Latest / Pod Save the World / Keeping Up With the Korruption in Kazakhstan

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Keeping Up With the Korruption in Kazakhstan · Pod Save the World

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pods. Of the world. I'm Tommy Detour.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: I'm Ben Ruds.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Good to see you, buddy. Ben. Is it overseas. We're
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: going to reveal where later in the show. This is
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: how we make you stick around until the very end.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: But it's one of our if I think we have
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: one more remote how many weeks?
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: This is it? This is it? Next time I am
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: mom with you, I will be sitting across the table
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: from you. I'll be very happy to be there in
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: the US today, I feel like I've been on the
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: road for five weeks or so.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Crazy. We miss you, We miss you, but we have
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: a great show.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: For the list, four weeks on the bestseller list, thanks
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: to all the world. Yeah, so thank you.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: For There we go world does that's directly because of you, guys,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: because you bought the book, you recommended the book.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: It is it is really because of you, guys.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good people, So keep showing up. We got a
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: great show for you, guys. We're going to talk about
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the agreement signed between the Lebanese government and Israel and
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: what it means for the fight against hesblah and hopes
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: for peace on the Lebanon front of the US Iran
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Israel war. Then we're going to recap the latest fighting
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: between the US and Iran and then today's peace talks
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: in Doha to the extent that we know what happened yet,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: we are going to fill you in on the latest
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: shocking report about the Trump families corruption, this time via
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: kind of exactly where i'd expect, frankly for this kind
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: of corruption. We'll talk about some Supreme Court decisions that
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: will greatly impact US foreign policy, the devastating earthquake that
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: hit Venezuela, and the potential political fallout. Then we're going
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: to cover this pitched like cultural existential political battle in
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: France about air conditioning that, by the way, also is
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: about people dying because it's so hot over there. And
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: then we're going to do some more World Cup fun,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: including the easter egg we talked about at the top,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: about where Ben is and how that World Cup result
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: is affecting his trip. So I think you might want
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: to you might a hunker down for a little bit, buddy,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: And then you're going to hear my conversation with Nicholas
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Christoff from the New York Times where we talk about Ben.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen this too. Elon Musk like insane
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: claims that USAID's destruction, the dosing of USAID didn't lead
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: to a single death, cutting off aids drugs from countless people,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: no death, not funding malaria nets for babies, no deaths.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Everything's just totally fine.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Just big Balls knew exactly what he's doing.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, mister Balls was all over. So I talked to
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Nick about a couple of things. First of all, he
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: went to South Sudan. Recently, he's been to Uganda. He's
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: been to a bunch of places that were directly impacted
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: by USAID cuts. He met caregivers that cared for children
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: that died. He met caregivers who themselves were going to
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: die because their access to AID drugs, for example, we're
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: about to be cut off. We also talk about kind
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: of the big picture of projections about the impact of
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the USAID cuts. And then we end the interview with
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a question about his reporting on allegations of like systematic
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: rape of Palestinians in Israeli prisons and other places. So
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: an important interview. And you know what I think we
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: want to do out of this Ben is take that
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: conversation with Christoff, try to cut it down into like
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: the tightest social media video we can for Instagram and
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Twitter or wherever else and just use it to rebut
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: these claims from Musk, this is like the most nineteen
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: eighty four shit I've ever seen in my life. And
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: he just cannot get away with this.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: It's bad enough what he did, but to try to
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: evade responsibility by essentially, you know, gaslighting people just lying,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: it just cannot be allowed to stand. We have to
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: kind of keep reminding people of the consequences of what
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: he's doing. And just because he bought a social media
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: platform doesn't mean he gets to control what's true and
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: what's false.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's truly disgusting and it clearly bothers him that
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: people are stating what happened, and that reporters like Nick
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Christoph and a Tool Gowan Day and many others are
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: reporting on the impact of his decision to quote feed
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: usa D into the wood chipper, that was what he tweeted,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: could have gone to some great parties, decided to spend
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: the weekend feeding usa D into the wood chipper. He
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: bragged about this shit, so he will have to own
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: it going forward, and we're going to help him with that.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: And by the way, If you want to support a
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: news organization that will gladly call out Elon Musk for
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: killing people via one of his you know, ketamine fueled
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: rage moments, what don't even want to call it the
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: destruction of USAD and with Doge, please consider becoming a
• 6:05
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• 6:07
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• 6:10
  Speaker 1: had great newsletters, you get a deep dive into polling
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: from Dan Pfeiffer, and you help us grow and build
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: a progressive, independent media organization that is immune from the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: corporate forces of Barry Weiss in Paramount and Elon Musk
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: and can actually you know, speak the truth. So it's
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: crooked dot com slash friends. If you want to consider
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: becoming a paid subscriber, please check it out there. All right, Ben, So,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: it's been kind of confusing and unsettling week of news
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: when it comes to this fragile piece between the US
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and Iran. So over the weekend, the US and the
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Iranian militaries the exchange fire several times, and then there
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: was this flurry of diplomatic activity last week regarding Lebanon.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: So let's start there. On Friday, Israeli and Lebanese officials
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: signed this fourteen point agreement at a ceremony in Washington.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: The goal of the agreement is basically to create a
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: pathway for the Lebanese armed forces and the government of
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: lebin On to take control of their own country and
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: for Israel to withdraw from it. Although the time frame
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: is not stipulated, and I think the word withdraw is
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: not in this agreement, but the gist of the way
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: this thing would work. It proposes a phase approach Lebanese
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: forces take control of these two pilot zones. First, Lebizon
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: pledges to reject any security role for Hesbel and Lebanon
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: going forward. They commit to preventing Hesbola from getting funding
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: or support, and then Israeli troops are supposed to withdraw
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: from like two pilot zones to start the process of
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: transferring security control, with the ultimate goal of having the
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: idea fully withdraw. The agreement calls on the US and
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Arab countries to help support the deal. So far that
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: means like one hundred million dollars in humanitarian aid from
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the US, and the State Department said the Pentagon is
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: ready to provide another thirty million dollars to the Lebanese
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: military and direct military support. Now this all kind of
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: sounds fine in theory, Ben, but I think there's more
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: than a few reasons to be skeptical that the plan
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: will ever work. First of all, Hesbela is not a
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: party to a peace agreement that involved Hesbela. That's a
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: problem they have responded about as well as you'd expect
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the prospect of losing their power. There was also pushback
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: in skepticism in Israel that starts on the far right.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Israeli National Security Minister it'smar Ben Gevier called the deal
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: quote a historic mistake, a terrible missed opportunity, and a
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: lament for generations. Israeli Prime Minister bebing Ant Yahoo and
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: his own team they also didn't sound all that bullish
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: on the agreement. Working Defense Minister Israel Kat said quote,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: people should not hold their breath wondering where the next
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: place will be from which Israel will withdraw from Lebanon,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: because it will not happen until Hesba is disarmed. We
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: have no territorial ambitions in Lebanon. But until Hesbel is disarmed,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: we will not withdraw a millimeter. Then there was a
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: bunch of backlashing in Lebanon where you had a bunch
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: of senior officials, some of them with ties to hesbel As,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: some of them not criticizing the deal. One called it
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: a humiliation. There was the suggestion that it would force
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the Lebanese military to confront Hesbela on the battlefield and
