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Far Right Freaks Freak Over Migrants in Spain · Pod Save the World

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  Speaker 1: sharp zbiotics dot com slash PSTW code PSTW for fifteen
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  Speaker 1: percent off. Welcome back to Pods of the World. I'm
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  Speaker 1: Tommy Betor, I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben. You're in New York City?
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Are there Mumdanni's sponsored gangs roving the streets? Or how
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: is it these days? As livable? Is Bill Lackman still
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: even there?
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  Speaker 3: I think there's, you know, a noticeable absence on the
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Upper East Side of people who fled to Florida for
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: their sake of their second homes. But no, it's a
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: fairly friendly place. There's Nick's gear everywhere. It's like still
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: feels like it's basketball season. It's nice, people are happy,
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: people are being kind to each other. I think the
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Mumdannie ethos has prevailed here.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not as mad at the next as I am
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: at the Sixers right now, because you've stole Jalen Brown
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: from my Celtics, and you gave us Paul George, who
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: is a terrible contract and he sucks. But no one
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: wants to hear us talk about this, so we'll move
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: on before we have to explore my pain. We got
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: a great show for you today, though. We're going to
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  Speaker 1: talk about the migration crisis that both Spain and Morocco
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  Speaker 1: have been dealing with over the past week or so
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  Speaker 1: and how it has exploded through Europe and is being
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  Speaker 1: weaponized by conservative politicians and in conservative media. We'll update
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: you on all the latest with Iran, where there's threats
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: of war, crimes, cyber attacks. Much more more things changed,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the more they stay the same. Ben, We're going to
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: talk about some announcements about a deal in Gaza. Consider
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: us skeptical that those are going to come to be.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: It's very easy to put something out of true social
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: target to execute. We're going to explain why the US
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: bought billions of dollars worth of Japanese yen and why
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: that's pretty worrisome. Actually, we'll talk about the massive scandal
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: engulfing FIFA. Yet another scandal in golfing FIFA. The good
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: people put on the World Cup soccer tournament. And then
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: you're going to hear my interview with Casey Michelle about
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: his new book, United States of Oligarchy, How America's wealthiest
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: ally with dictators weaken the US and destroy democracy. I
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: think the title probably gives you a good sense of
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: what the book is about.
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  Speaker 3: Ben, I was going to say, like I thought I
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: had a subtitle like that one.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: It's good. People need to know what the books about.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: That's right. Books, that's right. We talk about some real
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: close friends of the show, your Kushner's, Jared, your wit Coff, Steve.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: We get into the way autocrats and dictators are bribing
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: their way to policy success. It's a very important subject.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I think I know you do too, Ben. It's not
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: just corruption is bad because it's illegal. It's a corruption
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: is actually weakening the foundation of our democracy in some
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: fundamental ways that Casey studies deeply. I think it's a
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: great book and worth reading because there's actually a roadmap
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: in there for how Democrats should respond if we win
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: back the House and you know, in Hillah, the Senate.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think corruption is now like the
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: system under which America in the world operates. It's not
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: like a you know, corruption of the system. It is
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: actually how things are working. Case in point, Jared and
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: wit Goffer negotiating the Iran thing that we'll talk about, FIFA,
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: we'll talk about like you can understand what's happening in
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: the world right now. If you don't understand corruption, oligarchy,
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: so well worth people's time.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely stay tuned. All right, Well, let's turn to Spain,
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  Speaker 1: because if you've consumed even a few minutes of Fox
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  Speaker 1: News rather conservative media over the past week, you've almost
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  Speaker 1: certainly seen images of migrants flooding into the Spanish enclave
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  Speaker 1: of Seyuta. I'm also willing to bet that the coverage
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  Speaker 1: you watch on conservative media did not mention that Seyuta
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  Speaker 1: is not on the European continent. It's actually Northern Africa.
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  Speaker 1: But I digress. So, like I said, it's say, it's
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  Speaker 1: a small city. It's about eighty four thousand people in
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  Speaker 1: northern Africa. Spain has governed it since fifteen eighty. It's
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  Speaker 1: one of these two remaining small Spanish cities on the
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  Speaker 1: African continent, which means that the European Union actually has
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  Speaker 1: two land borders with Morocco. But the thing to know
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  Speaker 1: is that you know, to actually get to Europe proper,
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  Speaker 1: migrants have to go through passport controls. You have to
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  Speaker 1: cross the Mediterranean, so it's not like crossing our southern
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  Speaker 1: border where you're just sort of like in the Shenzen
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  Speaker 1: Zone and able to move around like you're still in
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  Speaker 1: the continent of Africa. Starting on July thirtieth, an estimated
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  Speaker 1: sixty to I think seventy two thousand migrants cross from
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  Speaker 1: Morocco into Seta. They either cut holes in the border
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  Speaker 1: fence or many of them swam around the border fence
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  Speaker 1: in the ocean, from like a Moroccan beach to a
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  Speaker 1: Spanish beach. The majority of migrants were Moroccan men, there
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  Speaker 1: were some families and children. Spain says that nearly all
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  Speaker 1: of those who cross it up been returned, with the
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  Speaker 1: exception of a few thousand individuals. Ada fatalities, most by drowning.
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  Speaker 1: There's been some debate as to what happened. Why was
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  Speaker 1: there this flood of migrants all at once. We're gonna
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  Speaker 1: explain some likely causes, then we'll get down to the
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  Speaker 1: kind of like more likely to be disinformation causes that
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  Speaker 1: you're seeing on the internet. The first is economic conditions generally,
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  Speaker 1: so the youth unemployment in Morocco is at thirty seven percent.
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  Speaker 1: Per capita income in Morocco is forty six hundred dollars
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  Speaker 1: compared to Spain's thirty eight thousand dollars. People are pissed
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  Speaker 1: at the government, the government spending all this money on
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  Speaker 1: the next World Cup tournament stadiums while their lives aren't improving.
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  Speaker 1: But if you protest like the gen Z protesters did
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  Speaker 1: in Morocco, you get to shit kicked out of you.
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  Speaker 1: Then there's another bucket of Spain's immigration policy under a
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  Speaker 1: prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, who's from the left. Back in April,
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  Speaker 1: Sanchez announced an amnesty program for undocumented migrants to allow
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  Speaker 1: certain migrants to apply for a one year work visa
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  Speaker 1: in residents permit. This is mostly actually for migrants from
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  Speaker 1: Latin America or South and Central America who knows Spanish
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  Speaker 1: and who got to Spain legally but just overstaid work visas.
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  Speaker 1: They expected about half a million applicants that got one
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  Speaker 1: point two million, and it pissed off a lot of
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  Speaker 1: other countries in the EU that are worried about immigration
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  Speaker 1: and far right parties weaponizing it. And then there was
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  Speaker 1: a ruling by the Spanish Supreme Court that was misinterpreted
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  Speaker 1: to mean that migrants arriving in Spain by sea could
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  Speaker 1: not be deported right. And then finally the role of
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  Speaker 1: the Moroccan government. There have been reports that the Moroccan
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  Speaker 1: military was waving migrants through, or that there just weren't
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  Speaker 1: border patrol guards at the fence that separates the two areas.
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  Speaker 1: Then it was just very easy to kind of like
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  Speaker 1: walk up to the fence, climb out onto rocks, swim
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  Speaker 1: around the fence, and then get to Spain. There's been
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  Speaker 1: a history of Morocco using immigration as a's told to
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  Speaker 1: punish Spain. In twenty twenty one, Moroccans were pissed that
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  Speaker 1: Spain allowed leaders of a rebel group into the country
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  Speaker 1: for medical treatment. And then we're accused of letting ten
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  Speaker 1: thousand migrants into Seouta in retaliation. So that all brings
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  Speaker 1: us to the kind of fringy Israel did it theory.
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  Speaker 1: Now there's some context here that makes this relevant. Well,
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  Speaker 1: First of all, Morocco and Algeria, they don't get along.
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  Speaker 1: Morocco claims sovereignty over the Western Sahara by alt while
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  Speaker 1: Algeria supports a rebel group called the Polisario. As part
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  Speaker 1: of the Abraham Accords, Israel's deal with Morocco, the US
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  Speaker 1: recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Safara Western Sahara. Algeria
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  Speaker 1: did not like that. Also, Spain's been a pre vocal
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  Speaker 1: critic of Israel's conduct in Gaza end of the war
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  Speaker 1: in Iran. I've seen Israeli media and commentators have suggested
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  Speaker 1: that one way Israel could punish Spain is via Seyuta
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  Speaker 1: in migration. But you know, this theory exploded on social media.
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  Speaker 1: But frankly, it's probably that has more to do with
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  Speaker 1: just a lot of commentators dislike ining Israeli government than
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  Speaker 1: anything Israel actually did. Hear. Regardless, ben right wing politicians
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  Speaker 1: leapt to politicize this issue. Here's a clip of President
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  Speaker 1: Trump in far right Reform UK leader Nigel Faraj both
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  Speaker 1: talking about it.
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  Speaker 5: You know, I saw Spain yesterday and I watched the
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  Speaker 5: catastrophe that took place. It was a it looks like
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  Speaker 5: an invasion of a country, right, hundreds of thousands of people,
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  Speaker 5: and that same thing is going to happen to us
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  Speaker 5: if the Republicans sell get elected.
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  Speaker 4: If we're not in office, our.
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  Speaker 5: Country will be invaded at levels that made Spain look small. Guy.
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  Speaker 5: That's going to be a talking point for the big.
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  Speaker 6: Terms, believe me. And let's we get a reform government.
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  Speaker 6: Those scenes you're seeing in Spain today, many of those
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  Speaker 6: young men, lots of them dangerous, will be heading towards
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  Speaker 6: Calais and coming to oh country too.
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  Speaker 1: Ice Farrage always in the woods for no reason.
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  Speaker 4: Ben, Sorry, where's in the shire?
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Or like we'sn Yeah, sorry for the long wind up there.
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  Speaker 1: I want to get your sense of how potent the
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  Speaker 1: political issue is. I mean, it's hard not to think
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  Speaker 1: back to twenty fifteen in Germany and the Syrian migrant crisis,
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  Speaker 1: and then the reaction you've seen by you know, EU
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  Speaker 1: countries and how they're handling this.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know about the This kind of you know,
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  Speaker 3: remind me, Tommy. It remind me of like the caravan,
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  Speaker 3: you know, playing the hits from the first Trump presidency.
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  Speaker 3: Before the twenty eighteen midterms, we saw all this Fox
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  Speaker 3: coverage of some massive caravan that was making its way.
