Latest / Pod Save the World / Jared & Ivanka Conquer Albanian Island

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Jared & Ivanka Conquer Albanian Island · Pod Save the World

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  Speaker 1: PSTW for sixty percent off, plus try it risk free
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  Speaker 1: for thirty days with their money back guarantee. Welcome back
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: to pot Tape the World. I'm Tommy Detour, I'm Ben Roods. Ben.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I'm sad to say the Nicks lost yesterday. Donald Trump
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: was at the game last night. Here is what it
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: sounded like when they showed his beautiful soon to be
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a sleep face on the JumboTron at MSG. Let's watch Ben,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: how responsible is dining tea for the next loss? And
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: how glad is Zorn that no one is blaming him
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: because he was also there and no one's saying his
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: or on you, Jenkson.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: So first of all, the best thing about that is
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: that they clearly intentionally showed Trump during the national anthem
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: thinking that.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: New Yorker's break. Of course they will do you.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Not understand Yorkers like the person running that JumboTron, he's
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: fifty percent or probably sixty percent responsible the referees or
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: forty percent responsible. Like there's a lot of bitterness in
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Nick world today about the foul discrepancy that Wenby takedown
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: to Jalen Brunson. But yeah, I mean we had the
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: most incredible karma going. We ripped off like thirteen wins
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: in a row, and then Trump has to insert himself
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: and ruin nice things. And that's what happened.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Not great, by the way. Also what the game last
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: son was our former boss Ram Emmanuel. I don't know
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: if you saw him sitting on your wood. He was
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: courtside with his brother, was Larry David. It was Patriots
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: owner Bob Kraft talked around for a bit this morning.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: He was like, what you don't get watching it on
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: TV is like just how violent the game is. These
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: are like the biggest people you've ever seen in your life,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: crashing into each other at full speed, and we would
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: just snap in half because we're little little babies.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I got to sit down there once, you know, up
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: close where you can really see it, And like every
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: time Karl Anthony town sit the ground, I didn't know
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: how it was going to get up again. Yeah, these
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: guys are so big and they're just like flying around.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: It's it's yeah, I missed a garden them.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: I went so much when I was a kid, and
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: there's no electricity like that anywhere else I've been in life.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: You got to have a friend like Stiller and Timothy
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Shalamay and see if you can get one of those
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: seats in between them. Ben, did you notice that during
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: TV timeouts Larry David was reading a book. I think
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: it was called All We Say. It's by this guy
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: in Ben Roads. It's newly minted part of the New
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: York Times bestseller list that I think you can pick
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: up right now. Larry David must have snagged one on
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the way in from the bestseller list.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we made number five world those and that's all
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: because of you. So I really appreciate it. And you
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: know it's right up blurry David Ali. I'm sure I
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: have to say to you, Tommy, like it's wonderful to
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: be doing these events. At every event, like a good
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: chunk of the crowd is just world Those awesome, and
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: you get this glimpse. I think I told you my
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: favorite one was a guy came up to me and
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: said he's a post postal carrier and he listens to
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: us on his route.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: That's awesome, is that?
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: So I love you guys coming out. I do have
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: this ongoing, never ending tour, which is why I'm always remote.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: I will be tonight Wednesday in San Francisco at the
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Corta Madero Book Passage, which seems exciting, and a whole
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: bunch of stuff next week to which I'll update people on.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: But thanks for picking up the book. Pick up some
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: more copies. You know we've got David Sedaris in the
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: site lines at the top of that list. M sure
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: I'm catching up to him, but I appreciate it.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, go buy a book. Osy been buying for your friends,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: buying for your enemies. For now, we have a great
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: show for you, guys. We're going to tell you about
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the clashes between Iran and Israel over the week end.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: There's reports been this morning that Iran shot down a
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: US helicopter and Trump is pledged to respond. We can
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: talk about that. We'll talk about how Trump and Yahoo
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: are managing all of this well. To me, I think
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: just quietly hating each other and getting sick of each
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: other and wishing this couple's trip was over. Then we're
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: going to tell you about.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: To deserve each other.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: They really do. In the New Supreme Leader, They're going
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: to tell you about this. We'll tell you about this
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: controversial real estate deal that is being pursued by Jared
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Kushner and Evanka Trump that has led to allegations of
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: corruption and explosive protests across Albania. We're going to tell
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: you what to expect from the FIFA World Cup tournament.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: It's bigger, more expensive than ever before. We'll talk about
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: all the ways that Trump is using the games to
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: piss off half the world, mostly Africa, and then get
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: pr for himself. Chinese President Chijin Pink is visiting a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: surprisingly economic resilient North Korea this week. I think his
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: trip is wrapping up sort of as we record this.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: We'll tell you why. We'll also talk about former Trump
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: National Security advisor John Bolton plead deal over his mishandling
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: and class slid information. There's a story of this unbelievable
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: story really of the senior CIA officer who was caught
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: with a bunch of gold bars in his house. We
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: love a gold bar story here. And then there's just
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: an amazing faked till you make it story out of
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Nigeria that I just couldn't resist playing for you at
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: the very end. And then Ben at the end, you're
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: gonna hear my conversation with the BBC's Will Grant. He
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: was just back from Cuba. We talked about what life
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: is like on the ground for the Cuban people since
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Trumps cut off fuel supplies to the island. We'll talk
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: about like what a soft US regime change operation might
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: look like, what a military operation might look like, who
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: the Cuban people blame for the situation, and much much
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: more so. A really really interesting conversation with Will.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: He's a great guy. I used to talk to Will
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: a lot when I was working on Cuba because he's
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: one of those journalists that I would learn more from
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: him than he would probably learn from me. I love
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: journalists like that.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, And he just got back and I was in
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Mexico City. So we also talked a little bit about
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: the World Cup and how it's playing down there because
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the World Cup is in three countries this time. And
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: also Ben just flagging for everybody that we have some
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: amazing video clips this episode. So subscribe to Pots of
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  Speaker 1: the World on YouTube so you don't miss any of it.
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• 7:33
  Speaker 1: as an organization and continue to dominate Ben Shapiro and
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the Daily Wire, and help me clap back at Megan
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: McCain when she yells at me over made up vote
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: fraud allegations in LA.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: Here.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: I saw that you've been particularly active online.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I was very toord. I was just I was on
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: a plane.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: I tweeted like eight times about the referees last night.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Then I like was like, what am I doing myself?
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not healthy.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: I actually think that's a much healthier use of Twitter
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: than whatever the hell I was doing.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Meg Nickin Yeah, yeah, that was just Megami Cane calling
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: you a pod bro and stuff.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Whatever, she's like tweeting disinformation. I'm like, hey, maybe
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: this is fake and you shouldn't spread it. You should
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: like google the actual facts that she hits all mad
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: and whatever.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Anyway, maybe the people of Los Angeles don't like Spencer Pratt,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: you know, yeah, in a huge shock the.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Magas who like, look, we live in LA like we
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: have a sense of what the electorate cares about. Here,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: fifteen percent of the of the county, I think, or
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the city is registered Republican. It was unlikely that he
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: was ever going to do well when he was like
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: closing going on Gutfeld and Fox and Friends with like
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: a crazy maga message. But such as life, so Ben,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: it was another head spinning week in the war and Iran.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Let me just walk you through some of the timeline.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: So Wednesday of last week, so a week from when
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: this week before this came out, Israel and Lebanon announced
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the cees fire and Lebanon then a day later we
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: learned that Hesbola is not on board with the ceasefire deal,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: which is a bit of a problem since they are
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: one of the two parties doing most of the firing.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Then over the weekend, the Israeli Defense Forces or IDF,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: said they hit about one hundred and fifty Hasi ble
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: of sites in southern Lebanon. So Hesbela fired rockets, it's
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: northern Israel. The IDF then responded with strikes into southern
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Bay Route and we were off to the races. And
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: remember last week Trump told us that he had gotten
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Israeli Prime Minister Yahoo Bibi net Yaho to be restrained
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: and stop hitting targets in Bayroot. And then net Yahoo
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: goes and does exactly that. So that's when the wheels
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: like fully come off the season fire Bus, and Iran
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: fired around thirty missiles directly at Israel. And then on Monday,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the Houthi rebels even got in the game and they
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: fired a missile at Israel and threatened to attack ships
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: in the Red Sea affiliated with Israel. And so for
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: a while there, you know, Sunday night Monday morning, it
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: felt like we were on the cusp of returning to
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: full scale warfare. And then net Yah, who was going
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: to authorize some like massive retaliation on Iran, but Trump
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: seems to have called him to try to shill things out,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: and we know this be his first. Trump called Axios
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: in the Financial Times and a bunch of other news
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: outlets to let them know that Bib was in fact
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: his bitch, and that the US called all the That's
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: almost a direct quote. And so ultimately the Israeli response
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: was relatively restrained. They hit like a petrochemical plant, some
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: other infrastructure, but both sides are sort of standing down
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: for now. But ben I did think this was a
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: remarkable and very important moment and inflection point because it
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: just shows again like we can bump along. The stock
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: markets can ignore what's happening, the oil markets can fluctuate,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: but like the war is not close to over. And
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: then big picture, I think this shows that Iran is
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: not at all deterred. In fact, they're emboldened, right and
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: they have directly linked the fighting with Hezbolah to the
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: conflict between the US and Israel and Iran in a
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: way that is not going to make net and Yahoo
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: very happy. So just here's what you made of these events,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: and in particular the Iranians deciding to just launch a
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: massive ballistic missile barrage into Israel once again.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: I think that the thrupple of Dantan, Yao, Trump and
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: the new Supreme Leader is not exactly designed to de
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: escalate circumstances because if you look at the three parties,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: you know, we've talked a lot about what the deal
