Latest / Pod Save the World / How Bad Is Trump’s Iran Deal?

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How Bad Is Trump’s Iran Deal? · Pod Save the World

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  Speaker 1: It's awesome. Oh that's so cool. Well, congratulations, We're very
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  Speaker 1: So getting jacked up for Saint Louis. Those are good cities.
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• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Right now? That's what it feels like. You and Gavin
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  Speaker 1: a book event in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina.
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  Speaker 1: Now, it's a lot of fun listening tour. It's good
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  Speaker 3: Yes, Now he's just at the UFC event on the
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• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hopefully getting punched consensually. All right, we have a
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: great show for you guys today. We're going to cover
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: what we think is in Donald Trump's deal with iron Like.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: They won't release the deal text really speaks to them
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: in confidence and whatever it says. But we'll tell you
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: what we know, what has leaked, what we assume is
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: in the deal. We'll try to assess whether it's a
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: good deal or a bad deal. We'll talk about where
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: things go from here, in particular the ways that Israeli
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Prime Minister bib Dann Yaho could try to blow this
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: whole thing up, so one to watch there. We're also
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: going to talk about how we think Democrats should talk
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: about the deal and just diplomacy generally, because I can
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: you know, there's some great Democrats who are very surefooted
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: on these things, and then some who are clearly waiting
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: for a poll to come out, and we want to
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: speak to them as well. We'll tell you about a
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: huge election coming up in the UK and how the
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: future of the country could be decided by about seventy
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: five thousand voters total. We'll also touch on some interesting
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: developments in the growth of the far right far at
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: political parties in Europe. We have some good news for
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: you about Trump's selection to be the Director of National Intelligence.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: We have some terrible news about the catastrophic impact of
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the destruction of USAD and what it's meant for US
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: food assistance programs. And then finally we're just going to
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: talk about the joy that is World Cup soccer. I've
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: been just inhaling it here, been on at the office
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: all day long. I think the guys are getting sick
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: of me. They want the news back on, but I'm
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: not gonna do it. I just want to watch Senegal
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: in France.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: I will be at the Portugal DRC game tomorrow. I
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: can see we're in all those ads in person, so
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to that.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: You lucky guy. Apparently you can see them from space.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: And then finally you're gonna hear my interview with Fred
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Pleiken from CNN. He just completed a reporting trip to Iran.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I think he said he's been to Iran forty times
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: total in his life, like reporting trips. Mostly we talked about,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: you know what he heard from kind of average Iranians
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: about their views on the war, their views on the government,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the economic impact. He went to an ier GC event.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Imagine going to speaking of Iowa events, Ben, just like
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: an IERGC rally. I bet that's a good time.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I bet those guys are feeling pretty good right.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Now, fired up and ready to go fired out me
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Kalishnikov's we talked about how you the process for setting
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: up a reporting trip to Iran. So just honestly fascinating, guy.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: I can't wait to listen to that. And good for
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: CNN and him for still doing that reporting. We need
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: more foreign correspondence in this world.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we really do. Speaking of independent media, if you
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  Speaker 1: this whatever this thing is, Crooked Media. All right, Ben,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: let's turn to Iran because, like we said, there's a deal,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: but we don't know what's in it. Apparently Trump won't
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: even share the text with Bbing and you see that.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like being in Congress. It's a job kind
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: of perfect.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Didn't have a copy of the deal text you that
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: it'd be done. So again, sure seems to suggest he's
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: thrilled with the deal he negotiated. But never fear. We
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: have painstakingly crawled through all the news reports to find
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: what is leaked. Tim, we'll talk you through what we know.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: So here's the gist. There's a sixty day seas fire.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: It's a real one this time, not a ceasefire name
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: only where they just shoot at each other and bombshit
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: all the time and call it a ceasefire. This ceasefire
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: will also include fighting between Israel and Hesbla and Lebanon,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: which the Israelis are not happy about. But also Israel
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: says they will not withdraw troops from Lebanon, which will
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: complicate things. The straight oh Hormuse should open up starting
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: on Friday. It's going to take some time to get
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: all the mindes out of the straight oh Hormus, maybe
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: up to a month. And a half. That will slow
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: down the traffic, But the US is also going to
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: end it's blockaded the Straight. It sounds like going forward,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Iron will charge ships to transit the Straight. Trump, you know,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: he's been trying to claim that the Strait will be
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: permanently toll free, but Jadie Vance basically said it was
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: up to negotiations, and Iran said they will be charging
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: for quote, navigation services, environmental protections, and ship insurance. Sure
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: sounds like you told me. The Wall Street Journal reported
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: that Iran will immediately be allowed to sell oil and
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: that the agreement will waive the relevant sanctions to facilitate
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: those payments. So that should net Iran a lot of
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: revenue very fast, and by the way, conveniently helps Trump
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: with gas prices to get the place of oil down.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: The US is going to withdraw troops from the region.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I assume that means just like assets brought in for
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the conflict, to not dismantle all the bases. But again,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: who knows. The US and its partners in the region
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: will fund up to three hundred billion dollars for Iron's reconstruction.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I think Reuters reported that half of that money has
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: already been committed. And then on the nuclear front, the
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: most important front, Iran says it won't produce a nuclear weapon,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: but all the hard details about how you ensure that
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: actually happens our TVD, because that will be negotiated over
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the next sixty days. So that includes the fate of
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Iron's highly enriched uranium stockpile, the rules around its enrichment activities.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: That's all a got to be dealt with now. So again,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: they have sixty days to negotiate. I think you get
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: extended another thirty. I'm sure they'll just extend it a
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: bunch of times because this is complicated. And then the
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: US is going to facilitate the release of frozen Iranian funds.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: So then, just to be clear, I genuinely believe that
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the best deal available to Donald Trump was the one
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: that happened the soonest because we were on the cusp
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: of a global famine if the straight oh hor moves
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: remain closed for much longer. But objectively speaking, like it
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: does feel like Iran got a lot here and Trump
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: got very little of what he had set out to accomplish.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: That's right, I mean, Iran made no real concessions as
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: of yet, right, because opening the Straight of horror moves
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: is not really a concession given that it was opened
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: before the war. And so you're looking at what did
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: this war achieve, and it achieved precisely nothing because he
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: could have gotten a nuclear deal before the war without
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: launching the war. Iran was negotiating to a nuclear deal.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: So we reopened a body of what are those already open?
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Then if you look at the revenue, there's all kinds
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: of different revenue sources reported for Iran because there's the
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: potential to toll the straight. There's this three hundred billion
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: dollar fund which must include I would assume frozen Iranian
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: assets to get that number of that high.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it does. I think it might
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: be private funds. And then like golf countries and.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: Hot Sweeners from the golf.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: They all got fucking hit with ballistic missiles by Iran.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Now they pay to rebuild it. That's a hell of
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: a deal.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: And then also like they're selling oil and they're getting
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: revenue from that, they're going to get unfrozen assets. I mean,
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: I say this to me, you know, because I've seen
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: this kind of anxiety. We should not attack the terms
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: of the deal, because we don't want to seem like
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: we're against diploma seat. No, let's let's focus on the fact.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: Here's how I do it. Trump tore up the JCPOA.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: So let's compare these terms to what the JCPA said,
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: because the revenue envisioned under this deal dwarfs what was
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: in the JCPA. The palettes of cash that Trump always
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: talks about was one point seven billion dollars. And then
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: the unfrozen assets that Iran was able to retrieve as
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: part of the sanctions really funder the JCPA, which involved
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: them only getting that money after they'd shipped their stockpile out,
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: after they destroyed the core the plutonium reactor, after they've
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: ripped out most of their centrifuges, and after they'd accepted
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: all these intrusive inspections. Then and only then did they
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: get on order. I think we estay made it about
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: fifty five billion dollars, So we're talking like the three
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: to billion dollar fund alone is like almost six x
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: what they got under the JCPOA. And then they're getting
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: all this other revenue that we hear about from either
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: sanctions really for tolling the straight and so you're just
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: like pouring infusion of tremendous amounts of money to the Iranians,
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: and we don't even know in the nuclear terms if
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: they get there, seem like they'll basically be shipping out
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: the stockpile and having limits on enrichment, which is again
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: a version of the JCPA. So the point is, like
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: this war was absolutely the biggest self destructive, stupid, costly,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: pointless self own that you know for America. That's saying
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: a lot given our recent track, and I think we
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: have to drive home the point that like this is
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: what happens when you launch dumb wars, And this is
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: what happens when you get led around by Benjamin netan Yahoo.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: And this is what happens when you like ignore the
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: law which would have required Congress to vote, and Congress
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: wouldn't have voted for this war. Like this is what
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: happens when autocrats launch dumb wars. You get bad terms,
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: and that's you know, those they may be the best
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: we can get, which means I'd rather the worre end
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: than it continue, but full stop. But it doesn't mean
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: we shouldn't point out that these are like laughably absurdly
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: bad terms if anything near what has leaked out turns
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: out to be the case.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, I think that the people on the left
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: who are saying let's not attack Donald Trump until this
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: deal is done, let's not attack him from the right
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and sound more hawkish than him, they're saying that from
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: a good place, right because they don't want to in
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: any way be baited back into a war and to
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: resume the conflict because of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences. But
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I think, like, I don't think Donald Trump gives a
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: shit what we think, and I think we should not
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: hesitate to be honest about what happened here and to
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: criticize it, because we're not just trying to message this deal.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: We are trying to kill forever this insane, hawkish, neo
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: con FDD driven worldview that the United States can bomb
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: its way to peace. And that's what happened here, right, Like,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: somehow Donald Trump got talked back into doing another insane
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Middle East war. Regime changed war, and it was a
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: catastrophic disaster. And so I think we have to say, yes,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: this is the best available outcome to Donald Trump. But
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: he lost the war. Iran now knows it can control
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the straight and can charge fees and we'll make a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: ton of revenue. Trump achieze none of his core objectives.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Aron still possesses. It's highly enriched uranium, most of its
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: ballistic missiles, it's drone arsenal. They will almost certainly continue
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: to support the proxy groups that they were supposed to
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: stop supporting. The regime change strikes were a disaster for
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: the Iranian people. First and foremost. They now have a younger,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: more hardline Supreme Leader in place, and they have a
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: more powerful IRGC that's cemented control. And then, you know,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: like you said, the reports about the unfreezing of these assets,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: the three hundred billion dollar fund, all of this money,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Aron will have access to pharmal money that ever got
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: into the JCPOA to fund its military. And I firmly
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: think that if we could go back in time and
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: it was twenty eighteen and Donald Trump had just tried
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: to renegotiate a strengthened JCPOA and called it the Trump
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Nuclear Agreement, he could have had that, he could have
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: had it in a heartbeat. But instead we went down
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: this insane regime change warpath. We did damage to our
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: standing in the world. We devastated you know, economies in Asia.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Sue Dan could have an even worse famine because of
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: what we did. We don't know the scope of the
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: damage to US military bases in the Gulf area. Like
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: we should be skeptical of every single claim that the
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Trump administration make about what they accomplished here, but based
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: on what we know, it is an unmitigated disaster, and
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I think we have to say as much.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: That's right. And and you did the cost, well, the
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: only cost, i'd ad you know, which we've talked about,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: but how many Iranian civilians died, how many Iranian girls