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: lead to a civil war. It could legitimize Israel's occupation
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: of Lebanon for many years to come. That's another concern.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: There's also concerned that some of the terms of the
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: deal could prevent efforts to prosecute war crimes in the
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: future or like accountability. So this is a deal separate
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: from the MoU that reopened the straight or moves, and
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: it's the result of a bunch of weeks of talks
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: between Israeli and Lebanese officials at US pressure. So Ben
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the fighting has not stopped on Sunday, has Bla killed
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: an idea of soldier. The Israelis have been conducting a
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: bunch of air strikes. What did you make of this agreement,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: the US role in pushing for it, and some of
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the very strong responses you're seeing that it could actually
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: lead to civil war, not peace.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: It doesn't feel like a deal that's actually going to
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: solve the problem. If you define the problem as his
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: blind needs to disarm and Israel needs to withdraw from Lebanon.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: It feels like a deal that's designed to be a
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: fig leaf to facilitate the US Iran MoU to go forward.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Because at the end of the day, the only deal
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: that could lead to some form of disarming Isabela is
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: between his bill and the Lebanese government. You fundamentally can't
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: have a deal that, you know, whatever you think of Hisbela,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: this is not even in any way a favorable statement
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: about them, but like they're not a party to the agreement. Well, sure,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: the Lebanese government and the Lebanese Armed Forces is willing
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: to sign a piece of paper saying that his Bilan
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: needs to disarm, but that's not going to get you there.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: And so I think where it's going to leave you
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: is you may have this kind of veneer of diplomacy
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: that you know, gives people enough face saving to move
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: forward with, you know, moving the MoU between Iran and
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: the US forward, right, because the US can tell Israel, look,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: we're getting you know, his blood disarmed, and the US
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: can stay Iran. See, like you know, Israel's pulling back
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: from these parts of Lebanon and hopefully he's not bombing
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Bayroot anymore, and so we can move forward with our deal.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: But this is like what we've seen this time and
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: again and the Trump diplomacy, that they don't solve underlying problems.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: They kind of paper over them, have big ceremonies, lavish
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: signing ceremonies, announce things, and you don't solve the problem.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: And the problem is this will fester, like Israel will
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: continue to occupy parts of southern Lebanon, his bill will
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: continue to be armed. They live in southern Lebanon, and
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I see this thing flaring up time and again. And
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: if Israeli politics is also pushing from the right, then
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: bb Nenao has an incentive to occasionally bomb Lebanon to
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: show that he's not gonna be bound by a piece
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: of paper either. So I guess it's better than not
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: having it, but it's not in any way solving the problem.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and like the problem has been really bad. I mean,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: four thousand people have died in Lebanon since the March
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Second War started. To the extent there was a ceasefire
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: in Iran itself. There just was not one in any
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: way in Lebanon, and so that people have really suffered there.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Like I mentioned at the top of the bend, So
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: the sixty day sees fire deal between the US and Israel,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: it's been a light unceasing, heavily on firing. So last
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: week Duran there was a bunch of activity. A run fired.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: An attacked rone at a tanker because it was basically
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: it was using a route out of the Strait of
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Hormuz that was closer to the coast of Oman than
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: to the coast of Iran. And Iran has said that
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: they want only ships going in and out of the
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Straight of horm moves via their pre approved route. Only
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: those ones will be insured safe passage. So they fire
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: this drone at a ship. Then on Friday, the US
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: retaliates by hitting Iranian missile and drone sites. On Saturday,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Iran attacked another tanker, so the US military retaliated again
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: hitting Iranian military infrastructure, and then of course Trump has
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: to pop off on social media. He said that the
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: US and Iran may have to go back to war
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: and quote if that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: will no longer exist, so we're back to the genocidal threats.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Then on Sunday, the RGC fired at Bahrain in Kuwait,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: where the US has troops. Those missiles were intercepted by
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: missile defense systems, but one damaged to residential building in Bahrain,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: and there's reports that a Katari national was killed by
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: falling shrapnel. On Monday, Trump tried to kind of put
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: a lit on the thing, at least temporarily. He tweeted
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: that the US and Iran would meet in Doha on Tuesday,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the day we're recording. It's always funny been to me
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: how all the fighting happens weekends when markets are closed
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: convenient Steve Wickoff, Jared Kushner, Trump's golf buddy, and his
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: son in law. They were dispatched for the talks. Here's
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Trump talking earlier this week about what he expects from
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: these Doha talks.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: But the meeting in Doha is going to be.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Perhaps important, perhaps not.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: We're going to find out. But we're winning militarily. It's
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: almost one.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: Militarily, I would.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Say, seems bullish. So for what it's worth, the Iranians
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: basically said that they're not going to meet with Kushner,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: they're not going to meet with wick Cough. While they're there,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: they're saying that the sole reason they're going to Doha
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: is to talk about the six billion in Iranian assets
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: they want unfrozen. I believe this is money that was
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: promised to Iran in twenty twenty three as part of
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: this Biden era hostage release deal that was then frozen
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: after the October seventh attacks. So, Ben, we don't know
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: how the talks went yet. I think my concern as
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: an outside observer is that Iran is just trying to
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: constantly normalize this new normal where they control the straight
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: of her moves. They tell ships where they can go,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: they fire at the ones who don't do what they're told,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: and they old demand fees in the future, and they
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: just assume that Trump, as we saw in that clip,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: is ready to move on and just want to be
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: done with it all.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: I think that's exactly right. I think the thing that
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: the rantings have showed is their priority is that they
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: control the straight of hor moves, that they've not only
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: demonstrated that they can shut it down as a deterrent
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: against future US military action, against them, Right, who needs
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: a nuclear weapon when you can control twenty percent of
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: the world's energy. But they intend to profit off the Strait,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: There's no question about that. They want to control the
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: route the ships take. They can put some kind of
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: fee on it. They can call it an insurance fee,
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: they can call it whatever they want. But if they
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: can establish that they can make money off the straight
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: of horror moves, they have a whole new revenue source,
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: open ended way for many years to come, and that
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: clearly is worth more to them than even just some
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: temporary sanctions relief, right, that they're getting from this steal.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: And the thing that's so interesting to me beyond just
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: the market nature of it, all right, the wars happen
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: on the weekends and not during the week is that
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Trump's threats. I mean, look, I'm glad he's not acting
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: on them. I don't want him to try to end
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: to civilization or end a country. But the Iranians clearly
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: don't believe them, no, you know, I mean whatever happened
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: to red lines, you know? And I think what the
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Iranians understand is that those true social posts are no
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: longer even intended for Ron. It's just kind of intended
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: for Trump's dumbest base, you know, the same people that
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: believe that we somehow have won militarily or that we've
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: destroyed Iran's military capabilities, which oh, by the way, we
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: have to periodically keep bombing because they're still there. Trump
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: is just issuing these posts just for his own dead enders,
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: you know, to throw a step to Ben Shapiro and
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: you know, Mark Levin or whomever you know. And so
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: I think we're in this state where clearly they want
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: a deal of some sort, but the Iranians are signaling
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: I mean to watch what they do as well as
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: what they say. They're signaling. Controlling the Straight is our