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: would be. Everybody knows that the deal would be right,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: you know, straight for blockade for revenue, for some nuclear concessions,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: for more revenue for a run. Israel does not want
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: that deal. Even if they're kind of forced to accept
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: that they can't keep bombing Iran, they'll escalate in Lebanon
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: because Hisbola is never going to accept an outcome in
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: which they totally disarm, and that's Israel's pretext to occupy
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: southern Lebanon and do as much damage as they can.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: So so Israel's not exactly you know, looking for or
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: interested in a piece deal. Trump is trying to save
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: face and present whatever happens as a victory. But that's
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: just not possible because he's not meeting his objectives and
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: the Ranians aren't capitulating at the negotiating table, and so
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: he kind of stays on the precipice of getting drawn
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: back into things. But importantly, he doesn't want to get
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: drawn all the way back into like the kind of
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: full blown war that we were in earlier the spring,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: which the Iranians know, which brings to the Iranians, which
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: is they don't feel like people that are desperate for
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: a deal either. I think they want to appear to
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: have really bloodied the nose of the United States and
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Israel to establish deterrence so that the United States doesn't
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: launched another war. They recognize how isolated Israel is internationally,
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: and so you know, Israel doing things in Lebanon, they
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: kind of want to spotlight that by launching their own attacks.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: And so even though the only way the war ends
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: is for all three parties to just kind of accept
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: that none of them are going to achieve all their
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: aims here. I think the leadership of the three countries,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Leader and the IRGC and Iran, Trump and
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Nenyao just kind of can't seem to bring themselves to
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: say yes. And maybe the only thing that we'll get
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: them there is if the global economy really does just
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: start imploding and it's unsustainable.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that does seem like that would be maybe the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: only thing that gets everybody just to take some tough
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: steps politically. I mean, it was remarkable Tuesday morning we
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: learn that iron shot down at US APACHE helicopter patrolling
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the Strato FROMUZ. There was, you know, the Pentagon I
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: think told some some journalists that they believe it was
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Iranian drone, but they weren't sure that it was on purpose,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: which is like what, like, first of all, what the
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: fuck you talking about? Of course it was on purpose,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and one of those things that you know, if that
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: had happened during the Obama administration, we would have been
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: accused of like the most pathetic capitulation in history, right.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: And then I saw just before we started recording that
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Trump called the Wall Street Journal and said that the
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: helicopter isidn't the incident quote wasn't a big deal, and
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: that the pilot was fine. So this is this an
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: a patche helicopter that was shot out of the sky.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: The crew spent hours in the water, like in the dark.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: They were only rescued by some sort of like unmanned
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: drone system that happened to find them. But all of
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: a sudden, that's no big deal. Like, look, I don't
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: want us to resume full scale warfare, right, Like this
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: is what sucks about being a Democrat and being responsible
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: because Republicans would just rightly call that statement out for
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: being unbelievably weak and effeckless and pathetic. But that's what
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: it is.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I remember, you could pick any event. Do you
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: remember when like some US sailors got they veered off
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: of taking they veered off in the wrong waters, and
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: pretty briefly they were held by Iran, but then they
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: were released. John Kerry, yeah, John Carrey literally called the
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: farm mierists and let him go. But we heard about
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: that incident for the rest of the Obama presidency, and
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: like Trump and Ted Cruz were like making it part
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: of their like stump speeches in the campaign. So there's
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: absolutely no obviously consistency with these guys. I think like
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: the two things that stand out from that incident or
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: the Iranians are pretty determined. However, this war ends to
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: kind of leave the distinct impression that they have the
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: capacity to control that straight. So even if they reopen it,
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: the you know, the subtext is we can close it again.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: And so that's you know where they're focusing. Uh, you know,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: their their military efforts and pretty you know, pretty brazen
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: and uh to to shoot down a US helicopter.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Like that, Yeah, so much for Pete Heggsath telling us
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: that you know that we take it out all their
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: military capacity, right, but that those briefings feel like a
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: long time ago.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we destroyed their navy in their midst but
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: we talked about this. But they're just so full of
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: lies and they don't get called out because Iron's military capabilities,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: you know, clearly just fine. Unfortunately, and and and look
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: that the reality is that Trump doesn't want to get
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: all the way back into this thing, like he's he
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: sees the writing on the wall with the markets. That's
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: why he's so frantically calling Axios to talk, or having
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: wit Cough call them or Jared to say there's a
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: deal every you know, Friday before the markets closed, and
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: and and Frankly, he can pretend like he doesn't care,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: but I'm sure that Trump is aware of, like Tucker
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Carlson and Megan Kelly and some of these other people,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: like he's lose using his base. He's already lost independence,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: and so I think he knows that if he goes
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: all back into war, you know, he could he could
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: really create even more than he already has. And that
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: gives you Runnings a lot of leverage.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Frankly, and just as we're recording this, sen com put
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: out a statement that they've begun some sort of self
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: defense strikes against Iran. We don't know exactly what it is,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: but they said it's in response for the downing of
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: the Apache helicopters. So they're saying it's proportional in response
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: to whatever Iran did. Who knows, but I mean, look
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: that they can try to be measured and try to
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: keep her proportional. But like the cycle of violence continues,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: there is no ceasefire. Trump was saying earlier that there
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: could be a deal done in two to three days.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Ben CNN counted up the number of times Trump has
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: said we're close to a piece deal or that Iran
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: is desperate for a peace deal. You want to guess
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: how many they found. I'm going to guess eight thirty eight,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: thirty thirty eighth, thirty eight times. Oh my god, So
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: it's going good.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: I have to go back through Barack Revide's Twitter feed.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, we're in this kind of state of
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: like it's it's semi frozen conflict, with these episodic outbursts
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: of violence and more sustained violence in Lebanon, and that's
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: you know, one of these times the stop clock will
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: be right, because the only way this thing ends is
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: in the deal. So nobody's going to surrender here.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Or the Iranians. I mean, look, they drone shot down
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: a patche helicopter. I mean, thank god that the American
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: pilots weren't killed, but eventually some will be, and that
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: will lead to the escalation ladder going up.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, something like that may happen, and then that
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: what that does to public opinion in this country too.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: I think we'll be leading more in the direction of
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: let's get the hell out of there than in the
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: direction of look, let's just dive back in.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Another victim of this war bend has been the
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: English language. Here's President Trump kind of explaining the problem
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: to us. Let's watch how.
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: Fire pretty much? Sure what it is.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: It's a different part of the world, you know.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: I'd say that part of the world seasefires when you're
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: shooting in a more moderate manner. They put up a
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: block and so we blockaded them, and we have the
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: ultimate blockade. I don't consider that a war.
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: But if you want to define it as such, I
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: guess you can.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: Well, how do you define it?
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: I don't define it at all.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: I don't think about it.
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: I just do what I have to do.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: During your twenty sixteen campaign, you called the Middle East
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: a quagmire.
• 18:17
  Speaker 6: What makes you so sure this won't become a quack?
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: We're going to be there. You're convinced this won't become
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: under quagmire.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: It's not a quagmire. The official name is highly enriched uranium,
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: and I call it nuclear dusk because it seemed to
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: be nice and everyone understands it better and it's so cute,
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: and people picked it up.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So Ben I honestly laughed at trump definition of a
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: ceasefire because he's kind of like accurately capturing the absurdity
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: of the way the term is being used. But just
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: you know, my advice to every reporter is like, just
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: stop letting this man redefine words, like there is a
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: dictionary definition for a reason. A ceasefire means that everyone
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: to stop shooting. A blockade is an active war. The
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Middle East is a quagmire has been for the US.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: The US is one hundred percent still at war no
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: matter what Trump says is happening right now. So is
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Israel and the highly enrich uranium. It's not dust, it's uranium.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: It's like, we don't have to repeat this bullshit spin.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: It's embarrassing for everybody.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Well, this is an original sin in the media, which
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: is that they kind of repeated. You know, Trump says
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: the end of eight wars, like nobody pointed out that,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: like you didn't end any of them, and some of
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: them are ongoing, some of them ended a long time ago. Right,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: The ceasefires are not fragile, they don't exist, you know,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: So there's there is an absurdityes, but it matters to
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: your point, because it kind of creates this veneer that
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: things aren't happening that are happening. I mean, for instance,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: how much does it cost the United States taxpayer to
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: sustain this massive military blockade of Iran and all these
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: other four deployments and all these missile defense systems we
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: move there? Like, by acting like there's a ceasefire, you're
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: ignoring the fact that not only is ongoing violence, not
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: only is there an ongoing war, but we're spending billions
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: and billions of dollars doing it. And so that's why
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: it's important to be factual about this, because there's a
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: deliberate effort by people like Trump to misinform you, like,
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: don't look over here, there's a ceasefire. You know, their talks,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: there's almost a deal, like when none of those things
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: are happening.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: The Prime Minister of Lebanon says Israel has carried out
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: thirty five hundred air strikes since April sixteenth, when the
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: so called teasefire was agreed to. Yet it's not Yeah,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: it's not moderate. No, it's not even close. It's just
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: straight up now, it's just nonsense. This podcast is sponsored
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  Speaker 1: dot com slash World. This podcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 1: by Wise the app for international people using money around
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  Speaker 1: or visit wise dot com. Terms and conditions apply. All right, Ben,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Let's check in on America's most corrupt couple, Jared and
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Evanka Trump. Here is Avanka on one of those podcasts
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: that I think just does like softball interviews with various
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: business founders. Let's watch.
