Latest / Pod Save the World / Pope Warns of AI Apocalypse

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Pope Warns of AI Apocalypse · Pod Save the World

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Speaker 1: invisible wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Potsday
2:10
Speaker 1: of the World on Tommy p Tour.
2:12
Speaker 2: I'm Ben Rhodes and Ben happens.
2:14
Speaker 1: To be in New York when the Knicks going to
2:17
Speaker 1: the NBA Finals. Congratulations, buddy.
2:19
Speaker 2: I got here yesterday because I did my book launch
2:22
Speaker 2: here today and I was able to watch the Knicks
2:24
Speaker 2: win in New York City. The buzz was palpable.
2:27
Speaker 1: Did you rip down like a street light or anything?
2:29
Speaker 2: I considered it. I considered some looting, but I think,
2:34
Speaker 2: you know, we had to win the championship before we
2:35
Speaker 2: can properly tear things up.
2:37
Speaker 1: So we'll see one trash can through a Starbucks window maybe.
2:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were some dudes, Like there was some great
2:43
Speaker 2: footage of dudes like, you know, standing on top of
2:45
Speaker 2: subway stations, and you know, I think it got real
2:49
Speaker 2: last night in a few neighborhoods. But we still got
2:51
Speaker 2: one more series to go.
2:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I'm happy for you, Ben. Did you see
2:54
Speaker 1: that President Trump today was scheduled to go to Walter
2:58
Speaker 1: Reid for his third in person visit for like a
3:01
Speaker 1: medical and dental evaluation. I think this year or since
3:04
Speaker 1: inauguration last year, do you ever feel like there's a
3:07
Speaker 1: massive cover up of his health problems that like no
3:09
Speaker 1: one ever really talks about.
3:10
Speaker 2: I will just say that for eight years, I don't
3:13
Speaker 2: think I ever went to a doctor. There wasn't the
3:15
Speaker 2: White House medical unit on the campus, right. I mean
3:18
Speaker 2: you can get you know, you can get procedures done,
3:21
Speaker 2: you can get prescriptions, you can get checkups. Like you
3:25
Speaker 2: don't have to go to wall to read for like
3:27
Speaker 2: routine medical care.
3:28
Speaker 1: It's like some sort of specialized equipment. Yeah, doctor Ronnie
3:32
Speaker 1: was writing scripts from anywhere, but you need some sort
3:34
Speaker 1: of like you know, yeah, if there's a big thing
3:36
Speaker 1: or a big problem, you're going to wall to read.
3:38
Speaker 1: It's all just very weird.
3:39
Speaker 2: It is weird, and every now and then you wonder
3:41
Speaker 2: whether some of the more resistency people are onto something here.
3:45
Speaker 1: I don't think we need to give them any credit
3:47
Speaker 1: for shit. In this case. It's just like, you know,
3:48
Speaker 1: the third time the guy goes You're like interesting, But
3:51
Speaker 1: I digress here. We've got a lot to cover today.
3:54
Speaker 1: Congratulations on your book. We're going to talk about that
3:56
Speaker 1: at the end of the show. But first we're going
3:58
Speaker 1: to start with trying to explain where the hell the
4:01
Speaker 1: US and Ron are when it comes to a possible
4:03
Speaker 1: peace deal or ceasefire extension or something. After this weekend
4:08
Speaker 1: of furious social media diplomacy from Donald Trump, there were
4:12
Speaker 1: like announcements and background briefings that the deal was almost done.
4:15
Speaker 1: Then there were walk backs of those announcements, and then
4:18
Speaker 1: we woke up today to airstrikes. So all of it's
4:20
Speaker 1: very confusing. Maybe it was all just a excuse to
4:23
Speaker 1: skip Donald Trump Junior's wedding. We don't know. Maybe it's
4:26
Speaker 1: a both and there ben you know.
4:28
Speaker 2: Quite plausible, actually quite plausible. I mean it considered the
4:30
Speaker 2: lengths you would go do to skip down Junior.
4:32
Speaker 1: Almost anything. Yeah, I might start a war with the
4:34
Speaker 1: rhyme was skipped on R's wedding. They went a bid
4:36
Speaker 1: farewell to the now former Director of National Intelligence, Tulsey Gabbert.
4:40
Speaker 1: I don't know if she's resigned yet or but she put
4:42
Speaker 1: her letter out will reflect on her time as the
4:44
Speaker 1: nation's top spy. They were going to walk through Pope
4:47
Speaker 1: Leo's Treatise on Artificial Intelligence. Very interesting document, very long,
4:50
Speaker 1: interesting document. I will update you on us ARM sales
4:53
Speaker 1: to Taiwan, this Growing a bowld outbreak in Central and
4:56
Speaker 1: Eastern Africa. And then our guest today, like I said,
4:59
Speaker 1: is Ben. We're going to talk about his new book
5:01
Speaker 1: All We Say, The Battle for American Identity, A History
5:04
Speaker 1: in fifteen speeches. It is available right now, right Ben,
5:08
Speaker 1: You can go right now to any store buy your book.
5:10
Speaker 2: You can walk out of your house after this podcast
5:13
Speaker 2: and buy it. You can order it. It's great. I
5:17
Speaker 2: desperately want people to buy it because I worked on
5:20
Speaker 2: for four years and you are the audience worldows for
5:23
Speaker 2: everything I do. And today Wednesday, the day this podcast
5:26
Speaker 2: comes out, I'll be at Politics and Pros in DC.
5:29
Speaker 2: I'll be in Miami at Books and Books on Friday
5:32
Speaker 2: night and Coral Gables, and I will be in Nashville
5:34
Speaker 2: at parnassas Ie on Monday night. And I'll be at
5:38
Speaker 2: the Cleveland Public Library on Tuesday night. So if you're
5:42
Speaker 2: in any of those places, come check it out.
5:45
Speaker 1: Go see Ben. If you're there, Also pause the podcast
5:48
Speaker 1: right now, buy a book. We're going to also at
5:49
Speaker 1: the end of the episode focus on two chapters in
5:52
Speaker 1: the book. There's two major speeches, foreign policy, speeches, one
5:55
Speaker 1: by FDR one by Reagan. So we'll talk about those.
5:58
Speaker 1: We'll talk about the art of speeches and leaders moving
6:02
Speaker 1: people or a nation through their words in this day
6:04
Speaker 1: and age. But either way, congrats on this sucker coming out, Ben,
6:07
Speaker 1: and I'm excited to read your book on ai Lego,
6:11
Speaker 1: Remax and their role in your history in about a
6:13
Speaker 1: decade from now, because you know.
6:14
Speaker 2: That's the next one. That's where it's going.
6:16
Speaker 1: Things are moving fast. Also, thank you all for listening
6:18
Speaker 1: to pot Day of the World. Please subscribe or follow
6:20
Speaker 1: up pot Day of the World wherever you get your
6:21
Speaker 1: podcasts or on YouTube. It helps us grow the show,
6:24
Speaker 1: it helps us reach more people. Ben, I think that
6:26
Speaker 1: our growth on YouTube is ninety percent responsible for the
6:30
Speaker 1: demise of the Daily Wire. I have no evidence for
6:32
Speaker 1: that claim, but I think correlation has causation. Isn't that
6:36
Speaker 1: the thing they always say?
6:37
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, we're clearly part of it, and couldn't
6:40
Speaker 2: happen to a more deserving guy than Ben Shapiro and
6:44
Speaker 2: just seeing his audience implode, lovely young man. Another casualty
6:47
Speaker 2: of the ireon war.
6:48
Speaker 1: By the way, Yeah, by the way, if you want
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Speaker 1: dot com slash friends for more information. All right, we'll
7:05
Speaker 1: start with Iran because it was a very confusing weekend.
7:08
Speaker 1: Ben and I were both at John Lovett's wedding every
7:10
Speaker 1: other couple hours. I was like, ah, we'd have to
7:12
Speaker 1: do a goddamn bonus episode from fucking Santa Barbara. This
7:15
Speaker 1: is a pain in the ass. But no, nothing has
7:17
Speaker 1: been accomplished. So Trump spent the weekend like teasing some
7:21
Speaker 1: sort of announcement that would create like a memorandum understanding
7:26
Speaker 1: for a ceasefire or a ceasefire extension that would begin
7:29
Speaker 1: a process to permanently end the war with Iran and
7:31
Speaker 1: reopen the straight or HR moves. But again, like I said,
7:33
Speaker 1: we woke up Tuesday morning to reports of US air
7:36
Speaker 1: strikes in southern Iran that Sentcom described as self defense
7:39
Speaker 1: strikes on Iranian boats. Laying minds. Such is perfectly incoherent
7:44
Speaker 1: on Saturday, Trump said the deal will be announced shortly
7:46
Speaker 1: and that the quote final aspects were being negotiated. Then
7:49
Speaker 1: on Monday ben he said he was in no rush
7:51
Speaker 1: to get a deal, but if he did, it would
7:52
Speaker 1: either be great and meaningful or there would be no deal. So,
7:55
Speaker 1: like guys just all over the place, I think trying
7:57
Speaker 1: to walk through all of the back and forth is
7:59
Speaker 1: a waste of everybody's time and just confusing. But the
8:02
Speaker 1: gist of what this deal is supposedly might entail is
8:06
Speaker 1: an end to the war on all fronts, including Elebanon,
8:09
Speaker 1: unfreezing billions of dollars in Iranian assets. Iranians apparently want
8:12
Speaker 1: twenty four billion. Then Iran would open the Straight or Harmuz,
8:16
Speaker 1: the us'd end it's blockade on the Straight or Harmuz.
8:18
Speaker 1: US troops would withdraw from the immediate vicinity of Iran,
8:22
Speaker 1: and then the two sides would have thirty to sixty
8:24
Speaker 1: days to negotiate some sort of agreement on the nuclear issue.
8:28
Speaker 1: So they'd be kicking the can down the road on
8:30
Speaker 1: all the really hard stuff. Now, the optimistic case on
8:34
Speaker 1: why this gets done is Trump is desperate for a deal.
8:36
Speaker 1: He knows that high gas prices are basically killing his presidency,
8:40
Speaker 1: and all the golf countries are begging him to get
8:42
Speaker 1: a deal done right, So that's optimistic reason. The list
8:45
Speaker 1: of reasons to be pessimistic is a little longer. Ben,
8:48
Speaker 1: tell me if I'm missing anything. First of all, just again,
8:51
Speaker 1: on the nuclear front, there has been so much disagreement
8:53
Speaker 1: over what happens with Iran's highly enriched uranium stockpile. Trump
8:57
Speaker 1: does seem to be softening there. He tweeted something, I
9:00
Speaker 1: think on Monday or Tuesday about maybe the HU getting
9:03
Speaker 1: destroyed in place under IAEA safeguards in Iran. That would
9:07
Speaker 1: be a big shift for him. The Israelis have been
9:10
Speaker 1: intensifying and not winding down the war with Hesbula and Lebanon.
9:14
Speaker 1: Israel hit more than seventy targets over the last few days.
9:17
Speaker 1: And Net yeah, who said we're not removing our foot
9:19
Speaker 1: from the pedal. On the contrary, I said, no press
9:21
Speaker 1: on the pedal. Even more then, I think we all
9:24
Speaker 1: assume that Ron will want to charge some sort of
9:26
Speaker 1: toll or fee on ships going forward, and that's going
9:28
Speaker 1: to be a problem for a lot of parties here.
9:30
Speaker 1: Trump decided to randomly complicate everything by announcing that he's
9:34
Speaker 1: requiring or he said, I'm mandatorily requesting that all countries
9:38
Speaker 1: signed the Abraham Accords, whatever that means, because why not
9:41
Speaker 1: up end fraught negotiations with that eleventh hour ask that
9:45
Speaker 1: no one had. There's no mention in what's been discussed
9:49
Speaker 1: about caps on Iranian blistic missiles. Remember we were all
9:51
Speaker 1: told that if they got enough ballistic missiles, they could
9:54
Speaker 1: then just proliferate nuclear material without anyone stopping them. And
9:58
Speaker 1: then finally, then you know, we're seeing the warmongers and
10:01
Speaker 1: the hawks attack what has been floated. The FDD folks,
10:05
Speaker 1: the right wing senators, Lindsay Graham's of the world, all
10:07
Speaker 1: the idiots that push Trump it's a war in the
10:09
Speaker 1: first place, are now mad at him for trying to
10:11
Speaker 1: end it. So sorry for the long wind up there.