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  Speaker 3: I think that, look, there's a potency to anti immigrant politics.
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  Speaker 3: There's a potency on the far right to images of
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  Speaker 3: migrants trying to make it into Europe. I don't doubt,
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: and we should talk about the way in which we've
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: already seen far right parties beyond just Trump and Farage
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  Speaker 3: try to take advantage of it. That said, there's a
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: big difference from twenty fIF team, which is, whatever you
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: think about what happened in twenty fifteen, there actually were
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: a huge influx of migrants and refugees into Europe. These
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: people did not make it to mainland Spain, and so
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: there's not like a real shift in the demographics of
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  Speaker 3: Europe or any countries right. So to me, this feels
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  Speaker 3: much more like the caravan, where it's like, this is scary,
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  Speaker 3: these people are coming. We have to stop them, you know,
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  Speaker 3: if you don't vote for us, like they'll make it
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  Speaker 3: here and it'll be terrible. But it's not like there
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  Speaker 3: actually are these people now in mainland Spain or in
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  Speaker 3: the Shenzen Zone of Europe where they can move around.
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  Speaker 3: So I kind of feel like it's more in the
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  Speaker 3: political stunt category of things now. That said, I thought
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  Speaker 3: what was interesting is, you know, the AfD, for instance,
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: the europe the German far right party that we've talked about.
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  Speaker 3: This was kind of tailor made in the laboratory for them,
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  Speaker 3: because they got to say, this is the influx of
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: migrants is coming.
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  Speaker 4: Israel's behind it, you know.
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  Speaker 3: So there's this kind of hidden hand of great, great
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: replacement theory kind of to a te right is. I'm
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: sure Tucker Carlson will make some of this like somehow
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: Israel is facilitating a migrant invasion, the Jews want to
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: replace us with the brown people. Like so, I do
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: worry that this is going to kind of live on
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: in the darker recesses of far right politics in Europe.
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  Speaker 3: But the facts are just not what anybody's saying, Like
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  Speaker 3: Trump said hundreds of thousands, that's not true. They're suggesting
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  Speaker 3: these people are like walking around Madrid when they're actually
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: in like a Spanish Spanish enclave of North Africa, and
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  Speaker 3: most of them have been returned to Morocco already. I
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: do think that, you know, look, I don't know that
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: the Israeli government had anything to do with this. It
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: probably didn't. It is the case that Spain is this
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: kind of whipping boy for Trump and net Yahoo.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: And concern other rights politicians.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, because the positions they've taken on Palestine because
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: of the positions they've taken on immigration. So I think
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: it's also like the juiciest target imaginable because it's Spain.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: You know, if it was Italy, they probably wouldn't be
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: making as much noise. But yeah, I think that the
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: facts actually matter in the sense that part of what
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: led to some backlash after twenty fifteen is there actually
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: were millions of Syrian refugees and other refugees from Africa
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: and Asia coming into Europe, like that's that's not happening here. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: So their ability to continue to freak people out, they'll
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: be able to motivate their own people. But I don't
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: think that this is going to be like, you know,
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: a swing issue for people in the middle because there's
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: no new people there.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I meant more like kind of the media
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: political reaction for a fell ten fifteen. But you're right
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: on the merits. I mean, from January to June, illegal
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: immigration to Spain is down over thirty two percent from
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: that same period the previous year. And we're talking about
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: like small totals. That's like a total of twelve thousand
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: people in six months, which I think shows you how
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: much of an outlier actually the Seiuta situation was, where
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: you had you know, sixty thousand and seventy thousand people
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: flooding across a border in you know, like a week.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: What's really happening is Spain and Italy are mostly dealing
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: with the arrivals of boats from Africa and it's sort
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: of a continent wide problem. And again, you know, I
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: think a lot of these European countries were not about
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: this amnesty program because they thought it might draw more
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: people to Europe generally because they're trying to get to Spain.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: But again it was supposed to be for like overstays
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: of visas for workers from Latin America. You are seeing
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: a reaction though, I mean, you know, the Italians were
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: pretty hard out of the gate, like essentially saying they're
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: going to cut off, you know, certain ties with Spain.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: France started increasing checks on a Spanish border. I mean,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: it was just interesting, Like in Italy you have Georgia Maloney,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: who's a far right leader who's worried about an even
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: further far right party challenging her, and then the rest
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: of the year about like the social democratic parties to
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: ecent they exist anymore, or like Macron, the kind of
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: squishy middle parties are all flipped out about the far
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: right winning future elections, so they all reacted pretty strongly,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: although over time I think the kind of political response
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: from Europe evolved to praising Sanchez for his like kind
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: of swift handling and expulsion of all these migrants. And
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: it's just we're saying, like, when these people got to Seyjuta,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: they were greeted with nothing. They didn't have food, they
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: didn't have water. Again, like a nearly one hundred people died.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: They were exhausted, right, you know, they're swimming in the ocean,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: trying to get a better life for themselves, and basically
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: they were met with a military response and kicked out
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: of the country as fast as Spain could get them
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: out of there. So it's hardly a story that I
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: think others will want to replicate if you're thinking about migrating.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and look the human tragedies, like the people who drowned,
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: the people that probably lost things along the way, these
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: people that were just seeking better life and didn't get it.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: I will say Tommy, like I don't.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, I spent a lot of time with this
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: story just like you, because it was everywhere on life
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: and I'm not here to like validate a conspiracy theory.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: There are videos of the Moroccans kind of waving these
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: people there. It seemed like there was some beef with
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Sanchez from Morocco somewhere involved in Thiscans.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: This scale facilitated this.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you could not have this scale of people just
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden getting through like this if Morocco
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: wasn't facilitating that. And I do think it's pretty dark
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: when countries like weaponize migration like this, And I do
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: think it's important to kind of frankly get Pedro Sanchez
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: back here, like his amnesty policy had nothing to do
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: with this. And in fact, as you point out, his
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: amnesty policy has been good for the people that have
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: been able to work, it's been good for the Spanish
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: economy which needs those workers, and it has not done
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: anything to drive up the levels of immigration.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: Quite the opposite, they've actually come down.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: And so I think part of what is happening here
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: too that should be called out is that people are
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: seeking to delegitimize alternative approaches to immigration. You know, Sanchez
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: has a more humane approach that it has an amnesty
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: component that is not dissimilar from like a pathway to
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: citizenship in the United States, which I think should be
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: a part of any solution to the immigration issues that
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: the United States has. And people like Trump and people
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: like Farage and people like the AFT and people like
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: Maloney like relentlessly want to delegitimize anything other than the
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: most hardline approach, and so I think it's important to
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: speak up in defense of Spain and how they've handled
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: not just this, but how they've handled immigration generally.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: And I think it's pretty dark.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know what Morocco was doing the Israel nexus,
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Like we have to be careful obviously, Like this is
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: immediately going to be turned in the darkest version of
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: the great replacement theory.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's what happens. There's also a lot of Russian disinformation.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I think we're pushing kind of narratives around this issue,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: and I think that freaked out some people in Europe,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: some European leaders.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: It did because it can get out of control really fast.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: But it's also a reason why you shouldn't have Israeli
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: political figures musing on television that they're going to punish
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: Spain I mean that's something that happened, right, So people
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: can find these clips of these commentators in Israel, you know,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: talking about how they need to punish Sanchez in Spain
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: for this recognition of Palestine.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: And then yeah, I see was talking about it, like, yeah,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: it's not a was not like a totally fringe thing,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: like there was some there was it was.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: It wasn't without like some basis in like I don't know,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: videos people can watch. Yes, doesn't mean that it happened
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: that way though, you know. And but I think that that,
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: like punishing Spain for being progressive, is clearly a part
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: of some of the motivation of some of the people
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: involved in this, like Trump, right, Like I don't think
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: he'd be doing this if it was Italy.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Well, it was because Spain opposed the war in Iran.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: It's more than anything for him.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, posted warn Iran they wouldn't let the US US
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: bases neither. By the way, with Italy, you know, they've
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: obviously been outspoken on Palestine.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: You know, I guess they won the World Cup.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: That Speaking of the World Cup, like it was not
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: long ago that all of Spain was cheering on a
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: player named Nico Williams, whose parents walked three thousand kilometers
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: across the Sahara to a similar but different city where
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: they climbed a border fence, lied and said they were
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Liberian to seek asylum. And then you know, decades later
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: they have two kids actually who are playing professional soccer
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: in span one of whom was a star on the
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Spanish national team that just won the World Cup. So,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: you know, a reminder that we like immigration in certain
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: contexts Spain and everybody else. But one reason then, you know,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I think all of us are we watched Trump's comments there,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: We're not. I don't feel great about the way he
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: or the State Department is going to handle this. One
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: other reason to give you pause. So there was a
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: recent conference in Rio Is called the Age twenty twenty
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: six conference. There was a guy named Jeff Graham, who's
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the head of PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: relief program, displayed a map of Africa highlighting six countries,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: all of which were misplaced on the continent. Nigeria was landlocked,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: the Ivory Coast was on Africa's east coast. Mozambique was
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: in the Horn of Africa for some reason, so just
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: you know, shout out to open AI which clear generated
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: this map, but also shout out to Marco Rubio State
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Department for like, you know, really being the attention to
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: details there could work.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: The thing about this is this was like a stupid era,
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: and these aren't hard countries to identify, even like even
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: if you couldn't identify every single country in Africa, like
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: you know, Nigeria, because like, these are not difficult. But
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: the reason it hits harder is there's a history here
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: of Trump calling Africa you know, shithole countries, of Trump
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: letting in white South Africans and saying there's a white
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: genocide happening in South Africa, of Trump boycotting the G
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: twenty in South Africa because of the alleged white genocide
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: that's not happening, of zeroing out USC Idea, of basically
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: just relentlessly indicating you don't give a shit about Africa
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: while demonizing, you know, any migrants that come from there.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: So these things land harder, like in a normal administration,
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: be like what a dumb fucking thing, And this one
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: it's like, what the proof point that these people are
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: racist assholes?
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah? That's like, oh yeah, these dumb racist idio literally
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: don't care about us and yeah it is in fact true.