• 22:54
  Speaker 7: I'm working on an incredible project with my husband and
• 22:59
  Speaker 7: the Meta Train. It's massive in scale, an unbelievable, beautiful,
• 23:04
  Speaker 7: fourteen hundred hector private island in the middle of the Mediterranean.
• 23:08
  Speaker 7: We were on a friend's boat and we stopped for
• 23:10
  Speaker 7: a swim. Effectively, that's how we found it. We swim
• 23:14
  Speaker 7: to the islands, we went on a hike barefoot all
• 23:17
  Speaker 7: the way up to the top, and we were just captivated.
• 23:21
  Speaker 7: For me, this is it feels more like a challenge
• 23:24
  Speaker 7: than anything else. A lot of reflection on how I
• 23:27
  Speaker 7: want to live, how I think people increasingly are wanting
• 23:32
  Speaker 7: to live, and trying to really build something that's a
• 23:37
  Speaker 7: tangible manifestation of that.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, so Avoka talking about a little island called Saeson.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: It's like she's a colonizer dressed like a peptobysmal. It's
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: called Seson. It's in the Adriatic Sea. It's off the
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: coast of Albania. The history is interesting. The Soviets at
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: a submarine base on the island until the nineteen fifties.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: It's apparently still filled with Cold War era bunkers, tunnels
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and stuff and fortifications. The island was closed off to
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: people until twenty fifteen, until it was opened for some
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: limited tourism, not largely because the area, the broader area
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: as wells protected protected ecological reserve. It's home to hundreds
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: of bird species, in particular flamingos and pelicans and their
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: seals and turtles and other wildlife. Sounds beautiful. In twenty
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: twenty four, the Albanian government suddenly and suspiciously removed those
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: environmental protections and preliminarily approved tourism development. And everyone in
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Albania is trying to figure out why, which brings Jared
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: and Evanka into our story. So our Christopher Columbus here
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: and Christine Columbus say they discovered this island that is
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: again just in the Adriatic Sea. That's been you know,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: people have lived there for thousands of thousands of years.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: They discovered it when they were putting around on a
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: yacht owned by a member of the Rothschild family. Literally
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: been Jared told this story on the All In podcast,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: like you just can't make this shit up. So shortly
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: after they discovered this island and they went on their
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: swim in their barefoot walk, Eddie Rama, the Prime Minister
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: of Albania, surprisingly joined Jared and Avanka on the Rothschild yacht.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Fast forward a few years and Jared is somehow leading
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: this effort to develop a one point six billion dollar
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: luxury resort on this island that reportedly has up to
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: ten thousand hotel rooms in villas. Albania's anti corruption organization
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: it's called Spack. They smell a rat, they're investigating. They're
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: looking at, say, just how this region lost the protected
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: status and then people in Albania are furious. There have
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: been huge protests since last month when developers put up
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Barbara offensive to keep people out of the site. And
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: then there's a video of the security guard just beating
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the shit out of a protester that went super viral.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: So Ben here's a clip of an Albanian tour guide
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: named Dejanakj who's been protesting. She posted this on her Instagram.
• 25:53
  Speaker 8: This revolt resolution. It's starting in Albania, but it's going
• 25:57
  Speaker 8: to be worldwide. We are taking our back power to
• 26:01
  Speaker 8: the people. We don't need any more resorts, we need
• 26:04
  Speaker 8: more wetlands, we need more oxygen, we need more trees.
• 26:08
  Speaker 8: We can't afford doing this right now worldwide. I'm not
• 26:12
  Speaker 8: talking as an Albanian, I'm talking as a human being
• 26:15
  Speaker 8: that loves this world.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: So Ben, I love this protest movement. Obviously, I get
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: why people like leaders in Albania would want more money
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: and investment in tourism, but I think the Abanian people
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: have every right to believe that Jared Kushner greased this
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: deal in a corrupt way by leveraging his ties to
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: the present the United States, and I would demand that
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: those details be released and to figure out who is profiting,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: because there's just like, none of this story smells right.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Evanka that your little narrative didn't go over
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: so well, but here we are.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: This story exemplifies so much of what is completely fucked
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: up about the world. First of all, just thinking about
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: the fact that the kinds of people that end up
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: on boats of beach Albania are usually migrants, right, It's
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: one of the places that people have gotten stranded. But
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: lo and behold there's Avonka on the Rothschild yacht discovering
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: this wonderful private island and then just deciding that she
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: and her husband are going to essentially own it, to
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: own it, you know, and then clearly leveraging, as we've
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: seen time and again with Trump family interests, the power
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: of the United States government implicit or explicit, you know,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: you don't even necessarily have to state the threat or something.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Albani's a small country and Irama is like, oh, okay,
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: sure you can have this island. And here's the thing
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: that is so fucked up about this is Yes, first
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: and foremost, there's obviously massive environmental implications. There's like, you know,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: species on there that be wiped out, there's wetlands that
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: would be wiped out. But it's not as if any
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: of the money from this development is going to reach
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: ordinary Albanians. Give me a break. The people going to
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: this are going to be the same kind of rich
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Epstein class people that like to go to private islands
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: each other owns. Like maybe there'll be some menial jobs
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: for Albanians, like cleaning up the hotel rooms, but at
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: the end of the day, this is literally separated from
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: the Albanian economy. It's just an island.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: And Eddie ram is saying that directly. He was like
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: talking about the deal, calling it luxury tourist destination, and
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: he was arguing that, well, Albania can make as much
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: money from four hundred yachts as we can from forty
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: thousand like non rich visitors, which is like a tough
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: message when you have this like populist mob uprising opposing
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: this progress. He's like, oh, no, no, no, it's only be
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: the worst rich elites. And people are comparing it to
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Epstein Island, as you said.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: And that's not true, right, because if you're prioritizing that
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: kind of tourism, it creates a lot less jobs in
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: the kind of tourism where people walking around cities and
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: eating in restaurants and going in taxi cabs. And look,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: that woman is exactly right, Like the Albanian people are
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: showing a lot of resilience and a lot of guts
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: and a lot of humor in the way that they're
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: out there protesting. But I think she's not wrong that
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: there's such pent up frustration with the corruption and inequality
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: and the kind of disgusting privilege of people like Ivanka
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: and Jared that events like this can be triggers that
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: spread across borders. I think this is already like remaking
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: Albanian politics in ways that Eddie Rama never anticipated. And
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: I think people are going to continue to motilize when
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: things like this happen because they're so unbelievably offensive and
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: the fact that she lacks her self. She's sitting in
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: some room that I mean looks like a place to
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: is like alternatively like soft lit podcasts or like people
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: could be tortured in there or something. Is that the
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: white lights? What is going on?
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Very weird? Like she's so divorced.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: How divorced is that from the lived experience of just
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: some Albanian who's like sitting there wondering, like why the
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: hell we're selling off like big chunks of land to
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: these people.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and like Eddie Rama wind like this wasn't Jared Kushner,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: people wouldn't give a shit about the project. That's a
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: direct quote. But look, yeah, man, like well, yeah, people
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be as that if they didn't think like the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: president son in law was trying to, you know, corruptly
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: buy off this island. So Rama won a fourth term
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: by promising to get Albania into the EU. But the
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: European Commission has warned that this project could run a
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: foul of some of their environmental rules, so it could
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: up end his entire projects, So he's gonna have a
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: tough political choice coming up. It is. It is delicious
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: and something we'll continue to watch here. Ben. Have you
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: are you excited about the World Cup? Are you soccer guy?
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: I am. I am actually going to a game.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna go to a game too. I'm
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: gona try my best, but I'll let you guys know
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: how it goes once if it happens.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: But I'm going to a game in Houston next week
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: between Portugal and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: I think I'm going thanks to like a world though.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: I heard that there was like a guy that worked
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: at the stadium that heroes in town for an event,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: So thank.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: You world is. Yeah.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: The DRC is looking good, by the way, like they're
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: looking like the best team from the African continents.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's gonna be exciting. So the tournament kicks
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: off this week. It's literally the biggest World Cup ever.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: There's three host countries, the US, Mexico, and Canada, and
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: then there's gonna be games in sixteen different cities. Forty
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: eight teams made the tournament this year instead of the
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: usual thirty two. It will be watched by literally billions
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: of people, and the games themselves will span thirty nine days.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: There will be periods where there's like literally four and
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: up times up to six games per day. So buckle up,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: bosses across the world who are worried about productivity this month.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: It is not without controversy. ICE officers are going to
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: be out in force because you know that always turns
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: out well on leaching them on cities. Check out this
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: clip of Department of holand Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: talking about the ICE presence at the World Cup.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: So what a lot of people don't think about when
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: they start talking about World Cup is what about the
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: counterfeit products that come in or the human trafficking when
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: you have crowds this big chrominal activities follow well. Ice
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: and HSI are going to be out there every day
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: fighting against the counterfeit tickets, human trafficking, drug smuggling, counterfeit products.
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: They're going to be working hand in hand with CBP
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: along the way. I know there's a lot of acronyms there.