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: died in that school, how many Lebanese have died? Because
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: netinary to make this a two front war, I will
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: say on the messaging point to like build on something
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: you said, the idea that we're going to like jiu
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: jitsu and flatter Trump on social media into like doing
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: this deal. That's the wrong way of thinking about this.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: Trump needs to be so thoroughly humiliated and the FDD
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Lindsey Graham faction of Americans national security establishment needs to
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: be so thoroughly discredited that we just don't do stupid
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: wars again. These are people that have told us for
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: well over a decade that it would be easy to
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: deal with the Ranian nuclear program and to remove the
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: Ranian regime with some kind of military operation. We've tested
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: the proposition of a diplomatic deal and the JCPA that
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Iron complied with. Now we've tested their way of doing it,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: and their way of doing it was a catastrophic failure
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: with huge economic and human costs. And this is the
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: moment for Democrats to be the actual anti war party
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: and say this was a dumb and pointless war from
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: the beginning, and we don't have to throw clear forever
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: about how bad the Ranian regime is, which makes it
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: sound like you're actually for the war. This was dumb,
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: illegal and pointless and destructive and costly, and we lost.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: And what this deal looks like or the terms that
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: are dictated to the losing party of a war. And
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: absolutely we want the word to end because we want
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: the straight of horror moves open and we don't want
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: bombs to fall on people anymore. But that doesn't mean
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: that we have to gaslight everybody and be like, oh,
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: this is a good deal. Like no, I mean like
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: I And by the way, like to your point, the
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: nuclear deal is not reached yet there is a quite
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: likely scenario in which there is never a nuclear deal
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: in which you know, Ron gets some revenue, they open
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: up the straight and it's kind of a fro in conflict.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: And you know, I guess the question for the Iranians,
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: because they seem to be in the driver's seat, is
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: do they want to make a bunch of nuclear concessions,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: which frankly they may cheat on anyway, because we'll see
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: what the inspections regime is in exchange for essentially getting
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: more revenue and more sanctuously. I actually I hope they do.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: But because the other thing that Tommy I was thinking
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: is the sixty day clock like takes you into the fall.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: Essentially there's zero percent chance Donald Trump is going to
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: start a war with Iran again right before and.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Let the Iranians.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: The Iranians know that. Yeah, so they're either going to
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: like drag the negotiation out or maybe they'll decide to
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: do a deal. But like, this is just not how
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: you do foreign policy. And we shouldn't give participation trophies
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: for someone accepting that they lost a war and they
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: need to open a body of whatever there was open
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: before it. And Democrats shouldn't be afraid to make that case.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: And the narrative like and we can't wait to try
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: to message this because the narrative gets set now and
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: the Trump the White House is out there. They're trying
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: to spin this as a victory. And again just to
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: reiterate what Trump's own goals were, remember they wouldn't wouldn't
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: do it like a live speech. Before the war. He
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: put out a video, but this is what he specifically
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: said where the goals were. He said, quote, We're going
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: the ground. We're going to annihilate their navy. We're going
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: to ensure that the region's terrorist proxies can no longer
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: And we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. So I put him maybe at one for
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: four there, because it does sound like they sank a
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: lot of navy boats so they're still able to close
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: the straight or her moves. But I guess they did that.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: But even if we wanted to be extra generous and
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: like kind of judge him on what was realistic or feasible,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Like you said, we just have no idea if it
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: was a good deal or not, because all the nuclear
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: stuff was punted going forward. I agree with you, Ben I.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Trump has been hinting that he's just gonna let this
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: go away, like he keeps you know, Rubio and Scott
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Bessett will be like, we must get the nuclear dust
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: out of Iran. This is a core objective, and Trump's like,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know, we got satellites watching it and it's
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: kind of obliterated under a mountain, and so who gives
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: a fuck? Right, He's sort of like messaging that he's
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: ready to move on and not actually worry about getting
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the highly enriched here on em stockpile out of Iran. So,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that's the most likely outcome is
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the Iranians, just as he would say, tap him along
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: and play for time. Maybe they do cut a deal
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: that's some sort of like jcpoa adjacent deal. But Vance
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: and Trump, they're out trying to spin this thing. We
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: just want to play you a couple examples of JD.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Vance and Trump's arguments, and then how it is being
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: received among some of the most hawkish neocons who are
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: like the cheerleaders for this war when it started. Let's watch.
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: We're dealing with people that I think are very rational people.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: We're dealing with a death cull that has seized control
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: of Iran, and it's more blood on its changs than
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: we can measure.
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: They're not radicalized.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: It's different people, but it's the same fanatic regime.
• 19:47
  Speaker 6: The coolest thing about the progress we've made over the
• 19:50
  Speaker 6: last few weeks is that you see people within the
• 19:52
  Speaker 6: Iranian system, senior leadership, even IRGC officials, say, you know what,
• 19:57
  Speaker 6: we may have some animosity, we may have some mistrust,
• 20:00
  Speaker 6: but we recognize the way that we've done business with
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: the United States for forty seven years is a mistake.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Let's try something else.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: Why do you trust the IRGC. You are the one
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: negotiating with the IRGC. What makes you think they are
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: going to keep their word?
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: They were nice to deal with, They were strong people,
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: smart people.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: Once you have invested in the why that a bunch
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: of millenarian psychotics who believe that they are going to
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: take over the world on behalf of Shia Islam are
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: a rational negotiating partner. You're already operating in the wrong
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: frame of mind.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: So Ben seems happy there okay, Benjapiro, that is Ben JD.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Vance's comment that the process was cool because of the
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Iranian friends we made along the way is one of
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the most naive, fucking moronic things I've ever heard in
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: my life. Like, I get you know, JD. Trump, they
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: could have had some meetings with the Iranians like they
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: did with the North Koreans instead of you know, bombing
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: their country to ship them. I'm just like, I'm trying
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: to imagine if you had made a comment like that
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: about how you know, the best part of the Cuba
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Reproachmont was all the cool relationships you built up with
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the Castro family, like you would have been drawn and
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: quartered on Fox News. But anyway, I'm glad you had
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: a good time. JD. Vans.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I have a couple of reactions to this. The
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: first is, and as again listeners know, we are more
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: than willing to be self critical of Obama. So this
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: is less the point about Obama and more point about
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: kind of Democrats or people who are anti war or
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: people who are sick of American foreign policy of domination.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: The reason to point out how full shit they are
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: in terms of saying, like, wow, we actually have talks
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: to these people. Is it like we did that. We
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: did that in the A Bomb administration. We did have
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: negotiations with the Rantians and we reached a deal with them.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: And so the fact that JD. Vance is now just
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: discovering because he has to spend this deal, that it's
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: better to talk to people instead of bombing them. No, Like,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: the point is that like that that was this is
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: entirely a preventable war because there was a negotiated deal
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: that was made by democratic president, a deal that said
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: in paper. Because the other thing Trump always says is
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: they're finally committing to not build a nuclear weapon. Well,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: the preamble to the JCPO said, Iran reaffirms it under
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: no circumstances will iron ever seek develop or acquire any
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: nuclear weapons. And they weren't even like aware of the
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: terms of the JCPA because they demagogued it so hard
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: and lied about it so much, and frankly had a
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: media that was compliant in repeating their lies without fact
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: checking them. So the first point is, like, these people
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: should not get away with suddenly discovering diplomacy after this
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: without being held accountable for the insanity of Booth pulling
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: out of that deal and launching this war. The other
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: thing that I think is interesting about the juxtaposition of
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: the clips is, look, I don't you know, the way
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Trump talks about the Iranian regime has come strange, like
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden, he likes him and they're strong
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: and all the rest of it. But the way that
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: because look, let's be clear, he's talking about a regime
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: that brutalizes its own people, right, so you don't necessarily
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: need to like glaze them hard. But the other side
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: of this coin is what Mark Levin and Ben Shapier
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: are saying is actually part of the problem, because just
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: because they're a brutal regime doesn't mean that they are,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: you know, intent on taking over the world on behalf
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: of Shia Islam or they're like, you know, fanatics. I
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: think what we've just learned is even though they're murderous,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: they're quite sophisticated. They were very smart in how they
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: dealt with this. They attacked our allies, they paralyzed the
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: global economy. The closer they made leg Yeah, they made
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: they made lego memes. You know, Like, so let can
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: we not like just go around telling everybody that just
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: because we don't like these people that they want to
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: conquer the entire world or they're complete psychotic because no,
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: like they're sophisticated people that you need to deal with
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: with a mixture of strength and diplomacy. But part of
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: what's happened is there's been this like demagogueery about Iran
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: for like decades in this country that helped plow the
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: ground for this war because essentially you're dehumanizing the entire
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: count driver on. You're casting their leadership as no different
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: from like suicide bomber terrorists, and that's just kind of
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: not the reality. We need a farm policy that is
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: rooted in facts and reality, and somewhere between Trump and JD.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: Vance's spin and Ben Shapiro's apocalyptic view is like the
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: actual truth here, and that's where we need to center
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: our policy going forward.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I would I agree with you in the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: media point. I would also add Congress in there, because
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Congress is willing to assert itself and pass a law,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: the Iran Nuclear Agreement and Review Act of twenty fifteen
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: that makes it harder to cut an agreement or do
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: a diplomatic deal with Iran, and they never assert themselves
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: when it comes to I don't know, starting wars. They've
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: sort of given up on that whole part of the
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: job of being a member of Congress. So yes, it
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: would be great if everyone was a little less critical
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: of diplomatic agreements, which we know are going to be
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: imperfect and are going to require some give and take
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: on both sides. And we're a lot more critical and
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: did more to prevent presidents from starting wars which are
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: a disaster.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: And by the way, an agreement that was co authored
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: by Ben Cardon from Maryland, the Senator at the time,
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: the senior Democrat on the Farm Relations Committee, who coincidentally
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: had a lot of support from APAC and ended up
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: not supporting the Iron Nuclear deal. So like this, this
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: is the stuff the Democratic Party needs to leave in
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: the past.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Yep. And it passed ninety eight to one. Only Tom
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Cotton voted against it for some reason. I'm not even
• 25:22
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  Speaker 1: Betterhelp dot com slash Crooked World. That's better HLP dot
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: com slash Crooked World. So Ben, The big X factor
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: here in whether this deal can hold, I think is
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: the front of the war in Lebanon and the fighting
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: between Hesbela and Israel and the ways that that could
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: kind of blow everything up. So, the Israeli defense forces
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: are currently occupying a strip of territory to southern Lebanon
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: that reaches at least six miles over the border. As
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: we've discussed before, like Hesbola was formed to resist Israeli occupation,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: and there's no reason to believe that they will stop
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: now that the Israelis have taken more territory. Of course,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: we fully concede. Like Hesbela is firing rockets and drones
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: into northern Israel. Is terrorized innocent people in northern Israel,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: in all parts of Israel, They've terrorized large swaths of Lebanon.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: They've helped Asad Butcher peaceful protesters in Syria. So like
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Hesbela is a terrorist organization, they absolutely fucking suck what
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: they're there and they will be, you know, part of
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the problem you are going forward. Netanyahu was used, but
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: also NETANYAHUO has used this conflict as an opportunity to
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: just grab more and more territory. And an Israeli air
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: striking de route almost blew up this diplomatic agreement that
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Trump just forged at the last minute. So Trump got
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: asked about Israel and Hezbollah at the G seven France
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday. Let's listen, and eels survived Israel.