10:14
Speaker 1: What are you seeing in terms of, you know, the
10:17
Speaker 1: odds of success at this point, and what are the
10:19
Speaker 1: key kind of pros and cons in favor of this
10:22
Speaker 1: getting done that you're kind of evaluating and you try
10:24
Speaker 1: to figure out what's going on.
10:25
Speaker 2: I think, first of all, we've seen a repeat of
10:29
Speaker 2: something we've talked about before, which is they probably do
10:33
Speaker 2: get close to some kind of understanding, but there's still
10:36
Speaker 2: outstanding questions, and I'll get to what those might be
10:39
Speaker 2: in a minute. But then Trump goes out on true
10:42
Speaker 2: social and he spikes the football and the end zone
10:45
Speaker 2: when he's still on like the twenty five yard line,
10:48
Speaker 2: and he does it by spinning the best possible deal,
10:51
Speaker 2: you know. And then the IRGC says, well, wait a second,
10:56
Speaker 2: you know, we didn't agree to that, and they kind
10:58
Speaker 2: of yank back the negotiators.
11:00
Speaker 1: Uh.
11:00
Speaker 2: And then there's an effort to scramble and put things together.
11:04
Speaker 2: That's also connected to the fact that Trump is desperate
11:07
Speaker 2: to get some win, some credible accomplishment that will not
11:14
Speaker 2: justify or come close to the objectives he said for
11:17
Speaker 2: the war at the beginning. But that feels different than
11:21
Speaker 2: he fought an entire war and spent hundreds of billions
11:24
Speaker 2: of dollars in pulverized US standing in the global economy
11:28
Speaker 2: to get something that looks kind of like around nuclear
11:31
Speaker 2: deal light. And so that's why he then introduces things like, oh,
11:35
Speaker 2: the pros Ryal people are mad at me. I'll just
11:38
Speaker 2: demand that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and join the abram Accords,
11:41
Speaker 2: you know.
11:44
Speaker 1: Are like, yeah, what what are you talking? What the fuck?
11:46
Speaker 2: You know, they're not going to do that, That's not
11:48
Speaker 2: what happens, and so he keeps he cannot come to
11:51
Speaker 2: terms with the fact that the only way to end
11:54
Speaker 2: this war is quite clear, which is you give Iran
11:58
Speaker 2: a significant amount of revenue upfront and lift the blockade
12:02
Speaker 2: in exchange for opening the Strait of horm Moves, and
12:05
Speaker 2: then you have a separate negotiation in which you get
12:09
Speaker 2: jcpoa light. You know, they ship the hu out. There's
12:13
Speaker 2: some inspections and some promises from the Iranians to not
12:16
Speaker 2: Inbriguranian for some period of time again JCPO light, and
12:20
Speaker 2: by the way, the Runians get another tranch of revenue
12:23
Speaker 2: at that point, either from sanctions relief and or they're
12:26
Speaker 2: going to toll the Straight going forward. I think that
12:29
Speaker 2: probably the hang up and the negotiations put aside, the
12:31
Speaker 2: kind of performative disruption of Trump is the sequencing of this.
12:36
Speaker 2: Trump probably does not want to be seen to be
12:39
Speaker 2: giving the Iranians money upfront to open up the Straight.
12:43
Speaker 2: He probably wants them to open the straight first. But
12:46
Speaker 2: the Iranians are sitting there and thinking, well, why would
12:49
Speaker 2: we do that we have all the leverage, and so
12:51
Speaker 2: I think there are probably sequencing questions that are the
12:55
Speaker 2: actual substance of hang up in the negotiation. But look,
12:58
Speaker 2: this is what a deal will be because Trump doesn't
13:01
Speaker 2: have to use his phrase really any cards. I mean, Tommy,
13:05
Speaker 2: I was even thinking today, let's say they do this
13:07
Speaker 2: where the Runans get some money, they open up the straight,
13:10
Speaker 2: the blockade is lifted, and then we're negotiating the terms
13:13
Speaker 2: of a nuclear side of the agreement that expires in
13:16
Speaker 2: sixty days, which takes you to I don't know, labor
13:19
Speaker 2: day before a midterm election campaign. Do the Runians really
13:22
Speaker 2: think he's going to start bombing them again in September?
13:27
Speaker 2: He just he's walked himself into a dead end and
13:30
Speaker 2: he's not going to get out without being humiliated. And
13:33
Speaker 2: that's it. The choices perpetuate the war, escalate the war,
13:38
Speaker 2: or accept the humiliating reality that you lost the war
13:41
Speaker 2: and the best you're going to get out of it
13:43
Speaker 2: is jcpa iron deal light.
13:45
Speaker 1: But before we go forward on this conversation, did you
13:48
Speaker 1: and I even talk about the fact that the New
13:50
Speaker 1: York Times reported that the Israelis in the US wanted
13:53
Speaker 1: to install former president makmoot akments in Achad.
13:56
Speaker 3: As president of Iran. But the Israelis bombed as fucking
14:00
Speaker 3: house and like nearly killed the It's the craziest story,
14:03
Speaker 3: craziest plan I've ever heard. Like, this guy is an
14:07
Speaker 3: awful person, Like in two thousand and nine, you know,
14:11
Speaker 3: remember we were talking about, you know, Trump coming to
14:12
Speaker 3: the rescue of the Iranian protesters. This is a guy
14:14
Speaker 3: who crushed a protest movement when he stole an election
14:17
Speaker 3: in two thousand and nine, who used to talk about
14:20
Speaker 3: eradicating Israel. He was like a horrible, bloodthirsty nationalist, and
14:24
Speaker 3: they wanted to install this dude as president of Iran.
14:27
Speaker 1: What on earth is happening?
14:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was one of the weirdest stories I've read.
14:31
Speaker 2: There have been two crazy Israeli plans that we've read
14:33
Speaker 2: about in the New York Times, including from Ronnenbergmann, who
14:36
Speaker 2: is I think byline on both.
14:38
Speaker 1: Who's yeah, and he's like the best sources, Yeah, very
14:40
Speaker 1: sources stuff.
14:42
Speaker 2: The first is in that situation room meeting where Neta
14:46
Speaker 2: sold Trump on the war. The plan was apparently that
14:49
Speaker 2: Rezipah Lavi, the SHA's kid, was gonna you know parachute
14:52
Speaker 2: in and run Iran, which is insane that a guy
14:55
Speaker 2: in northern Virginia who hasn't been in Iran since about
14:59
Speaker 2: the time I was born is going to take the
15:00
Speaker 2: country over. And then the second is this idea that
15:04
Speaker 2: Achmedina Jod was going to be sprung from house arrest
15:08
Speaker 2: by targeted air strikes on like his front door cards
15:12
Speaker 2: or something some IRGC goons were hanging out and then
15:16
Speaker 2: somehow miraculously take over the country. Look, either this is
15:22
Speaker 2: the dumbest I mean, either of the Israelis are dumber
15:27
Speaker 2: about Iranian politics and than anyone who could have ever imagined,
15:32
Speaker 2: or these are kind of weird disinformation things where you
15:36
Speaker 2: know they're trying to actually ice Achmedina Jod inside of
15:40
Speaker 2: Iran by putting this out. Either way, it's just bizarre.
15:44
Speaker 2: I mean, can you explain, Tommy, Like, what is the
15:47
Speaker 2: sequence of events that would take Okmedina Jod from house
15:50
Speaker 2: arrest to running the country via Israeli airst Right?
15:53
Speaker 1: Where does he like rustle up an army on the
15:55
Speaker 1: way to like downtown from his house something? None of
15:58
Speaker 1: it makes anything, So yeah, look at me. That just
16:00
Speaker 1: speaks to the absolutely embarrassing ridiculous planning and the things
16:05
Speaker 1: that were sold, the ideas that were sold to the
16:07
Speaker 1: Trump and the Trump administration to get them into this war.
16:10
Speaker 1: And also just the wish casting span that you were
16:12
Speaker 1: talking about from over the weekend. I mean, my favorite
16:14
Speaker 1: tweet from over the weekend, Ben was by a guy
16:16
Speaker 1: named Frank Luntz. For folks who don't know who he is,
16:18
Speaker 1: he's like a famous kind of like focus group polling
16:20
Speaker 1: research guy in the Republican Party. He tweeted, I still
16:23
Speaker 1: don't know if this is a bit or not. Insider
16:26
Speaker 1: reporting from an unnamed White House official says the irondilis
16:28
Speaker 1: ninety five percent done. The remaining five percent of negotiations
16:32
Speaker 1: are focused on Iran opening the Street or Hormuz and
16:34
Speaker 1: turning over all nuclear materials, like, yeah, the hard stuff.
16:39
Speaker 1: He was quote tweeting Scott Jennings, who's the asshole who
16:42
Speaker 1: yells at twenty one year old and curses at them
16:44
Speaker 1: on CNN, who remember early on in the war, said
16:47
Speaker 1: he quoted He said that a quote senior Trump Administration
16:50
Speaker 1: official telling me that credible intel indicated that Ron planned
16:53
Speaker 1: preemptive missile strikes against US military targets in the region
16:56
Speaker 1: and against civilian targets as well, So he was trying
16:58
Speaker 1: to sell it's on the idea that the war was
17:00
Speaker 1: a preventative one to be at the US was going
17:03
Speaker 1: to get attacked by Iran, which is a total lie.
17:05
Speaker 1: Look either way, if this gets done, like they're getting
17:10
Speaker 1: energy flowing will take months and months. There will be
17:14
Speaker 1: like a bunch of a couple hundred ships that flow
17:16
Speaker 1: out of the serrat'horn moves right away because those people
17:18
Speaker 1: are desperate to leave, but they're like ships will have
17:22
Speaker 1: to start coming back in to pick up more oil,
17:24
Speaker 1: and those are tankers that are onto other jobs. Now
17:28
Speaker 1: they could be halfway across the world. They might still
17:30
Speaker 1: be concerned about the increased political risk that the war restarting,
17:33
Speaker 1: So they're gonna think twice about, you know, just running
17:35
Speaker 1: right back to the UAE or wherever they're picking up
17:38
Speaker 1: oil and gas. It's gonna take time to get oil
17:41
Speaker 1: and gas infrastructure flowing again, an energy to like actually
17:44
Speaker 1: transit to where it needs to go. So this is
17:45
Speaker 1: not over in terms of the energy crunch. And then
17:48
Speaker 1: the big like the hardest part to me then is
17:50
Speaker 1: still the Lebanon piece. I mean, Israeli forces on Tuesday
17:53
Speaker 1: were reportedly moving deeper into Lebanon, and they're already holding
17:57
Speaker 1: up to six point miles of territory into Lebanon, and
18:02
Speaker 1: then Hesbela is also just continually targeting the idea of withdrown.
18:06
Speaker 1: So everyone's still referring to that as a ceasefire. It's
18:08
Speaker 1: just not they're just killing each other on a daily basis.
18:12
Speaker 1: Netanyahu has an election coming up, probably in September or October.
18:17
Speaker 1: The wars in Iran and Lebanon are not seen as
18:20
Speaker 1: completed or successful in any way yet, so he's going
18:24
Speaker 1: to have some real political problems if this thing ends
18:27
Speaker 1: and it looks like a loss for him, But he
18:29
Speaker 1: also has real political problems if he pisses off Trumpet
18:32
Speaker 1: any way, So it just anyway, there's so much churnover
18:35
Speaker 1: the weekend, but it just still feels like the whole
18:37
Speaker 1: thing is completely unsettled and probably trending towards the war
18:41
Speaker 1: just kind of bumping along for a while. But who knows.
18:43
Speaker 2: It certainly feels that way, and look, hopefully they pull
18:47
Speaker 2: something out of a hat, but to do that they'll
18:49
Speaker 2: have to I think concede to you know, some of
18:51
Speaker 2: these surrounding terms about getting money up front, et cetera.