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  Speaker 1: or use the code World at checkout. All right, Ben,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: let's do a quick update on Iran, where it's you know,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: war crimes Groundhog Day. So last week Trump basically threatened
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: to wipe Aroan off the map again. The New York
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Post counted and said this was his thirteenth such ultimatum.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: It's good good reporting there. Then he backed down, which
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: is obviously a good thing. Probably it's likely that Trump
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: back down because he got a call from Ahumbed and Salmon,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the Crunp Prince of Saudi Arabia, or other Gulf autocrats
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: that have given him bribes. Trump also tried to claim
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: that the US and Iran were close to cutting a
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: deal to reopen the strait, and then on the nuclear program,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: I don't believe that for a second, and then he
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: whined when the Iranians contradicted him. Again, We're not going
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: to go into all the details of this back and
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: forth because it's just so tedious and repetitive, and this
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: is like the cycle we're stuck in. But a few
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: things that are important that we want to update you on.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: So first, there was a Reuters report that the US
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: has used quote virtually all of its precision strike missiles
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: during the war with Iran, so we're almost out of
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: attack of missiles. Remember those were a big topic of
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: discussion around Ukraine. We're almost out of precision strike missiles
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: and the US has used about half of the US
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: talk pile of Tomahawk missiles, which you know, there's wargame
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: estimates of what would happen in the US China war.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: I think under like when we're fully when the stockpile
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: is full, We're out of Tomahawk missiles in a week,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: So being down to half of that stockpile means we're
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: screwed if we get into a fight with China. Iran
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: and Oman are reportedly working on a deal to oversee
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: control of the Strait of Hormuz going forward. The gist
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: is that ships entering the strait will have to use
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: this route controlled by the Iranians that are close to
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Iran's shore. Ships exiting the strait will pass closer to
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: this US preferred route on Oman's coast, and then Oman
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: in Iran would split revenues from a service fee, which
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Trump will try to claim is not the same thing
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: as a toll, but is obviously the same thing as
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: a toll. Just for fun, Ben, here is Marco Rubio,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Secretary of State. Is he still the archivist? I think
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: he lost that job, right he got fired as ARGEI yeah,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: and Nation Scurity Visor now security, but yeah, that one.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: He's talking about the importance of freedom of navigation at
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: an event just last month.
• 24:41
  Speaker 8: If we create a precedent in the Middle East where
• 24:45
  Speaker 8: a nation state can decide that they are going to
• 24:47
  Speaker 8: control an international waterway, charge a toll and if you
• 24:50
  Speaker 8: don't pay them, blow up your ships, we have created
• 24:53
  Speaker 8: a very dangerous precedent which will repeat itself in other
• 24:56
  Speaker 8: parts of the world, including in this region. So what
• 24:59
  Speaker 8: does that stake here is not simply the issue of
• 25:01
  Speaker 8: what's happening in the Straits of Hormuz. It's a very
• 25:03
  Speaker 8: fundamental principle about freedom of navigation and if that is threatened,
• 25:07
  Speaker 8: then I think the global economy is threatened, and the
• 25:10
  Speaker 8: rules which have underpinned one hundred and fifty years of
• 25:12
  Speaker 8: international trade and commerce are also threatened, and that cannot
• 25:16
  Speaker 8: be allowed to happen.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Remember that one going forward, remember those comments. And then finally, Ben,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: there's these reports that Iranian hackers or Iranian link hackers
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: have infiltrated municipal water systems in at least seven states.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: The first state to sound the alarm was Minnesota, where
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: hackers got into about three dozen municipal water systems. Minnesota
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: then went public with this that clearly helped other states
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: kind of look into what was happening there and identified
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: that they too had been hacked. And here is how
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: President Trump thanked Minnesota for this good work at a
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: press event recently. Let's watch, can you rule out that
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: are On is behind that soccer?
• 25:56
  Speaker 9: Minnesota is behind it? You know it's behind it to
• 25:59
  Speaker 9: Minnesota because it grossly in job. But I think the
• 26:02
  Speaker 9: governor's are not a policy. I don't think there was
• 26:04
  Speaker 9: an a rending cybertech. I think that Minnesota ought to
• 26:08
  Speaker 9: get his sacked together.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: So US intelligence thinks that Iran was hacking municipal water
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: systems in the US. Donald Trump thinks it was Tim Walls,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: who looks to me like, you know, he knows his
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: way around a computer. So Ben. There's reports that Sencom
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: has on the shelf an intensive two week military campaign
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: if things go south in these negotiations. CNN reported that
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Sentcom sent out a blast email to its team saying
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: it was quote looking for creative and unconventional ways to
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: pressure and punish Iran. The big old brainstorm here on
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: the war. At this point, I don't really know what's
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: left to say about this conflict other than that Trump
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: has lost it and it's time to move on. But
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: how concerned. Are you about the cyber attack element that
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: seems new and kind of scary.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd be concerned. I mean, there's a few different
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: things to say here. First of all, I do want
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: to say one thing with Marco Rubio. He immens the
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: precedent being set by a power trying to control waterways
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: at the same time that he Mark Rubio is supervising
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: a total blockade of any ships reaching.
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: Cuba with oil.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Good point.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: So Mark Rubio is actually, in addition to being an
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: idiot who's made to look like a fool day by
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: day because Donald Trump contradict him on their on talks,
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: he also is like wildly violating his own rule when
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: it comes to the free flow shipping, when it comes
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: to Cuba, the attacks, the idea of the US being
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: almost out of these precisions. I mean, this is again
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: like because Congress is so ineffectual and the Pentagon doesn't
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: tell us anything.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: I know, we say this every week.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: We have the cost of this wars is staggering, and
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: it's hundreds of billions of dollars, and it's replacing all
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: these weapons systems, and it's fixing all these bases, and
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: it's caring for all these wounded service members.
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: We don't know how badly wounded they are.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: It's all these things, and this kind of reinforces the
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: price tag of this thing is just much higher than
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: they're telling us. And it's frankly, you know, I'm not
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: like mister readiness over here, but it's never good when
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: you run out of weapons, particularly defensive ones. It's just
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: another stupid and they'll try to blame like Ukraine. I've
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: seen them try to blame Biden forgiving the sistance of Ukraine. Look,
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: if you didn't launch a stupid war, we wouldn't be
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: running out of these things. So if I was a Democrat,
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't have a problem taking that fight. On Now,
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: on what's happening, I think the basic simple thing that
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: people need to keep in mind is that because the
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: United States has far more to lose from chaos from
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: global economic shortages than Iran, we lose any escalation battle.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: And if you look at what the irradiance have done recently,
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: they've shown that they have different ways to escalate. So
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: after this kind of latest round began, you saw them
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: attack Jordan and Kuwait and expose the fact that there
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: are less defenses that if they expand the map of
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: the countries that they're willing to attack to basically be
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: anybody that hosts any US military facility in the Middle East.
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: There's just not enough defensive weapons in the world.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: To protect all those places, so that inevitably, if the
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: US does its big two weak show force here, there's
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: going to be a lot of damage and a lot
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: of destruction, yeah, and a lot of death tragically in
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: these other countries. And so these leaders are surely calling
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: Trump and being like, don't escalate. They're going to rain
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: down havoc on us. And never mind the fact that
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: the continued shortages to the Strait of hor moves and
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: disruptions and all these different markets is going to hurt
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: the American economy and the Iranian economy has been ground
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: to a halt by blockade and sanctions for a long time.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: They can weather that the Ranians have a pretty sophisticated
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: cyber capability.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: So the idea and the Ranians are very reciprocal. So
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: the idea that if you.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Bomb our water supply in Iran, we'ren't launch cyber attacks
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: to disrupt your water supply in the United States. I
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: believe that and So what the Irunians keep demonstrating is
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: like escalation. There's not some level of escalation that the
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: United States can reach that isn't gonna end up hurting
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: the United States more than the Iranians, because we just
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: have more to lose than they do, and our friends
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: and partners and allies, whatever we're gonna call them, the
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: millies have more to lose than the Ruanians do. So
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: every time this thing ratchets back up, it's worse for
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: us than it is for the Rundians. And there's just
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: not some magic list of targets here. There's not something
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: we can hit in Iran that we haven't. Like, I mean,
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: we hit everything on the.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Target list, and the fish hit it. I mean's yeah,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: we hit it.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: So what are we doing now?
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: The only thing left is war crimes or hitting the
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: same ship we've already hit, which I think is a
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: lot of what we've been doing with these air strikes.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: And I do want to say, like, and I've said
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: this before, but like there's this kind of reflexive thing
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: where we're like, well, the military is doing a great job.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: It's just I don't I'm not I don't know that
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: I'm sure that that men and women that are like
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: told to do difficult things are.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: Doing a great job executing orders.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: But like, I don't know what the fuck Sencom's strategy
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: is in this war.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: There's a thing called the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Their
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: job is war planning. I'm sure Sencom is very much
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: in on that game too when it comes to Iran.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: If you're doing a no bad ideas in a brainstorm
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: all staff email for like, yo, how do we win
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: the Iran war? It does suggest that the planning wasn't
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: quite as good as it might have been, or you
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: would have wanted it to be.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you put, you should have done that before. And
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: now to be sympathetic, they don't know what their mission is, Tommy.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Like they're told, hey, destroy as much of the Rani
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: nuclear program from the air as you can. Well they've
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: done that. Yeah, they bombed all the targets. I mean,
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: maybe haven't bombed this mountain where they maybe predictably moved
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: all this stuff.
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: Like, but I mean they've emptied the kit on the
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: nuclear program.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: They were told to topple the Iranian government, Well you
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: can't do that with airstrikes. Now they're being told, well,
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: like reopen the straight ofform moves when Iran is right
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: next to the straight ofform moves. And so there's just
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: not some military option that we're gonna pull out of
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: a hat like six months into the war that's gonna
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: make Iran come out and capitulate.
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: Everybody knows that. And that's why.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: You know, when Trump says the Iranians are desperate to talk,
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: that means Trump is desperate to talk. When Trump says
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: we're only talking to the Omanis, well, that means he's
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: talking to the Amanis who are talking to the Iranians.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: Like He's just gas lighting and lying his way through
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: this thing and hoping that enough people who watch Fox
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: News like believe that these the Iranians are begging for talks.