• 29:26
  Speaker 7: That kind of floving it can and you know, I
• 29:29
  Speaker 7: consider that the minor war that you ran the big one.
• 29:33
  Speaker 7: But we have that a little pin prick out there
• 29:36
  Speaker 7: that constantly rears its head, and that Saysbela.
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: Are you fascinating with that youngson? No, we had a
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: great relationship. I didn't like that he did an attack
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: based on a you know, there's a very minor little
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: thing with some drones that were lost, and he ends
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: up doing a very I saw that attack. I saw
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: where that mom went. Did you see what happened? That was?
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: That was a vicious That was too much. You know,
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: you can do too much. Also, you don't have to
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: knock down an apartment house every time you're looking for somebody,
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: because there are a lot of people in those apartment
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: houses and they're not all Asbola. That I can tell you.
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: I BB has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon.
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: I would say of all countries, they've been treated the worst.
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: They should have been able to do the job faster.
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: It just goes on forever, and when that happens, it
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: grows a negative light or the big deal, and that's
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: the deal with Thern. I suggested to Israel to let
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: Siria take care of Hesbela is, to be honest with you,
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: I think they'll do a better job of doing it.
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: If Israel can't do the job without killing everyone else,
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: he'll do the job. Syria will do the job. If
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: it weren't for the United States of America with me,
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: because Obama was the opposite, Israel would not exist right now.
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: Israel would have been blown off the face of the
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: earth one hundred percent.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm glad to hear Trump's having some belated
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: concern about civilian casualties. It's better late than never, though,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: I have to imagine that those comments about Hesbeola being
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the minor war and that Hesbela is just a little
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: pinprick out there that constantly rears its head is going
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: to go over pretty poorly in Israel, as is the
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: suggestion that the Syrians should deal with hesbel like. I
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: don't even really understand what on earth he's talking about there,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: but it felt like designed in a lab to create
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: a massive political problem for bibing Nyago.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: It did. And I do want to say saying about Hesbla,
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: all the things you said are true. These are people
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: that are willing to take innocent civilian life and not
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: only have they proven that in Israel, but you know
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: even more so in Scale and Syria. At the same time,
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: I think Hesbola if it would bide by terms of
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: a sea spar they have in the past, like they
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: function as a terrorist organization but also as a political actor.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: And frankly, this lay, this round of fighting took place
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: after Israel talked Donald Trump into launching a massive war
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: against Iran and then just started bombarding Lebanon. Right, So
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: Israel is the one that has created this crisis inside
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: of Lebanon. And I truly believe that if Israel stopped
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: bombing Lebanon, has Blow would stop firing rockets. They tend
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: to do what the Iranians tell them to do, and
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: the Iranians are clearly invested in a ceasefire that has
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: as part of its terms and ends of the war
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: in Lebanon. That's the first thing. The second thing is
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: it's offensive to to Israelis to describe as a pin brick,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: But how did you like to be in Bay Route?
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: And he's calling this like a minor conflict, And meanwhile
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: the Israelis have been leveling as Trump himself acknowledges Apartment
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: blocks in bay Rout A million and yeah, a million
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: people in this place. That's not a minor war. And
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: and look, I'm glad that he's like calling this out,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: but to your point, they've been doing this the entirety
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: of the Trump presidency between Gaza and Lebanon, and so
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: clearly I don't think this is some genuine and civilian casualties.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: This is frustration with BB and Nanyao potentially perpetuating a
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: war that Trump very much wants to be over because
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: it's been terrible for him politically, and he's undercutting BB
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: politically inside of Israel, and he probably knows he's doing that.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: I think it's more a manifestation of two things. One
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: growing public opinion in both the Republican and Democratic Party
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: against Netanyao in Israel and their foreign policy, particularly when
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: their foreign policy involves war. And two Trump having massive
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: buyer's remorse over letting BB Nenyaw talk him into this
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: war in the situation room. And frankly, if I was
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: in Israeli and I disagreed with like the majority of
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: the Israeli population about most things politically in recent years,
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: netan Yao by being the dog that caught the car
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: with this Iran war has just left Israel incredibly vulnerable
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: because the United States is politically done with this relationship
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: of subsidizing endless Israeli wars. This Iran war, which everybody
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: knows nen Yao has his fingerprints all over, has been
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: an absolute catar astrophe. And at a certain point, like
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: if Israeli voters need to hold net Yao accountable, like
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: I'm not looking tosider and say this is all in
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: bibing naniau. He's been elected the fucking prime minister of
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: the country for like almost every year except for about one,
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: I think, since two thousand and nine. Okay, So if
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: you want a different kind of relationship with the United States,
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: then you have to elect a different kind of prime minister.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: And I think that that should be the message.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this doesn't start with the war, and Gaza doesn't
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: start with the war. The run like Netanyahu has led
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: the Israeli public into a political crisis starting back in
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: what twenty nine and twenty fifteen, where do you want
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: to start it? When he decided to go all in
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: with the Republican Party attack Barack Obama, attack the jcpoa
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: go to Congress without telling the administration launch a major
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: speech like a broadside against a popular Democratic president and
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: then go all in, push all his chips in with
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and just you know, align himself with the
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Republican Party. And now Democrats have moved away from supporting
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Israel of the detest Net and Yahoo and net Yahoo
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: has no backsop. He has nowhere else to turn. By
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: the way, Ben, I don't know if you saw this
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: polling of Trump's approval in Israel. There was a polling
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: firm called Canter. They did it for a news outlook
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: that Trump's approval is now thirty eight approved, fifty four disapprove.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: His approval went down twenty points since May twenty fifth.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: And also, I don't know if you saw these like
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Net Yahoo aligned pundits are just ripping Trump to shreds,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: which I understand why they're mad in the moment, but
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: it's so self defeating. I mean, one guy on Channel
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: fourteen said that Trump was a loser. He called Jared
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Kushner and Steve Whitkoff quote Jew boys who were bought
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: by Qatar and sold out their brothers in Israel, and
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: he called JD Vance a scumbag. I'm at Siegel, who's
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: a right wing pundit, said Trump had completely surrendered to Iran.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: He quoted Kissinger saying, it maybe dangerous to be America's enemy,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: but America friend. But to be America's friend is fatal.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: There was another pundit on Channel fourteen News who said
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Trump advance are becoming the modern Neville Chamberlain. So, I mean,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: this is I don't know if net Yahoo was kind
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: of like blessing this kind of commentary or thinks it's
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: going to be effective with Trump, but it feels like
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: a very dangerous game they're playing.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: It just feels a shrinking island because it's basically people
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: like that in the Israeli right, Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro,
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: like there's no political constituency for this anywhere in the
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: world except like Israel, like elements of the American right,
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: and I don't know, like that's maybe some some of
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: the extreme Hindu nationalists in India who don't like Muslims,
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: like this is there's just I don't know who they
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: constantly act like it's permanently twenty fifteen right when they're
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: trying to undermine the JCPOA because we've tried it. Their
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: way for a decade under Trump and Franklinder Biden with
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: Gaza and then under Trump again. Like the world is
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: sick of this shit, you know, They're sick of the
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: blood thirsty rhetoric. They're sick of everything being compared to Munich.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: They're sick of the idea that we have to like
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: fight wars in seven Middle Eastern countries at once, Like
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: this is not working, Like there needs to be a
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: different paradigm for creating a peaceful framework for life in
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: the Middle East. Now to get to the cour issue,
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: we'll see. I don't think Netanyao can afford to lose
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: Trump because he is nowhere else to go. We can't
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: democratic parties gun.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not politically or also strategically, right because like when
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: you look at kind of when you total up the
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: actual like missile defense expenditure or who was shooting down
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: the missiles and drones flying at Israel, it was often
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the United States, like direct action by the United States
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: to protect Israel. Like that, yaou can't lose that. He
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: also can't lose Trump's political support.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think what we'll see is like they
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: won't probably leave southern Lebanon and they'll probably try the
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: Gaza thing where they say it's a ceasefire and then
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: like periodically like they bomb something. But I don't know,
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: that's a dangerous game for them to play. I think
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: it's more likely they try to, you know, act tough
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: and talk tough, but like tuck their tail between their
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: legs and hold on to seven Lebanon, which is already
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: something that's illegal under international law. And it's more likely
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: that this thing does just kind of limp along as
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: a kind of frozen conflict while this nuclear stuff gets negotiated.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: H Yeah, I just hope the Israelis decide as time
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: to Jennison net Yaho, because there could be a better
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: relationship that is just like on Firmer footing, that is
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: not all the things we've detested about it going forward.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: But you just got to vote the right way, guys,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: all right, Ben, Speaking of elections, there's a big election
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: this week in the United Kingdom that could change the
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: course of history for the UK. But interestingly, this is
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: not some like major national election. We were talking about
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: one by election, which is in the US, we called
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: a special election for just one seat in the six
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty seat House of Commons in a place
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: called Makerfield. But the reason this maker Field by election
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: matters so much is because the Labor Party candidate Andy Burnham,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: if he wins, he will almost certainly then challenge Prime
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Minister Cure Starmer to be the leader of the Labor
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: Party and if he wins that he will be Prime Minister.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: So Burnham is a well known figure in British politics.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: He once served as a cabinet minister. He was like
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: one of the more senior members of the Labor Party