18:55
Speaker 2: The nets point is really really important because this is
18:59
Speaker 2: absolutely humiliating to him. All the reporting is that he's panicked, furious,
19:04
Speaker 2: whatever objective you want to use about it, you can
19:07
Speaker 2: tell he is because all of his buddies in the
19:10
Speaker 2: United States are the ones that are posting stuff about
19:14
Speaker 2: how terrible this deal is. Right, so it's not a
19:17
Speaker 2: you know, shock that FDD types and Lindsey Graham and
19:21
Speaker 2: all the people that Netau talks to are raising the
19:24
Speaker 2: larm bells. And the problem for Netanyahu is he cannot
19:28
Speaker 2: run for reelection without some war going on, you know,
19:32
Speaker 2: because that's how he sells himself, I'm this tough guy,
19:35
Speaker 2: and none of the objectives are met. By the way,
19:37
Speaker 2: his bill is still in Lebanon, the running regime is
19:38
Speaker 2: still in place to run nuclear programs still in place.
19:41
Speaker 2: And so the scary thing is that if Trump does
19:47
Speaker 2: do some deal and the Iran war's over, and he
19:51
Speaker 2: tells bb under no circumstances are you allowed to bomberr On.
19:56
Speaker 2: We won't defend you. If you do that, well, then
19:59
Speaker 2: Lebanon and or Gaza or the West Bank heat up.
20:03
Speaker 2: So watch that space, because if there is an Iran
20:06
Speaker 2: deal of some sort, I worry that actually that's bad
20:10
Speaker 2: for either Lebon or Gaza for that matter, where there's
20:13
Speaker 2: some reporting that Nenau may want the Gaza Peace Board
20:16
Speaker 2: to find that Hamas has violated that ceasefire and because
20:19
Speaker 2: they haven't disarmed, never mind that Israel is violated at hundreds,
20:22
Speaker 2: if not thousands of times. And I will say that
20:25
Speaker 2: the phrase fragile ceasefire is doing a lot of work
20:29
Speaker 2: in Lebanon. I don't know how one party could say
20:33
Speaker 2: they're putting their foot to the gas and doing dozens
20:35
Speaker 2: of air strikes and it's not a ceasefire. And now
20:38
Speaker 2: that makes it harder for Iran to concede things that
20:40
Speaker 2: Trump wants.
20:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean for what it's worth. Like, in my view,
20:44
Speaker 1: the best case outcome for the world is just this
20:46
Speaker 1: war ending as soon as humanly possible. And I understand
20:50
Speaker 1: why people are out there like criticizing Trump for accomplishing
20:53
Speaker 1: none of his goals. I will be too, but I
20:56
Speaker 1: don't think a lot of those goals are accomplishable at
20:58
Speaker 1: this point, and I think I would just rather not
21:01
Speaker 1: see people in Southeast Asia starve to death. Or have
21:04
Speaker 1: their economy shut down because they can't get oiler gas.
21:07
Speaker 1: I mean that has to be a part of the
21:08
Speaker 1: calculus going into what you want here at the outcome.
21:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen a couple of Democrats like take this
21:14
Speaker 2: bit of like they're now going to sound tough and
21:16
Speaker 2: hawkish and no, I want the war to end. And
21:21
Speaker 2: you know the minimalist thing where the Runtians get a
21:23
Speaker 2: bunch of money and they opened the straight and then
21:25
Speaker 2: they got a bunch more money and they ship the
21:27
Speaker 2: hu out. That's good. You can welcome that as a
21:32
Speaker 2: good outcome for the world relative to where we are now,
21:36
Speaker 2: while still being able to make a case that the
21:39
Speaker 2: war was catastrophically and historically stupid and set us way back.
21:43
Speaker 2: I mean, two things can be true that the best
21:46
Speaker 2: possible outcome right now is just getting out of this thing.
21:50
Speaker 2: No need to kind of put on your two thousand
21:53
Speaker 2: and two tough guy democratic, you know, talking points head
21:57
Speaker 2: like you should be able to make the case without it.
22:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where I am too. We'll keep watching this
22:03
Speaker 1: one and up that you guys if anything changes. This
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24:03
Speaker 1: dot com slash world in different news. So it's a
24:09
Speaker 1: sad day for anybody who felt comforted knowing that unqualified
24:14
Speaker 1: weirdos were serving and senior national security positions. Because, as
24:18
Speaker 1: we said at the top, Director of National Intelligence Tulseia
24:21
Speaker 1: Gabbard announced her resignation last week. The stated reason in
24:24
Speaker 1: her letter is very sad and very personal to her.
24:27
Speaker 1: Telsey said her husband was diagnosed with a rare form
24:29
Speaker 1: of bone cancer. Obviously, that is awful. We wish her
24:32
Speaker 1: the best. We wish her husband the best. However, Trump's
24:35
Speaker 1: staff and Trump's allies were eager to brief the press
24:38
Speaker 1: that they in fact fired her and that's why she
24:41
Speaker 1: was leaving. One source told Reuters that Gabbard had been
24:44
Speaker 1: forced out by the White House. Back in April, there
24:46
Speaker 1: were sources telling Reuters that Gabbard could get pushed out
24:49
Speaker 1: in a broader cabinet shake up, and a White House
24:51
Speaker 1: official told Reuters and a bunch of other outlets that
24:54
Speaker 1: Trumpet expressed displeasure with Gabbard and had been asking around
24:57
Speaker 1: about potential replacements. But let's set that aside. For her departure,
25:01
Speaker 1: we wanted to celebrate Telsey's career and tenure in the
25:05
Speaker 1: d and I roll in her own voice. Let's watch
25:07
Speaker 1: this little montage of some of her greatest hits.
25:10
Speaker 4: As we stand here today closer to the brink of
25:13
Speaker 4: nuclear annihilation than ever before, political elite and warmongers are
25:18
Speaker 4: carelessly fomenting fear intentions between nuclear powers.
25:22
Speaker 5: I was at Fulton County, sir at the request of
25:26
Speaker 5: the President and to work with the FBI to observe
25:30
Speaker 5: this action that had long been awaited. President Obama directed
25:35
Speaker 5: an Intelligence community assessment to be created to further this contrived,
25:42
Speaker 5: false narrative that ultimately led to a year's long coup
25:45
Speaker 5: to try to undermine President Trump's presidency. The IC continues
25:48
Speaker 5: to assess that iron is not building a nuclear weapon
25:50
Speaker 5: and Supreme Leader Kamani has not authorized the nuclear weapons
25:54
Speaker 5: program that he suspended in two thousand and three. Also,
25:57
Speaker 5: effrettest quite a march that the intelligence community said Iran
26:01
Speaker 5: wasn't building a nuclear momment or cure.
26:03
Speaker 1: What you said, I think they were very close to
26:04
Speaker 1: have it.
26:05
Speaker 3: Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there
26:08
Speaker 3: was a quote imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime.
26:11
Speaker 5: Yes or no, Senator. The only person who can determine
26:14
Speaker 5: and what is and is not an imminent threat is
26:16
Speaker 5: the president.
26:17
Speaker 6: So it's up to us, the people, to speak up
26:21
Speaker 6: and demand an end to this madness. We must reject
26:25
Speaker 6: this path to nuclear war and work toward a world
26:29
Speaker 6: where no one has to live in fear of a
26:32
Speaker 6: nuclear holocaust.
26:36
Speaker 1: Beautifully done, beautiful montage there. For those listening and not
26:40
Speaker 1: watching a YouTube, please again subscribe to Pots Say the
26:42
Speaker 1: World on YouTube. So the montage starts and ends with
26:44
Speaker 1: this bizarre video that Tulsi released out of nowhere about
26:47
Speaker 1: the threat of nuclear annihilation that apparently pissed Trump off
26:50
Speaker 1: and no one knew what she was talking about. Then
26:52
Speaker 1: it was followed by Tulsea testifying about a little election
26:55
Speaker 1: interference here here in the States. It was her accusing
26:58
Speaker 1: Obama of treason where they hit the Obama did trees
27:01
Speaker 1: and button at the height of the Epstein stuff. Followed
27:03
Speaker 1: by Trump humiliating Tulsi over speaking the truth about Iran's
27:07
Speaker 1: intelligence and then Tulsi subsequently covering up for Trump's lies
27:11
Speaker 1: about the threat from Iran, and then finally it ended
27:14
Speaker 1: with his image of a tweet Tulsi sent of herself
27:17
Speaker 1: doing yoga on the beach with the caption my heart
27:20
Speaker 1: is filled with gratitude a Looha in peace hashtag twenty
27:23
Speaker 1: twenty six prayer emoji. She sent that as she was
27:26
Speaker 1: being cut out of the planning process around the Venezuela operation.
27:30
Speaker 1: So wonderful stuff there. Then it is very hard for
27:33
Speaker 1: me to decide what part of her tenure is most impressive.
27:36
Speaker 1: Was it hitting the Obama did trees and button at
27:39
Speaker 1: the heart of the Epstein files fiasco. Was it firing
27:43
Speaker 1: officials who produced intelligence products she didn't like, or was
27:46
Speaker 1: it generally just Tulsi building her career around opposing regime
27:51
Speaker 1: change wars in the Middle East and then helping Trump
27:55
Speaker 1: start and spin one. Did you have a favorite moment
27:57
Speaker 1: or part of her uvra quite.
27:59
Speaker 2: A legacy, Uh, But I do think actually the last
28:03
Speaker 2: one is the most important one, because why is Tulca
28:07
Speaker 2: Gabbert in that job in the first place?
28:09
Speaker 1: You know?
28:09
Speaker 2: One, because she endorsed Trump and maybe she brought I
28:13
Speaker 2: don't know, some number of votes his way in close election.
28:17
Speaker 2: But I think more fundamentally, Tulsi was put at d
28:22
Speaker 2: and I and Joe Kent was put at NCTC, the
28:26
Speaker 2: National counter Terrorism Center. Those are kind of, together with
28:29
Speaker 2: the CIA, the two most kind of high profile intelligence
28:33
Speaker 2: community officials. And that was the signal from Trump to Maga,
28:38
Speaker 2: to kind of the Tucker Carlson wing and the party, Hey, look,
28:41
Speaker 2: I know you don't trust these I see people while
28:43
Speaker 2: I'm putting your people, you know, Tlsey and Joe Kent
28:47
Speaker 2: in charge of these agencies. Is a signal that I'm
28:50
Speaker 2: going to make good on my promises. And like almost
28:53
Speaker 2: immediately he turns around. I mean, honestly, my favorite moment,
28:57
Speaker 2: Tommy is the whiplash between her saying Iron wasn't close
29:02
Speaker 2: to a nuclear weapon, then being forced to walk that back,
29:06
Speaker 2: then being forced to say that the Iruni nuclear program
29:10
Speaker 2: was obliterated, and then having to go along and justify
29:15
Speaker 2: a war to destroy the nuclear program that had already
29:20
Speaker 2: been obliterated a year before. So she completely sold herself out,
29:24
Speaker 2: sold her principles out for a whiplash of misinformation and
29:30
Speaker 2: to justify whatever is that Trump either did or said
29:34
Speaker 2: he accomplished. And look, I think what's consequential about it, though,
29:38
Speaker 2: is that this move from Trump away from Maga core
29:42
Speaker 2: Maga anti interventionist MAGA is now cemented. I mean they're
29:46
Speaker 2: dunking on her on the way at the door, but
29:49
Speaker 2: without Tulsi, without Joe Kent. Who's left over there? It's
29:52
Speaker 2: Marco Rubio, noted Neocon. It's Pete Hazeth, who likes to
29:56
Speaker 2: do doctor SEUs rhymes about bombing other trees. You know.
30:01
Speaker 2: It's John Ratcliffe, who's going down to Cuba trying to
30:04
Speaker 2: force a regime change like that. There's no MAGA people left,
30:08
Speaker 2: you know.
30:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. She also fired people who released assessments about Venezuela
30:13
Speaker 1: that contradicted the Trump administration's political claims at the government
30:17
Speaker 1: of Venezuela was controlling trend A Aragua, so she really
30:20
Speaker 1: covered herself in glory. She also reportedly thinks that she
30:24
Speaker 1: can use the DNI platform to run for president someday
30:27
Speaker 1: in the future, So good luck with that. I guess
30:30
Speaker 1: you are kind of like failed and ineffectual and then
30:33
Speaker 1: ultimately seeming sounds like you were pushed out, but I
30:36
Speaker 1: don't know whatever. But to your point about the who's left,
30:39
Speaker 1: I mean the principal deputy Director of National Intelligence, it's
30:41
Speaker 1: a person named Aaron Lucas. He will serve as the
30:44
Speaker 1: acting director. He's a former CIA guy who served on
30:47
Speaker 1: the NSC during Trump's first term, but also I think
30:49
Speaker 1: was chief of staff to Rick Grinnell, who was the
30:52
Speaker 1: sentient Twitter troll who served in a bunch of positions
30:56
Speaker 1: before getting fired from the Kennedy Center. So things are
30:59
Speaker 1: going great.