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: That's clearly not what's happening.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: And I think one of the things we had to
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: get acclimated to is that there may never be a
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: deal because the Iranians may just decide like, we don't
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: need a deal. I mean, you know, maybe there'll be
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: some deal like where they essentially are making a toll
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: on the straight Orfom moves. But even if that doesn't happen,
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: I think the Runians are like well, we're going to
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: find a way to extract some revenue from that straight
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: and the Americans will move on and you know, maybe
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: invade some other country and and that's it.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: The Americans lost this war. Trump has lost.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: This war is not going well. Speaking of war is
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: not going well. Let's turn to Gaza. Last week, Trump
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: posted the following quote. Today, the Board of Peace reached
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: a historic agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: other armed groups in Gaza. This is a monumental step
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: towards lasting peace and security. The agreement will be carried
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: out in a carefully structured phases. As disarmament is completed,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: as rarely, forces will withdraw in. The International Stabilization Force
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: will work with a new Palestinian Police Force to take
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: responsibility for Gaza being saved, for its residents and its neighbors.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: End quote. So as with all Trump announcements or claims
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: generally of progress in Gaza, we are quite skeptical. Here's
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: a couple reasons for that skepticism. First, a member of
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: the Hamas negotiating team told the Wall Street Journal the
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: following quote. We didn't say disarmament, We didn't say handing
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: over the weapons, and we didn't agree on any Israeli involvement.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: So other than that, mister Trump, the accurate statement. That
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: same negotiator told CNN that the weapons would not be
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: decommissioned or destroyed. Rather, the plan is to put them
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: in storage supervised by this technocratic National Committee for the
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Administration of Gaza. However, that committee has been blocked from
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: uring Gaza by Israel and remains just like they're sitting
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: in Cairo or somewhere in Egypt. There's also this dynamic
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: where the Israelis want Hamas to go first. Hamas wants
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: the Israelis to go first. So Hamas wants Israel to
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: withdraw from parts of Gaza that it is currently occupying
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: and then let more aidens of Gaza before they will disarm.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: But no one expects net and Yahoo to do any
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: of that before his October election, So the most likely
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: outcome is just kind of the status quo. Then you have,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: you know, net Yahoo being pretty silent about this deal
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: while the far right attacks it. We know that historically
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: net Yaho always tax right when he is in political distress,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: and then we should say, like the Ideaf has been
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: pounding Gaza. I mean there's been like a thousand plus
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: people killed since the quote unquote ceasefire that everyone celebrated.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: There thirty people have been killed since this just new
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: deal was announced. So like it doesn't you know, it's
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: not a very not a lot of ceasing to fire.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of firing happening by the idea of
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: so been big picture like life hell for people in Gaza.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: You have millions of people live in intentse Israel restricts
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: the entry of the most basic things you would need
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: to do reconstruction. The water systems are broken, you know,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: people are getting sick from drinking just basic water. Medical
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: infrastructure is decimated and in short supply and still getting bombed.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: There are disease outbreaks, you know, I'm sure you've seen
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: the photos I have of just babies with like chicken pox,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: like just like horrendous stuff. And so you're in this
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: weird place where obviously we want this ceasefire to work,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: we want things to improve for people living in Gaza
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: and for Hamas threat from Hamasa just to not exist
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: for Israelies. But it just feels like this entire kind
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: of board of peace process is distracting everyone from doing
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: the actual work that is needed to make life better
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: for people or push the process forward, and instead we're
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: just kind of stuck.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: I mean, this announcement kind of came out of nowhere.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: And look, it's just a factual point that I would
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: not stake anything on this happening. I mean, immediately you
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: have Hamas and Israel backtracking from this announcement that they
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: didn't really make, like Trump announced it on true social
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: and like the Board of Peace put out a statement.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: And so if neither party that actually has to take
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: action says that they're willing to take that action, then
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: what the fuck are we actually announcing here, right, And like,
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: what's the point of doing it now other than the
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: fact that the border piece has done precisely nothing since
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: it was inaugurated.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: So I'd be very unfortunately.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: Skeptical that this is going to happen because Hamas is
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: not going to disarm if Israel doesn't withdraw, and Israel's
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: not going to withdraw, and so I don't really know what.
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: We're talking about here.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: I will say something interesting, Tommy, which is people are
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: onto this now.
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: You know, if you think about it.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: The first time there was an announcement of the gods
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: a ceasefire. Like everybody in the world showed up for
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: the photo op with Trump in Egypt. Member, and you
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: add all these European leaders zero sucking after Trump for
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: some reason.
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: I think you had Infentino that AFIFA was there.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: I think actually, and you know, credulous press coverage, remember
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: the sixty minutes you know, puff piece on Jared and
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: would cost diplomatic breakthrough.
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: Well, what have people seen.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: They've seen that there have been like thousands of Israeli
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: air strikes on Gaza. There's been no disarmament of a moss.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: There's been not the amount of aid getting in that
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: was supposed to get in.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: We've all seen Net and Yahoo tell the IDF to
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: take more territory in Gaza, to take over seventy percent.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: So I do think there's something interesting about the fact
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: that nobody took this seriously. I mean except I saw
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: APAC put out a statement demanding that we all welcome it.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: But I mean, like, there's there's not like a credulous
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: media or international diplomatic response to this. And I do
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: think that shows that Trump's kind of smoke and mirrors
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: true social announced something before anything is agreed and get
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: all the credit doesn't work anymore, like we are we
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: were one place in because I think that Gaza ceasefire was.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: About one year ago.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: It was like standing was plummeted.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, his political standing in the world is plummeted, and
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: that's important.
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: Like this, this game doesn't work.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: It maybe it works on Fox News, maybe works with
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: Jesse Watters in the five or whatever, but like it
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: no longer travels in the world. And and I know,
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: as much as I wish that what he's posting was true,
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: I think that's healthy that like he can no longer
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: be this kind of wizard of oz like conducting however
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: he acts, and everybody's pretending like he solved problems that
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: he hasn't.
• 38:43
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• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Japan and the Japanese yen for a bit.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: We can talk about a fallout from the Iran War. Here,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: you guys might have seen a Reuter's photo from last
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: week of Treasury Secretary Scott Best Unusual to do list.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: This is from Friday. It said to do buy Japanese
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: yen five to ten bill billion, a little different than
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: my to do list. Then it turns out that what
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: this was referencing is the US and Tokyo work together
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: to buy tens of billions of dollars worth of Japanese currency,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: the yen, which recently hit its weakest level against the
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: dollars since the mid nineteen eighties. Now you might be
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: wondering why on earth would the United States do that?
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: A couple of reasons. First of all, Japan owns nearly
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: one point two trillion dollars worth of US treasury bills.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: They also own like billions of stocks and other US assets.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: If Japan started dumping US treasury bills to raise money
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: to buy yen, then it would increase the yield on
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: US treasuries and make it more expensive for the US
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: government to borrow money. So that's one reason. There'd be
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: other ripple effects too. Japan recently had to increase its
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: interest rates because they're worried about inflation thanks to the
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: war in Iran. Japan increased rates to one percent, which
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: is very low, but is still the highest they've been
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: at in thirty one years. Japan has had near zero
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: interest rates for decades now because it has been stuck
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: in this deflationary cycle where prices just won't go up,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: which ironically is actually a very bad thing because it
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: can lead to a spiral where people stop spending because
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: you're like, well, the price might go down, so why
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: by now you'll have businesses cutting back and stopping to grow,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: and you'll have debts become harder to pay off because
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: of deflation. So one side effect of Japan's low interest
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: rates were it also popularized an investment strategy called the
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: yen carry trade. That was when investors were borrowing money
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: in yen because it's cheap, indust rate is really low,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: and then you use that money to invest in something
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: else of the better return. So you know, the kind
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: of the safest version is you borrow in yen, you
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: buy treasury bills and you pocket the difference in the yield.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: But you could also buy something riskier like stocks. But
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: when yen prices go up or the interest rates in
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Japan go up, Japanese banks ask for more collateral, which
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: can force those investors to dump assets to buy more yen,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: and it contriger this like vicious economic crisis that can spiral.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: So long story short, it is very much in the
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: US interest for Japan's economy to stabilize, which is why
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: you saw this weird thing where the Federal Reserve Bank
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: of New York sold a bunch of its holdings of
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: euros to buy yen on behalf of the Treasury Department.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: So this intervention seems to have worked for now. It's
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: sort of stabilized things for now. But some smart kind
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: of Wall Street folks I know said to me, the
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: fact that the Treasury is involved in the first place
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: and is this worried, should make you very worried, right
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: because they know, I mean the systemic risk here. This
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: isn't like America doing this out of the goodness of
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: our hearts. This is America intervening to prevent the fourth
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: biggest economy in the world and the largest holder of
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: US Treasury bills from going into some sort of like
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: financial doom spiral and pulling the world down with it.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: The other thing to worry about is that high oil
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: prices or energy prices have been really hurting Japanese consumers
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: lately and kind of creating all this friction in the
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Japanese economy and leading to inflation and leading to their
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: you know, their banks to raise interest rates, their central
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: bank to raise interest rates, and obviously, as we discussed earlier,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: like there is no end in sight to the war,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: so you know, they're all kind of like spinning plates
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: trying to like manage the economy in Japan and the
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: global fallout from interest rates and the war and everything else.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: But like, you know, every action you take has other consequences,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: and you just sort of don't know where we're going
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: to end up. So ben very interesting story, pretty worrisome story.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: I kind of feel like it's not the end of
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: this one. But what did you make of this? And
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: you know, fucking bessence to do list? I feel like
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: you could have been a little more more vague on
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: that thing, buddy, unless maybe the goal was for everyone
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: to see that to do list and that to become
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: the story. Because really they like the Treasury Department didn't
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: really buy that much in aggregative yend, but like the
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: symbol of US doing it with Japan was a was
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: a big deal. Big uh. It was a big message
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: to the markets.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll do this call back to another Trump first
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: term thing. It's like when John Bolton had like that briefing,
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: Yes these Trump's now sty investor and you had like
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: five thousand troops to Colombia on like a to do
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: list that he was like showing, Well, it was very strange. Anyway,
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: a couple this is a really important story. I implore
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: world thows to pay attention to this because it's going
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: to matter to you. And there are a couple of
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: things that jumped out to me, like first on the
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: impact of the war to put this in perspective for people,
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: Japan does not have domestic sources of oil and gas.
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: They import almost one hundred percent of their fossil fuel energy,
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: almost all of that from the Middle East. And to
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: be specific, there are some estimates when I was like
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: looking into this that they get up to like, you know,
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: ninety percent of our crude oil through the Strait of
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: Horror moves right, And so you can imagine what the
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: disruptions of the around war are doing to an already
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: strained Japanese economy that has depended on these low interest
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: rates but is now obviously dealing with inflation because of
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: the diminished supply. And so one, it's just a case
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: in point, we've I've heard about how this is impacting
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: poorer economies that are having irrational energy. Well, this is
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: like a rich country that is like on teetering on
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: the edge of a financial crisis in part because of
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: the war and ron.