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: So on Obama screen, we're gonna tell you what each
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: one of them have.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Hey, boss, hold this ball. We have no idea what
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: you should do with it. We can tell you feel
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: really uncomfortable. So maybe just like spinning around, I mean
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: and the globetrotter it or something like that. You just
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: look such a weird dork in that picture if you
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: never touched the soccer ball before, sir.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: And what's the social media strategy behind the like little
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: pops when they put ice up there? And like I think,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: by the way, I think people have a pretty good
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: idea what ices. Yeah, I don't think we need like
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: the text explanation. I also love like the bizarre like
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: focus on counterfeit. I mean, clearly ice is there to
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: intimidate people like we really I mean actually I look
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: forward to buying some counterfeit merch. Like what are you saying?
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Like we have to like have a massive sting operation
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: so that only FIFA can you know pad its pockets
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: with like merch give me a break. Like part of
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: American sports is like the guys selling the T shirt
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: down the street.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, FIVA selling three hundred and seventy five
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: dollars Host city jerseys that are the ugliest things I
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: ever seen. Ben There's also been some other controversies, like
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: the Iranian team barely got visas for the games, and
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: the US is forcing them to commute to the games
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: in the US from Mexico and force them to stay
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: in Mexico. A bunch of Iranian an African journalists has
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: struggled to get the right visas to cover what's happening.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: There's a Somali referee named Omar Artan who has denied
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: entry to the US I think in Miami when he'd
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: already flown here, even though he's supposed to be one
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: of FIFA's fifty two referees at the World Cup. This
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: guy is literally like the top referee in Africa. I
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: think he was African Referee of the Year last year
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: and was rejected. I think just because he's a Somali guy.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Fans from Iran and Haiti have been denied entry to
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: the US, A lot of other fans have been denied visas,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: and even the people who can make it here are
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: struggling to afford tickets because FIFA jacked up all the
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: prices to the World Cup, which means the games were unaffordable.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: But it also meant that a bunch of resailers gobble
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: them up in that moment because they thought they wouldn't
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: you know, they get sold out and now they're having
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: trouble reselling them. So these games are going to be
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: impossible to afford. But also the stadiums are empty, which
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: is wonderful. But ben you look, every World Cup has
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: its issues. People tend to ignore those issues once kickoff starts.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: I mean the last one was in Qatar, of all places.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: But it does suck that Trump is going to use
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: this opportunity again like be a dick to entire continence,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: be racist to entire groups of people, and then also
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: you know that he will somehow find a way to
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: make it all about himself by the very end.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Iran thing is just so petty. I mean,
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: give me a break, like let the coach into the country,
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: like let them. This is so stupid and it makes
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: us look small, and it speaks to a bigger point,
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: which is like usually when you host something like the
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: World Cup, it's like this opportunity to like showcase your country,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Like we're turning it into an opportunity to make the
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: rest of the world load us even more than they do,
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: you know. And because it's also like the manifestation of
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: all American excess, right, like the absurdity for the ticket
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: sale and resale industry. Right, they're like absurd displays of
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: like trumpanforce with ice, the casual racism towards people from Somalia,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: because what Trump's still mad about Minneapolis or something.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: And like Haiti, like Haiti made the tournament and we're
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: not letting Haitian fans in. That's so shitty, Like Haiti
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: like deserves this one little bright spot.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: And again just because what because JD. Vans told Trump
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: that some Haitian's reading dogs, right, Like he gets these
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: fixations on certain groups of people and he sticks with them.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: But like my hope is that when the games actually start,
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: like it will just become about the soccer and not
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: any of this nonsense. But like it's going to be
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: like an overhang. We're not making our best impression of people.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: And part of what like stresses me out about it,
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Tommy is having just lived through the Trump performance at
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: the Knicks game. We have the Olympics in La oh yeah,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: in a couple of years, so this is just a
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: dry run for Trump to ruin international sporting events.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. And also FIFA is also terrible. I
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: mean again, Oh yeah, I was talking to Ron Emmanuel
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: this morning. He was mayor of Chicago. FIFA wanted to
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: host games in Chicago and have them be one of
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: the host cities, and Rom said no, and he was
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: telling me about why, and it's because the FIFA model
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: lets them claim like the bulk of the ticketing revenue,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: the broadcasting revenue, sponsorship revenue, concessions, cars, parking, and then
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: the city is supposed to carry the burden for public
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: transportation safety, security like medical services, fire protection, and then
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: even like vip escorts for people that FIFA deemed worthy.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: And also FIFA demanded that the contract with Chicago include
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: the right to force them to build a dome unsoldier
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: field for the tune of like fifty two hundred million
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: dollars and Rom was like, no, can you take that out?
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: And they're like, no, we won't, but like just trust us.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: And then they were also at the time or demanding
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: that FIFA fund like transportation for ticket holders, and then
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: like a big like free FIFA FanFest, which cities were
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: just on the hook for doing, and a bunch of
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: them have decided they had to cancel because they just
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: couldn't afford it. So it's like it's just this whole thing.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: It's like a boondoggle for FIFA. They'll make a ton
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: of money, Johnny and Fantino, the head of FIFA, will
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: fluff Trump at every opportunity possible, including you know he
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: started when he gave him the FIFA Peace Prize. But
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: I like, it's just not clear that it's going to
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: end well for the host cities, at least not financially.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: No, and it's gonna call in a question whether it's
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: worth hosting these big things, right, and that like then
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: I'll end up just being in places like Saddi Rabia
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: and Katar, because it's just made to you to jump
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: through so many hoops and spend so much money, and
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: you have to treat this guy Infantino like he's some
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: kind of head of state, you know, like again, like
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: the beautiful game will be what it is and I'm
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: excited to watch it, you know, so don't let it
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: spoil things. But like, yeah, this it is just so
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: indicative of the times that there's this like kind of
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: cloud of politics and corruption and profiteering off of it.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, maybe the play Tommy is to like, wait,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: maybe you can get pretty cheap tickets at the last minute,
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: because those guys will need to dump the tickets at
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: some point.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: I think, so, I hope.
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: So.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: I think it'll be fun be able to go to
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: random games on a weekday. One last thing, ben our
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: producers wanted us to know that they have diligently scanned
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: the World Cup field for the hottest players in the
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: tournament this year. So what I'm going to do is
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: read to you the names in no particular order, and
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: then you guys let us know in the comments, both
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: on YouTube and on Instagram, TikTok whatever, who you're voting for,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: who's your number one? So here's the list, And I
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: don't even know what most of these people look like,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: by the way. England's Jude Bellingham, Iran's Essan has Jaffi,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Portugal's Rubin dis New Zealand's Marco Staminik, Australia's Matthew Lecky,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Belgian's Kevin de Brune, Captain America Christian Polisic, and then finally,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: of course we're just going with Christiano Ronaldo's apps.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: No, no, we can't do ronaldough.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Those are some sick apps, sir.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: That man is forty one, there are, but it's yesterday.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: That man is forty one. Look at those. That's an
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: eight pack. Yeah, kidding me with that.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: You should just go back and we're assuming video you
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: buy when.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: They're assuming it's so close. Yeah, all right, So that's
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: a great list. Please let us know who we should
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: objectify the most out of this entire group of people.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: And you know we look forward to reading along with
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: you in the comments here, especially on YouTube. Again, this
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: is why you should be a YouTube subscriber, because you
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: get to.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Check all the people out, you get the pictures.