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: top priority. It's even more important than this deal. And
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: even if this deal goes forward, we want to enter
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: into the deal making it very clear that we're still
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: going to control the Straight, even if we allow traffic
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: to pass through there. Again, it's our decision to allow it,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: and Trump can trial he once to make it look like, no,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: it's not. We're forcing them to open the Straight because
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: we just bombed a few missile sites. But that's not
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: what the rest of the world seeing. The rest of
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: the world is seeing the Iranians the one to decide
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: whether or not the tankers get through.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and just on this, you know Trump claiming we've
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: defeated the militarily. I mean, Jennifer Griffin at Fox News
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: asked the defense official why they had to bomb and
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: restrike these sites because I guess we've hit them before,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: and she was told that Iran had re constituted its
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: air defenses and it's missile systems along the Straight of
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Horn moves since the ceasefire, and now that's why we're
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: having to hit them again. So clearly this clearly they
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: have lots of reserves and they're going to be able
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: to rebuild their missile defense infrastructure and have enough missiles
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: and drones to be positioned in a way that they
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: can close the Straight. And then one other interesting thing,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: ben I mean, so the weekend's events, I think they
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: demonstrate how fragile the ceasefire deal, such as it is,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: is and continues to be. The good news on that
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: front is that the tanker traffic through the Strait is
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: way up week over week, but it's still only about
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: seventy percent of what it was before the war started,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: according to the Kepler data, and we're always just kind
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: of like one drone strike, one Iranian one way attack
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: drone or missile away from the thing being closed again
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: for god knows how long. But one interesting question I've
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: had Ben is why didn't the oil the price of
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: oil go up further? Because you know, you and I
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: were reading the same energy experts who are predicting like
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty dollars per barrel oil, and those
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: people were very wrong. And I think Politico took an
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: inch and crack at this question, and they ended up
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: essentially pinning it on a couple factors, like one was
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: a weaker than expected Chinese economy, and then China cut
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: oiled imports by about three million barrels a day, so
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: that took a lot of demand offline and helped sort
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: of even things out. And then they just noted like
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Trump's ability to bully the oil markets and mess with
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: oil features and you know, convince those you know, oil
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: analysts to just never like fully price in the worst
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: like kind of downside risk case because I guess they
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: all assumed that Trump would taco as we were just
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: talking about there, And then you had countries trapping their
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: strategic reserves at a greater level than expected, and I
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: guess more tankers were just kind of willing to sneak
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: through the strait, even despite the risk of getting fired
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: at than we'd expected. So you know, now that the
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: deals in place, Iron's been able to flood the market
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: with oil because the US gave them that sanctions relief.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: But it was I thought an interesting attempt to kind
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: of close the loop on why those worst case scenarios
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: in terms of price never quite aim to.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Be I thought that was good And actually both of
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: those articles. You point to the Jennifer Griffin report, and
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: we should say for a Fox News reporter, she's often
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: been like a very real reporter and a pretty straight reporter.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: It's really important because this war was clearly a catastrophic mistake.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: The best thing that anybody could try to spin about it,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: and I've seen some of the wars defenders spin this
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: as well. You know, maybe we didn't achieve all these objectives,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: and the regime is still in place and they still
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: have a nuclear program, but we really set back their
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: military capabilities, and I think what that report shows is
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: we didn't because even if we destroyed things, they rebuilt
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: those things pretty quickly. You know that they're going to
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: be back to their status quoiany of their ballistic missile capabilities,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: their drone capabilities within like weeks, maybe months of this
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: kind of pointless tens of billions of dollars not one,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: hundreds of billions of dollars war, right, And so it
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: kind of speaks to kind of the futility of military
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: action to achieve your objectives because you know your adversary
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: can just rebuild. It is the case though, that in
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: addition to higher prices, I mean, we all know there
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: are higher prices, like Americans paid them. The shortages around
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: the world have been very real, yeah, And so part
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: of the reason that the prices didn't go up more
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: is because there was intense rationing of energy, right. You
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: had people staying home, you had power grids operating at
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: less than what they normally would, You had shortages and
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: other areas of things that went through the strait as well.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: We're going to probably have a tail of agricultural impacts
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: because of the shortages of things like fertilizer as well.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: So all this effort was put into kind of mitigating
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: what was a shitty situation and just preventing it from
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: being an even shittier situation. I also think we were
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: clearly approaching the danger zone. And part of the reason
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: that Trump is tackling so hard on this deal is
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: that he knew that another couple of months of this
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: thing and you would have that spiral blast thing. I
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: just say, Tommy is like, I'm not an investor. You know,
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: there's a pyramid scheme feel to the markets these days
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: in general. Okay, yeah, I mean just able, it's just speculating.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: It's so such speculation. It's just trading in futures and
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: putting the most optimistic spin on things.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: A lot of it levered. A lot of it's levered too.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: You have people taking out loans to invest in stuff,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and a lot of you know, a lot of times
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: they're investing in these like they're like called like triple
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: bull like directional funds that are using levered accounts to
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: bet even more. I'm trying to explain this without being
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: too wonky, but basically a lot of people are are
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: borrowing money to bet on the stock market in ways
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: that creates a lot of systemic risk.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and and and again, unfortunately, I think we're probably
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: gonna be talking about this at some point in the
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: coming months. This whole thing just feels like a bit
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: of a house of cards. It feels like we're living
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: in an economy that's kind of a pyramid scheme, and
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: obviously ais at the center of that, but energy has
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: some eerie characteristics that are similar. And you just summed
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: it up, well, it's a lot of borrowing, betting, you know,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: betting currencies like speculating, and I'm not sure that this
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: thing is going to sustain itself.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: It's like it, Yeah, it's good that prices came down quickly.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: It doesn't change the fact that we all, i think,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: spend collectively like sixty seventy billion extra on energy. Yeah,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: for no addition.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: People profited.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for no additional like value. You know, it's just
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: it's terrible. Yeah, so oil and gas companies profited. This
• 22:32
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• 23:31
  Speaker 1: brought to you by Powerplays, an audio documentary series from
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: the Human Rights Foundation. If you've been watching this year's
• 23:36
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• 24:31
  Speaker 1: podcasts ben, So keeping up with the Trump families corruption
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: scandals is basically a full time job and one we
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: are proud to do for our listeners. The latest story
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: has to do with tungsten metal, Kazakhstan and then the
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: dumb ass kids of both Donald Trump and Commerce Secretary
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Howard Lutnik. So here's the gist of this story. President
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Trump convinces the president of Kazakhstan to let a small
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: American come company that's now called KAS Resources, have access
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to the world's largest untapped reserve of tungsten. It's a metal.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: And then, in just an amazing stroke of luck, a
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: firm called Dominari Securities, which is partly owned by the
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Trump sons, pulled together a group of investors to take
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: a twenty percent stake in that project. And then Howard
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Lutnix kids, who now run Canter Fitzgerald. That's their dad's
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: old company, so they're running it while dad's off playing government.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: They helped raise over two hundred and ten million dollars
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: as part of that deal, which will make them we