30:59
Speaker 2: Well well, I mean yeah, there is a serious point
31:01
Speaker 2: here too, which is that job is actually not a
31:04
Speaker 2: policy making job. It's supposed to be about managing the
31:07
Speaker 2: intelligence community effectively. Can you imagine what a complete and
31:12
Speaker 2: utter fucking mess the intelligence community is, because I can
31:15
Speaker 2: promise you there's no way that Tulsi Gabbard or Rick
31:19
Speaker 2: Ronnell's former chief of staff had been doing anything but
31:22
Speaker 2: driving people out who provided assessments that they didn't like
31:26
Speaker 2: and probably alienating you know, career operatives who are out
31:32
Speaker 2: trying to run networks that are you know, being put
31:34
Speaker 2: at risk by this kind of reckless foreign policy. So
31:38
Speaker 2: it will take us a long time to figure out
31:40
Speaker 2: the state of the actual intelligence community. Never mind, by
31:42
Speaker 2: the way, Tulsi to further in furtherance of Trump's conspiracy theories,
31:48
Speaker 2: crapping all over the Russian investigation, which was not no
31:52
Speaker 2: matter what they say, something that came out of Barack
31:54
Speaker 2: Obama's had it was something that emerged from within the
31:56
Speaker 2: intelligence community itself because they saw intelligence about Russia was doing.
32:01
Speaker 2: So she's probably done significant harm just to the functionality
32:06
Speaker 2: of the intelligence community, while not achieving any of her
32:09
Speaker 2: policy objectives, including by the way, I should say, not
32:12
Speaker 2: even the kind of participation in the conspiracy theory stuff, right,
32:15
Speaker 2: like too much fanfare. I mean maybe I'm tempting faith here,
32:19
Speaker 2: but too much fanfare. She launched that, you know, height
32:22
Speaker 2: of the Epstein panic inquiry into Obama. We haven't really
32:26
Speaker 2: heard much about that.
32:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it hasn't really heard from since.
32:28
Speaker 2: I mean Trump did post the same AI image of
32:31
Speaker 2: someone who doesn't look like me in an orange jumpsuit
32:33
Speaker 2: the other day. But I mean we're literally reprising the
32:36
Speaker 2: same true social AI slop. And you know that Fulton
32:40
Speaker 2: County thing where she went down to you know, get
32:42
Speaker 2: the ballots from twenty twenty to I guess find out
32:46
Speaker 2: whether Hugo Shaves who was dead, you know, manipulated them.
32:49
Speaker 2: I mean, where did that go? So not a lot
32:52
Speaker 2: of competence emanating from tell Yeah, those have not delivered yet.
32:55
Speaker 1: Let's hope knock on wood. That remains the case. But
32:57
Speaker 1: you know the big thing that she sort of pledged
32:59
Speaker 1: to be her existence built around avoiding terrible regime change
33:03
Speaker 1: towards the Middle East. And here we are, so great work.
33:06
Speaker 1: T'll see shifting gears again. So there's a new spicy
33:09
Speaker 1: AI take that just dropped that we wanted to talk about.
33:12
Speaker 1: But this was not like your typical kind of adderall
33:14
Speaker 1: fueled AI generated slop from your high school acquaintance on
33:18
Speaker 1: LinkedIn about using Claude for his side hustle. We are
33:21
Speaker 1: talking about Pope Leo's forty two thousand, three hundred word
33:25
Speaker 1: in cyclical on artificial intelligence. So a papal encyclical is
33:29
Speaker 1: a formal letter written by the pope about some major issue.
33:33
Speaker 1: Pope Leo's treatise, it's fascinating. It covered the morality and
33:38
Speaker 1: ethics of AI, its use in war, its impact on democracy,
33:41
Speaker 1: in the labor market, and really like AI's impact on
33:44
Speaker 1: humanity itself. Here's a little bit of what Pope Leo
33:47
Speaker 1: had to say, and then we'll talk about some more elements.
33:49
Speaker 7: Let's watch Artificial intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed
33:56
Speaker 7: from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion,
34:01
Speaker 7: and death. Let's not fear artificial intelligence, but constantly keep
34:07
Speaker 7: the question of the human in play. The person bears
34:10
Speaker 7: within him or herself a freedom, an interiority, and the
34:15
Speaker 7: vocation to love and worship that no machine can replace
34:19
Speaker 7: or block. Every person is unique and irreplaceable, a free
34:25
Speaker 7: and intelligent subject with a conscience capable of seeking God,
34:30
Speaker 7: serving one another, and caring for our common home. I
34:36
Speaker 7: therefore invite all members of the Church and of the
34:38
Speaker 7: human family. Let us learn to listen to one another,
34:43
Speaker 7: face the present challenge with courage, and cooperate in building
34:48
Speaker 7: a more human and fraternal society.
34:50
Speaker 1: God so so funny to hear a pope speaking like
34:53
Speaker 1: slightly Chicago accented, not over again. So again. This is
34:58
Speaker 1: a huge document, forty two thousand pars words. Covered a
35:01
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, but just a few things that jumped
35:02
Speaker 1: out of me. Ben, I'd love to hear what you
35:03
Speaker 1: heard about it. I mean, first of all, it was
35:05
Speaker 1: just it was so rare and interesting to hear someone
35:07
Speaker 1: talk about artificial intelligence from a truly global perspective and
35:11
Speaker 1: only about its impact on humanity. There's almost always some
35:15
Speaker 1: element of economic competition from the companies, or like nationalism
35:19
Speaker 1: and competition from political leaders, like we got to beat China,
35:23
Speaker 1: we got to do this. There was none of that here.
35:25
Speaker 1: It was just about like the impact on us as humans,
35:27
Speaker 1: and that was frankly nice. One of the key phrases
35:30
Speaker 1: he used was he talked about the need to disarm AI,
35:34
Speaker 1: but it was an expansive definition of disarming. So he wrote,
35:37
Speaker 1: disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of armed competition,
35:41
Speaker 1: which today is not limited simply to the military context,
35:43
Speaker 1: but is also an economic and cognitive phenomenon. This entails
35:47
Speaker 1: a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger data sets,
35:49
Speaker 1: driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance.
35:53
Speaker 1: To disarm does not mean rejecting technology for preventing it
35:57
Speaker 1: from dominating humanity. Very important idea there. He was adamant
36:01
Speaker 1: that artificial intelligence is not alive or human. He said,
36:05
Speaker 1: so called artificial intelligence do not undergo experiences, They do
36:08
Speaker 1: not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain,
36:11
Speaker 1: nor do they have a moral conscience since they do
36:13
Speaker 1: not judge good or evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations,
36:16
Speaker 1: or bare responsibility for consequences. He was pushing hard for
36:20
Speaker 1: moral standards for AI, saying we cannot be satisfied with
36:24
Speaker 1: merely calling for the moralization of machines without also having
36:28
Speaker 1: the courage to insist on further condition the possibility of
36:30
Speaker 1: openly discussing the ethical frameworks involved in subjecting them to
36:34
Speaker 1: shared standards of social justice. And then again, when it
36:38
Speaker 1: comes to war, he wrote, no algorithm can make war
36:41
Speaker 1: morally acceptable. AI does not remove the intrinsic inhumanity of conflict. Indeed,
36:46
Speaker 1: it can only bring about conflict more quickly and render
36:48
Speaker 1: it more impersonal, lowering the threshold for resorting to violence,
36:52
Speaker 1: transforming defense into threat prediction, and thus reducing victims to data.
36:57
Speaker 1: And he seems to argue that the use of a
37:00
Speaker 1: war is even greater atrocity than standard war. So one
37:04
Speaker 1: of the founders of Anthropic, Chris Ola, also spoke the
37:07
Speaker 1: timing of all this was interesting. This was released one
37:10
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty fifth anniversary of Pope Leo the thirteenth
37:13
Speaker 1: encyclical about the Industrial Revolution. More recently comes after Anthropics
37:18
Speaker 1: fight with a pedagon about the use of its technology
37:20
Speaker 1: and war. And then there was all these reports like
37:22
Speaker 1: a week or two ago that the Trump administration was
37:24
Speaker 1: going to release an AI executive order that might have
37:27
Speaker 1: started to regulate the industry a little bit, but apparently
37:31
Speaker 1: David Sachs and a bunch of industry douchebags got it
37:36
Speaker 1: spiked because of concerns about the economic race. So ben,
37:39
Speaker 1: huge document, super interesting stuff. What do you make of
37:42
Speaker 1: what you read?
37:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I actually spent a lot of time
37:44
Speaker 2: with this. I think it's it's very important and it's
37:49
Speaker 2: also very appropriate that we're talking about it on this
37:52
Speaker 2: podcast because AI is going to be globally transformative and
38:00
Speaker 2: put aside the opportunities of you know, industrial efficiency and
38:04
Speaker 2: robotics and you know, a chatbot who can do your
38:07
Speaker 2: PowerPoint presentation and all the rest of it, the risks
38:11
Speaker 2: are extraordinary, and Pope Leo goes through some of them
38:16
Speaker 2: to include obviously the societal impacts of job dislocation, the
38:20
Speaker 2: kind of societal and psychological impacts on children, some of
38:25
Speaker 2: these security risks. He highlighted the risk of militarized AI,
38:31
Speaker 2: and he spoke about something that was in that anthropic
38:34
Speaker 2: fight with the Pentagon, that need to have human beings
38:38
Speaker 2: in the loop on the use of any lethal weaponry.
38:41
Speaker 2: So in other words, AI is not making decisions about
38:44
Speaker 2: killing people.
38:45
Speaker 1: You know.
38:45
Speaker 2: You can add to that from a national security perspective
38:47
Speaker 2: the risks of AI generating recipes for biological weapons and
38:51
Speaker 2: new pandemics, or being somehow involved in nuclear command and control.
38:56
Speaker 2: So there are all these risks. And the reason I
38:58
Speaker 2: found this so interesting, Tommy, is at in normal times,
39:02
Speaker 2: right as recently as fifteen years ago, this would have
39:09
Speaker 2: been a subject of massive global convening. You probably would
39:14
Speaker 2: have had summits taking place with world leaders. You probably
39:18
Speaker 2: would have had the United Nations taking some role in
39:22
Speaker 2: the formulation of, if not treaties, at least the development
39:25
Speaker 2: of standards. You probably would have had some effort to
39:30
Speaker 2: standardize AI safety regulations across the globe. The kinds of things,
39:36
Speaker 2: for instance, that Rishi Sunak actually is the only person
39:39
Speaker 2: who had like an AI safety summit towards the end
39:42
Speaker 2: of his tenure. But the kinds of things were being
39:44
Speaker 2: discussed that were being discussed in the latest anthropic model,
39:48
Speaker 2: you know, governments testing AI models before they were released
39:52
Speaker 2: and testing them on some agreed upon set of standards
39:54
Speaker 2: for what you're looking out for.
39:55
Speaker 1: You said you had the opposite in the United States,
39:57
Speaker 1: like Jdvan's running around the world like lecturing anyone that
39:59
Speaker 1: try to slow down the advancements of the technology. It's like,
40:03
Speaker 1: we're just completely we're just arsonists in this whole conversation.
40:06
Speaker 2: That's right. And so what I found so refreshing about
40:09
Speaker 2: what the Pope did once again, good Pope, we've got here,
40:12
Speaker 2: is he's kind of speaking obviously for the Church, which
40:15
Speaker 2: is going to be interacting with this with their parishes,
40:18
Speaker 2: but he's also kind of speaking for everybody, because I
40:21
Speaker 2: think people everywhere are like, what the fuck is going on?
40:24
Speaker 2: This is moving way too fast. It feels really risky.
40:26
Speaker 2: We're not asking for this. And he's one of the
40:30
Speaker 2: few people, in the absence of an international community, in
40:33
Speaker 2: the absence of leaders meeting, in the absence of the
40:35
Speaker 2: United Nations playing a functional role, who is left who
40:39
Speaker 2: can step into this gap and fill this void and
40:41
Speaker 2: speak with some kind of moral authority and institutional authority
40:45
Speaker 2: as the leader of the Vatican. And so I thought
40:47
Speaker 2: it was very interesting to see how much this broke through.