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  Speaker 1: we sent you all right, Ben, back to nerdy stuff. So,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Chinese President Jimpang is on the road this week. So
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: he was in North Korea for the first time in
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: seven years to meet with North Threeen dictator Kim Jong un.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: We don't have a ton of information about what they discussed,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: obviously because it's two dictators getting together. But in the
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: run ups for the visit, there were a bunch of
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: fascinating stories. The Times had one that Wall Street Journal
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: had one about North Korea's surprising economic turnarounds. So the
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: journal like they talked to a bunch of recent visitors
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: in North Korea who had talked about landing, and all
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, they're like seeing Chinese electric vehicles all
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: over the place. There's ride share apps, there's new restaurants,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: pizza places. There's a general sense of like economic activity
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: happening at a greater level than ever before. They talked
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: about their satellite imagery that shows at North Korea, especially Pyongyang,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: is three times brighter than it was five years ago.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Parking lots are full, oil facilities are more active. You
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: can see that in satellite imagery as well, and the
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: pieces both, you know, they juxtapose this economic recovery with
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: the economic catastrophe that hit North Korea during the pandemic.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: That was the moment when Junguan was literally giving a
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: speech apologizing and weeping to his own people because they
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: couldn't eat. So the biggest driver of this economic change
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: from North Korea, I think, seems to be clearly the
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: increased partnership between North Korea and Russia. It's a war
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: in Ukraine. A South Korean think tank called i INSS
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: said that from late twenty twenty three through twenty twenty five,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: North Korean arm sales to Russia generated more than ten
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: billion dollars, which is just a huge boost for a
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: country with an estimated twenty seven billion dollar GDP. But
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: North Korea also benefited from deploying sixteen thousand soldiers to
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: fight on behalf of the Russians. Reminder that a third
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: of them were heard or killed. Kim has made billions
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: from state backed hacking efforts, especially stealing cryptocurrency or extorting
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: places for it, and then they seemingly have just gotten
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: better at evading US sanctions and that have steadily ratcheted
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: up trade with China. So this is clearly a win
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: for Kim jungun, And I would say it's just unequivocally
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: a good thing, right if your average North Korean has
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: more food and has a slightly better life, right. But
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of downsides that I'll just quickly tick through.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: These reports make it sound like North Korean repression has
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: gotten worse and more pervasive, not better. So Kim jongan
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: is not just executing you know, his uncle who's a
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: general that he thinks is disoil. He is reportedly executing
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: people just distributing South Korean TV shows or music. So
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: that is horrible. The economic benefits are obviously primarily going
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: to elites in Pyeongang. Some you know, some of those
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: quality of life improvements probably trickle down to the city's
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: residents if there's just more general economic activity, but it's
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: not clear if it's leaving Pyonggang at all. Like there's
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: some development in other cities and some in rural areas,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: but it's just like it's way way less beneficial to
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: people outside of the capital, and the UN still believes
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: that nearly half of the people outside of Pyongyang are
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: and malnourished. We don't really know exactly what North Korea
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: is getting from Russia in terms of military support and technology.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: There's concern that they could get a nuclear powered submarine
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: and new warships and drones, and then finally there's just
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: the nuclear arsenal ben that's the reason where at war
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: with Iran, Kim is believed to have at least fifty
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: asseepled nuclear warheads, the components to build up to one
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: hundred more or nearly one hundred more, and then the
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: capacity to produce you know, maybe a dozen maybe twenty
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: more per year, and then they've an ICBM that could
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: hit the US, so they are a genuine threat to
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: US national security. So Ben Trump had three meetings with
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Kim Jong on in the first term. He failed to
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: accomplish anything through those meetings. Then it seems like he's
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: just decided to forget that the problem exists. I'm curious
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: what you think, though, Like, given what's happening in Iran,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the worst thing, that he's
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: just ignoring the problem rather than waging a war. But
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: what do you make of these reports and cheese visit.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: I think it is an incredible monument to the absolute
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: failure of US sanctions policy, because we have so over
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: sanctioned all these countries that they now just ignore our sanctions.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm old enough to remember when China and
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Russia actually participated in the sanctions on North Korea. That's
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: something that used to happen, and I'm sure they cheated
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: a little bit around the edges. But I think that
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: what's happened in recent years is as the United States
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: has sanctioned Russia, as the United States has put more
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: sanctions on China too, they're just like, well, screw this,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: Like there's a whole parallel economy that we're going to
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: create where we're trading in different ways and we're we're
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: bartering things and we're using crypto, and you know, we're
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: just evading the dollar and transactions. And so the fact
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: that North Korea still has all these US sanctions on
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: it and they're just building shit and they've got electric
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: vehicles and they're selling weapons, like it's a sign that
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: the over sanctioning of countries has actually created a dynamic
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: where there's so many countries that are over sanctioned that
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: they just create a parallel trade system with each other.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: That's really important. I think that the danger is, you know,
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: is twofold. Like you mentioned the repression, I think some
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: people might think, well, why is the repression getting worse? Well,
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: in part because if things are really really shitty in
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: the country, you kind of have to be a little
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: cautious about being so repressive because you don't want to
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: create the powder keg that explodes. But if you're riding
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: high and you feel like you know you're on the upswing,
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: as Kim does right now, well, then yeah, like you
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: you're keeping enough people happier that you know you can
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: repress the hell out of the people that do things
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: you don't like. The only other thing I'd introduce, Tommy,
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: is that I don't trust Kim Jong UN's temperament. No,
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: not that we know that much about it. I mean
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: we know that he like, you know, like attacked Sony
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: because of that movie with James Franco.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: I worry that if he's feeling more and more emboldened
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: and he's got this nuclear arsenal's deterrent, and he's got
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: Russia giving him advanced technology, and he's got you know,
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: some money from these various things, that he might just
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: start messing around with South Korea, you know, and maybe
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: not a full skill invasion, but like we're going to
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: see some islands or we're going to sink a boat,
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: you know, and what are you going to do about it?
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: We have nuclear weapons, and so I think it is
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: I'd prefer Trump ignored it because Trump's two approaches seem
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: to be either launching a war or like bear hugging
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: someone and announcing it's historic even though nothing is accomplished,
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: as he did with Kim. But there's a non zero
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: chance that this thing, you know, presents itself as a
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: threat through some kind of provocation to South Korea.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they could trade. You know, there was a recent
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: incident where like, you know, North Koreans and South Koreans
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: traded fire on these small islands and all of a sudden,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah, you could be off to the races
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: in some war. I highly recommend both these pieces. It's
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: just sort of a fascinating. Look.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're very good.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Try where you know, I haven't talked about them in
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: a while, real quick. Then, we talked a while back
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: about how former Trump National security advisor in full time
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: warmonger John Bolton was being prosecuted for illegally retaining classified
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: information and then using it to help write his book.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Last week, CNN reported that Bolton is going to plead
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: guilty to unlawfully holding onto classified information and pay a
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: two point two five million dollar fine. Apparently he could
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: phase up to five years in prison assuming the deal
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: is approved. But so the next court hearing is like
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: June twenty sixth. Initially, Bolton had pleaded not guilty on
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: eighteen counts, but more reports kept coming out and all
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, it was like, oh boy, this guy's
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: in deep shit. The one count he's reportedly pleading guilty too,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: is writing down classified stuff in his diary and sharing
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: that information with his wife and daughter via his own
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: personal email and some like messaging app, which was just
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: insanely stupid, Like I literally can't believe you did this.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: The whole case might have come to light because Iron
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: hacked Bolton's email in twenty twenty one, and I think
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: the US figured it out. So, you know, no word
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: on whether Trump will also have to plead guilty for
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: having classified records next to the shitter at mar A Lago,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: but it does seem like there might be a resolution
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: soon for mister Bolton.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: Well, we said when this first kind of emerged, these details,
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: including sending emails to his wife and daughter about class
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: fed promission, let's not please put this in the category
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: of the vin active political persecutions, you know, the James
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: call me with the you know, sand on the beach
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: or whatever it was, or James like, this is like
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: there's an underlying crime here. Now it is pretty selectively enforced,
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: but this was a pretty bracing violation. So it feels
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: like I'm not sure the guy needs and I'm no
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: fan of John Bolton, I'm not sure he has to
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: do hard time. I mean a couple of million bucks
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: is not nothing, but but but yeah, man, like you know,
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, I guess the hypocrisy is, you know, Trump
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: is giving himself a different set of rules and and
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: and actually what I wonder Tommy is to take it to today.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Do you really trust that like Steve Whitcoff or guys
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: like that aren't like walking around with class Adam fun
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything. I'm not let you know, but
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: it feels like they're probably pretty casual about their use
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: of personal email and what they do with you know,
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: these people Kushner in wit cough like did they even
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: work for the.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: Definitely does you doesn't have a job.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Kushner clearly has classified information though, like under what
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: basis you know? Like so like it it is pretty
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: selective even if you know clearly there was a crime here.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, longtime listeners to this show know that we find
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: stories about corruption and gold bars irresistible. Shout out to
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: our guy, Bob Menendez. But now there's a new entrant
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: into this kind of cannon ben After investigators found three
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: hundred and three gold bars in the home of a
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: CIA official named David Rush. They also found two million
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: in cash and three dozen luxury watches. So this guy
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: the gold alone was worth more than forty billion dollars.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: The Washington Port Post reporter that this guy created a fake,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: highly classified intelligence program that he used to funnel money
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: to himself, and he might have read and it was
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: so secretive that he read people into it and meriently
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: a couple of them. But those people couldn't talk to
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: anyone else about it because it was a special action program.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: So he might have made them unwitting accomplices. It's not
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: really clear yet. We don't have a ton of details
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: due to the classification issues. We know that Rush worked
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: in the director of Science and Technology at the CIA.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Those are the people that make all the cool like
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: spying tools, all the gadgets, all the actual tech very
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: important component. One source told the Posts that the fake
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: program was about continuity of government operations, so like what
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: the government does if we're nuked by something, and that
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: that's how we got the gold bars. I don't know.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: There was also some kind of vague part of the
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Post story about how Rush was also involved in some
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: of the CIA's most sensitive collection programs, and that sort
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: of shocked people that he could be both doing that
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: and this corruption stuff, I don't know who knows. It's
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: impossible to read between the lines sometimes with these so Ben,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: I obviously don't support stealing taxpayer dollars, but I do
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: kind of respect the hustle here, like creating a game,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: creating a special access program that's so secretive that it's
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: like known only to you, and convincing the US government
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: to give you gold bars. Like that's impressive work.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, at least we know we have like capable spies.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: I read this and like two concerns hit me, right.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: So the first is that there's long been talk, and
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: I talked to people in intelligence that the growth of
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: these private intelligence firms, you know, like the Wagner Group
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: for Russia, Blackwater and all of its offshoots in the
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: US has kind of created this dynamic where like, if
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: you're like a really good cioperative, you also know that, well, shit,
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: if I reach a point in my career, I can
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: just leave and make ten X, right, you know, working
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: for these guys, and that that that might bleed into like,
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: well I deserve to make a little bit on the side,
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: you know, Like and that leads me to the second point,
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: which is you know, not dissimilar to what I was
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: saying my classer information. When your government is run by
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: a grifter who is using the government to enrich himself
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: and his family.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: He's like day trading, as we just talked about with.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Jared Navanka and insider trading. Probably people around Trump off
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: of like things like the war and Ron and that
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: person and has removed any values proposition from your government.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: Service is probably like being casual about you know, your
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: relationships that you built in foreign countries, right because we're
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: insulting those countries or we're picking fights with those leaders.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: You know, grift begets grift, and you know, there's been
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of talk about whether you know, there's incompetence
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: or mag of people embedded in places like the intelligence community.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: That's a concern. I think another concern is just like
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: are these guys looking around and being like, well, shit,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: like this whole government is now just a grift. I
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: might as well have my gold bars one.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: It's amazing this guy what a guy also met My
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: concern was like a vetting of these people, like apparently
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: this guy claimed to have a degree from Clemson an RPI.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: The FBI then found no record of him attending either school.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: He claimed to have been a Navy pilot. There's no
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: evidence of that either. They also alleged that Rush lied
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: to the CIA about all of this and fraudulently got
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: like seventy seven thousand dollars in military leave pay despite
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: being discharged from the Navy as far back twenty fifteen.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: So like, this guy was just clearly lying about so
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: much stuff and no one caught it until he had
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: sampled three hundred plus gold bars in his home. It
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: feels like we got to be catching these people a
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: little earlier. Else there's a lot of other things happening
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: that's pretty damaging the national security that we're just missing.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the you know, the the colonoscopy that they
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: put us through to get security clearances kind of manages
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: to put a giant spotlight on like your college marijuana
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: use as disqualifying from government service. But somehow couldn't figure
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: out this guy didn't go to school. Time to overhaul
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: that whole system, right of how we clear people, to
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: let more people through who deserve it, and to win
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: out the people that are that are lying about it.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: At least this guy crashes and burns if he has
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: some time in prison. He could probably write a pretty
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: good Netflix show while he's here.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd love to know about this special access program. Finally, Ben,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: speaking of unbelievably ballsy cons, I want to tell you
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: briefly about someone named macbood Sadez Buba.