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: until he decided to quit parliament and I think twenty
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: fifteen or twenty sixteen moved back home to Manchester and
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: then run for mayor, which is sort of It seemed
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: as a shocking decision at the time to move from
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: kind of national politics to more parochial politics, but it
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: seems to have suited him quite well stylistically and for
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of other reasons. He's he's like good at
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the kind of backslapping day to day work of politics.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: You know, you hear journalists talk about when you go
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: out with Amy Burnham or you talk to people in Manchester,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: like a lot of them have an experience with him.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: He's gone to their event, he got funding for their thing,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: you know, their community center whatever. He also got credit
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: for kind of pushing back on and questioning COVID era
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: lockdown restrictions. He just seems like more charismatic and likable
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: than currest Armor, which I know is not the highest bar,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: but you know it's something. So again like winning the
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: seat though will still be tough. Like a lot of Europe,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: the far right is ascended in the UK. We have
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: talked many times about Nigel Frag kind of like cigarette
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: come to life and his far right anti immigrant Reform
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: UK Party. Now there is an even further right alternative
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: to Reform UK called Restore, which launched like four months
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: ago but already has about one hundred and thirty thousand members.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: So they say it was founded by an MP named
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Rupert Lowe. Restorer is called for the mass deportation of immigrants.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: They talk about the great replacement theory. They have embraced
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: these like far right violent activists like this guy Tommy
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Robinson who's basically a soccer hool again turned political activists,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: who even Nigel Farrag is held at arm's length. And
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: by the way, of course, Elon Musk is now a
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: big fan of Restore, he tweeted the other day, only
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Restore can save Britain. So back to the Makerfield race, Ben,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: The irony here is that Andy Burnham could win and
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: benefit if Restore does well and peels off enough votes
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: from the Reform candidate, which would help him win. But Ben, regardless,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: it's pretty crazy that they're an election happening this week
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: where only seventy five thousand people will get to vote,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: and they could have such an enormous impact on the
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: UK's history, global events, all of it. But I guess
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: you know here we are. I guess it's similar to like,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: you know, precincts in Iowa, New Hampshire voting for presidential
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: nominis or something.
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that what it tells you is that
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: the Labor Party probably very much wants to move on
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: from Cure Starmer, but that nobody in Westminster, nobody currently
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: in the Parliament, was able to muster the coalition to
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: do it, and so they cast around. Andy Burnham has
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: a reputation, as you said, as a charismatic politician. He's
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: to the left of Starmer and that gives him more
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: of a base of support than Starmer has in this
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: kind of squishy center, and so it makes sense why
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: they might want Andy Burnham and not having found someone
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: else kind of in the in the House of Commons
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: or the House of Lords of the matter. But yet
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: it speaks dysfunction in British politics that we had I
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: don't know, four or five Tory prime ministers in about
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: five years and we maybe, you know, we just maybe
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: like the six or sad lost track. I mean, that
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: just tells you, you know, there needs to be some
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: stabilizing I see why, and I argued the case for
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: why they need to move on from Starmer. But if
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: they do, the goal should be like stability through the
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: next general election here. But it gives them a chance
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: and we'll see what happens. It's I mean, you know, boy,
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know what the big board is going to
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: say in the by election, but it's it is pretty
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: wild that, you know, people are going to be voting
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: that kind of probably tactically like a maybe I want
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: to vote for Burnham because I want Starmer out, even
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: though I might not normally vote there. It'll be interesting
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: to see what the kind of exit polls in the
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: British version look like.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: I actually think It's probably benefiting Starmer that the Tories
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: were such a basket case and had so much turnover,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: because I think there's an argument within or labor that's like,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: come on, guys, we can't be like them, you know,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: we can't be constantly like replacing our leaders. But again,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Starmer had a tough week. I mean John Healy as
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Defense Minister quit last week. They dispute over defense spending.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Starmer promised to do spend three percent of GDP by
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: twenty thirty on defense, but all the planning has sort
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: of fallen short and it's a real problem I think
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: for the UK. I mean, the BBC did a comparison
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: of British defense capabilities now compared to nineteen ninety. The
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: numbers are not good for them. In nineteen ninety they
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: had one hundred and fifty three thousand soldiers. That's been
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: cut in half. In nineteen ninety they had like forty
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: eight major combat ships. That's down to thirteen, So they
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: are really limited. If there were to be some sort
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: of you know, conflict that was Europe wide with Russia.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: For example, Starmar's you know, still doing his thing. He's
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: trying to introduce a social media ban for kids under
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: sixteen that would apply to like snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram everything.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: It's worth noting that we covered the Australia social media
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: ban a couple months back that is not going very well.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: It seems kids are just finding ways around it, like
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: using their parents' IDs, using different accounts, fake IDs to
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: get on. I think the Wall Street Journal found that
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: seven out of ten kids under sixteen have social media
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: accounts anyway, And maybe you know, this generation won't benefit,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: but the next generation will. But you know, sort of
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: an interesting backdrop to kind of like the way is
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: starm the things Starmar is focused on to try to
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: convince the public that he is doing his job.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean the stories do connect in a
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: way because the social media ban is not something that
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: requires money. I mean, I think, first of all, the
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: Australia thing is going to be probably the first in
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: a series of experiments on this front. And we've already
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: seen some Democrats running for president or probably running for
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: president proposingness and I do think it's probably more the
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: next generation coming up that you can have the impact.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: I will say, on the defense side, a couple of
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: things that jumped out to me or or one like
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: a Starmer's an impossible position here because they just don't
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: have a lot of money and they've been making cuts
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: to popular things and they've kind of you know, raising
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: taxes is never popular. Sometimes you just don't have enough
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: to pay for all the things you promise. But there's
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: a bigger story, Tommy, if you talk to people across
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: Europe too. Trump likes to tout. This isn't me serving
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: to pick on Trump, but this is me pointing out
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: facts related to defense spending. There are these all these
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: wild pledges, you know, three percent to five percent. Nobody
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: is probably hitting these.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Targets, so it's all made up.
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: These are just people get together at NATO summit and
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: they all pledge to do something and then Trump brags
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: about it. But like, I mean, yes, they are spending more,
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: but they're just these targets are kind of fantastical. And
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: it'd be better, I think, to talk about investing in
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: capabilities and specific capabilities rather than just kind of throwing
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: arbitrary numbers out there, because you end up in situations
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: like this when you set some arbitrary target that you
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: know you can't hit in your budget well, this ends
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: up happening.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: In Starmer's bigger problem is the economy is just stuck
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: and he has not been able to get it going
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: into years, and government spending can help with that. But
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: by the way, government spending on defense is not going
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: to help at all there, because what's going to happen
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: is the Brits will go and buy a bunch of
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: US weapons systems and punt money into Raytheon's pocket and
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: not help anybody in the UK. One last thing, Ben
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: is on the on this far right sort of political
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: movement issue. This is something we've been tracking periodically and
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: it's just interesting to see, like the far right splitting
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: in the UK. That is also happening in Italy. There's
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: a new party there called National Future. They don't think
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: that Georgia Maloney is you know, far enough right for them,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: so there's there. They've announced this new party. In France,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: the National Rally Party is still the main event, but
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: there's this kind of growing leadership struggle between Marine Lapennin
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: or Protege Jordan Bardella, who's doing like big interviews with
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Politico this week for some reason. I don't know if
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: you've caught that one, and then also one flass thing
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: that we noticed was Switzerland had a vote on capping
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: the population of the country at ten million by twenty fifty.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Now this was rejected, it was fifty five to forty five.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Was brought forward by this right wing party called the
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Swiss People's Party. But that's a lot of people voting
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: to cap the population in the country, and I think
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: it just shows you the power of anti immigrant messaging
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: in Europe in particular. You know, I think now one
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: in three people in Switzerland are foreign born. There's led
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: to a backlash. There's been huge protests, in riots in
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Belfast because of you know, a migrant try to stab
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: somebody or almost ahead them. But it's just like a
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: very important political undertone and driver of the vote that
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: we're watching.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there's obviously the ugly undertone of extreme
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: anti immigrant politics. I mean, you can debate border policy.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: I think the one thing I'd say that is that
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: you pointed out, as these far right parties kind of
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: smell actual power, you are likely to have more fracturing
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: among the far right because all of a sudden, we're
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: not just like some fringe movement that has to all
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: back the same leader, because we're just trying to get attention,
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: or we're trying to get over a threshold just to
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: get into the parliament. It actually gets a little harder
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: when you get closer to the actual thing, and we
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: could start to see this kind of fracturing in country
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: after country like we're you know, like we are beginning
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: to see in the UK. It takes a politician like
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: Maloney who kind of managed to kind of tame her rivals.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: And I'm an incredibly skilled politician, but it's no garantee
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: that that will be the case in these other countries.