40:50
Speaker 2: It speaks to the desire I think people feel for
40:54
Speaker 2: moral and global leadership on this issue.
40:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, and how much. People just don't trust the technology
40:59
Speaker 1: companies obviously, Like I feel like I don't know, I
41:02
Speaker 1: feel this backlash brewing within myself, Ben, which is like
41:05
Speaker 1: so many of the same people that did grave damage
41:08
Speaker 1: to our society, to young people, to our economy through
41:12
Speaker 1: social media and consolidation of technology power around you know, advertising,
41:17
Speaker 1: are now running it back and in charge of artificial
41:20
Speaker 1: intelligence with even fewer safeguards, And it's like, why are
41:23
Speaker 1: we letting this happen. It's nice to hear the Pope
41:25
Speaker 1: come out and like talk about all of this such
41:27
Speaker 1: a holistic way.
41:28
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, what's really notable is look, anthropic played
41:30
Speaker 2: a role in this. The anthropic is coming out with
41:33
Speaker 2: kind of their hands up and saying, please please regulate us,
41:37
Speaker 2: you know, like we know how to build this technology,
41:39
Speaker 2: we need somebody else to control it because if not,
41:44
Speaker 2: it's going to be raced to the bottom. And if
41:46
Speaker 2: you look at Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, you know,
41:49
Speaker 2: these kinds of guys that built other platforms like you said,
41:52
Speaker 2: that have caused huge destruction in the world, in the
41:56
Speaker 2: advertising models on social media that fuel polarization. Those are
42:00
Speaker 2: not the people that you want self regulating. That's who jd.
42:04
Speaker 2: Vance wants in charge, because Jadvance is backed by Peter
42:07
Speaker 2: Thiel and you know, Mark and Dresen and people like
42:10
Speaker 2: that who are just pouring money in AI and want
42:12
Speaker 2: it to be totally unregulated. But I think what you're
42:16
Speaker 2: seeing the AI populism is here, and whoever steps in
42:23
Speaker 2: to fill the void and offering ideas for both regulation
42:27
Speaker 2: and constraints and guardrails and also just frankly, a conversation
42:32
Speaker 2: about what the hell is going on, there's gonna be
42:35
Speaker 2: a huge appetite for that. And so the Pope's done it.
42:38
Speaker 2: Message to any Democrat who's thinking of running for president, like,
42:42
Speaker 2: get to where the Pope is on this study.
42:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And then yeah, credit to you Athropic founder
42:45
Speaker 1: who was there, the Chris Sola, for saying, you know,
42:48
Speaker 1: the conversation about AI has got to go beyond just
42:50
Speaker 1: kind of like computer coders and technology experts. It has
42:53
Speaker 1: to include religious leaders, civil societies, scholars, governments. It's just
42:58
Speaker 1: so frustrating to have that on deaf years, at least
43:01
Speaker 1: here in the United States, and just see, you know,
43:02
Speaker 1: all these companies are American for the most part, and
43:05
Speaker 1: our country is just the least helpful of all of them.
43:08
Speaker 1: So good. More of this from the Pope Pazave. The
43:16
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45:39
Speaker 1: like simply safe. Ben last week we dug into Trump's
45:46
Speaker 1: visit with China, and you know, Frankly at the time
45:49
Speaker 1: said we hope that like ai and coordination and safeguards
45:52
Speaker 1: will be part of that conversation. But all signs coming
45:56
Speaker 1: out of it, it was kind of just a dud
45:58
Speaker 1: of a meeting, except for that the White was preparing
46:00
Speaker 1: to sell out Taiwan, or at least signaling that specifically.
46:04
Speaker 1: Trump was making comments to the press about using Taiwan
46:07
Speaker 1: arm sales as a negotiating chip. That was a quote.
46:10
Speaker 1: The sellout is now official. So last Thursday, Trump's acting
46:14
Speaker 1: Secretary of the Navy told the US Senate that the
46:17
Speaker 1: US had paused a recent fourteen billion dollar arms sale
46:20
Speaker 1: to Taiwan to make sure that quote, we have the
46:23
Speaker 1: munitions we need for epic fury, which we have plenty.
46:26
Speaker 1: We're just making sure we have everything. But then the
46:28
Speaker 1: foreign military sales will continue with the administration deems necessary.
46:31
Speaker 1: So it's funny to watch these guys get stuck in
46:33
Speaker 1: their own kind of lies, right, because he's saying, we're
46:36
Speaker 1: not running short of these critical munitions because of the
46:38
Speaker 1: war with Iran, but we need to pause the arm
46:41
Speaker 1: sales to Taiwan a case we are, but we'll be fine.
46:43
Speaker 1: We'll get back to it, right, So they're just like
46:44
Speaker 1: tied up in knots. Either way, it sounds like this
46:48
Speaker 1: fourteen billion dollar salees paused, we don't know exactly what's
46:51
Speaker 1: in it. Reuter said, it includes air defense interceptor missiles
46:54
Speaker 1: and other kind of like big ticket items that Taiwan needs.
46:57
Speaker 1: But that pause comes on top of the nearly thirty
46:59
Speaker 1: billion dollars backlog of US weapons deliveries to Taiwan. So Ben,
47:03
Speaker 1: I mean, as we discussed, the US got pretty much
47:06
Speaker 1: nothing out of this Trump visit, Like there was an
47:08
Speaker 1: egg sales, there was a Boeing airplane announcement that was
47:11
Speaker 1: pretty underwhelming. But it seems like She Jin Ping got
47:15
Speaker 1: a huge concession out of Trump when it comes to Taiwan.
47:18
Speaker 1: And then you're seeing a lot of people point out
47:21
Speaker 1: that they're going to meet three more times this year.
47:25
Speaker 1: She has been invited to Washington, I think in September.
47:28
Speaker 1: Then there's an APEC meeting, and there's a G twenty meeting.
47:31
Speaker 1: And the question I think is like what happens if
47:34
Speaker 1: she uses all of those meetings to signal to Trump
47:38
Speaker 1: that hey, it would be a really good idea for
47:39
Speaker 1: you to delay or pause or get rid of the
47:42
Speaker 1: arm sales and not piss me off before we get together. Like,
47:45
Speaker 1: what do you think that means if there's just this
47:47
Speaker 1: like constant pushing out of these arm sales for Taiwan security.
47:52
Speaker 2: First of all, what's extraordinary about this is he's describing
47:54
Speaker 2: it as a negotiating chip, but he's not getting anything
47:56
Speaker 2: in return, right, So he's basically negotiating away the US
48:00
Speaker 2: commitment to Taiwan in exchange for having nice photo ops
48:05
Speaker 2: with Chi Chiping and to people who are skeptical of
48:09
Speaker 2: arm sales, as we often are on this podcast, bear
48:13
Speaker 2: in mind that this is actually under the Taiwan Relations Act,
48:18
Speaker 2: which dates back to the time when the United States
48:21
Speaker 2: formally established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China
48:25
Speaker 2: China and de recognized, you know, Taiwan, that they pass
48:30
Speaker 2: a law that said that the United States will commit
48:34
Speaker 2: to helping Taiwan defend itself, and so it was upfront
48:37
Speaker 2: with China and Taiwan. Part of what we're going to
48:40
Speaker 2: do to kind of maintain peace across the Taiwan Strait
48:42
Speaker 2: is make sure that Taiwan can sufficiently defend itself against
48:46
Speaker 2: an invasion nobody on Earth thinks Taiwan is going to
48:49
Speaker 2: like use those weapons to attack China. It's purely for
48:53
Speaker 2: their defense as a means of preventing a war. Right,
48:56
Speaker 2: the more Taiwan has got a capable, competent armed forces,
49:01
Speaker 2: the less likely it is that China invades them. So
49:05
Speaker 2: if that gets taken away, if She Chimping was able
49:08
Speaker 2: over the course of the year to essentially invalidate the
49:13
Speaker 2: Taiwan Relations Act and the United States is just you know,
49:16
Speaker 2: holding those weapons systems, but also Trump is signaling I
49:20
Speaker 2: don't really care about this. I'm willing to trade this
49:22
Speaker 2: away for I don't know, some Boeing planes and some
49:25
Speaker 2: ag deals. It leads to a very dangerous last two
49:31
Speaker 2: years of the Trump administration, during which she Himping might
49:35
Speaker 2: think to himself, well, look, not only did the Taiwanese
49:38
Speaker 2: not have defense capabilities that will promise them, but Trump
49:42
Speaker 2: is clearly not interested in defending them in any way.
49:45
Speaker 2: So this is my window twenty twenty seven and twenty
49:47
Speaker 2: twenty eight to do something. And that's something could be
49:50
Speaker 2: everything from an invasion of Taiwan to like a blockade
49:53
Speaker 2: of Taiwan, which is another scenario where they're just squeezing
49:56
Speaker 2: and squeezing and trying to force them to capitulate. That's
50:01
Speaker 2: clearly the play that China is running, and it's not
50:03
Speaker 2: clear what Trump is trying to get in exchange for
50:07
Speaker 2: this huge gift to the Chinese.
50:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the part I'm really struggling with because like
50:12
Speaker 1: there's just no nothing's even been floating floated that of
50:15
Speaker 1: what we might get in return. And yet at the
50:17
Speaker 1: same time, Trump is just kind of like casually upending
50:21
Speaker 1: decades of diplomacy with Taiwan. I mean, we played, I
50:24
Speaker 1: think we played last week the clip of Trump not
50:28
Speaker 1: only threatening that David Sanger of the New York Times
50:31
Speaker 1: reporter and accusing him of committing treason, but also Sanger
50:35
Speaker 1: was like, hey, you said, you know that you negotiated
50:38
Speaker 1: over arm sales with Taiwan Rashijinping, but you know, as
50:41
Speaker 1: part of like the kind of six assurances that the
50:44
Speaker 1: US made to Taiwan in nineteen eighty two, that's not
50:46
Speaker 1: supposed to be a part of it. And Trump's response
50:50
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, what am I supposed to give a
50:51
Speaker 1: shit about some document from nineteen eighty two, And it's like, yeah,
50:55
Speaker 1: you know, like that's usually like that. Those six assurances
50:58
Speaker 1: were kind of like the foundation of the modern US
51:01
Speaker 1: Taiwan relationship, and a lot of that has been codified,
51:05
Speaker 1: you know, into diplomatic agreements in Congress and the Taiwan
51:08
Speaker 1: Relations Act. So it's like, but he's just kind of
51:11
Speaker 1: up ends the table and seemingly either doesn't know or
51:14
Speaker 1: doesn't care what he's doing.
51:16
Speaker 2: And those agreements and that law, the Taiwan Relations Act,
51:20
Speaker 2: and all those agreements are designed again to prevent the war,
51:25
Speaker 2: because it's meant to make the war seem costly enough
51:28
Speaker 2: to China that they won't do it. If you stack
51:32
Speaker 2: up the Iran War, the illegal war that we launched
51:37
Speaker 2: in Iran, the Ukraine War. Well, she's sitting there in
51:40
Speaker 2: Beijing and thinking nobody else is following any rules, and
51:43
Speaker 2: these guys are rug pulling Taiwan, and maybe this is
51:47
Speaker 2: the moment to make a move, and Trump doesn't seem
51:51
Speaker 2: to be in the slightest bit considering that likelihood.
51:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's bonkers. Also, there was a report in the
51:58
Speaker 1: Financial Times that apparently one of the most heated part
52:01
Speaker 1: of the She Trump meeting was she talking about Japan
52:05
Speaker 1: remilitarizing I don't know if you caught this ben So
52:07
Speaker 1: it's just sort of interesting if that's going to be
52:10
Speaker 1: another flashpoint soon or suggests it might be.