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: So.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Buba was a candidate for Nigeria's House of Representatives. There
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: was a video that got released by his political party.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: They're kind of like asking him questions about his candidacy,
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: and it exploded on social media because he did not
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: look or sound like a traditional politician. So, as the
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: Nigerian paper The Whistler put it, quote, his physical appearance,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: specifically his small stature due to dwarfism in his remarkably
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: youthful face, triggered an immediate wave of public reaction. So
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of this reaction was inspired by the fact
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: that this guy, he wasn't rich, he wasn't famous, he
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: was dealing with dwarfism, but he was able to run
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: for office. Right. A lot of people found that exciting
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: and inspirational, but the story quickly fell apart when documents
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: surface that listed Buba's actual age. This guy had been
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: telling people he was thirty years old. It turns out
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: he is only fifteen years old, and he somehow managed
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: to fool everybody about his age, despite a lot of
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: visual evidence to the contrary that might lead you to
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: believe like, actually, this person seems like they are a child.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: Check out this video, uh compilation of meeting with voters
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: and talking with the media.
• 57:24
  Speaker 6: Guys, you all you are allowed to answer with one word,
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: So criticism. What do you think criticism is full or distruction? H? Exceptional? Hmhm?
• 57:44
  Speaker 6: So due to social media? Is it a blessing? Or pressure?
• 57:50
  Speaker 7: Pressure?
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Some pressure?
• 57:54
  Speaker 7: Some?
• 57:56
  Speaker 6: Okay? So one word for your supporters.
• 58:03
  Speaker 7: Vote quietly, no fight no?
• 58:07
  Speaker 6: So confidence? Is it learned or is it not true?
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: So? Ben, I love this kid because it takes balls
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: to run for office no matter what. It takes even
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: bigger balls to run for office and lie about your
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: age because you're only fifteen years old. It takes balls
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: of steel to fake your age and run for office
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: while having a genetic conviision that makes you look like
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: a literal five year old, and.
• 58:32
  Speaker 9: Then film you riding on a miniature red pony that
• 58:37
  Speaker 9: part of the thing nearly killed me. I want to
• 58:41
  Speaker 9: make this kid president immediately. Just put him in there
• 58:44
  Speaker 9: install him.
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: Remember we had Kid President and yes, I love that
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: guy should be Kid President. Man, I this is we
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: finally arrived at the stage of the podcast where I
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: like the grift. Yeah, this is not Jared Ivanka building resorts,
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: it's not the gold bars.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Like. This is a guy.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: You're having a pretty good time. And look at I
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: mean Nigeria, man like that. I'm old enough to have
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: gotten the you know those those emails from the fake
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: Nigerian princes.
• 59:09
  Speaker 8: You know.
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: There's some entrepreneurial spirit there that I respect.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: You know man uh yeah, Mack Mood Uh, Mack Mood
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: sadis Buba.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: We respect to you. Keep up the great We respect you.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: All right, we are going to take a quick break,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: but when we come back, you're going to hear my
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: interview with the BBC's Will Grant about what life is
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: like on the ground in Cuba, Uh, concerns about Trump
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: staging some sort of Venezuela like operation, and much much
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: more so. Stick around for that pod table. The world
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  Speaker 1: like simply Safe. My guest today is the Mexico, Central
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  Speaker 1: America and Cuba correspondent for the BBC and recently got
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: back from a trip to Cuba. Will great, Welcome to
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: the show.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 5: Thank you very much for having me. It's terrificly to
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 5: be with you.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: Thank you for doing this. So you have spent a
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: bunch of time in Cuba, both recently and then over
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: many years. How has life changed for Cuban people since
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: President Trump sort of drastically ratcheted up sanctions.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: Well, I lived there for seven years, starting towards the
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 5: end of twenty fourteen. So I saw this sort of
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: narrative arc in Cuba of the Obama administration's policy of opening,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 5: the sort of optimism that was going that going with
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: that among ordinary people who really did feel like the
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 5: Cold War Cold War might truly be behind them. It
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 5: felt like a period of opportunity for young people. There
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: was quite a lot of dynamism, a sense there might
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: be a future for a lot of young people on
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 5: the island, and that was a positive experience to see,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: to see that whole period, to live there during that.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 5: Comparing that to today, it feels very far removed. You
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: have had, of course, a series of steps taken both
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: under the first Trump presidency and then continued by the
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: Biden presidency, which were, if you like, the unpicking of
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 5: that policy, that policy of engagement and putting it back
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: very much on a hostile footing. So that started long
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: before where we are today and was continued under the
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 5: Biden administration. Where we are today is after the removal
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: of Nicholas a forced removal of Nicholas Mather order from
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 5: power on the third of January, basically the switching off
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: of the tap of oil of crude oil to Cuba
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 5: from Venezuela, and not just from Cuba. The Trump administration
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: has have made it abundantly clear to Mexico that it
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 5: expects not a drop of oil to arrive from Mexico
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: either or anywhere else in the world for that matter.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: We've only seen really one shipment make it through eight
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 5: hundred and thirty thousand barrels from Russia. But other than that,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: it is Cuba's only producing what it produces, which is
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: no near enough for domestic consumption and surviving in any
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 5: which way. It can huge restrictions on consumption. So you're
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 5: seeing no cars on the streets. You're seeing these long
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 5: and very arduous blackouts. You're seeing hospitals running at a
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 5: fraction of their capacity. You're seeing schools shuttered on many
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 5: days of the week. Normal businesses simply aren't operating. State
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 5: businesses are closed. People are having to walk everywhere or cycle.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 5: It is, and you know that's some of it. The
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 5: worst bit is that the summer is coming. The summer
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 5: months are very hot. The mosquitoes there's no power with
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: which to run air conditioning or fans to keep the
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: mosquitoes at bay. You're seeing no trash picked up from
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: the streets. The garbage trucks aren't doing their rounds. The
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: state run fleet of garbage trucks. So you put all
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 5: of these things into the single experience, and it is
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 5: incredibly bleak. It really is very very dire and actively
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 5: getting worse week after week after week.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean those Derek conditions you talk about, I mean,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: no refrigeration for food, no transportation for trash pickup or
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: anything else. Hospitals just having to shut off I guess
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: because they don't have power. I mean, if you can't
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: get the lights on, I don't know how you perform
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: a surgery or do anything else. Have those factors resulted
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: in any measurable impact on mortality or healthy outcomes that
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: you've seen? Can we measure that?