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: I think the second thing that is.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: Even more worrying is the reason the US did this,
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: as you pointed out, Tommy, is because they own.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: Over trillion dollars in US treasuries.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: And again people may not follow this, but the basic
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: reason that you're allowed to have the standard of living
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: that you do if you're American, is that we can
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: just borrow infinite amounts of money set against the value
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: of US treasuries. It essentially, you know, our debt our
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: treasuries are worth it for, you know, people to go
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: to a stable financial instrument, there by allowing us to
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: spend far more money than we have here in the
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: United States. And if the bottom starts to fall out
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: of that, you know, if if there starts to be
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: instability in treasuries, like the whole system under which our
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: economy operates and the global conra opperrates could be pretty fucked.
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: And the thing that.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: Worries me about this, Tommy, and like, why I think
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: it's important we cover stuff like this is that there's
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: like a lot of you know, I remember when I
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: was in the Obama campaign in two thousand and seven,
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: I drew the short straw in like I don't know
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: when it was. It was like the Spring of Actions eight.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: It was the beginning of eight. I had to write
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: this speech about financial regulation. I had to talk to
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: all these nerds like Austin gool's By. He was advising,
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: he's a great talk to it. There are all these
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: warning signs, yeah, and very funny and you're a great guy.
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: And they're like, well, yeah, there are all these warning signs,
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: you know, like the housing markets like showing some bubble
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: and the number is going to don't add up, and
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: and and.
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: Nobody's minding the store.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: And it kind of stuck in my head because I
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: didn't pay much atention to those things. And a few
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: months later we had like the financial crisis with the
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: bottom felt well between like bailing out the Japanese yen.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: This kind of ai bubble that the stock market exists
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: on where essentially a few companies are spending extraordinary amounts
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: of capital building like data centers and that's like propping
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: up the economy, but who's really getting enriched. It's kind
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: of like the three few people who run those companies
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: and maybe some shareholders, but like none of that wealth
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: is actually reaching people.
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: It feels a you know.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: Pyramid schemey is ish, you know, like we're betting that
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: this technology is going to make all this growth without
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: knowing how it's going to do that. That seems kind
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: of worrisome to me, like inflation set, you know, the
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: need to use interest rates to tain inflation set against
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: the imperative of maintaining growth. Like the numbers. I'm not
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: like some financial wizard here as a as a relative,
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: you know, novice at this stuff. I can tell you
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: that there's a lot of numbers that aren't adding up,
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: and there are a lot of warning signs out there.
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: Look, I mean the ten year yield is now at
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: four point six four percent, which is pretty high for
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: the ten year. Like the Fed can try to can rates,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: but ultimately they don't control interest rates. They control treasury bills,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: but then the markets take over and they control the
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: price and the yield on these things. And so yeah,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: you're right, there's like a lot of warning sides. There's
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: this there's what's happening in Japan, and Japan is coming
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: at the end of like a thirty year experiment, experiment
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: in financial engineering and zero interest rates to deal with,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: you know, the fact that their population is shrinking and
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: all these sort of systemic issues. You have this AI
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: bubble that kind of keeps partly popping but then getting
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: reinflated because of all this enthusiasm around a couple companies.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: You have just the instability of the war. And I'm
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: with you, like, who knows, maybe we'll bump along for
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: another five six years, and you know, America doesn't care
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: about bubbles anymore, and it is what it is. But
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: there's just you know, we've seen, you know, real small
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: things like remember Silicon Valley Bank. Remember you know this bank,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: like one bank in Silicon Valley UH starts to unwind
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: and it presents a systemic risk the entire economy to
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: the point where the Biden administration had to step in
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: and rescue it. And so god knows what will happen
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: as as a result of these pretty remarkable steps to
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: step in by the the New York Fed and the
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Treasury to rescue Japan, like there is going to be
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: some sort of second order, third or fourth order reaction
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: to this step, and it's going to be unpredictable, and
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: you know, hopefully nothing bad, but we just don't know.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And last thing I'll say about this is, first
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: of all, the war's role, Like if there ends up
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: being a financial crisis like File Away, the war is
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: one of the things that was like, you know, that
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: last piece of strain on a global economy that was
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: already running on a bunch of fumes. But then the
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: other thing I just tell people is that if you've
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: watched since the beginning, I remember when Trump did Liberation Day, right,
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: the markets kind of dealt with it, like it crashed
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: and it came back.
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: It's the people dealing with treasuries. It's the long term yields.
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: People that have been more the reality check on some
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: of the Trump economic moves or some of the seeming
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: you know, contradictions in the global economy. So the people
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: in the like the market. So the future is like
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: there there are the people at the casino, Like they're
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: the people just trying to like win one more hand,
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: Like I'm on a roll at the tables and I'm
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: gonna keep playing until I lose what keep your eye
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: on these more structural pieces of the global economy and
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: including treasuries.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, watching the maist rates that that sometimes you're they're
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: they're the kind of the canary and the cold mine
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: for this stuff, while the everyone over on Wall Street
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: is punch drunk and also worry. Similarly, a lot of
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: them are buying with leveraged You know that they're working
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: with leverage taking out loans. That's pretty scary going on
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: a couple. One of the things in our corruption watch,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: Ben so you and I celebrated the hell out of
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: the kind of the great side of international soccer and
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: the and the World Cup tournament, the FIFA World Cup.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Now we're going to talk about the dark side of FIFA,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: the corruption and the brazen self dealing. So fans, players, uh,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: the international football associations were all outraged last week when
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: FIFA President Giani and Fantino announced a plan to privatize,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: spin off and sell to investors a piece of the
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: kind of the most lucrative financial parts of its tournament. Specifically,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: he wanted to create a subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: or FFE, that would handle the broadcast rights, the sponsorships,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: the licensing and the ticket operations, all the big money
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: stuff and then sell shares a bit kind of like
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: a startup raising an investment round. And the kicker was
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: that the lead investor for this scheme was called Thrive Eternal,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: which is a big investment company run by wait for it,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: Jared Kushner's brother Josh Kushner. I wonder how we got
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: access to this deal, ben So, Thrive's plan was to
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: buy twenty percent a twenty percent stake. It was like
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: four point one or two billion at a twenty billion
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: dollar valuation. Now this pKa public and most of these,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: like two hundred and eleven FIFA member nations and like
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: all the football associations that govern them, learned about the
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: deal in the press and they were fucking pissed. YUWEIFA,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: with the association that represents the fifty five European clubs,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: said they would boycott the next World Cup, so you
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: would have had the winners of the World Cup Spain
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: boycotting the World Cup. The North American and Asian associations
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: also voiced opposition. I think only the African Football Association
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: was sort of like silent on it because I don't
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: know they were. They're trying to get more player development
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: money out.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: Of Inventino also spreads money around.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that's how we got the job. So it
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: also was clear that like this was just Infantino's pet project.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: He had not really read anybody into it. There was
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: no buying on it. It was just like a thing
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: he cooked up on his own and just announced. And
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: The Times the newspaper in the UK. The Times reported
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: that Infantino wanted a thirty million dollars salary and bonuses
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: to run this new entity, So this was just a
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: cash grab for him. So within days, this thing is
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: getting pillaried. Infantino retreats, he kills this plan, but now
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: his blood is in the water, and Wales, England, Serbia
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: and Sweden say they no longer support Infantino's reelection for
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: a new term as president of FIVA. This guy just
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: went from riding high like everyone's saying this is the
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: best World Cup of all time. I think it made
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: nine billion dollars some crazy amount like that, to a
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: bunch of really important member states saying we want you
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: out of here. The New York Posts reported that Infantino
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: had tried to call Trump and Marco Rubio to get
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: some of public backing. I get why he would do that.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Those are his you know, probably the highest profile people
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: in his call logue or his contact book. But also
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: like Infantino's relationship with Trump in the flow Ballagan red
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: card situation is probably part of what got Infantino in
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: such hot water with these European clubs. So the next
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: election to be head of FIFA is until twenty twenty seven.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Currently in Fantino doesn't have any real competition, but I
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: think the hope is to use this moment, the backlash,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: the outrage, to get new candidates to enter and declare
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: their candidacy before the November eighteenth deadline. It's just crazy, Ben,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: that FIFA is a nonprofit, Like, why would you need
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: to get investment capital after you just have the most
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: profitable World Cup of all time. It's just like it's
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: so brazen and shameless. The level of grift and the
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: fact that you know there was literally a Kushner involved
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: on the other side of the transaction. It's just like
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: it just shows you these people have no shame.
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a really important story, I think because
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: it ties into like your interview too, in the sense
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: that like Infantino is like a walking advertisement for the
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: corruption in the world today, right, Like he doesn't try
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: to hide it. You know, everything that guy does is
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: about him trying to self aggrandize self and rich as
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: like a Kushner he's most comfortable with like Trump and
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: you know, golf monarchs and you know, people like that,
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: and has no time for you know, democratically elected leaders
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: other than Donald Trump.
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: And and you could just sense the corruption like it
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: just oozes off the guy.
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: And and if you look at what's happened here, this
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: is clearly pissed off the Europeans for some time now.
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: If you're the Europeans, if you're a UEFA, the European
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: Football Association, you're also probably thinking, we'll wait a second.
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: So we saw this guy in the middle of the
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: World Cup potentially affect the play, and I'm going to
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: go there by like reinstating Ballagoon or the US striker
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: who had a red card because Trump asked him to.
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: And then on the back end of that, he's giving
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: Jared Kushner's brother like the stake in this investment where
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: he's monetizing you know, the the global game for his
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: own personal benefit, like those things connect, you know to
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: if you're a European that like, we're being cut out
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: of this for this own guy's self aggrandizement and who
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: knows this guy end up impacting.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: The play to do the connection either it's like literally
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: a Kushner getting paid here, you know Jared's getting.
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: And so how can we trust that our teams are
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: going to you know, be on the level playing field
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: that you know, he's gonna be putting his thumb on
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: the scale for different teams like that, that's how corrupt
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: this guy is. And so they're pretty I think they're like,
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: this is the blood in the water. We got to
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: get rid of this guy now. And the way in
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: which Infantino operates it's like a page out of the
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: Ken Martin DNC book, where like he he spreads money around.
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: Can I bring together the PSA and PSDW.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: You can, although the only way I'd pull Coles in
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: this is mister Infantino can raise money, mister Martin cannot.
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: But like in the same way that it was kind
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: of weird that like Ken Martin was like as someone
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: who's just a passive observer of that I'm not as
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: deep in as you guys. I saw he was like
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: giving like far more money like per Kapa to like
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: Guam and you know places like no offense to the territories.