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: assume millions of dollars in fees. And then if that
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: wasn't enough, then the Trump administration has preliminarily approved one
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: point six billion dollars in federal financing for the project. Now,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: that is a shocking amount of grift and corruption, but
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the Time says that this deal is hardly an outlier,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and the Trump and the Canter kids, I'm sorry, the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Lutnik kids have quote financial ties to at least fourteen
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: companies that are actively working with the federal government on
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: critical mining deals. So this is just one of many
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: mining projects where the Trump family is benefiting financially. So
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: I highly recommend reading this whole article because it is
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: long and it's complicated, and they did a really great
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: job kind of reporting it all out and laying out
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: all the details, included with infographics. But it's also just
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: a great example I think for US ben of Trump's
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: family corruption directly impacting US national security because the military
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: needs tungsten because it is the highest melting point of
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: any metal. It's extremely dense, It's nearly as hard as
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: a diamond, so it ends up getting used in lots
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: of military things like large caliber armor, piercing shells, armor
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: for things like tanks, jet engines, and components stuff that
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: you need to get really hot. That I have to
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: be able to withstand really high heat, and so this
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: is very important. And so if the Trump kids screw
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: this up and we aren't able to get this metal,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: like our troops won't be able to use it. And
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: just generally speaking, like if the Trump kids are involved
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: in these critical mineral deals or rare Earth's deals and
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: they fail or you know, they skim a bunch off
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: the top and we're not prepared, it means we're going
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: to get creamed in the next trade war with China again.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: So it's just like it's just one of those stories
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: where before the Trump administration, this is like the only
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: thing anyone talks about. And now, you know, we live
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: in a reality where Jadvances is bragging about how Watergate
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be a big deal anymore.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually think this is an incredibly important story
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: for our times because it says everything about how the
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: world works right now. So bear with me for one second.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: These Central Asian countries like Kazakhstan were literally reborn out
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: of corruption. So when the Soviet Union broke up, what
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: you had is all these vast natural resources that were
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: once controlled by the Soviet state kind of got sold
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: off and given away to the oligarchs who took over
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: countries like Kazakhstan, and they set it up as kind
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: of a family business. We are rich, we control the
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: political power in this country, we control the resources. These
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: are the the billionaires that were starting shadow companies in London.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: These were the original oligarchs of the global economy that
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: we're currently living in. So this is how they know
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: how to do business. Right. You pay off somebody's son,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: somebody's son in law, you give the maxus to resources.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Everybody makes a bunch of money, except for the people
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: who get screwed in the process. Let's fast forward, Tommy.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: I want to take you back in time. Crooket con Right.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Remember last year, do you remember the hotel we were
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: staying at. Oh, Yeah, was also hosting the delegates to
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: the Central Asian Summit. Yes, Trump was having at the
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: and I remember walking by the north end of Lafayette
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Park and I could see in the distance like a
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: cocktail party at the North Portico. Right. Trump literally threw
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: a huge summit for these Central Asian countries. And I
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: can tell you that the reason was not. In normal
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: foreign policy times, you might say, well, this is an
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: interesting strategy to try to counter Russian influence in Central
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Asia or Chinese influence that is clearly not the interests
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: at all in Central Asia because Trump likes Putin, Trump
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: likes Hi jimping. The whole purpose of that summit was
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: to set up, I think, deals like this, and so
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: you fast forward to now, and what's super dark about
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: this is it's kind of perfect that just like you
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: had the Trump family in business with the Witcoff family
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: on crypto, you've got the Trump family in business with
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: the Lutnink family on these mining deals. Two people, by
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: the way, Donald Trump and Howard Luttnik, who are pretty
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: close to Jeff Epstein. So let's just say this is
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: the Epstein class in miniature. That you've got the Trump
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: family and the Lutnink family cutting mining deals with Central
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Asian countries like Kazakhstan. And the reality is these inputs
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: are essential to the military technologies of the future. Everything
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: from drones to armored vehicles, all the kinds of things
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: that we're going to need to compete and potentially hopefully
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: not have to fight wars is dependent on these But
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: that's just another vehicle to make a buck for these people.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: So you basically have like the Epstein class running our country,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: working hand in glove and concert with oligarchs and autocratic
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: leaders in places like Kazakhstan to mine the materials that
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: are necessary to then sell to the Pentagon for defense
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: contracts so that we can maintain some advantage in the
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: military Harvard of the Future, super Dark. But it is
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: exactly what is going on in the world today. This
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: is who's running the world right now.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I can't remember what we talked about it
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: in this show or it's another show, but like, there's
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: another company that's just like this. Donald Trump Junior's VC
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: firm takes an undisclosed stake in a company called Vulcan
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Elements as part of their Series A. I think at
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: the time it was valued at two hundred million. Fast
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: forward a couple months, they get a massive injection of
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: capital from the US government. I think it was like
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: a six hundred million dollars from the Pentagon, then another
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: fifty million from what was left of the Chips Act.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: And wouldn't you know it been pretty soon after the
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: valuation of Vulcan Elements is now two billion dollars. So
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Don Junior just ten xt his investment in a couple months,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: and it's just clear that like I think Peter Navarro
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: like called in a favor and said to the Pentagon,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: like you have to do this loan for vulcan elements.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: So this corruption, it's just it's so pervasive and like
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the Howard Lutnick of it all, getting his kids like
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: kissed into the grift. In Maggie Harman and Johnthan Swan's
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: new book, Regime Change, there's an anecdote in there that
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: apparently Lutnix kids created some bad headlines from doing some
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: sketchy shit I think, you know, kind of like corrupt
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: stuff like this basically pissed off Trump and so Lutnick
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: made a twenty five million dollar donation to the Trump
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Presidential Library to mollify him. And now it's a thing
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: like Trump likes to make fun of him about and
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: brag him about. I mean, that's just like how pervasive
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: all of this corruption is.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And what's so dumb about, Well, everything's so dumb.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: But the two things off what you said. The first
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: is they again are using the trillion dollar that they
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: want to make a trillion half dollar Pentagon budget as
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: a giant piggy bank that they can loot because if
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: they can kind of corner the access to some of
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: these inputs, or they can get drone companies and then
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: basically have what amount to no bid contracts, they can
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: make an unlimited spigot of money off of that. And
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: that's gross enough. That leads to the second thing, which
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: is the twenty five million dollar gift to the Trump Library.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: That's like a loose change in the couch compared to
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: the money that the Lutinik family stands to make from
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: doing these deals. I'm not suggesting there's a virtuous twenty
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: five million dollars Luti gift to the Trump Library, but
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: it just shows you that our system is so broken.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: And we're talking on a day when the Supreme Court
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: further gutted campaign finance laws that Elon Musk's and Howard
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: lutnox of the world for minimal investment. You know, tens
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: of millions of dollars on a campaign here, tens of
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: millions of dollars in a library here. They can make
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: hundreds of billions of dollars off stuff like this.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just a down payment. And by the way,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I believe that the aggregate budget for Trump's future Library
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: is two billion because he just needed to like double