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 5: You can't get reliable statistics on these things? You're completely
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 5: you know, beholden to the Cuban state in terms of
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 5: what it says it isn't isn't happening. But we know,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 5: I mean, I know anecdotedly from going to a hospital
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 5: during blackouts that they are only accepting in many cases
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 5: emergency cases. I don't know to what extent we can give.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: You know, anyone's got the number yet about you know
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: how many more you know how this is hitting infant
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: mortality or impacting pregnancies or you know the death rate
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: among curable these disease and things like this. But if
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 5: it's not there yet, it's certainly in the post. I mean,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: that's that's the feeling among ordinary Cubans. The hospitals are
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 5: doing what they can, and I saw inside, for example,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 5: a maternity ward that does have a very large generator
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 5: and is running, you know, for the very very basics.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: I've been in contact throughout this experience with a pregnant
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: woman who's now just had her baby. It was a
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 5: pretty bleak and difficult experience, but the baby was born.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 5: The attention to her from the medical staff was good.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 5: But it is sort of down to the individuals and
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 5: their hard work really to make sure she was looked
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: after in these these very, very trying circumstances.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: I just can't even imagine having to give birth in
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: those in that circumstances unimaginable. I know there have been
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: some big protests of the economic conditions. What is your
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: sense of whether the Cuban people, generally speaking, blame the
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: government for this crisis or the Trump administration policies.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a very very good question, because it really
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: is a division. Now. You would expect there'll be outright
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 5: anger just at the Trump administration for what it's doing.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: You know that this has been imposed upon the island
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 5: from outside, but there is a lot of anger at
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 5: the Cuban government. For the fact that these things predate
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 5: not just Trump's current policy, but even Trump returning to power,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 5: you know, coming back to office for his second term.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: That the island was already going through blackouts, that the
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 5: island didn't make the most of the sort of its
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 5: economic opportunities, That there is mismanagement of the economy, that
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 5: they have been building five star hotels instead of investing
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 5: in electricity infrastructure, power infrastructure, things like this. So that
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 5: anger at the sort of Cuban state's decision making is
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 5: very very present, Let's make no mistake about that. And
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 5: what's interesting is that although there is plenty of people
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 5: on the streets when the government organizes a protest outside
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 5: the US embassy, and they will echo the slogans, and
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 5: there is genuine anger of course at the Trump administration,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 5: I've also seen people lose their fear. Now as a
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 5: journalist who's work there a lot, you know, I used
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 5: to put the microphones in front of people and they
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 5: just repeat these lines out of Grandma the state run newspaper,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 5: or you know, the revolutionary slogan, so you couldn't get
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: any kind of feeling for what people actually wanted to say.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 5: Or it was very difficult to get that on tape.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 5: It was very couched and careful. Not anymore. People are
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 5: just saying whatever they want, or a lot of people are,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 5: and I've heard some people say as brazenly as I
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: hope Trump does come in and take this over. I
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 5: am done. You know, whatever's coming, let it come. We
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 5: need change. So that has been one of the surprises
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 5: to me that it's not sort of coalesced into this cold,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 5: hard anger at Marco Rubio and Donald Trump, as much
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 5: as one might imagine that is there. Of course, it's there,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 5: particularly among the revolutionaries, where it's very very present, But
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 5: among a lot of ordinary people, they just want whatever
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 5: this is to be over so they can have some
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 5: semblance of a normal life, some semblance of a normal
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 5: relationship with Washington, some kind of existence that's dignified for
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 5: their children. They can send their children to school without
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 5: empty bellies. I mean, we're talking basic stuff. This is
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 5: sort of survival mode at the moment.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: If you ask me, yeah, I mean, I guess it's is.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: Probably it's complicated. But you know, there's been a bunch
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: of reporting about the strength of Cuban nationalism and the
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: likelihood that Cubans in general would resist sort of a
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: quote unquote Venezuela option where the US comes in, removes
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: say the Castros or the ral Castro, and leaves in
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: a more pliant government that they feel like they can control.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: But it sounds like what you're saying is you have
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: heard from some Cubans that maybe they look at Venezuela
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: and think, I don't know, that seems preferable to whatever
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: this is.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I've sort of heard both ends of the scale this.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: Let's not forget that the Cuban Revolution was a nationalist
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 5: movement before it was Marcus Lennist one. You know, it's
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 5: very much about kind of la patrie, you know, about
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 5: the island and the island's independence, and that's what Fidel
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 5: Castro gave to the people in nineteen fifty nine after
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 5: being basically run by not just the Washington Craven dictatorship
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 5: at the time, but a series of them really throughout
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 5: the twentieth century to that point. So that's really its
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 5: first manifestation. And then it's sort of you know, he
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 5: sort of or either fell into the arms or was pushed.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 5: You know, it's a debate in Latin American academic circles
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 5: into the arms of the Soviet Union, into the arms
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 5: of Moscow. The truth of the matter is it became obviously,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 5: as we know, this communist revolution in a bipolar world,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 5: and it doesn't really seem to have a handle on
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 5: what it is for the twenty first century. And that's
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 5: again not right now in Donald Trump or even the
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 5: Obama administration's attempts to sort of pick a route through
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: all this. I think it's been a little bit lost
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 5: really for a while in terms of offering a sort
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 5: of viable alternative to Cubans, young people who have opted
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 5: for exodus, who have opted for migration instead. But you're
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: absolutely right. The look at the Venezuelan model I think
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 5: brings these two things. One is the sort of old
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 5: school revolutionaries, and I spoke to one who are sort
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 5: of by the side of Jay Gevada on the battlefield,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 5: who's saying, you know, we're not Venezuela, will be fighting
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: until our last breath, you know, just give me in
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 5: my eighties a rifle. That kind of attitude, and those
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 5: others who are saying we need change, and if that
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 5: change needs to be radical, if it needs to be
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 5: stripping the band aid off in one. Then we've got
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 5: to do that. You know that we can't continue along
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: this path because it's leaving far too many hungry people.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 5: It's leaving pensioners without any kind of dignified pension that's
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 5: reflected in any way with the prices on the super
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 5: market shows.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: There have also been reports of, you know, I think
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: talks between the Trump administration and maybe you know Castro's
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: grandson or nephew. And then CIA Director John Ratcliffe was
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: in Cuba recently. It's not entirely clear what his message was.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, they put out a press release claiming what
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: it was, but you know, it sounded to me like
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: a bit of an opportunity to deliver an ultimatum. In
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: that moment, I felt like the lights were kind of
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: blinking red that something was about to happen in terms
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: of the Trump administration, like taking a next step to
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: pressure the Cuban That obviously has not. But is there
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: any reporting on or sense of what these conversations have
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: been about.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 5: I almost want to take a beat and coat. You know,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 5: that's the the CIA director was in Havana. You know,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 5: it's just it's just so extraordinary. And I was standing
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 5: on the male con just in the very days after,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 5: which is the water front promenade in Havanah that runs
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 5: all the way the length that of the city along
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 5: part of the city, and I was standing there during
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 5: a protest, a government organized protest outside the US embassy
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 5: when John Radcliffe went to Venezuela. So this was straight
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 5: in the days after the Venezuela operation, and Maduro now
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 5: in custody, and John Radcliffe was in Venezuela, and I
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 5: showed this to a Cuban official and his you know,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 5: literally saw him sort of turn gray. You know, it
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 5: just extraordinary stuff, Tommy, Like, I've been doing this a
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 5: long time now, you know, I've basically dedicated my career
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 5: to Latin American coverage. And it's still I can't quite
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 5: believe there's been military action in Venezuela in the twenty
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 5: first century. I can't believe that, you know that there's
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 5: been these all of these things have happened to lead
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 5: to the point that you have the CIA director sitting
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 5: down in front of ral Castro's grandson, the Interior Minister
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 5: and the head of the intelligence services of Cuba, and
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 5: exactly just exactly what was that conversation what was said,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 5: What was the message delivery? Was it merely in part?
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 5: The message delivery is the presence being there of sort
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 5: of you know, showing that moment that we're here and
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 5: we're very very serious. Now, let's remember it happens fractionally
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 5: before the indictment against ral Castro. So it might have
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 5: been saying, look, this is in the pipeline. It's coming,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 5: and we are one hundred percent serious about the fact
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 5: that we expect root and branch change to the Cuban Revolution.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 5: We don't expect a tinkering at the top and a
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 5: little moving around here and a bit more economic openness,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 5: which arguably would be the suggestion that that's all that
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 5: the Obama administration was able to achieve. You know, that's
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 5: the Miami view of what was sort of the failures,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 5: if you like, of the reprochemod that it didn't go
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 5: far enough, it didn't really achieve meaningful change. That Mike
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 5: cold Rubio isn't going to be convinced by those things,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 5: is that he wants nothing less than wholesale economic and
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 5: political change to the Cuban Revolution. So I assume some
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 5: version of that was the message that was brought with
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 5: by John Radcliffe, and we'll have to see exactly what
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 5: the response of the Cuban government will be. Again, I
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 5: would agree with you. I think it looked at that
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 5: point like it really was on the cusp of something happening,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 5: and now there seems to have been this delay. President
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 5: Trump has made it clear that it'll always be after Iran,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 5: and Iran can't be said to be over at this stage,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 5: you know, in those terms. So could it be as
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 5: simple as well as the World Cup having some kind
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 5: of influence where, you know, would you really be carrying
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 5: out military action of some description on an island that's
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 5: ninety miles off the coast of Florida, closing the airspace
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 5: to Miami where there are my matches and so on.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 5: You know. So who knows exactly what the calculations are.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 5: But I do think at the heart of the calculation
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 5: is something will happen unless what Havana puts on the
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 5: table is deemed good enough to Washington.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a really good point about the World Cup.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: I guess. I guess time will tell. Trump certainly seems
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: to have kind of a project underway of trying to
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: prop up as many right wing governments in Latin America
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: as he can. There's clearly this pressure campaign on the
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: Cubans following on the Maduro operation, and the human cost
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: is enormous. There's a lot of conversation about the Venezuela
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: option for Cuba. What on earth could or would that
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: look like? Do you think?
