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: I mean, as you all heard today, Jason's a guy
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: who did multiple tours and then went into government service
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: and is trying to make right some of the things
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: that you saw were wrong, right? Yasmeen, you come from
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: an Iranian-American background. You worked on climate change, and you're
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: standing up for the kind of people in your district
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: who have immigrant stories, or you're standing up to try
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: to have a different, I mean, you represent, I think,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: what people want America to be. And we are accustomed
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: to only having presidents tell stories about the United States.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: What can this new majority do in a hopeful way?
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: It's gonna take a generation to kind of rebuild what
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: America is in the world. And maybe we should never
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: try to go back to being the country puts ourselves
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: above other countries and says, you know, we're the top one.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: But maybe there's a different way that we can rejoin
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: the world. How do you think about this? Because I
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: can tell you, you heard me backstage in Istanbul, people were,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: they knew the stories of some of these candidates getting elected.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, how can this new majority and people like.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: You begin to show the world that there's a different
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: America from the one that they've been seeing for the
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: last 10 years?
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: I think by.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 7: by immediately getting to work and doing good things for
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 7: this country. I think that to me, it would be
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 7: a huge mistake, though, to quickly move on from the
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 7: horrors of the Trump administration. And I think that to
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 7: the point of oversight and storytelling, we do need to,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 7: in our roles in Congress, through every committee, tell each
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 7: and every one of these stories of the damage that
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 7: was done. I mean, I think a lot about The
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 7: people that ICE has shot and killed on our streets.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 7: Let's not forget about them and their families who are
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 7: still reeling from that horror. And we all, you know,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 7: move on because there's a million other horrific things that
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 7: happen every single day. And so I think I'm only
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 7: sitting here because I was inspired by that 2018 wave
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 7: of young, progressive people of color who ran for office.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 7: If I hadn't seen those people be successful and be
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 7: in these positions, I don't think I ever would have
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 7: thought it was possible to run for office at 26
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 7: years old as a daughter of Iranian immigrants.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: And now we are.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 7: Going to see this wave of this class inspire so
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 7: many more people to run for office and have a
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 7: government that is reflective of the people. And I think
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 7: that's how we can change our perception around the world.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: Amen.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: Listen, thank you, Yasmeen.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Jason, for being here. Thank you all for
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: coming out to a conversation about foreign policy at 9.30
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: in the morning. We love you. Pod Save the World
• 1:05:47
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• 1:05:49
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