52:13
Speaker 2: That may be the next one up, you know. But
52:15
Speaker 2: the reality is, I think Japan's going to rearm no
52:17
Speaker 2: matter what. Could you describe what Trump's vision of this
52:22
Speaker 2: very volatile region where you have Japan, Taiwan, North and
52:27
Speaker 2: South Korea, and China all in close proximity now right,
52:31
Speaker 2: The goal there is to keep a lid on that,
52:34
Speaker 2: and I think Trump doesn't understand that by walking away
52:38
Speaker 2: from all of America's commitments, by pulling military hardware out
52:42
Speaker 2: of South Korea and clearly not giving a shit about
52:45
Speaker 2: the South Koreans, he's making them vulnerable to North Korean
52:48
Speaker 2: aggression in the same way that he's doing that to
52:50
Speaker 2: Taiwan and then potentially Japan next. I see why She
52:54
Speaker 2: Jin Ping's doing it. Get America out of my neighborhood,
52:57
Speaker 2: and I want freedom of action. It doesn't mean it's
52:58
Speaker 2: going to invade Japan ascessarily, but it does mean that
53:01
Speaker 2: he wants to be the dominant military power there, which
53:04
Speaker 2: could lead to military actions, certainly in Taiwan.
53:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then it just been constantly bullying random other
53:09
Speaker 1: countries in the region about islands and access to South Yeah, exactly,
53:15
Speaker 1: it's nothing good, all right, ben. So this next story
53:17
Speaker 1: is one we'd hoped we didn't have to cover, But
53:20
Speaker 1: this ebola outbreak and the Democratic Republic of Congo and
53:23
Speaker 1: Uganda has really gotten big and out of control, and
53:26
Speaker 1: it does feel like it's important to update everyone on it.
53:28
Speaker 1: So the World Health Organization has now classified the outbreak
53:31
Speaker 1: as they quote public health emergency of International Concern. That's
53:34
Speaker 1: a notch below a pandemic in their UN alert system,
53:38
Speaker 1: and the International Rescue Committee said on Tuesday that the
53:40
Speaker 1: outbreak could become the deadliest outbreak on record without urgent
53:43
Speaker 1: international action. So far, there's been more than nine hundred
53:46
Speaker 1: suspected cases in two hundred and twenty two deaths. There's
53:50
Speaker 1: a few factors making this outbreak worse than normal. The
53:54
Speaker 1: first is that it was just caught pretty late, so
53:56
Speaker 1: the response is likely weeks behind the spread of the
53:58
Speaker 1: virus at best. Second, there's no vaccine or effective treatment
54:02
Speaker 1: for this particular strain of a bola. That's usually a
54:05
Speaker 1: critical tool of sort of putting a ring around an outbreak,
54:08
Speaker 1: and stopping the spread and protecting you know, frontline healthcare workers. Third,
54:12
Speaker 1: these cases are mostly in Eastern Congo, which is an
54:15
Speaker 1: active conflict zone where there's very limited health infrastructure.
54:18
Speaker 2: Wait wait, wait, I thought he ended that war.
54:20
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we did end that war. You're right, my bad,
54:22
Speaker 1: I take that all back. Millions of people have definitely
54:25
Speaker 1: not been displaced there. And then fourth, you know, you
54:28
Speaker 1: have these healthcare workers. We're trying to battle the virus itself,
54:31
Speaker 1: but they're also dealing with traditional customs like, for example,
54:35
Speaker 1: there's a tradition in the region of like touching the
54:38
Speaker 1: corpse one last time at a funeral, and that is
54:41
Speaker 1: just the worst possible thing you could do to spread
54:45
Speaker 1: the disease. Then there's also local distrust of foreigners and
54:49
Speaker 1: healthcare workers who are often blamed for the virus and
54:52
Speaker 1: attacked by individuals even though they're just trying to treat them.
54:55
Speaker 1: And then fifth, we have Trump and Elon Musk dismantling
54:59
Speaker 1: USA and just destroying global health response infrastructure and preparedness.
55:06
Speaker 1: And Trump withdrew the US from the World Health Organization,
55:08
Speaker 1: so there's less coordination in communication. So great work all around. Gang,
55:12
Speaker 1: who could have seen this coming everybody. The US is
55:15
Speaker 1: already restricted travel to the US from people who have
55:18
Speaker 1: been to the affected areas. There's increased screening and airports.
55:22
Speaker 1: So the risk of abola outbreak coming to the US
55:25
Speaker 1: and spreading in the US is still quite low, but
55:27
Speaker 1: it's very likely to get worse in Congo, in Uganda,
55:31
Speaker 1: and to spread to other countries in the region like
55:33
Speaker 1: South Sudan, where is probably spread already. So, Ben, you
55:36
Speaker 1: were around in the Obama administration in twenty fourteen when
55:39
Speaker 1: there was another very serious, scary a bola outbreak. Any
55:43
Speaker 1: lessons from that time worth sharing and kind of like
55:46
Speaker 1: things you're watching here.
55:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that was one of the scariest times
55:49
Speaker 2: I was in government because we looked at projections where
55:52
Speaker 2: if the abola outbreak wasn't contained, essentially the cases of
55:57
Speaker 2: abola went straight up like a hockey stick spreading around
56:00
Speaker 2: the world because these are countries that do not have
56:03
Speaker 2: public health infrastructure. So in addition to the kind of
56:06
Speaker 2: cultural norms you're talking about, they just don't have the
56:08
Speaker 2: infrastructure to deal with it. Now, here's how we dealt
56:12
Speaker 2: with it at the time, and that speaks to the
56:14
Speaker 2: problems now because those West African countries at the time
56:19
Speaker 2: did not have that public health infrastructure. The United States
56:22
Speaker 2: worked through the World Health Organization to build literal public
56:28
Speaker 2: health infrastructure in the affected countries. We used USAID in
56:36
Speaker 2: conjunction with the United States Military to help facilitate the
56:40
Speaker 2: construction of logistics, hubs, hospitals, mobile health units to transport
56:46
Speaker 2: healthcare workers from around the world to the effective region.
56:49
Speaker 2: To get other countries through the WHO to contribute everything
56:53
Speaker 2: from healthcare workers to money to equipment. I think you
56:58
Speaker 2: can see where I'm going with this, Tommy. The World
57:00
Speaker 2: Health Organization is the vehicle through which the international community
57:05
Speaker 2: responds to an outbreak like this, and the United States
57:07
Speaker 2: is no longer in the World Health Organization. USAID was
57:11
Speaker 2: the funding mechanism to provide public health assistance to countries
57:15
Speaker 2: that need to build public health infrastructure. USAID does not
57:18
Speaker 2: exist anymore. The diplomacy required to galvanize collective action from
57:24
Speaker 2: all these different countries, both in terms of surging resources
57:27
Speaker 2: to Africa, but also in terms of kind of coordinating
57:30
Speaker 2: how are we dealing with flights, how are we dealing
57:32
Speaker 2: with quarantine policies? That requires very careful diplomacy at a
57:37
Speaker 2: time when the United States doesn't even have an ambassador
57:41
Speaker 2: in I think over one hundred countries. So I mean
57:44
Speaker 2: this is not US gratuitously swerving to knock Trump. I
57:48
Speaker 2: mean this is literally a perfect storm of the precise
57:51
Speaker 2: capabilities are needed to contain and deal with in a
57:54
Speaker 2: bull out break have actually been systematically dismantled by Trump intentionally.
58:00
Speaker 2: You're kind of just gonna have to hope that. I
58:02
Speaker 2: don't know other countries are able to deal with this,
58:05
Speaker 2: because I don't really see any credible blueprint for how
58:09
Speaker 2: the Trump administration is going to do it.
58:11
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no permanent CDC head, there's no permanent
58:13
Speaker 1: director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
58:18
Speaker 1: Bobby Kennedy is a clown, and he's running around doctor
58:21
Speaker 1: Oz's porch like catching snakes with his hands and filming
58:24
Speaker 1: it for TikTok, Like this is yeah, do we have
58:27
Speaker 1: a bunch of idiots running public health infrastructure?
58:29
Speaker 2: Is that what that was? I saw that and I
58:30
Speaker 2: was like, why is he picking up a snake?
58:32
Speaker 5: Is he?
58:33
Speaker 1: What are you doing? Do it? And things like biting
58:35
Speaker 1: him and he's like, look, look, Cheryl, what I did?
58:37
Speaker 1: It's a disaster. All right, we're gonna do one more
58:40
Speaker 1: dumb thing and we're going to talk about Ben's book. So, Ben,
58:42
Speaker 1: we wanted to play you a clip that you have
58:45
Speaker 1: not seen yet. You have no forewarning about this, and
58:48
Speaker 1: then we want you to try and guess what is
58:51
Speaker 1: happening and why?
58:52
Speaker 2: All right, you game, I'm ready.
58:55
Speaker 1: So we're gonna roll the clip and you tell us
58:56
Speaker 1: what's happening and why.
59:01
Speaker 2: Any video itself. Oh my god, it's gonna go out again.
59:07
Speaker 1: Any thoughts?
59:09
Speaker 5: Uh?
59:10
Speaker 1: Guy?
59:10
Speaker 2: What is happening is a woman seems to be pulling
59:16
Speaker 2: a car walking backwards while being on fire.
59:21
Speaker 1: That's a gentleman named John Stevenson. He's from West Yorkshire, England.
59:28
Speaker 1: He's pulling a Renaults Cleo RS car with his penis
59:32
Speaker 1: and then and then someone lights him.
59:34
Speaker 2: On set twist yeah yeah.
59:36
Speaker 1: For some reason, Ben, this is how this gentleman decided
59:39
Speaker 1: he would quote raise awareness about prostate cancer and bullying
59:43
Speaker 1: in schools. So we slotted this into the pod Save
59:46
Speaker 1: of the World run Down because it happened in England.
59:48
Speaker 1: I guess.
59:51
Speaker 2: Where does Michael find these?
59:53
Speaker 1: The New York Post is actually the answer on this one.
59:55
Speaker 2: What does that have to do with bullying in schools
59:57
Speaker 2: and how are those linked? Can I just recommend and
1:00:01
Speaker 2: that there are alternative ways of generating awareness that would
1:00:06
Speaker 2: be my take. Don't involve being lit on fire or
1:00:10
Speaker 2: using that particular part of your body to pull a car.
1:00:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said, I pulled a car with my testicles before,
1:00:16
Speaker 1: and I've pulled a car on fire, so I thought
1:00:18
Speaker 1: why not combine both, But this time I'll do it
1:00:20
Speaker 1: with my penis. I won't lie. It did hurt quite
1:00:23
Speaker 1: a bit, but my mind was focused on being on fire. Actually,
1:00:26
Speaker 1: here's actually what he had to say about the experience
1:00:28
Speaker 1: when he was asked about it by TMZ. I don't
1:00:30
Speaker 1: planning on having anymore kids, guys, and just hanging about.
1:00:34
Speaker 1: I thought I put it to work.
1:00:37
Speaker 2: Well, maybe they look, I will say, Labor is looking
1:00:41
Speaker 2: for a new prime minister. Yeah, we wear this man's
1:00:44
Speaker 2: politics because he's clearly willing to engage in the attention
1:00:48
Speaker 2: economy in a way that you know, current labor leadership
1:00:51
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to.
1:00:51
Speaker 1: Be put in on the line. Yeah, no, that's more
1:00:53
Speaker 1: of a Lib Dem move. Pulling of a car with
1:00:56
Speaker 1: your flaming dick anyway, we thought that would be fun.
1:01:00
Speaker 1: All right, We're gonna take a quick break. When we
1:01:01
Speaker 1: come back, you're going to hear my conversation with Ben
1:01:04
Speaker 1: about his new book in some incredibly important foreign policy
1:01:08
Speaker 1: speeches in history and the artists speech writing generally, So
1:01:10
Speaker 1: stick around for that. Pods of the World is brought
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Speaker 1: Ben and louve our Standard interview. This week, we wanted
1:03:05
Speaker 1: to talk about your new book, Always Say, The Battle
1:03:08
Speaker 1: for American Identity, A History in fifteen Speeches. Again, it
1:03:11
Speaker 1: is out today as we're recording this Tuesday, May twenty six,
1:03:15
Speaker 1: So go pick one up before they're sold outs. Get
1:03:18
Speaker 1: them while you can, so, Ben, The book is focused
1:03:21
Speaker 1: on great speeches in American history. You got examples from
1:03:24
Speaker 1: Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Fdr Doloreshuerta, Reagan, Obama Trump.
1:03:30
Speaker 1: Sometimes it can feel like in twenty twenty six, a
1:03:34
Speaker 1: speech is an anachronistic communications tool, especially when you have
1:03:38
Speaker 1: a president like Trump who can barely get a sentence
1:03:41
Speaker 1: out sometimes, who puts zero effort into writing his own remarks. Right,
1:03:44
Speaker 1: he vomits whatever comes to his mind, like he can
1:03:47
Speaker 1: entertain the audience, but he's not like moving NASAs per se.