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 5: I think that is also the question that so many
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 5: ordinary Cubans are asking themselves exactly what is it? You
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 5: know it is coming, but what is it? And I
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 5: think that is the one thing that none of us
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 5: know at this state. It could be the Venezuela option
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 5: of some kind of swooping in. Would they do that
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 5: to a ninety five year old you know, you know,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 5: a original founder of the revolution, because that really would
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 5: get ordinary Cubans backs up. I think even those who
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 5: want to see change, almost in the sense that you
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 5: don't do that too, like, you know, he's lived his
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 5: life and you know that wouldn't go along with Cuban society.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 5: I don't think it's all well. At the same time,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 5: maybe it is some kind of tactical military action similar
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 5: to what we're seen in Venezuela, but not against him.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 5: If he is simply removed from the equation and it's
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 5: against other members of the top leadership. Is it nothing
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 5: to do with actually striking or seeing boots on the
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 5: ground on the Malekom, which would be the most extraordinary idea.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 5: But this is I think the rub is that all
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 5: of these things would have felt so outlandish, and I'm
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 5: not talking about landish, you know five years ago, when
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 5: they would have seemed incredibly unlikely, but you know, seven
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 5: months ago, it seemed completely impossible that you'd be having
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 5: this conversation about about Cuba. But because of what we've
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 5: seen in Venezuela, there is the point of example, and
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 5: I think that is what the Trump administration is using
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 5: as the ace of its sleeves. Look, we are capable
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 5: of doing this. And let's not forget that when the
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 5: military action in Venezuela was carried out, thirty more than
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 5: thirty of those who were killed I think it's thirty
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 5: four were Cubans. They were the Cuban soldiers and closed
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 5: security officers around Nicholas Maduro, and the Delta Force cut
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 5: through them in seconds with these extremely sophisticated weapons, extremely
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 5: well planned operation. And that again is back to that
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 5: messaging that John Radcliffe may have been bringing with him
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 5: which basically says you are simply no match for us.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 5: Your revolutionary fervor might have been relevant in the nineteen sixties,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 5: seventies and eighties, you may have, you know, under Fidel
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 5: sort of won certain moments against us. This is now
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 5: in the twenty first century where nothing that you have
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 5: can compare to what we have militarily. So I think
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 5: the vastly safest option for the ordinary Cubans and therefore
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 5: potentially for the Cuban government if it's capable of taking
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 5: that path, would be the negotiated solution, which will have
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 5: to mean, as I have mentioned, this complete redrawing of
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 5: the sort of political and economic map, basically letting go
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 5: of the reins of tourism, infrastructure, tourism, real estate, letting
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 5: go of the reins of the import export businesses, somehow
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 5: reimagining the island's politics and economy.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: They should check out the Bay of Picks. I hear
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: it's a good strategic location to land troops and then
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: conduct an operation other than just getting there. No comment,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: but I want to talk to you about the World
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: Cup because you're in Mexico City right now. In the US,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of excitement, like I can't wait to
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: watch the games. I can't believe there's gonna be like
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: four games a day for weeks. It's madness. But some
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: of that excitement is tempered by crazy ticket prices, anxieties
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: about ice, anxieties about you know, visas and players getting
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: in general dislike of Trump. What's the vibe like in
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: Mexico right now in advance of the games?
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 5: You know, I've been saying, I think if this was
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 5: the Mexico twenty twenty six World Cup, this place would
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 5: be hum by now. You know, you have all of
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 5: the different teams here, you'd have kind of you know,
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 5: events from all of the different teams around their camps.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 5: There'd be this sort of buoyance. But unfortunately it isn't
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 5: like that yet. Now this's not long ago until kickoff.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 5: But you know, I think that people are looking at
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 5: some of the hassles and the obstacles to this point
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 5: more than they are the football so far. So specifically,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 5: there's been difficulties at the airport, rebuilding the airport from
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 5: you know, a sort of non functional parts of it,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 5: whether or not that's you know, queues to get your
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 5: luggage or taxis and things. It's just a very very
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 5: hassily experience to get in and out in Mexico City's
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 5: main airport. So they've done this major multimillion dollar refurbishment,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 5: but it's going on and on, and it's you know,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 5: it's really not got very much time left, and there
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 5: are still hassles there traffic in Mexico. As we know,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 5: they're a major protests planned by the teachers Union, by
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 5: transport workers, by the families of the disappeared. There's one
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 5: hundred and thirty thousand disappeared people in Mexico and their
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 5: families are really using this World Cup to say, look,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 5: you're doing all this security around this event, where's the
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 5: security when it comes to finding our missing loved ones,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 5: to bringing those who are believed to still be alive
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 5: and forced into working for the cartel's home and you know,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 5: dealing with this issue that we've been calling for for
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 5: years and years and years. And of course it was
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 5: only February when we saw cartel members on the streets
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 5: setting fire to vehicles, setting fire to stores, convenience stores,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 5: spreading fear and violence in twenty of the thirty two states.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 5: I don't think that that side of it will impact
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 5: incoming fans. I mean, it's simply not particularly good for
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 5: business from a cartel point of view to do something
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 5: like that, you know, to fans coming in to watch
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 5: football games. I don't think that will be in their
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 5: mindset at all. But nevertheless, it was a series security concern.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 5: It must be a worry for those who do have
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 5: tickets in their hand going how will that work out.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 5: I went to Monterey, which is one of them host cities,
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 5: and was shown all the security measures they're doing there
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 5: by the police and by the security forces. It's a
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 5: pretty major operation, and they're more focused on the natural
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 5: things that go with big soccer matches, big sporting events,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 5: like crowd control and petty petty theft and small episodes
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 5: of violence, rather than cartels. They're convinced that the cartels
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 5: won't be an issue. All of this back to original question,
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 5: how are people feeling? You know, there is there anticipation
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 5: and excitement. There's some and the more the we get closer,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 5: I think the greater the excitement. The hassle is that
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 5: there is just too many things going on. This is
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 5: a shared world cup with the Trump administration in charge
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 5: in the US at a time when relations are far
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 5: from great. It's this three countries, the sort of NAFTA
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 5: World Cup, and it's just not necessarily got the same
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 5: ability to coalesce kind of one nation around one idea,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 5: which is, hey, we're doing this. We're going to put
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 5: on the great show where it's Mexico in the eyes
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 5: of the world. You know, it's well, we've got less
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 5: than a third of the games, but still Mexicans are
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 5: fantastic hosts. They want this to go well. They want
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 5: to show their best side, they want this to be
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 5: best foot forward, and they want, I think, to show
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 5: that they can overcome these challenges. Particularly President Claudia Schembam.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 5: She has been a consistent voice saying this is going
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 5: to be fine. Not only fine, it's going to be great.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 5: We're going to do really well. Mexico be the bit
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 5: that everybody remembers. You know, this is going to be
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 5: a great World Cup. But yeah, the pushy's coming to
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 5: shove on.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: That right now. Yeah, clock is tick, and I guess
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: you know your first game is Thursday. I think it's
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: good to hear that. The concerns about cartel violence of lesson.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was talking to someone friend yesterday kind
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: of in the soccer media world who was telling me
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: about some of those things. I remember, you know, there
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: was some thinking that maybe the cartels could react to
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: government operations against their leadership at the games. I agree
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: with you, though, I mean, it seems like, boy, that's
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: a great way to have Donald Trump suddenly, you know,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: launching drone strikes on your operations wherever they may be.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: It's also kind of heartening to know that the US
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: isn't the only country where we inject politics into our
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: sports and try to make it complicated. For lack of
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: a better term, one way it's complicated, by the way,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: is the US is forcing the Iranian team to stay
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: in Mexico and fly back and forth to the US
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: for games. Is the Iranian team out and about doing
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: stuff at all? And is there any awareness or reaction
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: to that kind of general dickishness from the US Among Mexicans.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 5: I think they're very, very aware that they are hosting
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 5: the Iranian team around this World Cup, and that they're
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 5: up there in Tijuana right on the border, so that
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 5: they can at least get reasonably quickly to the games
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 5: in Los Angeles. But it's obviously a much bigger trip
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 5: up to their one game in Seattle and then back
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 5: and then obviously if they make it out of the
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 5: group stages then there are more logistical high schools beyond that.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 5: Claudus Shane Baum again was very kind of forthright about
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 5: this going. Look, fifas come to me and they've asked
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 5: me to do this. America is you know, got its
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 5: own question going on there. I don't agree with it.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 5: We have absolutely no problem in having the Ranians here.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 5: And she was pretty proud of that one. I think
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 5: to make sure that it was that thing that I mentioned,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 5: that hosting, that good host that you know, that welcoming
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 5: side of the Mexican society. So yes, there was quite
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 5: a lot of coverage of their arrival up and up
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 5: since then. Essentially, like all teams, they pretty much keep
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 5: a low profile their training. You're only allowed to see
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 5: a few minutes of them train if you're a journalist
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 5: accredited for that sort of stuff. Anyway, and I know
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 5: a lot of journalists have gone up to Tikwana to
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 5: see them, but I think they're trying probably now to
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 5: focus on the actual sport rather than the politics. It
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 5: must have been quite, you know, an exhausting experience to
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 5: get this point. I mean their flight alone I think
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 5: was Istanbul Madrid, you know, two one. It's a long
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 5: way round considering they're meant to be in in Arizona.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 5: But yeah, Mexicans are well aware of that side story
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 5: to the whole this drama.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: If you like, what a mess, just let the guys
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: in and let them play well at least they are
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: doing that dumb game, but always having forced the Italians
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: in and kick the Iranians out at one point and like,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: come on, I don't think the even the Italians were
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: like this is stupid. This is amazing for us. Will Graham,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: thank you for joining the show. I've been a huge
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: fan of your work on the BBC for a very
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: long time, so it's great to finally get to talk
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: with you and hopefully get to go to a game.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely, I'm accredited and I'm hoping to see inside
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 5: the Azteca for that kickoff. That'll be fun. Mine a
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 5: bit split in my house. If England win their group
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 5: stage and then their first match and Mexico do the
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 5: knockout match and Mexico do the same, then it could
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 5: be England, Mexico and the Azteco, which would be chef's kiss.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 5: But my kids are Mexicans, so this house will be
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 5: a tricky one.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say a house divided will not stand,
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: but yeah, well hopefully we get there. That'd be a
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: health good match anyway. Thank you, Will appreciate your time,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: genuine plecture. Thanks again, Will grat for joining the show,
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: and thanks you guys for listening, and talk to you
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: guys next week. Pose of the World is a Crooky
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: Media production. Our show is produced by Alone Minkoffski, Michael
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: Goldsmith and Nisha Bonnergy. Our team includes Matt de Grope
• 1:26:23
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• 1:26:28
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