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the Obama amount, as if Obama is costing one billion,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: is like a good thing that you would want to
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: top and not just like a sign that maybe these
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: things have got a little too expensive. You mentioned the
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court there, Ben, So there have been a bunch
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: of major Supreme Court decisions this week that have national
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: security implications, for foreign policy implications. We're to walk you
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: through just a couple of them. The first is what
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: counts as good news these days, which is that on Tuesday,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court upheld the principle of birthright citizenship, which
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: means that anyone born on US soil automatically becomes a
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: US citizen. Trump had tried to end it via executive
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: order that should have been thrown out, laughed out of court,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: because the text of the Fourteenth Amendment reads, quote, all
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Seems pretty clear for the textualists on the Supreme Court.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: But still the outcome is way too close. The margin
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: was six to three, really is more like five to four.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: The opinion, given that Bret Kavanaugh said he agreed with
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: the result, but he didn't join the majority opinion for
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: reasons that we won't dig into. If you want to
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: learn more, listen to strict scrutiny. They are much better
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: on this stuff. And then ben Last Thursday, the Court
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: sided sixty three with the Trump administration to give the
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security the authority to remove Temporary Protected
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Status from three hundred and fifty thousand Haitians and six
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: thousand Syrians TPS. The TPS program was established in nineteen ninety.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: It allows people experiencing humanitarian or natural disasters to legally
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: live or work in the US. The Trump administration they've
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: been trying to end TPS status for thirteen of seventeen
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: countries that currently have it. The suit to fight it,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: brought by these Haitian and Syrian TPS holders, argued that
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: the administration's policy was driven by racism. I think listeners
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: probably remember that whole the Haitians are eating your pets
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: thing from the campaign seems pretty self evidently racist. But
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Justice Alito said that none of Trump's statements were quote
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: overtly racial, Okay. Not discussed were the shocking levels of
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: violence and insecurity in both countries, so Haiti has been
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: gripped by war zone like levels of violence. Ever since
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, when Haitian President JOVIDL Mois was assassinated,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: gang's control major swaths of the country. Millions of people
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: have been displaced. I think the World Food Program says
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: half the population is facing acute hunger. In the State
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Department list, Haiti is a do not travel destination. And
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: then similarly, Syria barely starting to recover after fourteen years
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: a civil war under ASAD that, as we remember, ended
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: in December of twenty twenty four. The State Department Syria
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: page says, quote, do not travel to Syria for any reason.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: US citizens are at risk due to terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: hostage taking, an armed conflict. But remember, under this new
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Aliito approved not at all racist immigration policy been white
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: South Africans are basically the only refugees along in the country.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you saw the New York Times report that
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration was planning like special Afrikaner welcome bags
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: that had it was like you were arriving at like
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: an anti Wolk wedding. It had like weird reveists like
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: white nationalists history books and shit at it. So Ben,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: I just like fucking par for the course when it
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: comes to the country shockingly cruel and racist immigration policies.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: There is something like I'm used to it from Stephen Miller.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: There's something harder for me to stomach though, when it
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: gets kind of like blessed by the Supreme Court.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it just goes to show you, like what
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: it out of control radical far right enterprise the Supreme
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Court has become. I mean, yeah, first of all, like
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: quick swerve on the birthright citizenship here, Like we're celebrating
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: essentially a five to four decision because Kavnaugh was kind
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: of being like, here's a better way to get it
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: to brother citizenship, right, But we're celebrating that the same
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: way we celebrated them like not overturning the twenty twenty election. Meanwhile,
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: every other decision is racist, every other decision is oligarchic,
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: every other decision is undermining democracy. On this one, if
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: the State Department doesn't believe it's safe to go to
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: these countries, then by definition, it meets the threshold for
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: people who are here not being safe to return to
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: those countries, Like it's not a leap to figure that out.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: And we should just call this what it is, which
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: is racist. Obviously, it's racist if you are opening the
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: doors to do I mean, let's just do a thought exercise, Tommy,
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: what is a more dangerous place to be Haiti for
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: any Haitian or South Africa for a rich africaner? Right?
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: You know, many of who have come over here and
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: then gone back by the way, there's a great reporting.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: There are times about a lot of them are like,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: you know, we actually didn't like as much as we thought,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: so we went home to South Africa. Like, there are
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: high levels of violence in South Africa at times that
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: violence has been directed at white farmers, but there's just
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: no evidence that it was systemic and based on race.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: It's more likely that they have resources and stuff to steal,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: so they gotten attacked and robbed, in some instances killed,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: which is horrible and unacceptable. But it's like again, it's
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: like the notion that there's some like pilgrim against white farmers.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: It's just it's a fever dream on the right.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: No, and yeah, it's not akin to the kind of
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: systematic political violence you see it in place like Haiti, Right,
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: or or that we've seen in a place like Syria.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: And these are human lives. These are thousands upon thousands
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: of people whose lives are outbended by this ruling. You know,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, I hate how thin skinned Alito and Thomas
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: get about this stuff if they're challenged on it, Like
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: fuck you guys, Like how do you like to be
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: a Haitian who's going to be deported back to a
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: country that is riven by gang violence, where you're fundamentally
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: not safe, and you've been contributing to an American community,
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: And just because the Supreme Court decides that they're on
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: board with like Stephen Miller's fever dream of a white
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: nationalist constitution in this country, which doesn't exist, by the way,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: you have to get deported back. We even saw and
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: we'll get to the earthquake in Venezuela, but I saw
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: a horrible thing earlier today, Tommy, like the potentially well
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: over one hundred people died in an earthquake had just
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: been deported back by the United States. And we're just
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: sending people, in some cases not even to their home country,
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: to third countries. Right, And this is a this will
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: be like a lasting kind of stain on us too.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: It's not like precisely because these are human lives, precise
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: because we're breaking a promise. TPS is a promise. That's
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: the promise that the United States government makes that we're
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: going to give you protected status. And by the way,
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: a lot of these diaspeat populations like not so much obficcations,
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: but like you know, Venezuelans for instance, like some of them,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: you know, support kind of right wing politics in this country,
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: so that they've gone along with, you know, Republican policies
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: because they wanted, you know, something like the Maduro operation.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: But when you were scind TPS. It tells you what
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: they really think about you, you know. And so do
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: not believe for a second that just because the Trump
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: administration or some republic administration kind of doesn't like the
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: same leaders that you don't like, that they actually give
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: a shit about you. This Supreme Court decision, this revocation
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: of TPS, tells you everything about how they feel about you.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: And it's fundamentally racist.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: And by the way, just it's worth mentioning for folks
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: who don't know that The Fourteenth Amendment was passed after
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: the Civil War specifically to overturn the dread Scott decision,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: which basically said that black American Americans, including freed slaves,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: never be citizens. It's the worst thing the Supreme Court
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: has ever done, in many scholars view. In the Fourteenment
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: was designed to fix that, and these guys came this
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: close to throwing the whole thing out. I mean, it's
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: just it's shocking.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and just because like my book is about this question,
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: like who's an American? Who gets to decide that question?