1:03:50
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it is easier than ever
1:03:53
Speaker 1: to consume a great speech on YouTube, to share a
1:03:57
Speaker 1: great speech on TikTok or Twitter or Instagram or whatever.
1:04:01
Speaker 1: So I just think where you how you think about
1:04:05
Speaker 1: the speech, the presidential speech as part of the communications
1:04:09
Speaker 1: toolbox these days, and whether you think, like, you know,
1:04:12
Speaker 1: a great future president, a John Ossof for president, could
1:04:16
Speaker 1: kind of like bring this speech back.
1:04:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, first of all, what I did in kind
1:04:21
Speaker 2: of curating fifteen speeches, I wanted to tell the entire
1:04:25
Speaker 2: story of American history through speeches, and I particularly wanted
1:04:30
Speaker 2: to focus on speeches that dealt with the matter of
1:04:33
Speaker 2: American identity. What is American? Who is an American? How
1:04:37
Speaker 2: do we decide that question? Because that's essentially the concord
1:04:40
Speaker 2: the argument that we're having now and that we've been
1:04:42
Speaker 2: having throughout our history. Speeches are this venue precisely because
1:04:48
Speaker 2: the United States is not just like a particular territory.
1:04:52
Speaker 2: We were thirteen states for instance at the beginning, right,
1:04:55
Speaker 2: We're not a particular ethnic group. We are a country
1:04:58
Speaker 2: that is committed to a set of ideas. So speeches
1:05:01
Speaker 2: have been this venue where we work out who we are,
1:05:04
Speaker 2: and we work at our differences, and we tell stories
1:05:07
Speaker 2: about what it means to be American and what we
1:05:09
Speaker 2: stand for in the world. And so each of the speeches,
1:05:12
Speaker 2: starting with Ben Franklin at the Constitutional Convention deal with
1:05:17
Speaker 2: this question of who are we? And I dealt with
1:05:20
Speaker 2: both sides or all sides of that argument. I think
1:05:23
Speaker 2: the thing I found that was really interesting, Tommy, that
1:05:26
Speaker 2: you learn things that you didn't expect to learn. How
1:05:29
Speaker 2: much technology changed how people engage in that. So in
1:05:34
Speaker 2: Ben Franklin's day, the audience was in the room, but
1:05:38
Speaker 2: you knew that the speech is going to be reprinted
1:05:39
Speaker 2: in a newspaper, so you wrote these kind of carefully
1:05:42
Speaker 2: worded arguments. You get to like Frederick Douglas's time. Douglas
1:05:46
Speaker 2: is hitting the road. He's delivering the same speech hundreds
1:05:48
Speaker 2: of times, going town to town as a performer and
1:05:51
Speaker 2: a celebrity. Frankly, but that's how a lot of reform movements,
1:05:55
Speaker 2: and I deal a lot with each chapter is not
1:05:56
Speaker 2: just about a speech. It's about the life of the
1:05:58
Speaker 2: person who gave it and the movement that led into
1:06:00
Speaker 2: that speech. That's how movements got built for things like
1:06:03
Speaker 2: abolition and women's rights.
1:06:05
Speaker 1: And that existed through Reagan right because he was given
1:06:07
Speaker 1: speeches to like every ge plant in the country for
1:06:10
Speaker 1: a while, he's like a paid flag for them.
1:06:12
Speaker 2: That's there's an American tradition of that, right, and that's
1:06:14
Speaker 2: how presdential candidates hit the stump. Then you get radio
1:06:17
Speaker 2: and you get FDR and you get this kind of
1:06:19
Speaker 2: plain spoken explanation of things. You get TV and you
1:06:22
Speaker 2: get spectacle, right, Charisma, Ken Kennedy and King standing there
1:06:27
Speaker 2: and delivering a message that everybody can see now to
1:06:30
Speaker 2: get to where we are today, and your question, with
1:06:33
Speaker 2: internet and social media, we've been so chopped into algorithmically
1:06:37
Speaker 2: divided tribes that all we see are like bits and
1:06:40
Speaker 2: pieces of clips that are designed to kind of either
1:06:42
Speaker 2: reinforce our views or trigger us to kind of hate
1:06:46
Speaker 2: the other side. And Trump has been the perfect politician
1:06:50
Speaker 2: for that medium.
1:06:51
Speaker 1: Right.
1:06:51
Speaker 2: He'll give a one hour rally speech, but he doesn't
1:06:55
Speaker 2: give it for the full hour except for the audience
1:06:58
Speaker 2: in the room. He knows that clips are going to
1:07:00
Speaker 2: travel around the Internet. I actually believe, though, I truly
1:07:04
Speaker 2: believe this that a lot of Democrats, like from Gavin
1:07:08
Speaker 2: Newsom on down. You know, you're trying to mimic elements
1:07:11
Speaker 2: of Trump's communication clap back on social media, or they're
1:07:14
Speaker 2: making pithy social media viadas. That's great. I think people
1:07:17
Speaker 2: should do those things. But actually the counterprogramming that's needed.
1:07:21
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons I think people feel like, hey,
1:07:23
Speaker 2: what do the Democrats actually stand for? Is since Obama
1:07:28
Speaker 2: and Reagan did this very well too, we haven't had
1:07:30
Speaker 2: a politician provide an alternative story to Trump's like about
1:07:36
Speaker 2: the big questions, not just about like you know, ACA
1:07:38
Speaker 2: subsidies or even the word Iran, but about like, where
1:07:42
Speaker 2: is this country going? Because it feels like it's gone
1:07:43
Speaker 2: off track, and how can I make you believe that
1:07:48
Speaker 2: we can get to someplace better. I think we're starting
1:07:50
Speaker 2: to see, like our guy John Ossoff, who is in
1:07:53
Speaker 2: our TELSI clip, he's beginning to do this. But I
1:07:56
Speaker 2: truly believe that the counterprogramming to the Trump era is
1:08:00
Speaker 2: actually to stand up and tell a story to Americans
1:08:03
Speaker 2: that can resonate. And as you know, if I'm doing communications,
1:08:06
Speaker 2: if you get that story right, that's like the trunk
1:08:09
Speaker 2: of the tree, and then all of your interviews, all
1:08:12
Speaker 2: your social media viadeos, all those other things, your podcast appearances,
1:08:15
Speaker 2: you know, come on Pozzi, the world, presential cindets, they
1:08:17
Speaker 2: kind of they go out from that speech right in
1:08:20
Speaker 2: the same way that Obama would have a stump speech,
1:08:22
Speaker 2: and then you know you're you're repeating bits and pieces
1:08:25
Speaker 2: of that when you go out and communicate.
1:08:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, you need to have a big picture and a vision,
1:08:29
Speaker 1: and usually has to be optimistic. You're right. I mean
1:08:30
Speaker 1: too many Democrats are focused on just shitting on Trump, which, hey,
1:08:34
Speaker 1: all for that, that's what we do. But you have
1:08:36
Speaker 1: to have an alternative. We do it.
1:08:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:08:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the speeches you highlight in the book
1:08:39
Speaker 1: is FDR's for Freedom's State of the Union address, where
1:08:42
Speaker 1: he's making the case for a vision. It's against American isolationism,
1:08:46
Speaker 1: it's advocating to do more to help our allies against
1:08:49
Speaker 1: Hitler and fascism. In that speech, he talks about the
1:08:52
Speaker 1: four freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom worshiped, freedom from want,
1:08:55
Speaker 1: and freedom from fear. These were like big, you know,
1:08:58
Speaker 1: radical ideas, yes, and they created this moral argument for
1:09:03
Speaker 1: helping fight the Nazis. Can you describe the genesis of
1:09:07
Speaker 1: the speech and the impact that it had on American
1:09:10
Speaker 1: public opinion in that critical year before Pearl Harbor is
1:09:13
Speaker 1: attacked and we're finally fully pulled into the war.
1:09:16
Speaker 2: I thought this was such a fun chapter to research
1:09:20
Speaker 2: and write, and it's a deeply world Oh chapter, because
1:09:24
Speaker 2: I'm going to set the scene for you, Tommy. It
1:09:26
Speaker 2: is the spring of nineteen forty. FDR has not decided
1:09:31
Speaker 2: whether or not he's going to seek reelection to the presidency.
1:09:34
Speaker 2: In fact, he's indicated that he's not. He's told some
1:09:36
Speaker 2: of his associates he's not going to run. Nobody's run
1:09:39
Speaker 2: for a third term before. And he's giving a press
1:09:41
Speaker 2: conference at Hyde Park, which is going to be his
1:09:44
Speaker 2: presidential library. So this guy's already thinking past his presidency.
1:09:48
Speaker 2: And he's liberally giving a tour to the assembled press,
1:09:51
Speaker 2: and he's showing them, you know, his book collection, his
1:09:54
Speaker 2: memorabilia collection, and here's you know where you're going to
1:09:56
Speaker 2: be able to come and visit these things. And he
1:09:59
Speaker 2: has said that the one thing that would make him
1:10:01
Speaker 2: run is if the war compels him to run. And
1:10:04
Speaker 2: at that point, you know, the Nazis are just beginning
1:10:06
Speaker 2: to march across Europe, the Japanese are beginning to march
1:10:09
Speaker 2: across China. And someone asks him, Hey, what's your what's
1:10:12
Speaker 2: your national defense strategy? And you'll like this because you've
1:10:16
Speaker 2: been in press conference prep. You know, he gives the
1:10:18
Speaker 2: kind of wrote answer and then at the end he says,
1:10:22
Speaker 2: you know, the fascist stand for all these horrible things,
1:10:24
Speaker 2: and he says, I think you know, we stand for
1:10:28
Speaker 2: four freedoms, and he lists four freedoms, and it's freedom
1:10:31
Speaker 2: of religion, freedom of speech, freedom from fear, and freedom
1:10:36
Speaker 2: of information. And then a reporter says, what about freedom
1:10:39
Speaker 2: from one? He says, that's good. Five freedoms, right, and
1:10:43
Speaker 2: then we don't really hear much about that. He decides
1:10:46
Speaker 2: to run for reelection. He has a hard fought campaign
1:10:50
Speaker 2: for him. He wins, and like shit is going south fast,
1:10:55
Speaker 2: Like the Nazis have conquered France, the Japanese haven't conquered
1:10:59
Speaker 2: Paul Harbor yet. But the democracies aren't looking good. And
1:11:02
Speaker 2: so he has to give a speech to Congress in
1:11:04
Speaker 2: which he makes the case for the len Ley's program
1:11:07
Speaker 2: that's basically writing a blank check to the Brits to
1:11:11
Speaker 2: stay in the war, and that actually became a blank
1:11:13
Speaker 2: check to the Soviets too. He's facing a very determined
1:11:17
Speaker 2: isolationist movement that has literally tied his hands. Congress had
1:11:21
Speaker 2: refused to allow him to provide that assistance. They had
1:11:25
Speaker 2: legislated and mandated that Britain had to take ships all
1:11:28
Speaker 2: the way over the United States, load the ships with weapons,
1:11:31
Speaker 2: pay for the weapons, and go back. They didn't have
1:11:33
Speaker 2: the money and they didn't have the ability to do that.
1:11:35
Speaker 2: So this is high stake stuff. Tommy. He gives a
1:11:38
Speaker 2: great speech about what's wrong with isolationism in the America
1:11:42
Speaker 2: First Movement, so a lot of echoes of today that
1:11:44
Speaker 2: you would find interesting. Then he kind of makes the
1:11:46
Speaker 2: case for his policy. But the night before the speech,
1:11:49
Speaker 2: he had gathered his speech writers in the Oval Office
1:11:52
Speaker 2: and he said, I have an idea for an ending.
1:11:55
Speaker 2: I want to go back to those four freedoms, and
1:11:58
Speaker 2: he kind of dictates out this end, and freedom of
1:12:01
Speaker 2: information gets collapsed with freedom of speech. So that's how
1:12:03
Speaker 2: you get for And what I find so interesting about this, Tommy,
1:12:07
Speaker 2: is that he intuitively understood, as a politician, I'm about
1:12:10
Speaker 2: to ask people to do really hard fucking shit, like
1:12:13
Speaker 2: not only have to pay for all this arsenal democracy,
1:12:15
Speaker 2: but we're probably going to be in this war. People
1:12:17
Speaker 2: don't have to fight for it. And it's not enough
1:12:19
Speaker 2: for me to just give people, you know, a good
1:12:22
Speaker 2: policy program. I have to give them a sense of meaning.