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: We'll see the French election will be a huge test
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: of it next year. Obviously the next British election will
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: be a test of VARAG show a lot to watch here,
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: but including whether as in the US where you have
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: these kind of fractors in Maga, where Maga is starting
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: to be like, well, you know, Trump's not far right
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: enough for me, I'm going to go off and listen
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: to this podcast. Well you're seeing that in European politics too.
• 48:23
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  Speaker 1: slash World. Okay, a quick update and some rare good
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: news for you guys. A few weeks ago, we sounded
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: the alarm about Trumps attempt to install this guy named
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Bill Poulti as Director of National Intelligence. Bill Poulti is
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: fucking moron who's currently in charge of the Federal Housing
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Finance Agency. He was using that position to pull confidential
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: mortgage enemies, try to manipulate it, send it over to
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: DOJ to manufacture prosecutions of Trump's enemies. The good news
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: is that Trump faced bipartisan and very intense pushback on
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: the Pulty nomination. He ultimately caved and withdrew Pultsy, although
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: he's still trying to install him on an acting basis
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: for a short period of time. The new nominee to
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: be the Director of National Intelligence is Jay Clayton, who
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: is the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: which sees a lot of counterterrism work. He's a former
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: SEC chairman, So this guy might be a maga hack.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: I don't really know that much about in bed, but
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: at least he has a lot of relevant experience to
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: bring to the job. On like Bill Poulti, who was
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: like a couple weeks ago, we played a clip from
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: him on a podcast about HVAC systems. So you know,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: there's also a him at a conference where the guy
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: got slapped in the face of the dildo because he
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: was pumping.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: I'd like to think that that livestock.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: Segment that we did is probably what killed the Poulti nomination.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I heard it got played in the
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Oval office, Maggie Heirman, Jonavan Swann of Four Sources, so
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: rare good news. Also interestingly, like so, there's sort of
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: two debates around the d and I that had now
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: been kicked up. The one is whether Democrats should vote
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: to reauthorize section seven oh two of FAIZA, which allows
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: the intelligence community to get without a warrant, intercepted communications
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: of foreign persons outside of the United States from American
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: social media and tech companies. I over you know, in
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: the past, I think I've defended seven oh two is
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: the most defensible, even though there were abuses. Now, I
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: feel pretty firmly in the camp that if I were
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: in Congress, I would not reauthorize any intelligence collection program
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: because if Trump thinks it's such this is such a
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: game that you can instalve Bill Poulti as the DNI,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: then we shouldn't give them any more authorities. But also
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: it's kicked up this conversation about whether the dn I
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: position should be eliminated entirely. It sounds like that might
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: be where Trump is some members of Congress are I
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: don't know if you had to take on that, Ben
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: or if you've been tracking that debate, because I know,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: you know, you were part of the kind of the
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: post nine to eleven work that led to the creation
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: of the DNI, But that was sort of a new
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: one to me.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: So first of all, I think the killing of the Poulty nomination,
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: you have to think that what happened is zimb Republicans
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: called Trump and said you just can't do you know. Yeah,
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: it's it's a sign that there might be some healthier
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: pushback than say a year ago from Republicans, and maybe
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: they tied it to seven oh two. Then the other
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: two things I'd say on seven o two, the Intel
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: people create this binary where it's like you either reauthorize
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: this or the sky's gonna fall. But the point is that, like,
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: even if you're in a better governing situation than Trump,
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: I think you don't reauthorize it. And you kind of
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: have to recreate all these Patriot Act authorities and narrow
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: them in scope and put in more safeguards. Like that's
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: the conversation we should be having about reform and the
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: DNI itself. The reason I continue to believe you should
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: have one. I mean Trump hasn't really used the office
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: in the way it should be used. I mean Telsey
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: Gabbard was in there doing raids down in Fulton County,
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: like Rick Griddell was in there in the first term
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: doing god knows what. The only reason I still think
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: it's worth having is what is the alternative, Like someone
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: has to run this kind of sprawling apparatus in terms
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: of someone has to help set intelligence priorities. Someone has
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: to help kind of prepare the information flow to the
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: president United States, like the Presidential Daily Brief, And in
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: the past, before there was a DENI, the director of
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: the CIA did that and it just kind of created
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: this like turbocharged, empowered figure who both operational running all
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: these CI operations and overseeing the budgets of all these
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: other agencies. I don't know. I still think that like
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: if anyone was actually interested in, like the intelligence community
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: functioning properly, it would help to have someone in that role.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: It's just that oftentimes you've had presence who didn't take
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: that seriously and you know, prefer to turn to their
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: CIA director or their NSA director and kind of undercut
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: their DNI. The person doesn't have to be like all
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: powerful controlling everything, but literally just someone helping mind the
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: store correct set priorities. Yeah, exactly. I mean it's a
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: good government position. And so one example of how the
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: D and I can work is Avril Haynes. When she
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: was the d and I was the person who drove
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: the entire strategy to declassify intelligence about Russia and bading Ukraine,
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: which helped everybody on board and get prepared for when
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: that happened. I don't think that can that kind of
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: thing could have taken place without Avril Haynes doing that,
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: And so I think Avriel is a good example of
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: what you can do when you have a competent person
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: in a role like that.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: So two more things. We wanted to flag a report
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: about just the ongoing humanitarian disaster that has resulted from
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Congrats of being a trillionaire
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: by the way, sir, destroying USAID. So this comes from
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: someone named Sam Vikersky at the Council on Foreign Relations
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: a great report. It deep. The report details the Trump
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: administration's complete mismanagement of Food for Peace, which is a
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: program that was transferred from USAID to the Department of
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Agriculture after USAID was gutted, despite the fact that the
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: Agriculture Department has zero expertise in disaster response or administering
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: global humanitarian aids, so just didn't make any sense to
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: put it over there. So even more problematic than is
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: that Food for Peace is currently distributing American grain to
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: seven countries, two of which Rwanda and El Salvador don't
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: meet any sort of emergency standard, So clearly this is
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: just a favor to countries that did something that Trump liked,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: specifically on immigration for El Salvador, and then other countries
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: in severe crisis are just not getting anything. So the
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: biggest one, the biggest red flag on this list is Sudan,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: which has the world's worst hunger crisis, and then there's
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: a bunch of other countries with Muslim populations like Afghanistan, Lebanon,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: and Yemen. But again, the scale of the crisis in
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: Sudan is I think hard to overstate. The World Health
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: Organization reported at the beginning of this year that over
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: twenty million people required health assistants, at twenty one million
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: desperately needed food, thirteen point six million people have been displaced,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: and forty percent of Sudan's community kitchens have closed since
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the year, presumably because they don't have
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: anything to give out because USAID is gone. So Ben,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: it's just one of those examples like where you read
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: about the impact of the USAID getting gutted. It's hard
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: to keep it on the front pages. It's hard to
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: sort of like help people understand the impact without specific examples.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: But I honestly just don't know how any other word
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: to describe what they did here other than evil. They're
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: just like millions of kids are going to starve, period.
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: I think the Elon comparison is app here. Tommy, I
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: just say, like, at these events I've been doing, I've
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: had like over I think fifteen or twenty people who
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: were dozed from USAID, and you see the loss in
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: terms of the funding to places like Sudan. The people
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: that want to have a channel for doing something good
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: in the world. I think the split screen of Elon
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: Musk becoming a trillionaire at the same time that we
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: see these kind of shortages in places like Sudan says
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: something pretty profound about the world and its priorities. And
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: we just have to keep eating this drum. I honestly, Tommy,
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: like this may not this may be far too punitive.
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know, like a special tax on that trillion
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: dollars to create the next international development agency might be
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: like if you're looking for it's such a fraction. The
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: USCID budget is such a fraction of just this one
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: human being's wealth, and it says something about our priorities that,
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: like we exalt Elon Musk for being a trillionaire while
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: we don't pay a rounding era of his wealth to
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: help save hundreds of thousands of lies around the world.
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: I do think that democrats cannot forget that there's a
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: responsibility on the back end to build a better development agency. Frankly,
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: that's more fit for the purpose of the twenty twenties,
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: and USAI do necessarily was. It did great work, but
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: obviously could have been reformed. And yeah, maybe that is
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: like a one piece of the kind of wealth tax
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: that needs to be put in place.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: All for the wealth tax. I can't believe that Elon
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: becoming a trillionaire is not like kind of the moment
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: when the pitchworks come out and the populist outrages and
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: bubbles over to a new place. But here we are,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: finally ben where it's got of some fun. So the
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: FIFA World Cup is happening as we speak. I don't
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: know about you. I spent the morning watching France versus
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: Senegal is an incredible game, and Bape is unbelievable. Yeah,
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: like one off. In the second half last week we
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: covered a lot of the issues with the World Cup,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: some of the terrible things that the Trump administration is
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: doing around the games. Today, we're just gonna have some fun,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: have you how many games have you caught? I know
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: you've been on the road.