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: But he felt like he was, you know, making pick
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: pat who could vote for him happy. Well, Infantino has
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: done that with some of these smaller countries and some
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: of these smaller football federations at the same time that
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: he has a lot of good will with like Katar
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: who got his back. They're one of the few people
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: that got his back because you know, when people were
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: doing podcasts with names like world Corrupt around the World
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: Cup and Kutar, he gave that speech like today I'm
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: a Katari and all this stuff. So like he has
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: like his his base, but his bass is shrinking. It's
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: like the small the federations of smaller countries where he's
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: tried to spread some money around. It's you know, the
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: golf that he's rewarded with the Katari World Cup and
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: the Saudi's have one coming. But the Europeans realized in
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: a way like this is what's interesting. Is this going
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: to be a predicate for geopolitics too, Because the Europeans
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: realized well, if we all got together and we act
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: as won and we say we're not playing in the
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: World Cup, there's no World Cup, you kind of a
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: World Cup without European football teams. So I think that,
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: like question one is do they succeed in essentially throwing
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: him overboard?
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: Feels like that's possible.
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: And I really mean this, like, are they going to
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: draw a lesson from this that like maybe we should
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: apply this theory to other realms of geopolitics that if
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: all of Europe acts together, wow, we actually have some power.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one would hope. I mean, FIVA is just a
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: hopelessly corrupt organization. I mean the last president was prosecuted,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: banned from football for you know another However, many years
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Infantino is the guy brought in is supposed to clean
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: up the place. Obviously he is not. But God, whether
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: there's just this much money slashing around, I think it
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: attracts some terrible people, and it really does. It just
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: sucks that there's all these fans, there's all these players
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: to have to watch this terrible parent organization that no
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: one should have to know about or give a shit about,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: kind of ruin the reputation of the sport. Is so maddening.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're watching these World Cup games and they're
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: like contractually obligated to cut to Gioanny and Fantino's ugly
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: face with some you know, annoying VIP three times a game.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: It's like, what are we doing here? This is stupid.
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: Imagine can we just have like better run institutions? I mean,
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: I imagine there's like just some good person running FIFA
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: that you felt good about it. I mean, like, please,
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: like just anywhere, can we just put someone good in
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: charge of an institution somewhere?
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be nice, Like Rick Rnell at the
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: Kennedy Center, you know like that.
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: I think is the mom exactly good?
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: God?
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: That would be a good mama.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: Finally, Ben, I'm not sure how this one got on
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: the rundown a Spider Man screening in Cartagena, Columbia. It
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: ended abruptly after what The New York Post described as
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: an uncontrollable bout of rotten flatulence. Have you heard about
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: this story?
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: Now?
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: Are you a Spider Man guy? Are you a fan
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: of Marvel? Marvel films?
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: Interesting thing tell me about me is that as a kid,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: as a huge Spider Man, I collected the comic books.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: But I kind of never got that deep into the
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: you know, I was there with the Toby Maguire, the
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: Tom Holland era, like I like this, not knock on
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: Tom Allan. I just kind of I lost interest in
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: the Marvel versust a certain point. It's a big summer
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: for Tom Holland that we say, maybe it ended in Cartagena.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, well we'll see. I mean, what, well,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: this is a you know, this is your classic neuro
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: post story. It has great captions on the photos, like
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: and agast audience member covers her mouth and nose. And
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: another one I liked was a filmgoers, including a Spider
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: Man cosplayer, stand in the lobby following the mid film
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: fart attack. So what happened was all these fans had
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: to flee the theater into the hallway. Check out this
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: footage that someone took of an absolutely jacked Spider Man
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: or man dressed in a Spider Man costume, who himself
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: had to flee from the odor. The idea of wearing
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: a Spider Man outfit to a movie is an odd
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: thing as an adult.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 6: Now.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: There's some debate ben over whether this was a stink
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: bomb or someone in some dire gastro intestinal states. Many
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: couldn't take the stension. Left some true marvel Heads headed
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: back into the film to the theater to finish out
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: the movie. The real hero here is journalist Ben cost
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: the New York Post, who managed to make this into
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: a three hundred and fifty World Word article about a
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: story about a fart that smelled bad and got us
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: to cover it. To paraphrase Michelle Obama, when we go high,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: we also go low. And usually it's the last story
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: of the segment, which I guess we fit in because
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: it happened abroad.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: See this on theline.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: No, it wasn't on there, But just to once again
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: try to cross stories. Is Bobby Kennedy now in charge
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: of the you know, food management let us management in Columbia.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: Are you talking about his like only diary diet. Oh no,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: you're talking with the explosive Apparently he's not talking.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: About the explosive diarrhea that's infected our country.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe that's become contagious. I don't know.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe the servant let us of this film. Anyway,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: that's all we have to say about that. I guess
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: I don't really care if you see Spider Man.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: I guess Michael got us to talk about it, so that.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he wins something we lose. We are going
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: to take a quick break and when you come back,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: you're going to hear my interview with Kasey Michelle about
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: his new book, The United States A Oligarchy. Stick around
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: for that. It's a very important conversation about like all
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: the American oligarchs, the way they're perverting our democracy, and
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: then what the hell democrats in Congress could actually do
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: about it. So check it out pot tape. The world
• 1:02:53
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  Speaker 1: com slash World. That's select Quote dot com World. Select
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  Speaker 1: Quote dot com slash World, They shop you save. My
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: guest today's the author of the excellent new book United
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: States of Oligarchy, How America's wealthiest ally with dictators weaken
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: the US and destroy democracy. It seems like you have
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: a take on this oligarchy thing. Kasey Michelle. Welcome to
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: the show. Welcome back to the show. I should say, Tommy,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me. It is great
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: to see you. This is a subject near and dear
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: to my heart, to the show's heart, and I think,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: honestly one of the most important things that we should
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: be talking about, because corruption is so endemic to this
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: administration and harming our government and harming our democracy, that
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: we need to put more focus on it. So I'm
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: glad you wrote the book. I want to start with
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: a hobby horse of mine, a person in the Trump
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: administration sort of who annoys me the most. Jared Kushner.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: You might have heard of him. Jared is folks know.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: In the first term, fancied himself the shadow Secretary of State.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: He used that position to build relationships in the Middle
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: East and then left and cashed out hard, getting billions
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: from the Saudis and others in the Gulf. Now he's
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: back is sort of this outside advisor, unofficial advisor, ostensibly
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: working on Gaza, but also Iran, but also the war
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: in Ukraine. He solved a lot of conflicts things that
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: are going really well, like Iran in Ukraine. Can you
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: talk about how the Gulf States cultivated their relationships with
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: Kushner and how you believe they now have leverage over him.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I mean, Tommy, I mean, I'll begin by saying,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: I frankly can't imagine what it's been like for you
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: watching the rise of Kushner. It's one thing to watch
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: this from the outside. It's one thing to watch this
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: from you know. Certainly my vantage about concerns about corruption,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: it's impact and foreign policy, et cetera, et cetera. But
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: for someone like you, who is right there in the
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: thick of it, to see someone like Kushner didn't come
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: in and be at the center of everything from Israel
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: and Gaza to Ukraine and Russia to Iran, I'm sure
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: you have some thoughts, probably very similar to.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: I earned it, you know. That's what I think, meritocracy.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: That's why I've written so extensively about him in the
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: new books. Who applaud all of these well earned positions
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: and now billions of dollars that he has attached to
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: his name. I mean, look, the cultivation of Kushner goes
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: back to the first term, goes back to Donald Trump's
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: first term, when Kirshner was brought in again with no
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: regional expertise, no familiarity, with local histories or dynamics, soly
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: didn't speak any of the local languages, and yet was
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: nonetheless appointed to oversee Donald Trump's Middle Eastern portfolio in
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: Trump's very first term, which of course now seems like
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: a thousand years ago. And it was almost there from
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: the very beginning that regimes of places like Saudi Arabia,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: the UAE, and Qatar were at least interested in seeing
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: what they could do to bring Kushner over to their side,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: and they did not have to wait long.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: They're in.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: Trump's very first term is over first the year as
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: president back in twenty seventeen, you already had Jared building
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: up relationships with Mohammed Ben Salmon and NBS over in
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia. Frankly even goes to right after the election
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: in late twenty twenty four, even before he was in
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: the White House, who had figures like MBZ, the still
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: ruler of the United Arab Emirates canceling lunch plans with
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: President Obama to secretly meet with Jared Kushner again because
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: he NBS and a number of other figures in the
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: region and later eventually around the world realized just how
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: easy it would be to buy favors effectively from Jared
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: Kushner to invest in either his properties or pledge things
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: down the road. And of course, when Jared Kushner left
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: the the White House in early twenty twenty one, it
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: was in a matter of days that he was not
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: only setting up his new investment organization, Affinity Partners, but
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: of course going around kind of hat in hand to
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: the Saudis, to the Emordis, to the Kataris and others
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: and saying, hey, I'd love to see what kind of
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: arrangements we can set up if you help finance new
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: Affinity Partners. And you know, some people looked at it
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: and said maybe not. Now there are some Saudi officials
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: who actually declined to invest, but MBS came and overruled them, saying,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: we need to maintain this relationship. You never know where
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: it's going to go, and of course here we are
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: watching where it's going.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: In the first term, Jared had to disclose his finances. Right,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: there's the financial documents's ethical restrictions on him. Now that
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: he's an outside advisor with that an official role, does
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: he have to just close anything? What do we know
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: about his business relationships, his finances, etc.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: So as he would say, no, he doesn't have to
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: disclose any of it. As he has said, he's just
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: doing his patriotic duty representing the United States of America
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: again in what just so happened to be the most
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: inflamed geopolitical hotspots around the world. Is Reel, Gaza, Ukraine, Russia,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: and of course run. That's what he says. So he
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: has not disclosed how much money he or his firm
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: or taking in what they're doing with that money is
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: bringing them the greatest amounts of profit. You know, there
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: were some figures like Senator Ron Wyden Jamie Raskin in
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: the House who tried to get some insights into Kushner's
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: finances even before Trump's reelection in twenty twenty four, and
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: they got some information, but not all. We know that
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: there was a whole world of details and financial arrangements
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: that we still do not have insight into.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: The trick is, though Trump has still declared him as
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: a special envoy, I believe onoy for peace if I
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: remember correctly, which should theoretically require him to make those
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: disclosures within neither a thirty or a sixty day window.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: And we're long past that. So again, this is a
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: I think a ripe question for let's say congressional Democrats.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: If they take the House and potentially the Senate, Jared
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: Kushner is sitting there front and center for some potential
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: hearings down the line to get more insight.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I can overstate how important that is
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: to me and this show, and I will scream at
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: anyone who does not prioritize it as well. So let's
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: say Democrats take the House, god willing, we take the
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: Senate too. But what they could subpoena documents directly from Jared?