1:12:25
Speaker 2: What is this all about? And he basically makes the
1:12:29
Speaker 2: purpose of America at home in the world these four freedoms,
1:12:33
Speaker 2: and that becomes something that people could take into the
1:12:38
Speaker 2: trenches with them. That becomes something that was in Norman
1:12:40
Speaker 2: Rockwell paintings and postage stamps. People got it that this
1:12:44
Speaker 2: was who we are, this is what we stand for.
1:12:46
Speaker 2: Hitler stands for that we stand for this, and it
1:12:49
Speaker 2: also informed became the basis of the entire postwar international order.
1:12:54
Speaker 2: The Four Freedoms are embedded in the UN Charter. So
1:12:57
Speaker 2: he literally, like you want to talk about consequential he
1:13:00
Speaker 2: not only he kind of spoke America into a new
1:13:03
Speaker 2: purpose that became the purpose of the post war order.
1:13:06
Speaker 2: It just shows you what a politician of that caliber
1:13:09
Speaker 2: can do with words.
1:13:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, the meme everyone always posts of the one guy
1:13:12
Speaker 1: standing up kind of looking out given the speech is
1:13:14
Speaker 1: as a Rockwell four Freedom's poster that has repurposed today
1:13:19
Speaker 1: to annoy people on X So. Yeah, Enduring, you also
1:13:24
Speaker 1: did a chapter on Reagan's famous Evil Empire speech. This
1:13:27
Speaker 1: was a speech from nineteen eighty three that is like
1:13:29
Speaker 1: mostly red meat for a bunch of right wing evangelical
1:13:32
Speaker 1: conservative Christians about domestic stuff, abortion, Prairie insouls, and then
1:13:37
Speaker 1: it concludes with his final third about communism, the threat
1:13:41
Speaker 1: from communism and quirks this big attack on you know,
1:13:45
Speaker 1: so called appeasement of communism. I'd love to hear your
1:13:47
Speaker 1: thoughts on Reagan's decision to kind of jam all that
1:13:50
Speaker 1: together into this one speech. But also there's a section
1:13:53
Speaker 1: of the speech that is just genuinely insane to me
1:13:56
Speaker 1: that I couldn't get over. It's Reagan telling the story
1:13:59
Speaker 1: where he claimed that some prominent man in the entertainment
1:14:02
Speaker 1: industry was talking about communism and said, quote, I love
1:14:04
Speaker 1: my little girls more than anything else, but I would
1:14:07
Speaker 1: rather see my little girls die now still believing in
1:14:10
Speaker 1: God than having them grow up under communism and have
1:14:12
Speaker 1: them one day no longer believing in God. That's the
1:14:15
Speaker 1: end of the quote. As a father of two, as
1:14:18
Speaker 1: a human being, a normal person, I found that sickening
1:14:20
Speaker 1: and psychotic, and also probably didn't happen because Reagan's a
1:14:23
Speaker 1: congenital liar. But the audience applauded both times in the
1:14:27
Speaker 1: story that he was recounting and also in that hall
1:14:30
Speaker 1: where Reagan was speaking What the hell?
1:14:32
Speaker 2: So I actually have a very clear explanation for this Tommy,
1:14:35
Speaker 2: and I was surprised by what that speech actually was
1:14:39
Speaker 2: because I'd only heard about it as the Vampire speech.
1:14:42
Speaker 2: But actually, again, it was a speech about American identity.
1:14:45
Speaker 2: And again I tell the story of Reagan's whole life
1:14:48
Speaker 2: in his political journey and the coalition he built. And
1:14:51
Speaker 2: what Reagan built was the version of the Republican Party
1:14:55
Speaker 2: that melded together Christian evangelicals, national security hawks, and small
1:15:02
Speaker 2: government free market people. And that speech is in miniature,
1:15:08
Speaker 2: in one container, his whole coalition. Because he's giving that
1:15:12
Speaker 2: speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, it's a constituent event.
1:15:17
Speaker 2: The first two thirds of that speech is just red
1:15:21
Speaker 2: meat served up to that audience. He talks about the
1:15:25
Speaker 2: need to abolish abortion. He talks about the need to
1:15:29
Speaker 2: prosecute people that provide reproductive healthcare to girls without the
1:15:35
Speaker 2: consent of their parents. All these kinds of things that
1:15:37
Speaker 2: actually became, unfortunately because of Donald Trump, the law of
1:15:41
Speaker 2: the land, or at least in some states. But then so,
1:15:47
Speaker 2: what he does very deftly actually is he pivots out
1:15:51
Speaker 2: of this religiosity. And by the way, he also condemns
1:15:55
Speaker 2: not just godless communism, but the godless bureaucracy in the
1:15:58
Speaker 2: United States government. Right, that's the small government stuff.
1:16:01
Speaker 3: Right.
1:16:01
Speaker 2: We don't want these secular bureaucrats making decisions for us,
1:16:04
Speaker 2: you know, you should be making it so that when
1:16:06
Speaker 2: he gets the Soviet Union, that's his frame. We are
1:16:10
Speaker 2: a Christian nation that believes in God and a set
1:16:15
Speaker 2: of Christian values. They believe not in God but in Man.
1:16:19
Speaker 2: So the reason they're an evil empire is because they're
1:16:24
Speaker 2: not Christian like we are in the way that we are.
1:16:26
Speaker 2: And and so it's a red meat speech that ties
1:16:30
Speaker 2: together the whole Reaganite project of Christian conservatism and national
1:16:35
Speaker 2: security hawkishness and small government. That's an identity for this
1:16:39
Speaker 2: country that Reagan kind of spoke into a coalition. What
1:16:43
Speaker 2: I found more positive about Reagan that's interesting is if
1:16:46
Speaker 2: you follow the story out of the speech, Reagan actually
1:16:50
Speaker 2: had a pragmatic streak. Mikhail Gorbachev comes along, He's like, well,
1:16:54
Speaker 2: I can deal with this guy, and I don't want
1:16:55
Speaker 2: to have a nuclear war, and he became a dove
1:16:58
Speaker 2: and I you should see the freakouts that Republicans were
1:17:02
Speaker 2: having as who was negotiating arms control agreements with Gorbachev.
1:17:05
Speaker 2: He goes to Moscow in nineteen eighty eight and is
1:17:08
Speaker 2: asked do you still believe in the evil Empire and says, no,
1:17:11
Speaker 2: I don't think it's an evil empire. That was just
1:17:13
Speaker 2: something I said at that time, you know, So his
1:17:15
Speaker 2: actual strength as a leader was being able to walk
1:17:18
Speaker 2: away from that. I think the dangerous thing that I
1:17:20
Speaker 2: took out of that, though, is that that idea of
1:17:23
Speaker 2: a godless enemy that is evil. After the Cold War,
1:17:28
Speaker 2: some of those right wing evangelicals just turned their fire
1:17:32
Speaker 2: on guys like us, you know, yeah, the secular you know, technocrats, right.
1:17:38
Speaker 2: But I mean I learned so much from taking that journey.
1:17:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a fascinating story. I mean, I guess my
1:17:44
Speaker 1: takeaway to wrap this up a little bit was after
1:17:47
Speaker 1: reading both of those speeches. I mean, it's two presidents
1:17:50
Speaker 1: coming from totally different political parties and ideological perspectives, But
1:17:55
Speaker 1: reading both of their speeches kind of left me feeling
1:17:58
Speaker 1: ashamed when I thought about the words and the policies
1:18:02
Speaker 1: they were espousing, and their commitments to fighting fascism and
1:18:05
Speaker 1: promoting freedom, as imperfect as those efforts could be. What
1:18:09
Speaker 1: I now think about how Donald Trump is just hanging
1:18:12
Speaker 1: Ukraine out to dry and we're watching you know, Russia
1:18:15
Speaker 1: pound Kiev with you know, intermediate range ballistic missiles that
1:18:19
Speaker 1: could be fitted with a nuclear warhead if putin so chose.
1:18:22
Speaker 1: And look, obviously, like all these issues are more complicated
1:18:25
Speaker 1: than Reagan made them out to be. Right. It wasn't
1:18:27
Speaker 1: good versus evil or black horse is white. But FDR
1:18:31
Speaker 1: and Reagan spoke about a commitment to values, and it's
1:18:33
Speaker 1: like that is just gone. It just doesn't is not
1:18:37
Speaker 1: a thing that's right.
1:18:38
Speaker 2: I had the same feeling because even Reagan, now, like
1:18:40
Speaker 2: I don't agree with a lot of his approaches in politics.
1:18:43
Speaker 5: But.
1:18:45
Speaker 2: I did appreciate that there was a values proposition to
1:18:49
Speaker 2: foreign policy, that we wanted to stand for a set
1:18:52
Speaker 2: of things in opposition to a totalitarian system. And FDR
1:18:57
Speaker 2: certainly spoke to me when Trump taught about Iran, he
1:19:01
Speaker 2: talks about the nuclear dust or he talks about, you know,
1:19:05
Speaker 2: the strait of horm moves. We've just drained the values
1:19:09
Speaker 2: proposition out of everything we do. And I think that's
1:19:13
Speaker 2: one reason again why Americans feel so demoralized and disoriented,
1:19:19
Speaker 2: because what is this all about? Because it just without
1:19:23
Speaker 2: any values proposition it's just about pure power and pure transactionalism,
1:19:28
Speaker 2: and in Trump's case, like personal power and transactionalism.
1:19:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just stealing resources. I mean, we're going to
1:19:34
Speaker 1: run taking the oil or picking who the leaders are.
1:19:36
Speaker 1: It'll be total surrendered. Give us your dust, give us everything.
1:19:39
Speaker 1: We can do whatever we want. But yeah, I mean,
1:19:41
Speaker 1: at least I don't know it's at least that signal
1:19:45
Speaker 1: he was trying to send to the world about our
1:19:47
Speaker 1: ability to just be a global bully is not working out,
1:19:50
Speaker 1: and maybe it'll rain him in a bit.
1:19:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think again, it means that things are
1:19:56
Speaker 2: ripened for someone to come along and not in I
1:19:59
Speaker 2: want to be like, you know, Joe Biden would do
1:20:02
Speaker 2: the path like you know, he would mouth the words
1:20:06
Speaker 2: about indispensable nation or but it wasn't like it didn't
1:20:10
Speaker 2: hang together as a story, you know. I mean, look,
1:20:12
Speaker 2: I appreciate I'm glad Joe bout Biden brought some values
1:20:15
Speaker 2: based rhetoric to things. But but the Four Freedoms is
1:20:18
Speaker 2: a coherent and potent story about what you can stand
1:20:23
Speaker 2: for in the world, and we need a new story.
1:20:26
Speaker 2: It's not as simple as Democrats sending up again and
1:20:28
Speaker 2: saying America is the indispensable nation. We stand for freedom,
1:20:32
Speaker 2: Like like take the Pope. The Pope is telling a
1:20:35
Speaker 2: story in that encyclical about being a human being. You know,
1:20:38
Speaker 2: in the twenty first century with articial intelligence. It's that
1:20:41
Speaker 2: kind of story, right, It's the one that meets people
1:20:43
Speaker 2: where they are now. It's not just kind of replaying
1:20:45
Speaker 2: the hits, the speeches that move things forward, like evil
1:20:48
Speaker 2: Umpire that was new for freedoms, that was new. Like
1:20:51
Speaker 2: we need a new story that people can tell in
1:20:53
Speaker 2: this country and around the world.
1:20:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't just be nostalgia and looking back and
1:20:56
Speaker 1: you know, we were great once and let's get back
1:20:58
Speaker 1: to that. It's got to be something new and bigger.
1:20:59
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:21:00
Speaker 1: The book again all we say, The Battle for American
1:21:02
Speaker 1: Identity of History and fifteen Speeches by Ben Rhodes out today.
1:21:06
Speaker 1: Buy a copy, Buy a copy for your friends, buy
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Speaker 1: a copy for your enemies. Just buy all the copies,
1:21:11
Speaker 1: bulk buy him Krangrazuddy, It's a great book. Excited for
1:21:13
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