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: I've got part of like three or four games.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I've had it on all day every
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: day at the office, and then I'm like laying in
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: bed at night streaming on my phone as I go
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: to sleep. So I've been pretty pretty obsessed. I also
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: went to.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 8: Yeah you were doing I can't get in the middle
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 8: of all my nick's podcast. We also had the UFC
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 8: fight on the South Lawn. Dude, I went to the
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 8: USA Paraguay game on Friday in LA. It was a
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 8: shoutout Ben and VICKI my buddy from college for getting
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 8: us tickets. It was one of the most fun sports
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 8: experiences I've ever been to because it was like everyone
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 8: was just hyped to be there, Like people dressed up,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 8: super patriotic, fun people chanting, just like psyched on the
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 8: way in. And then you know, in typical American fashion,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 8: you just beat the brakes off of some country of
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 8: less than seven million people and celebrated.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: But everyone's cool about it. It was a great thing to
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: like see the team playing that well and these young stars.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: And one thing I just want to say to listeners,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: Like in the Discord community and stuff, you get a
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: lot of people being like, how can you root for
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: team USA when Trump is president and in this moment,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: And it's like I just want to say, don't let
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: them take this from you, you know, like this is
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: all of our country. Be patriotic, like root for your teams.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: Be psyched at the diversity on that team and the
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: fact that like a guy who scored two goals would
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: be described by the Ben Shapiros of the world as
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: an anchor baby, you know what I mean? Like immigration
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: has made us a better team, right, Like, there's a
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: lot to love about this team, a lot to celebrate
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: about these players. Like I don't know, I just I
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: hate when liberals or progressive like let Republicans take patriotism
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: in cheering for your country away from us, because I like,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: first of all, it sucks, and also I think like
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: people want to be part of a political movement that
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: celebrates their country, that loves their country despite its flaws.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd add to that in two ways. The first
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: is the same progressive impulse that I like, which is like,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: why are we punishing their Ranian team? Why are we
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: not letting them stay in the United States? I agree
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: with all that, I don't think we. I think they're
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: Ranian teams should be treated like everybody else. They should
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: be able to say where the fuck they went, their
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: coach would be able to come all those things. Well,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: that applies to our players too, Like just like I
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: don't include you know, hold the Iranian soccer players responsible
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: for the conduct of their government. Why should we hold
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: our players accountable for what Donald Trump said, I mean
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: that kind of plays into the idea that Donald Trump
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: is America and and that what like, you know, every
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: one of these players is playing for Donald Trump. And
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: then the second thing is we should call out and
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: we have called that, and we'll call out any like
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: ridiculous xenophobia and racism in terms of like not letting
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: certain people into this country and all these other things.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: But actually, once the games start, I'm not seeing that.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: That's how American fans are acting. Like the seems like
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: people are pretty I was. I was down on Venice
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: Beach the other day and there was a huge fucking
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: Argentina show of strength. They had all the flags out,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: They had like beach tents in the Argentina flag, and
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: people were loving it. They were like dancing to the music.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: And it's fun to have people from all over the
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: world here. And Americans, most Americans, not all Americans. Obviously
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: we liked to Trump twice, but like most Americans are
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: kind of psyched to have the rest of the world here.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: Like let's let ourselves, you know, even if you're not
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: like the most raw, raw patriotic person, fine, but like
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: let's let ourselves feel good about the players because I
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: just don't. I just don't agree with like punishing athletes
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: for the conduct of their government.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: It's stupid. And also I agree with you, like I
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: think it's been really fun seeing all these clips on
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: social media of foreign visitors to the United States experiencing
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: like waffle House for the first time and losing their
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: minds right, and you kind of feel like you're experiencing
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: your country all over again through the eyes of someone else,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: and it makes you It reminds you of all the
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: things you love about it and why it's great, and like, yes,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: you see these cultures converging in host cities. You see
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: like Korean fans getting shit faced with Mexican fans and like,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: I love that going to the club and making out
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: like this is so great, Like yeah, there's just so
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: much joy. And so what we did is actually we
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: brought you guys a super cut of some of our
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: favorite moments of these clips. I got. This is the
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: reason why you need to subscribe to pot Save the
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: World on YouTube, because you can see these clips because
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: there's not a lot of dialogue in this. It's just
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: like lots of funds up. But we'll play it and
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: then I'll tell you was what we just watched. Where
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: are you from? Have live in England?
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: Not Julian blowing up in Mexico.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go not junior, all right. So we played
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff there because I just couldn't get
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: enough of it. So I think we had some the
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: fans from Norway just kept like pretending they were rowing things.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: There's videos of them on an escalators. Like the Scottish
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: fans took Boston by storm. There were dudes playing bagpipes
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: at six thirty in the morning. The entire Scottish fan
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: base apparently they must have all just bought tickets to
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: go see a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, and
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: then they took the place over. They were literally hanging
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: from the rafters. They were singing songs like people who
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: went said it was the most fun Red Sox game
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: they had been too in years in park because the
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: team sucks right now, but we won't talk about that.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: You had Mexican fans doing dancing Gangham style with South
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: Korean fans. You had the ESPN Mexico posted this video
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: of the Mexican fans sharing their tequila bottle with the Koreans.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: Actually it was the Koreans sharing it with the Mexicans
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: because they brought a bottle of tequila. I didn't realize
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: they couldn't bring it to the stadium and then just
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: decided to take shots with all their counterparts. My favorite
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: people in the entire video, ben were the Nigerian dudes
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: who were such haters of the South African team that
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: they traveled all the way to Mexico to watch them lose.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: I love those dudes. You had Sene golf fans in
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Times Square, then you had Ecuador and Ivory Coast plans
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: playing flip cup against each other outside of a game
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: in Philly. Apparently Philly is the only place where you
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: really allowed to tailgate hard. So I don't know, Like,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: how do you not love this?
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah? And I love like they are sampling our culture,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: we're sampling their culture. It's blending together. I also love
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: like I love rooting for the USA. I love also
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: like finding these teams that I kind of fall in
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: love with along the way, you know, and sometimes you
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: fall in love with the teams because of their fans,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: Like how can you not root for the Koreans? You know,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: like they're they're you know, they love their teams as
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: much a they're just like getting you know, wasted on
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: tequil shots. I mean it's just it's great.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: And like like Bain versus Cape Verde, like somehow improbably
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: like played them to a tie. There have been a
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: lot of great like Gutsy.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Kate verdey, Yeah, I was. I was rooting for
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: Kate Verday there. I like the underdogs.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: I like the underdogs too. Buddy Line went to the
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Iran game in La the other night that it was passed.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: I watched the people were rooting for Rount. Anyway, lots
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: of great stuff happening. Watched the World Cup games. If
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: you're not it's it will bring you great joy. Okay,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: then and I are going to take a break. But when
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: we come back here and hear my interview with Fred
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: Plaken from CNN, we'll talk about his recent trip to Iran,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: what he heard from average Iranians, from the IRGC officials
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: he talked to, and much more so. Stick around for
• 1:06:59
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  Speaker 1: limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. Joining me today
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  Speaker 1: is Fred Pludkin. He is the senior international correspondent at
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: CNA and he's based in Berlin, but until last Friday
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: he was on the ground reporting from Iran. Fred, thanks
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: so much for making the time.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 9: Yeah, thank you for having me.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: So I want to start with the news and get
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: more into the experience of being in Iran. The US
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: in Iran have reportedly cut a deal to end the war.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: We don't know what's in the deal because they won't
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: tell us, they won't release the text. The gist seems
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: to be reopening the straight oh hor moves. Then the
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: two sides try to negotiate some sort of follow on
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: about Iran's nuclear program. I know you were in you know,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: you left Iran before this was finalized, I believe, But
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: we're able to talk with people you met in Iran
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: about the gist of this sort of agreement and get
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: a sense of how they felt about it. Yeah, certainly.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 9: I mean I spoke with Iranian officials and sort of
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 9: everyday people on the streets as well. And I think
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 9: especially you know, if you spoke to like, you know,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 9: local shop owners, folks on the street and stuff, there
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 9: were a lot of them who were saying that they
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 9: really wanted the conflict to end, and they were really
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 9: hoping for some sanctions relief. One of the things about
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 9: the past couple of months, especially but really the past
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 9: years in Iran is that they have had some economic
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 9: problems and you know, if you look at the time
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 9: since since the war started, the internet was shut down
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 9: for an extended period of time, and they are they
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 9: are really, you know, very linked up society. They do
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 9: a lot of online business, and that made it very
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 9: difficult for them. So a lot of folks were saying,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 9: you know, they were persevering, but you know, they were
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 9: kind of happy to hopefully get a break. And if
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 9: you look at the Iranian officials that we spoke to,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 9: we actually spoke to a lot of officials, including two
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 9: advisors to Iran Supreme Leader. One of the things that
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 9: was very important for them was getting some of their
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 9: frozen assets and that's what they kept talking to us about.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 9: They said, look, there's about you know, they were talking
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 9: about twenty four billion round about. They said they considered
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 9: a good will gesture by the US if the US
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 9: were to give that back, how and what sort of
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 9: mechanism there could be for that was unclear, but that
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 9: was something that was really key for them. And then
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 9: obviously lifting the blockade was the other thing that was
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 9: key for them as well. But I think that this
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 9: whole thing. The idea of that you were just talking about,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 9: of making this a two step process where on the
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 9: one hand, they stop the hostilities, the Iranians open the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 9: straight orfor moves, the US lifts the naval blockade, the
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 9: Iranians can start exporting some of the oil that's obviously
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 9: caught up there in that area. I think that, you know,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 9: that's something that they are latching onto as well. They
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 9: always said they wanted to keep the discussions about their
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 9: nuclear program out of the first Memorandum of understanding and
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 9: then move that into a later stage.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, I can totally understand the kind of basic
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: naslow hierarchy of needs, like ending the conflict would be
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: number one for everyone. But I also wonder if there
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: are people who feel like Trump is just look, he
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: is just cutting a deal to get gas prices down
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: in the US, and all this talk early on of
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: like riding to the rescue of protesters who were killed,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: seems to be gone, and he seems to be just
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: happy leaving in place this new regime which looks a
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: lot like the old regime, but Trump now describes them
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: as pragmatic, So I don't know, I can imagine it
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: cutting both ways, but it sounds like people just wanted
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: it over, you know what.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 9: I think one of the things, it's a really really
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 9: interesting question. And I was actually I was in Iran
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 9: also in February of this year, before the war started,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 9: but also after the demonstrations that took place there that