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Frederick Douglass had a great quote which I came across
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: and writing the book, which is, how is it that
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: these originalists see if there were originalists back in the
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: nineteenth century, or like we need to divine the intention
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: of the founding fathers, but we totally ignore the intention
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: of the authors of the fourteenth Amendment, right, Like they
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: had an original intent too, which is every person who's
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: born in this country is a fucking citizen, you know,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: and like you messed with that, you messed with like
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: the core idea of what being an American.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Is, including one of the best players on the US
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: men's national team. And we'll get there in a minute. Yeah,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: So another country impacted by these TPS decisions has been Venezuela.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: As as you mentioned, the listeners have probably seen the
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: reports of these. There was a pair of catastrophic earthquakes
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: in Venezuela last week. As of this recording, there are
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: at least seventeen hundred known casualties, but that number is
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: going to go up dramatically. Seven hundred buildings were at
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: least partially collapsed. Fifty thousand people are reportedly missing, So
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: there's you know, we're now at the point where aid
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: workers from around the world have descended on the country
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: trying to help. The US has pledged three hundred million
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: in aid, which is nowhere near enough, but they also
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: sent more than three hundred search and rescue personnel from
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: the US. Those search and rescue teams, they're often called
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: dart teams. They are incredible human beings. I met much
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: of them in Haiti in twenty ten. They work around
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: the clock, just like searching through rubble, trying to rescue
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: anyone they can. And you know, like some of the
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: stories have been surfaced and it's always incredible, but they're
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: not gonna be able to meet the need. They're not
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: going to find everyone, and I think just by comparison, Ben,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: I mean I was looking back at the twenty ten
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: response to what happened in Haiti, and within like two weeks,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: I think the US had nearly seventeen thousand US military
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: personnel kind of in and around Haiti. There was an
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: aircraft carrier, there was a hospital ship, all this infrastructure.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Hopefully the Trump administration will continue to increase its support.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: I know they've had some military on the ground, but
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: I think they're mostly just like reopening runways and stuff
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: like that to facilitate the you know, AID transfers or
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: fixing ports. But like it just feels like they could
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: use more, and the context is obviously different. I mean,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: this happened about six months after Trump launched this military
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: operation that deposed Nicholas Maduro and installed as Vice president
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Elcia Driguez's interim leader. Before the earthquake, there was kind
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: of like growing reporting about frustration and discontent in the
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Venezuelan population because their lives were not getting better. There's
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: like a lack of improvement or change. I think this
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: is obviously going to be a severe test of her
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: leadership and the kind of the status quo, because you know,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: you're already seeing these reports bend of like Venezuelans who
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: were furious that their own military was not helping with
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: search and rescue efforts. They were like, these guys just
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: kind of sitting around while average citizens are digging through
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: piles of rubble trying to find their loved ones. Crowds
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: jeered Delca Rodriguez when she went to one side, they
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: were chanting, get out, get out. The Wall Street Journal
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: reported that Venezuelans were also mad at US officials who
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: were praising their response. And then Maria Machado is the
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: opposition party, She said that her they tried to like
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: basically do a charity drive and it got shut down
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: by the police in some places. So there's a lot
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: of anger brewing. And so again, then you and I
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: were in government during that twenty ten earthquake. The death
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: toll is way higher. I mean the estimates were as
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: high as like three hundred and ten thousand people. It
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: was horrifying that like the government basically collapsed from the
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: presidential palace to like all the infrastructure and services. I
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: was in Porta Prints for like a week to work
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: on it, and like I just again, I've talked about
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: this on the show before. But I'll never forget how
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: proud and inspired I felt by the kind of immediate
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: term relief efforts, the ability of the US government to
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: rescue people, like get infrastructure fixed, to get relief efforts
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: in distributed, and then just how catastrophically wrong it went
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: in the kind of medium and long term, like the
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: donor money never materialized, the projects took longer than expected
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: to get done, there was not enough money going to
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Haitians and Haitian organizations, too much went to like American
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: NGO's housing never got built. And then in like the
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: cruelest development of all, like ten months into it, a
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: UN peacekeeping base created as cholera outbreak that killed ten
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: thousand people, and then they denied it for years and
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: years and years. So you know, that's how badly things
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: can go when you have an administration that cared when
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: you had USAAD intact and like functioning, and now Venezuela
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: went into this with you know, a healthcare infrastructure that
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: had been decimated, and you know a Trump administration that
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: seemingly just wants to loot their resources, and it just
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: it makes me very nervous for the people there.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I was going to say, first of all,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: those dark teams in Haiti, as you'll remember, were run
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: by USCID, So so once again you know, we are
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: seeing that that is the kind of organization that is
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: necessary to run a complex assistance response that has an
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: immediate surge of disaster response to DAR teams, but then
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: has to meet all these basic needs. They're going to
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: be really acute in Venezuela. And look, I think your
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: point about the long term, that earthquake ended up basically
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: completely collapsing the Asian government because they couldn't deal with
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: the scale of the challenge and they lost the confidence
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: of the people whatever they had left. And I think
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: one thing to watch for in Venezuela is just because
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: Maduro was removed doesn't mean that really anything about the
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: nature of that government changed. It continued to be corrupt,
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: it continued to be repressive, it continued to not deliver
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: for the needs of its citizens. All it did differently
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: is offer a little bit of tribute to the Trump administration,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: to the tune of some like oral Tankers and kind
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: of all these Trump people down there, like Mauricio Klaber,
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: who's kind of Trump's viceroy down there, who are just
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: doing deals, like they're not changing the political system to
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: be more responsive that they're doing energy deals or real
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: estate deals. Right, they'll probably want to get in on
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: the reconstruction down there now too. But I think something
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: to watch is, man, I don't know that there's anything
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: that Delsea Rodriguez's government can do, particularly way it's constituted
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: to kind of win back the trust of the people
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: that has been shattered over a long time, but has
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: been you know, really shattered in this earthquake response. And
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: so this you know, quote unquote success stories of Trump,
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: this like equally repressive regime that's just a little bit
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: more responsive to him. You know that this place could
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: become a mess. It already is obviously a human tragedy,
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: but also you could see kind of unrest and political
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: instability because of this. My hope is, and if you
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: want to what should happen is well, ideally, you know,
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: I saw a lot of other countries in the region
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: providing assistance, providing search and rescue. You would hope that
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: there's some capacity to kind of internationalize response to help
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: kind of clean the rubble. Obviously, try to identify anybody
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: you can save, and then also like people are going
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: to want the remains of their loved ones tragically, but
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: then there's some international response to help rebuild. The problem is,
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: you know, not only is USAID decimated, so is the
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: international community. There's not money for that anywhere. The UN
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: system doesn't really work, and so I really do worry
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: about the people Venezuela have already been through a lot,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: their capacity to come out from under thish.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm extremely worried too. Yeah, maybe send the boarder
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: piece down there. Maybe they can they can solve this one. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: show and tell them we sent you a couple more things.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: So the listeners might have heard that there's this massive
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: heat dome across Europe. There have been record brick and
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: temperatures in England, Spain, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, France
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: and record temperatures for a record number of days, which
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: is really dangerous. So in France alone, the Health Ministry
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: said that more than one thousand unexpected deaths have happened,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: including seventy four people seventy four people who have drowned
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: to or just like trying to escape the heat. This
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: sort of heat dome challenge has kicked up a huge
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: French media and political debate about air conditioning and how
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: to cool people down the check out this Instagram video
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: from a French influencer named Olivier hued Im. Probably saying
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: that wrong, but it's a good video. Let's watch, Okay,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Aldy empty stick? Then who's Monty des al uh So?