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: They could get them from banks. Could they subpoena from affinity?
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Like there? We need to get on this fast, right.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: As long as they are the ranking member of the
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: or the ranking members of a committee, then yes they
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: have subpoena power. Of course, if you're in the minority,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: you can still try to subpoena but don't know them.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: It has to comply with that. But yes, if they
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: get the House and potentially the Senate, we're talking about
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: what could look at either high level or maybe even
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: selects committee hearings into Jared Kushner.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: I want that to be the first thing some of
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: these committees do. I hope staffers for members of Congress
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: are listening. I also want to ask you about Steve Whitkoff,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: Jared's kind of dumb partner in crime. He's the Wikoff
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: is the golf buddy turned envoy for everything. Witkoff is
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: now this roving diplomat. He meets with Putin all the time.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: Sometimes he goes by himself. He doesn't even bring a
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: note taker, he doesn't bring anyone from State Department. He
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: doesn't get briefings from the CIA. He just kind of
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: wings it. He's doing stuff in Gaza. He's just sort
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: of everywhere. Witkoff's son is running the Trump family crypto business.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: What do you make of Witkoff's role in the kind
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: of Trump family kleptocracy and can you give us your
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: sense of how crypto fits into all of this.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: Well, look, Whitcoff is only credentials again for any of this,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: whether it's in the Middle East, whether it's in Ukraine
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: and RuSHA. The only credential he has is because of
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: his close tiest to Donald Trump. Of course they go
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: back years and years in the New York real estate scene.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: He doesn't have any expertise. He doesn't have any other
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: kind of credentials for this, And by all appearances, he
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: is perhaps the single most gullible figure American diplomacy or
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: an American president has ever produced. I just imagine him
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: going into these meetings with Putin and some of these
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: others with you know, wide eyes and these kind of
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: this puppy dog look and willing to lap up anything
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: and everything Putin is saying. Because that's by all appearances,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: everything that has happened. And look, there's plenty to criticize
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: Whitcoff for, and there's certainly plenty that I've criticized him before,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: but it is I'm very happy brought up the role
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: of his his his son Zach, who is in many
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: ways very similar to the Trump children, rioting on the
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: coketails of his father, and by all appearance, is more
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: than happy to monetize as many of these relationships as
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: he possibly can. You know, Zach Witcoff, You know, he
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: was a relative unknown, even more than Steve coming into
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: Trump's second administration. But because of the crypto industry, the Witcoff,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: the younger Witcoff, was able to catapult himself to significant
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: wealth and Again, this is a broader story about how
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: crypto has enmeshed itself with Trump, with the Trump family,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: with the Trump and industration. On the one hand, it's
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: kind of a story as old as you know, industry
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: versus regulation. The industry wants to see any regulation demolished,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: but of course with crypto you have. What we're talking
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: about is the ease of financial maneuvering and financial movement
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: with a click of a button, without any kind of regulation,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: any kind of transparency, which is in many ways a
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: money launderer's dream, or maybe even the dream of a
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: foreign regime that is looking to directly bankroll a sitting
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: American president and his family. We have never seen a
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: tool like this in terms of the ease of access,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: the speed, and of course just how high up it
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: goes in the administration, which is again why the crypto
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: industry has been so happy with President Trump and those
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: he's appointed around him.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it goes a couple of different ways. I mean,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: there's the money they're making off of the crypto industry
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: and the products, and the way they're kind of bilking investors.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: There's a great piece in New York Magazine last week
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: about Justin son. Is this kind of like sketchy crypto
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: billionaire who bought into World Libby Financial and got screwed
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: by them and is now taken court. It's worth reading.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: It's interesting. But then there's also the fact that half
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: of the Trump family crypto business was secretly purchased by
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: this Emoradi backed firm investment firm. I think was it
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: before the Trump administration even started.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: It was either right before or right at the beginning.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: And again, as you said, it was secret. No one
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: knew about this for months and months afterward.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: And look, I mean, this is again a case study,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: not only in terms of how easy it was to
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: set up something like this, but now we're talking about
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: real national security concerns because all this was happening simultaneous
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: to Trump overruling all of his national security experts that
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: he still does have a few of them, at least
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: around and saying, while we are receiving millions, tens of millions,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars from Emoradi's
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: sources via crypto, we're also going to be sending them
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: all of these high end chips that only the closest
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: American allies have access to despite all of the concerns
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: about the emoradis then doing whatever they want with those chips,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: whether it's domestic, using it with their own Chinese partners.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: The list goes on and on. I mean, look, this
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: is what's the phrase, right, There's so much smoke around
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: this you could choke on it. This is, in any
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: other administration, the single biggest scandal that we're talking about.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: And you and I, Tommy, we've talked about whether it's
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: the Katari jet, you know, this case with the Amorades.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: Is this kind of outbidding of regimes for Trump's affection,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: one after another after another. And I have no idea
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: where it's going to end, because it's already been a disaster.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: Where we are right now, God only knows what we
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: don't know. Before we go on to some other American oligarchs,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: can you give us your definition of what an oligarch
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: is and talk about sort of oligarchs through history, because
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of listeners might be aware of Russian oligarchs
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: because they have been talked about a lot in the media,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: but not aware of others in other countries either today
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: and historically speaking.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: So look, One of the reasons that I wrote the
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: book is because, as I discovered the term oligarchy, it's
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: a pretty contested term. It's a little slippery. We have
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: Aristotle to thank for that. He was the first one
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: that popularized the term thousands of years ago. So shout
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: out to what's an Aristotle for that? As he said,
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, the root of the term literally means
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: the rule of the few. And he said, yes, that's
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: all fine and true. It is the rule of the few.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: It's when just a few number of individuals are overseeing
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: a you know, a country, or a state or an empire.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: But again it's not just as he said about the
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: number of people. Tell me if it was you and
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: the rest of the pod save crew running the United
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: States of America someday, that is not necessarily an oligarchy.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: Your lip to God's ears at some.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: Point twenty eight is right around the corner. But as
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: Aristotle pointed out, you also had to have those few
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: be the wealthiest of any given nation, any given state,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: any given empire. So again what Aristotle laid out, it's
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: not just the literal definition rule of the few. You
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: also have to have the wealthiest there, which I think,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: certainly on my end, helped clarify things because again, you
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: know aligarch, You think, is it a couple of people
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: here and there running something. No, they have to be
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: the wealthiest. So in the American context, the thing that
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: comes to mind most clearly is going back to the
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: Gilded Age when you had all of these so called
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: tycoons or robber barons who were by any other name
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: oligarchs themselves, the Vanderbilts and the Carnegie and the Rockefailers
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: and so on, And that was perfectly true. They used
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: their wealth to again they weren't presidents themselves, but steer presidencies,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: steer American politics for their own personal benefit. And of
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: course that is the era that most resembles what we
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: are going through right now. The thing that really came
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: through and putting this book together is yes, even though
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: it is the guilded Age and the Rockefailers, Carnegie, Vanderbilts
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: that must resemble the Musks, the Zuckerbergs, the Bezos, is
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: the trumps of Now we're really talking about magnitudes difference
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: in terms of total wealth for those oligarchs in the
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: twenty first century compared to what those oligarchs in the
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: late nineteenth century had and the total amount of wealth inequality.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: So yes, there was an oligarchy in the Gilded Age,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: but right now it makes it look like pocket change.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: Rockefeller died with the equivalent of thirty billion dollars to
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: his name, which is I mean, look, that's plenty of money.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to sell enough books to make that money,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: not yet at least. But we're talking about Musk just
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: a few weeks ago, the world's first trillionaire, which is
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: again magnitudes more so. Yes, we've seen oligarchies in the past,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: including the United States of America, but right now there
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: has been nothing like what we're going through in the
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: twenty twenties.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, from the Gilded Age to the Gilded Age. With
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: Jerry Kushner, let's talk about Elon Musk you mentioned a
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: minute ago. He seems like the textbook definition of an oligarch.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: He controls major industries, he has enormous influence in government,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: He gleefully tries to buy elections. Can you talk us
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: through your reporting on Musk and how reliant he is
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: on the Chinese, on Chinese manufacturing, and how that might
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: color his decision making.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: So look, you're exactly right. He's kind of the you know,
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: he's typifying what what oligarchy looks like right now, and
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: because of his wealth, he's kind of standing head and
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: shoulders above the rest of them. And there's been some
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: absolutely fantastic reporting on Musk. There was that recent Muskism
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: book that came out to a few weeks ago, and
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: of course some phenomenal work from reporters and scholars on
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: unwealth inequality. So I didn't really want to necessarily invent
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: the wheel there. What I try to do with this
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: book is look at the intersection of American oligarchy and
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: national security, because it's not just that these oligarchs and
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: wealth inequalities a threat to American democracy right now, it's
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: now increasingly a threat to wealth and now is increasingly
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: a threat to national security itself. And Musk enters the
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: picture because of one thing that has been underreported in
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: his career and now he has built out a reliance
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: on not just domestic sources of his wealth, but even
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: foreign sources of his wealth, most especially in China. His
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: relationship with Beijing and most especially with his company Tesla,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: is something that I don't think either then or even
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: now has seen enough scrutiny and has seen enough concern.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: And there's plenty more details in the book itself about
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: how we set up this joint venture with the Chinese
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: Communist Party, how he built out the world's biggest tesla
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: production plants in China itself, and of course what that
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: meant for his relationship and the kind of leverage that
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: Beijing was able to build over him, and how they
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: saw there was some reporting about this in twenty twenty five,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: how they saw him and that leverage in the White
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: House after Donald Trump returned to the presidency. And look,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: this isn't even talking about all the truly horrible things
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: he said about what Beijing is doing to wigers in
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: Shinjong and trying to play down the ongoing human rights
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: abuses and even genocide that that's happening there. But it
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: really is all about the kind of economic leverage that
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: foreign countries, whether it's the Saudis and the Amoradis with Kushner,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: whether it's a number of others with Trump or in
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: this case China with musk what that means for those
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: foreign regimes that see these oligarchs as they're way into
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: implementing and affecting American policy, including American foreign policy.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: In this leverage China had was really hammered home when
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: there was this moment early and it was the beginning
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: of the Trump second term, when all of a sudden
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: there was this breaking news report that the Pentagon was
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: preparing to for some reason, read Elon Musk into the
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: secret war plan against China. And I think Trump actually
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: himself freaked out. It was like, what the fuck are
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: we're doing here, and put a stop to it. But
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth was just preparing to do this for some reason,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: despite all this anxiety that was well known within the
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: intelligence community and government for people like you who focus
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: on this stuff, that China controls Elon Musk's future in
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of ways because of their ability to mess
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: with his manufacturing.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is already after the reporting that we
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: saw Musk having these back channel conversations with Putin as well. Right,
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: Putin doesn't have as much economic leverage over Musk, but
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: Musk was granting Russians access to Starlink for years. It
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: was only in the last few months that he finally
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: cut that off. Right, It's not like these relationships that
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: Musk had with foreign dictators, including American adversaries, weren't weren't known.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: And no, I mean, I don't want to ever give
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: Trump any more credit than I ever have to. But yes,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: even Trump looked at this and said, absolutely not. Why
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: would we give a businessman with these kinds of ties
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: to China access to these secrets. So, as far as
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: we know, he didn't gain access to this, but he
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: still did. Of course, the book goes into more detail
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: about this. Still did plenty that aided Beijing, not least
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: through Doze and cutting off all of these the pro
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: democracy work that the United States was supporting in and
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: around China as well.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: Bonkers. The Wall Street Journal recently ran a report on
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: Trump's fundraising operation, and really it's just like old school bribery.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like a mob shakedown. I want to
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: read you a couple of details. So SoftBank donated fifty
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: million dollars to the Trump Presidential Library. Apple gave twenty
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: five million to the ballroom. Microsoft gave ten million to
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: the ballroom. Amazon gave five million to the ballroom. Meta
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: gave ten million to a Trump aligned pack. A multimillion
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: dollar ballroom donation, and then there was a twenty two
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: million dollar payment to the Trump Presidential Library. Which of
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: those tech oligarchs have most thoroughly bent the knee in
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: your opinion?