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 9: that you know, obviously ended very very violently. And I
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 9: have to say that when I was on the ground
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 9: back then, I was speaking to people, and a lot
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 9: of people back then were asking me, is the US
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 9: going Obamas, is there going to be war? And I
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 9: said at that point, you know, I think about eighty
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 9: percent yes, seventy to eighty percent yes. And there were
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 9: actually some people who then gave me a thumbs up
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 9: because they were so angry at the government. But then
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 9: I was also in Iran after the bombing started, and
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 9: a lot of those same people were like, we could
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 9: not imagine how bad this was going to be. And
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 9: having been there when that happened at the height of
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 9: the bombing campaign, it was it was definitely one of
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 9: the one of the toughest experience I have to admit
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 9: that I've ever had, because the thing is that like there,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 9: you know, there's no real place to seek shelter. There's
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 9: no bomb shelters. There's a subway, but you know, there's
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 9: not that many subway stations also, and you know when
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 9: when when a military uses two thousand pound bombs in
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 9: an urban area, it it just you know, there's going
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 9: to be what people call collateral damage. There's going to
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 9: be civilians who were harmed. And I think a lot
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 9: of people were just downright shocked at what was going on,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 9: you know, And I can tell you from us being there,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 9: there really wasn't an extended period of time that we
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 9: went anywhere that there wasn't a bombing nearby. So I
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 9: think for a lot of people having experienced that, you know,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 9: they're like, we really want to go to something different,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 9: you know, we would like to have a chance economically,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 9: And I do think that right now the leadership is definitely,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 9: you know, very emboldened, and fields very entrenched as well.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would imagine. So, I mean again, you're one
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: of the very few Western reporters who has managed to
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: get into Iran since the war started. Can you just
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: tell us like where you went, what you saw, and
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: what the general impact was on the average Iranian person.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 9: Well, the impact was huge I mean, so the way
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 9: that it worked this time. Normally you fly into Iran,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 9: but there's international airlines that fly into Tehran Airport. Obviously
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 9: that wasn't going on this time. And I have to
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 9: say I've been I've been traveling around for a long time.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 9: I think I've been there like forty five forty six times,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 9: been to a lot of Iranian cities, but this time
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 9: it was it was Tehran and the greater Tehran area
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 9: while the war.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: Was going on.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 9: And what we did, because we'd heard that a lot
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 9: of the border crossings were closed, is we flew into
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 9: Armenia and then we had to drive for nine hours
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 9: to the border with Iran. You know, they were very
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 9: the security there were nervous to let us in, and
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 9: then they did, but we had so we had like
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 9: a fourteen hour drive then to Tehran. And we were
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 9: already as we were driving in. This is in the
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 9: really early stages, like I think three or four days
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 9: after the war started, we were already going past industrial
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 9: areas that have been bombed. You know, we saw plumes
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 9: of smoke and then we actually we stopped shortly before
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 9: Tehran because there was bombing going on in the west
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 9: of the study that we would have had to drive through,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 9: so we didn't do that. But while we were you know,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 9: going down for the night, they bombed an area close
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 9: to us as well, and I woke up in the
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 9: morning there were jets overhead. So it was it was
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 9: I mean, the impact was felt by everybody, you know,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 9: it was it was a big, big bombing campaign that
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 9: was that was going on, and you know, for a
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 9: long time, I think in the cities it was mostly
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 9: the Israelis doing the bombing, so Israeli but also American
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 9: jets were up, you know, almost flying at will and
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 9: just just taking out a lot of places. Then it
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 9: was it was it was difficult for a lot of people,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 9: you know, and they were they were afraid to go
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 9: to work, to go about their lives because a lot
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 9: of security installations were hit, you know, military bases, police stations,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 9: government buildings, and you know, if your business is close
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 9: to that, then you know there's a there's a there's
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 9: a good chance that you could be hurt. There was
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 9: one place that we went to where they took out
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 9: I think it was a police station, and the local
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 9: folks that were telling us that got taken out, but
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 9: the bakery across the street pretty far away got you know,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 9: got badly damaged as well, and their local baker got killed.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 9: So yeah, I mean it was it was a huge impact.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 9: And on top of that, of course, you know, a
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 9: lot of people lost their work, a lot of businesses
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 9: were destroyed, like, for instance, the almost the entire steel industry.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 9: You know, if if you recall that there were big
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 9: strikes against the steel industry, so it's it's it's a
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 9: big economic hit. And I think it was at the
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 9: the the bombing was pretty shocking for a lot of
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 9: people on the ground.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: I think. Well, so you know, you you talked about
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: how before the war started, you know, there was this
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: massive protest movement followed by a massive crackdown on the protesters. Yeah,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: were you able to get any sense of support for
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: the Iranian regime after that protest movement was crushed and
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: then the bombing rates started.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 9: I think that it took a big hit, but I
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 9: think that it was it was still there was still
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 9: a degree there. And you know, one of the things
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 9: that that I said after we got out in February,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 9: and this was again this was before the war, but
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 9: after the crackdown that happened is I felt that, you know,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 9: the support for the government was was was pretty weak
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 9: before that already, you know, it was, you know, the
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 9: economy wasn't doing very well. There was a reason why
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 9: the protests had happened, and I think that that you know,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 9: obviously took another hit again. But I said when I
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 9: came out that I didn't think that there was going
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 9: to be an uprising against the government if the US
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 9: starts bombing, simply because there were so many security forces
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 9: on the ground at that point. You know, everywhere you went,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 9: there was a checkpoint everywhere and these are these are
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 9: these are you know, local militias that are very much
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 9: entrenched also in the community. You know, there were dudes
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 9: with their sons at the checkpoints and.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: Stuff like that. More besiege than like military.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 9: It's very Yeah, it was a lot of besieged. But
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 9: also on top of that, like local militias that you know,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 9: I couldn't define. But anyway, there were a lot of
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 9: guys out with guns on the streets patrolling the streets,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 9: motorcycle groups patrolling the streets. So I say, it would
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 9: be very difficult even if people wanted to do that.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 9: And on the other hand. Also, they're really I didn't
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 9: really see very much as of an organized movement, you know,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 9: because obviously the opposition wasn't really organized to begin with.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: There.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 9: You know, they came out and there were demonstrations for
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 9: the government, and I think the government support certainly increased
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 9: as the bombing went on because a lot of people
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 9: didn't want intervention from the outside. But of course that discontent,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 9: it was definitely in February, was very much there.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one last question on the protests. I mean, the
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: estimates for how many people were killed in the protests
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: seemed to range, Yeah, five thousand to forty thousand.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 9: Is there anything I think it's from like three thousand
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 9: to like forty thousand. It's very It's super difficult to
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 9: ascertain also because we obviously have very little even when
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 9: you're on the ground, you know, I don't purport to
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 9: know what every Iranian things, you know, or what the
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 9: public opinion there is, so it is quite difficult. I
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 9: think the government has some figure of like three thousand something.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 9: I would assume it's higher, you know, maybe considerably higher
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 9: than that. I was actually when I was there in February.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 9: One of the things that we did do is. We
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 9: went to the big the main cemetery of Tehran. It's
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 9: called Behesh ta Zara. It's in the south of the city,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 9: near the mom Coomene shrine, and there were a lot
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 9: of fresh grapes, there were a lot of fresh graves,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 9: and there were a lot of families crying there, you know.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 9: And then we wrote an article about it. There were
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 9: a lot of people who were like, please don't put
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 9: me on camera, but yeah, I mean, you know, it's
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 9: there's different differing accounts, but you could there was sense
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 9: something very very terrible had happened, and a lot of
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 9: people had seen very terrible things happen.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet. Yeah. You also managed to go to
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: an IRGC event. Can you tell us about the event?
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: And like, what's what's the vibe at IRGC event?
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 9: I went to a couple of IRGC events actually, yeah,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 9: so I was at one I think it wasn't know
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 9: it was this Friday or Thursday, I think. So basically,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 9: it's also the one year anniversary of the Israeli attacks
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 9: in last June, and so they were basically, you know,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 9: where a lot of senior IRGC leaders were killed in
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 9: the early stages of that. So they basically had the
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 9: warning ceremony for one year on for that and you know,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 9: the the IERGC right now, I think, from what I gleaned,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 9: feels as though it's much more in control and command
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 9: and stronger than it was maybe even a year ago.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 9: I think one of the things that that they sort
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 9: of pride themselves on is that they got hit by
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 9: two of the most powerful air if not the two
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 9: most powerful air forces in the world. They stood, they
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 9: reconstituted themselves, they struck back, They managed to project power
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 9: into the Gulf region, into the Strait of Horror moves
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 9: and and and that obviously gave them a big internal boost.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 9: So from what I saw, their morale was pretty high.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 9: I mean, we were at an event, you know, where
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 9: they were screaming death to America and death to Israeli,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 9: the kind of things that you very often hear. But
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 9: you could tell that their whole vibe seemed to be
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 9: I would say, you know, a lot more confident and
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 9: a lot more nimble than maybe you would have seen before.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 9: It's one of the interesting things that you know, with
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 9: so many senior also revolutionary Guard leaders who were killed
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 9: in the early stages of the US Israeli campaign and
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 9: the Israeli campaign that it's it's it's actually kind of
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 9: rejuvenated the military leadership to a certain extent. And I
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 9: think that you also you saw that also as the
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 9: war went on. I mean, one of the things that
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 9: was really a standout moment for me as I you know,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 9: observed the war was there was there was an an
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 9: instance when the Israelis, well into the war, hits the
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 9: Natans nuclear facility and it took the Iramians only a
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 9: couple hours to go back and strike at Demona, at
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 9: the Israeli nuclear facility, and that to me made very
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 9: clear that first of all, their command and control structure
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 9: was still very much in place, and that also they're
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 9: able to point their missiles in very different directions maybe
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 9: than before, and still project power even all the way
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 9: into Israel. And I think that's something that really for them,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 9: I don't know if it was surprising, but certainly something
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 9: that to them showed that their sort of strategy of
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 9: asymmetric warfare to an extent at least was working.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it definitely worked. I mean, you got
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: my next question, which is Trump keeps describing the new
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: leadership in Iran as more pragmatic, more willing to make
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: a deal. There's this question of whether Mushtabahaminae is sick
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: or injured or really calling the shots. What's your sense
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: of the leadership structure these days?
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 9: So I think to a certain extent they are definitely
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 9: I would also say there's still there. They're quite pragmatic. Actually,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 9: I mean, I do have to say that, you know,
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 9: the fact that that they they were in this war
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 9: which they defined as a war of survival, but at
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 9: the same time they also first of all, managed to
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 9: reconstitute pretty much all of their It's not the state institutions,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 9: but it's the system, do you know what I mean?