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: For those listening and not watching on YouTube, first of all,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: please subscribe to podsafe World on YouTube. We're trying to
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: beat back on the right wing crap that's all over
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: this fucking platform, you know, the pro war propaganda from
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Fox News and Ben Shaper and everybody else. But for
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: those just we didn't see it. This guy put a
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: pan outside his window and heated it in the sun
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: and then grillede burger, popped popcorn, cooked bacon, and fried
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: an egg using just the sun. So that's how hot
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: it is in France right now. So you know, Ben,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: I've been to like Paris in the summer, France in
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: the summer, I've sweated, you know, through my shirt and
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: restaurants and bars and hotels. But until I dug into
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: this latest debate over air conditioning. I just didn't realize
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: how like deep seated and cultural this fight was so
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: currently for just a level set for folks. About twenty
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: five percent of French households have air conditioning. And I'm
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: gonna try to summarize the arguments you hear in French
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: media or from French elected officials against AC. First, so
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: they say, you know, like it's bad for the environment,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: it's going to contribute to climate change. There's easier solutions
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: out there that we should do first, like putting up
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: shades and shutters on buildings, changing roofing materials as another one.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: They say there are greener solutions like planting more trees,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: and they argue that universal AC adoption would actually up
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: the city itself because your unit, when it pumps cool
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: air into your house, it pumps out warm air that
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: can heat up the city and aggregate. There's also concern
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: about thermal shock when you go from hot to cold
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: or vice versa. I think that's really overstated, but it's
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: the thing you hear in the media. And then there's
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: this broader concern. It's really about French identity and that
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: if everyone gets an AC unit, they're just going to
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: sit inside all day and that France will stop having
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: this like outdoor culture. And so the pushback on those
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: arguments are, yes, it would be great to have more
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: greener spaces and less asphalt, but that's a long term
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: project and the need is now. Yes, changes should be
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: made to buildings first to make them kind of naturally cooler.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: But Parisians are often just as averse to putting up
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: shutters on the facades of buildings that kind of change
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: the appearance, or getting rid of their zinc rooftops that
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: are standard in Paris and give it the look we
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: all know and love, but absorb heat. It can be
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: as hot as a one hundred and fifty degrees, you know.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: They're as a verse of that stuff as they are
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: to installing ac And then, in terms of the climate impact,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, about ninety five percent of the
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: energy generated in mainland France was low carbon, so it's
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: mostly nuclear and then some renewables. So the climate impact
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: of more energy usage in France is not going to
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: be nearly as bad as it might be in other places.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: Of course, increased demand will mean higher prices. It could
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: mean more fossil fuel use, especially at night, they'll put
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: strain on the grid and power lines, and on days
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: when it's too hot in nuclear plants can't necessarily run
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: it full capacity. But that's sort of like the policy debate.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: But then we get into this political fight Bend. So
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Marine Lapenn and the far right National Rally Party party
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: are running on air conditioning for all. It's like Bernie Sanders,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: like Medicare for all. She's putting forward a national air
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: conditioning plan, whereas the leftist candidate Jean Luke Melanchon says
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: France says France installing AC will make the situation worse worse,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: and he wants to create heat resistant buildings first. Then
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: I saw, you know, Macron's Minister of Ecological Transmission said
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: she was horrified was the word she used by calls
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: for AC in public buildings. And this is where I
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: think the debate just gets insane, Ben, because we're not
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: just talking about AC and homes. It's also schools, retirement
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: homes and hospitals. I saw a report about a Parisian
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: hospital where only three of thirty wards had air conditioning,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: and so the other twenty seven sections of the hospital
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: temperatures reached ninety five degrees and people were being told
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: to bring fans from home, including in like maternity wards.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: And then I was talking to a buddy whose French,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: his grandfather lives in a home where the only their
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: common room has ac everywhere else it's just like burning
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: up and it's genuinely unsafe. So that I know you've
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: experienced this yourself, because you've been traveling in Europe recently,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear your views, your experience, your lived experience,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: as they say. But then also just like a political matter,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: like I just can't believe the left is taking such
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: an insane, like kind of strident position on this issue
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: when like there's a thousand additional deaths because of this
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: most recent heat wave, Like it seems insane.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, So I'll start with my lived experience because I
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: think I actually does contribute to this conversation because a
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: week ago I was in London, and actually the day
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: that I did my podcast, it was one hundred degrees
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: fahrenheit in London, so just about as hot as in Paris.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: I will say I care so much about this podcast, Tommy,
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: that in my unair conditioned Airbnb, it's crazy I podcasted
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: through the heat. But but look, I noticed the same thing.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: London has a lot of the same issues, right it
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: has it does not have AC anywhere. I mean I
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: rode the tube, the London Underground, and it was fucking hot,
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: and the train stopped in the tunnel and I was like,
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: if this thing doesn't move, like, I don't know what
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: the truck I'm may do you know? And you go
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: into public buildings, you go into restaurants, are not air conditioning.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: Nothing is air conditioned, like and this is I think
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: as an American, what really struck me is, yes, maybe
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: you were aware that homes, apartments, you know, don't have
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: air conditioning, but like public buildings, restaurants, stores, like, nobody
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: has air conditioning. And people have to go to work
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: in that. People are riding on buses, they're not air consisting.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: People riding on trains, they're not air conditioned. It's dangerous
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: because you get no respite anywhere. You know. It's not like, well,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: I don't have air constrict at home, but I can
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: like go ride the bus and get a little AC
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: or go to my work space. My work has aircondistring.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: You just can't escape the heat all day. And I
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: felt that and that was kind of scary to be honest,
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: you know, which leads me and actually just to get
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: to the policy of this all. There was also like
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: a perfect timing thing in London when I was there,
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: a conference dedicated to extreme heat had to be canceled
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: because of the extreme heat, you know.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: Perfect.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: And so look the thing to the left that say
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: is this absolutely make the argument that you know, Europe
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: is actually heating up faster than any other region. This
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: is proving man made climate change just as happening because
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: of the climate change. This proves that we can't turn
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: our back on a clean energy transition. We need to
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: be moving to cleaner sources of energy by all means.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: Use the heat to make your case. This is not
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: the hill that on them, you know. And at a minimum,
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: and by the way, because it all yes, they should
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: be greeting these cities, they should be growing more trees,
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: they should be doing all these things to try to
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: make uh, these these European cities not like these heat
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: capturing you know, hellish places when it gets hot. But
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: at a minimum, right, like you need to air condition
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: these public spaces. Is the leftist idea to say, the
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: worker that has to ride the bus like should be
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: able to have AC or public buildings should have air conditioning.