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, Tommy, how can I choose? How can I
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: select just one? And look, you know, let me hop
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: off my little moral high horse for a second and say,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: if I was in their shoes and looking at the
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: incentive structure of the way that this administration has set
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: things up, it's so clear, it's clear as day that
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: it is an open air bribery racket. It's an open
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: air auction for a policy. And if you're not willing
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: to pay, that's fine, that's okay. Maybe there'll be an investigation,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: maybe they'll be in prosecution. You know, who's to say
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: what the future holds. You can make that choice, but
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: if you should know doing that that your competitor down
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: the street is going to make a different choice. They're
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: going to be the ones funding ten millions of dollars
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: or ten million dollars for the library or for the
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: inauguration or whatever it might be. So yes, you can
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: choose to not play the game, but you are only
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: in the long run losing out because of the way
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: that Trump and of course the kind of legal architecture
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: of American campaign finance in this country is set up. Right,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: The phrase that keeps coming to mind is legalized bribery,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: because again the question is are any of these companies
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: actually committing any crimes? And if so, of course who's
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: going to be enforcing it and who's going to be
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: prosecuting it? No one in this current administration. But I
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: think the beauty and the curse of the Trump administration
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: and Donald Trump himself is that he just makes all
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: of this inescapable, right. He puts it all You've talked
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: about this, It puts it all front and center and
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: forces you to look at it and stare at it
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: day in and day out. And look, the opportunity is
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: there for Democrats to also put this front and center,
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: all this anti corruption and of course anti oligarchy as well,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: for the mid terms and ideally for the presidency in
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight. The opportunities there, they just have to
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: take it.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: He literally has a model of the Katari jet bribe
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: sitting on the coffee table next to the couch in
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: the Opal office. You're right, like quite literally front and
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: center Casey, let's talk about solutions. You write in the
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: book about some good things the Biden administration did to
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: deal with oligarchy, to deal with corruption. Can you give
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: us like kind of like the gist of what they
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: did and then what has been rolled back by the
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: Trump administration.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: So, look, they did some great things. You know, I
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: wanted to make sure to give them their or their
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: plaudits here. One of the things, again rhetorically, is they
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: placed anti corruption efforts and corruption itself clearly as a
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: national security prerogative. They declared corruption was now just like
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: you know, communist during the Cold War, this is a
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: key national security threat. We have to do something about it.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: So they unveiled this thirty eight to forty page on
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: a strategy on combating corruption, which was fantastic, had a
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: lot of very good stuff. And there they also set
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: up all these task forces at DOJ and elsewhere specifically
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: to go after these foreign kleptocrats abroad that we know
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: we're trying to use their wealth to interfere in American
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: politics and at the IRS, because again we haven't really
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: talked about in this conversation, but there is a domestic
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: taxation component to this, right Republicans has been trying to
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: gut the IRS for years and years, and the Biden
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: administration said, we're going to rectify that, We're going to
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: reverse that. It's going to be a lot of funding
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: going to the IRS and specifically this anti oligarchy task
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: force we're going to put there to investigate ultra high
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: net worth individuals in the US. It was step forward
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: after step forward after step forward, and it is look.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: I had a lot of issues with President Biden and
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: certainly the way things ended, but I wanted also right
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: and in his closing address, he was the very first
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: one to use the term oligarchy as a as a president.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: His closing messa, you talked about the threat of these
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: oligarchic forces in the US. It's no surprise to you
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: or to any listeners that Trump came in and undid
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: all of that. Those task forces have been demolished, the
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: I r S funding has been demolished, all of the
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: enforcement of actual laws on the books, anti bribery, anti
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: corruption statutes, those are just not even being enforced anymore.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: They haven't been formally repealed. But Trump says, we're just
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: not gottingen force these Who cares what a law, says,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: if I say it's a bad law, then I'm not
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: going to prosecute anyone straight shooter.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: They'll still take.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: That's our beloved future attorney general. Yes, I'm sure that
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: that that slush fund, as he says, it's definitely dead
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: in the water.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if you saw Trump on Friday,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: was like, I mean, I don't want it to be dead.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: Start go along with a lie until we get them confirmed.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: That's what we're going through.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: Just don't put it in writing. That's what we've learned
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: from from Blanche. Yes, yes, it's verbal. I mean, look,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: Trump has been far and away the most corrupt I'm
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: not saying anything new, the most corrup president we've ever
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: seen her in America history, and the most corrupt administration
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 2: we've ever seen. And he hasn't been shy about it. Right,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: He is not hiding any of this. He is not
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: putting any of this on the you know, the back burner.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: He is putting all of this front end and center
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: for the kind of the legislative stuff he's not enforcing,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: and of course just opening him and his family and
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: their pocketbooks up to now make I don't know what
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 2: the latest estimate was three billion, four billion dollars that
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: he and his family's made over the last year and
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: a half. It just continues climbing and finding new ways
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: to monetize all of this.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: Mind boggling sums. Okay, last question for you. So let's
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: say twenty twenty eight, Hopeful is listening to this. They
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: come to you and they say, help us, help us
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: write our policy platform, and help us think about how
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: to talk about it, not only in terms of what
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: will be effective and really like root out the problem,
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: but also what will be politically persuasive, right, because we
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: have to convince people that this stuff really matters.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, there's all kind of technical things you
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: can do. Of course, the final chapter, like any good book,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: has all these policy run throughs. You know, you've got
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: to go back and reinstate everything the Biden administration have.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: You have to go back and read in state and
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: reinforce and fund all of the investigators and enforcement mechanisms
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: that we have on the anti bribery and anti corruption landscape.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: We have a lot of great stuff that was still
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: there that took decades to build out, that Trump has
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: tried to demolish, but is still there, and this is
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: including things like the new shell company registry that the
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: US finally began implementing in the last year two. One
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: of the things that you have to do is you
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: can't just go back and hope to have the same
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: tools prevent another future Trump administration or Vant administration or
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: whatever it might be. You have to expand you have
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: to think creatively, and that includes things like creating a
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: brand new bureau or a brand new agency specifically dedicated
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: toward coordinating anti corruption efforts and even beyond that, and again,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: it's not just DJ, it's not just Treasury, it's not
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: just IRS or SEC. You also have to link it
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: to campaign finance reform, because you can't tackle corruption in
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: this country without also tackling campaign finance reform. And that's
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: things like Citizens United, That's things like beefing up the
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: FEC and again making sure to have this kind of
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: overarching coordination body to make sure that everyone's on the
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 2: same page and they're all moving in the same direction,
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: because at the end of the day, some of these
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: things have been very scattered in the past. The right
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. The
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 2: opportunity again is there and you have to have high
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: level investigations, and if the evidence points in that direction,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: you got to have high level prosecutions. And I would
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: say starting with the children, right, Kushner and Trump Junior
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: and Erica, you know, they haven't been shy about some
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: of these things. And I don't think maybe I'm wrong,
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: I just I don't think there are a lot of
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 2: Americans who are supportive of the kids making all of
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: these billions of dollars off of the backs of their parents,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: Which gets to the messaging. The thing that I have
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: had other conversations with others about and that have found,
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: at least on my in most persuasive, is that when
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 2: we're talking about corruption, it's not just these technical elements
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: of what is a bribe, who is an actor, blah
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: blah blah. It's about fairness. It is simply unfair that
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: the Trump family, that the Kushner's, that the Bezos and
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: Zuckerberg's and Musks of the world, as well as all
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: of these other oligarchic and deep pocketed figures, have access
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: to all of this wealth and all of this power
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: simply because of all of their wealth. It is not
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: fair to you or me, or anyone else wants to
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 2: work for a living, that this small number of individuals,
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: and especially that second generation, the kind of aristocracy in
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: the making, is able to use all of their money
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 2: to gain all of that power to overtake this democracy,
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 2: this democratic experiment that we're now two hundred fifty years in,
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: that is trying to recreate the kind of aristocracy that
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 2: we thought we threw off two hundred and fifty years ago. Right,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: It's about fairness and making sure the American people have
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: a fair deal. That is what anti corruption efforts are.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: About, really, really well said. Again, the book is the
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: United States of Oligarchy, How America's wealthiest ally with dictators
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: and weak in the US and destroy democracy. Casey Michelle,
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: everyone buy the book because what would Piston and Trump
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: off more than this book being on the bestseller lists, Right,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: feels like that would really send us message. Right, that's right,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: great by the book. Thank you for your work on this.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: It's so so so important, and I know there's a
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: lot of very rich people trying to stop you from
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: being successful. So thank you, Casey, Thanks so much, Tommy,
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: thanks again to Casey Michelle were joining the show, and
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: thanks to everyone who's not farting in crowded theaters. We
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: Solet You. Pods of the World is a Crooked Media production.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: Our show is produced by Alona Minkowski, Michael Goldsmith and
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: Nisha Bonnergy. Our team includes Matt de Grot, Then Heathcote,
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: Jordan Kanter, Kenny Moffatt, David Toles, and Ryan Young. Our
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: East