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 9: It's it's the thing about Iran is that you can
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 9: you can kill a lot of guys, but the system survives,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 9: you know. It's it's it's it's almost like a blob
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 9: that just keeps coming back. And they did that very quickly.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 9: I mean, if you think about it, Iyatola Ali Khmane
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 9: who's killed in the early hours, he'd been the supreme
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 9: leader I think for thirty seven years, so that was
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 9: a very very long time, and it looked like that
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 9: that reign, you know, was going on forever. It took
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 9: them three days to get a new Supreme leader going,
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 9: you know, and that that in itself shows that the
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 9: system was working. Then their Supreme National Security Council, the
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 9: military obviously leadership, a lot of guys were killed as well,
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 9: and then they managed to put that system back together.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 9: And then also that led to new sort of emphasies
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 9: in many of the places. You know, the military obviously
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 9: had that very important role for them. That Supreme National
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 9: Security counts out a lot of guys who were taking
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 9: on more prominent roles. But to get to the question,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 9: so sorry for being around the bush, I know that
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 9: the American intel assessment is that much Tabahamane is getting
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 9: more and more involved, is calling the shots that he
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 9: might have been severely injured. My take that is that
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 9: it really doesn't matter whether you know to what extent
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 9: he's fit or not fit, because you see that the
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 9: Iranian leadership is able to make decisions. They're able to
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 9: make strategic decisions. They were able to cut deal appears
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 9: with the United States, they were able to put together
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 9: a strategy for the Strait of horror moves. They just
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 9: put together this new Strait of horror moves authority that
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 9: they want to establish with the omanis. So clearly this
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 9: is a functioning state that you know, where the state
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 9: institutions still work, and that is also able to define,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 9: you know, what their new strategy is. And I think
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 9: in many ways, you know, they have I don't know
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 9: if you call it pragmatic or nimble, but you know,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 9: if you look at the military now, they're making lego movies.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 9: They they're sort of messaging is very different than it
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 9: was before. It addresses younger people. So yeah, I mean
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 9: it's by all accounts, you know, in the ways that
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 9: they need to function, they are functioning, and the presidency
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 9: is functioning as well. You know, it's like the state
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 9: institutions are all working.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: But do you think the elected officials have any power,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: you know, the foreign minister like or they just kind
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: of fig leaves, you know, the IRGC calls the shots.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 9: Well, I don't know, I think I don't think that
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 9: they're fig It's a really interesting question because I think
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 9: a lot of that also, you know, a lot of
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 9: that's changed over the time this conflict has gone on.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 9: I mean, obviously, right now the military is a lot
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 9: more powerful than it was before. You know, because they
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 9: they from what I can see, they've been given the
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 9: authority or have taken the authority that you know, with
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 9: if the US, for instance, strikes anywhere in around Israel strikes,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 9: beiru the responses up to them, and no one is
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 9: going to stop them. You know, they can ask them
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 9: to stop them, but they're going to do whatever they
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 9: want to do. Right and at the same time, the
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 9: Supreme Leader's office obviously is always very important as well.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 9: But if you look at especially the Foreign Minister, you know,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 9: he was by this system I think, defined as the
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 9: guy who's going to talk to the Americans. So he's
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 9: the entry point into that system for them because he
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 9: speaks the language of the Americans and he can speak
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 9: then translate into their system. So I mean, I think
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 9: he's got a very important function actually, but they all
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 9: nobody is, you know.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 9: One of the things that we kept hearing from the
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 9: Trump administration was they kept talking about fractures in the leadership,
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 9: and I think that that's because maybe because they'd had
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 9: this experience with Venezuela where they got Delsi Rodriguez. You know,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 9: remember how they were talking about how the parliament, the
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 9: President of the Iranian parliament could be the next DELCI.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 9: That's not how iron works. And so I think that
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 9: for them, they were always looking for that guy to
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 9: talk to, the guy where they're like, this is what
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 9: we want from you. But it's a system, you know.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 9: I think any guy that you talk to, he's going
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 9: to tell the military needs to sign off, the Supreme
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 9: Leader's office needs to sign off, Supreme National Security Council
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 9: needs to sign off, the Presidency needs to be informed.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 9: The president there is more like a domestic guy, but
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 9: it's not one guy that you talk to. And I
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 9: think that, you know, the fact that they in the
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 9: end got an agreement going is because the US probably
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 9: realized that, you know. And there's one thing, if I
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 9: can say it, I don't know if if I'm going
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 9: overboard here, but I think one of the really interesting
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 9: things that I sort of observed in this conflict is that,
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 9: you know, the Islamic Republic on paper has the Supreme
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 9: Leader who is the final authority on everything. But if
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 9: you look at the sort of way that the US
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 9: and Iran dealt with each other, the US seemed to
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 9: be much more of the country that had an absolute
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 9: leader rather than Iran, you know, whereas the US is
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 9: like Trump's going to make the decision he says this
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 9: or that, whereas the Iranian is saying, this has to
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 9: go through all of our institutions, and all of our
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 9: institutions have to sign off. That was one of the
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 9: things that I thought was really interesting to see that
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 9: they really have this very continuous process which takes forever
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 9: now also because of all the security mechanisms that they
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 9: put in place after so many of their leaders were killed.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always funny to hear Trump bitching about the
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: delays and hearing back it's like, well, you did try
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: to kill almost all of these people that you're trying
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: to email now, so you know, I can understand why
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: I might take them a minute to get back.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 9: It takes a long time, and it took them I
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 9: think two weeks sometimes to answer to some of these things.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy. Last question, I just like, can you
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: tell us about the process for setting up a visit
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: to Iran? I mean, like, do you have a minder
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: while you're there? Like, I'm good friends with Jason Rezaiyan,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: who is taken prisoner by the Iranian regime. Is that
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: in the back of your head.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 9: Not really, that's not really the back of my head.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 9: I mean sometimes it is, yeah, but not normally. We
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 9: don't have a minder. We have a sort of translator
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 9: with us who we've been working with forever, who's you know,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 9: we hire him freelance. The way that I that you
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 9: set up there's basically there's there's several government bodies that
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 9: have to sign off on it, right, so you apply
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 9: for a visa. There's a website evis Iran. Anybody can
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 9: can can go on it. For journalist visas, the Foreign
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 9: Ministry needs to sign off, so you basically you apply
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 9: your local embassy for meets Berlin and then that goes
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 9: to the Foreign Ministry. They then deal with it and
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 9: the other ministry as well as the Culture Ministry because
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 9: they are responsible for media affairs, and then they all
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 9: have at some point they meet, they discuss everything and
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 9: they say whether or not they give you a visa.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 9: But there's actually that that's for for American media because
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 9: America doesn't have diplomatic relations with Iran. But for instance,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 9: there's a lot of you know, German media, French media
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 9: that actually have permanent correspondence in Tehran. That is something
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 9: that's possible. But you know, sometimes when I when I
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 9: spoke in the past to officials and I was like,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 9: you know, don't you know you want to grant us
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 9: better acces and stuff. They're like, we'll do that, and
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 9: we can have a correspondent in Washington, and.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: Hey bring them over. Do you feel like people are
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: willing to speak honestly with you? I mean, i'd be terrified.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 9: I think some of it's a it's a it's a
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 9: it's an interesting question. I mean, obviously there's a lot
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 9: of people who don't and I don't. I don't you know,
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 9: pretend that I really understand all of Iranian society. I
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 9: try to learn from them and I and I, you know,
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 9: every time you take in something new. The way that
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 9: we do it at our network is that I do
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 9: my part. You know, I talk to the people that
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 9: I can talk to there on the ground, But you
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 9: also other people, you know, who anonymously speak to folks
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 9: who are on the ground there, who contact people and
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 9: then try to get the different perspectives. But I think
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 9: all of us, every network, we're sort of trying to
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 9: put together the puzzle of what public opinion might be
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 9: like there. But it's a big country. It's a big country.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 9: It's a very diverse country also, you know, with with
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 9: with with a lot of different cultures, a lot of
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 9: different types of folks, you know, and and and you know,
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 9: they have big Armenian Christian community. They have this I
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 9: think the second biggest Jewish community in the Middle East
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 9: after Israel. So it's a very you know, it's not
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 9: a monolithic country at all.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: No, of course, So yeah, it's silly for Americans. I mean,
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: imagine if you're a foreign correspondent, you go to New
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: York City or you go to Dallas, right, it's going
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: to be a different vibe, or some rural area, it's.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 9: Gonna be different vibe exactly. And the things that people
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 9: underestimate also how big Iran is. You know, it is
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 9: absolutely massive. I mean, we drove from the border to
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 9: Tehran in like thirteen fourteen hours, and if you look
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 9: at it on the map, it's not that much. You know,
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 9: there's a lot there's a lot of stuff south of that, and.
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: You go down to Gome. You're a very different experience
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: of exactors like that. Well, listen, I think what the
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: reporting you do is like essential and fascinating. I wish
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: I wish there was a bunch of Iranian correspondent's coming
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: over to Washington and like some a little more connectivity.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: Hopefully the new administration policy will maybe get us back
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: to having embassies and diplomatic relations and something less insane.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: It could be.
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 9: I mean, I was in the US embassy there a
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 9: couple of times, the US embassy that got stormed, which
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 9: is now a museum. Actually, who knows if they'll ever
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 9: get that back.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, yeah, they might be holding out
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: of that one. I don't know how many wants that
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: one back. Well, Fred, thank you so much for doing
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: the show. It is absolutely fascinating. I really appreciate your time.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 9: Thank you very much.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks again to Fred Pliken for joining the show, and Ben.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: Good luck on the world tour. And we'll see you
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: guys next week see in Chicago.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 3: Actually yeah, man, I'll see you soon.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: Pozz of the World is a Crooked and Media production.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: Our show is produced by alonaman Kofski, Michael Goldsmith and
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: Nisha Bonnergy. Our team includes Matt de Grope, Ben Heathcote,
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: Jordan Kanter, Kenny Moffatt, David Toles, and Ryan Young. Our
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: staff is proudly unionized, but the Writers Guild of America
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: East