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: You know, Like does that mean that every single you know,
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: apartment in these European cities is gonna have a C. No,
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: but start somewhere like in the public good space, because
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: I believe me, if you care about climate change and
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: you choose to hilt to die on as we don't
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: want air conditioning, you're not gonna be able to implement
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: your climate agenda because you're gonna lose, you know. And
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: that's that's the long and short of it.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: That's the key point. I think sometimes on the left
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: we like personalize and individualize the solution to problems that
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: actually require government action, and we act like if all
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: the progressives in the world like don't use claude or
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: whatever or like AI that somehow it's going to like
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: you know, save enough water or like you know, impact
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: the climate materially, and like that's I'm not like trying
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: to absolve people of making smart choices. We all should
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: do our best and like think about climate mitigation in
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: our own lives. But when you're talking about air conditioning
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: a hospital like Maternity War Act, this is Walkers, what
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: are you talking about you actually are punishing people that
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: like historically, like you know, social democratic movements are supposed
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: to help the elderly children, kids in school, like like
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: it's it's insane. It is like it is a death
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: sentence as a party. Like I think Marine La penn
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: is going to ride this into the lys if they're
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: not careful.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah no, I mean I again, workers, right, I was
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: talking to one guy who had a forty minute commute
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: and he was like, I was going to pass out
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: by how I got to work and then I'm working
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: somewhere that it's not air condesstring. I want to say
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: one thing about that video, Timmy, I do love the French.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: I love that the guy salted like like like he
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: wasn't just showing you know, it's not because I saw
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: like a good video and poll and someone was like
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: frying egg like that. But the French are still seasoning
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: the food.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: You know, he's still gonna put a little garlic in there.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: I taught it up. Yeah, yeah, it was great. I
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: love the French. It still it does make me want
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: to go to Paris, all right, Ben, last thing so
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: for us at least, so last week we talked about
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: kind of the thrill of victory. In the World Cup,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: we talked about the kind of the beautiful melding of
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: cultures and fan bases, and today we want to talk
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: a bit about the agony of defeats because teams are
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: starting to go home. So there have been some huge upsets.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: Germany lost to Paraguay on penalty kicks, amazing game. The
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: Netherlands lost to Morocco, also in penalty gigs. I don't
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: know if you caught this one. I don't know what
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: time it is there, but it was like, I've just
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: never seen the miss so many penalty kicks in a row,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: or I'm going to get saved. Uruguay lost, and the
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: expectations were quite high for the team. They completely flamed out,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: and apparently their soccer federation was so pissed off that
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: they canceled their charter flight home from Mexico and they
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: told the players to book commercial flights. So I really
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: like that pettiness. A couple more headlines for you, Ben,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: So the New York Times had this one quote, world
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: Cup loss dominates German news, displacing even a mass shooting.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: That's how seriously they're taking this over there. This supposed
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: to be a lighter fun segment, so I'm gonna spare
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: you guys the details of the mass shooting. But it
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: was awful. Here's another headline from The Athletic that you
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: should speak to Ben. The Netherlands World Cup exit sparks
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: identity crisis in nation of total football. Another very deeply
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: felt one. They're pretty intense, and then Ben, I think
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: maybe the worst fallout might have been in South Korea
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: because the expectations for this team going into this World
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Cup was really high. You have a lot of great
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: players playing for like major international clubs. They won their
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: first game, they lost their second game, They just needed
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: to tie their third game against South Africa, who was
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: ranked way lower than South Korea. But then they lost,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: and I think the team looked so bad that the
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: coach was asked at the press conference afterwards if they
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: had food poisoning. They were jeered at the airport when
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: they arrived home, and then South Korea's president has since
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: called for an investigation into the team's performance because it
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: was so passed. I thought that was pretty fucking good.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of story, like I went down a
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: YouTube rabbit hole of this story about a corruption within
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: the KFA, their soccer association that I won't get into,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: but fascinating stuff. So you again, you've been in Europe,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: You've been kind of living this from that side of
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: the pond. What have you been seeing?
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: So I'm in Amsterdam, I'm on vacation after my book tour,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: and I will say so I watched like the Germany
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: game last night. Props to Paraguay, by the way, did
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: you see that the President Paraguay had a nationally called
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: the national holiday Love the day after just so people
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: could you know, get hammered all night and like sleep
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: it off the next day. By the way, like great,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: fuck you to Uruguay too. That Paraguay's advancing, you know,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: like an old old rivalry there. But I will say,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: like I went to sleep because the Dutch game started
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: at three am Amsterdam time. I want to say that
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: I was walking around like late last night because it's
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: light here till like eleven o'clock at night, and people
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: were setting up the coolest you know, like they had
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: boats with like big screen TVs and like fully stocked bars,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: like people were getting ready to do it right out here.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: And at about five in the morning, maybe it's five thirty.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: I just started to be awoken by all these horns
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: honking and people shouting, and so wake up, like what
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: the fuck is going on? You know? And I started
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: I look at my phone and they're they're reacting to
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: each penalty shot. Like there was so much like pent
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: up anxiety in the city that like good or bad,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: there's just like noise accompanying each penalty kick and horns
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: and like, I mean, I can't It was like the
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: whole city was making noise and like in the middle
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: of the fucking night. And then when they lost, like
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: it was dark, man, I just heard people shouting. I
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: heard a lot of drunk pop care making very unpleasant noises.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: Like I was like, I was like, I'm not going
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: out of this hotel for a little while. I did
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: to tell my kids, like we had to be really
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: nice to any Dutch people that we see today because
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: they're gonna be in a really shit moved. I went
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: out this morning, there was like trash everywhere, Like there's trash,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: cans kicked out, like it was not a good scene here,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: like these people really like their football here and it
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: didn't end well. Flip side, like the Moroccans are I mean,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: the Moroccans made the Semis last time that they're the
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: new spoiler. They're like, this is the biggest, you know,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: anti colonial movement that we've seen in decades. You know,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: the Moroccan soccer team, you know, and the African teams
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: in general. It's been a great subplot of this World Cup,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: Like how well the African teams have been doing.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been really fun. I loved every minute of it.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: A lot of big games coming up I'm gonna watch.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: I'm all like preemptively sad about it being over, to
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: be totally honest with you, that's like, that's crazy. They
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: were just going out to at five in the morning.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: The experience it comes close to that is when I
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: was in college. I got to Rome and Roma the
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: professional soccer team had just won the Sirie Off for
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: the first time in like a couple of decades, and
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: they literally drove around and honked their horns for three
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: days straight. I'm not exaggerating what I said. All day
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: and all night people were honking their horns. It was insane.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: But I had this experience. I studied broad in Paris,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: and I got there right after the French had won
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: the first World Cup in nineteen ninety eight and was
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: it was bonkers for days. I was like, is this
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: what Paris is like? This is awesome? You know, people
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: are like marching down the shams and like their uniforms
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: is sucking.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: Great, burning it down. Okay, that is it for us
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: for today. But do not turn off the podcast because
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: when you come back, you're gonna hear my interview with
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: Nick Christoff about Elon Musk being the worst liar in
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: the world and trying to claim that no one died
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: as a result of dojing usaid. He walks through in
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: great detail what he found on his reporting and places
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: like South Sudan, what the you know, sort of the
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: projections and analysis say about the impact of USA cuts
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: and much more. So please stick around for that. It's
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: a very important conversation. We cannot let Elon get away
• 1:06:05
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  Speaker 1: My guest today is a columnist at The New York Times.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: He has written and reported extensively on the effects of
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk and Donald Trump's destruction of USAID. Nicholas Christop,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Great to be with you. Thank
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: you so much for doing this. So, as you know,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk has spent the last couple of weeks really
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: just attacking in the most personal terms anyone who criticizes
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: what he and Trump and the DOGE team did to USAID.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: Musk has denied that medical funding was stopped. He claimed
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: that no one is as the result of DOGE cuts
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: to USA D He even threatened to sue Congressman Rokana
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: for some of his comments. Specifically, must says no one
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: can name a single person who died quote not a
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: single name. And he also tried to claim that USAID
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: is responsible for COVID and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: So he's been on one lots of unpack here. Let's
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: start with the basics. Can you just remind us what
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: exactly Musk and Doge and Trump did to USA D.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: Well, in Musk's own words, he fed it into the
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: wood chipper, and he he did it over a weekend.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: And so there was a perfectly legitimate argument to have
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: about reforming aid policies, about programs it could be redeveloped,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: even about the levels of aid. But that's not what happened.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: He actually tossed it into the wood chipper. And while
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: some programs were revived, there was a freeze on funding.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: People who would actually disperse funds were suddenly no longer
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: in office, and so and so there were all kinds
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: of programs, even those that they said that they valued,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: that were abruptly cut. And so, you know, instead of
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: nobody dying, lots of people died, and there's a there's
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: you know, a lot of debate about the numbers, and
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: we can talked about that. But you know, I, as
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: somebody who reported the aftermath and walked through villages, I
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: saw people dying and talked to bereave families of kids
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: who had died. And that's just it's ludicrous to propose
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: that nobody died as a consequence.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, does no want to ask you about that reporting. Yeah,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: I think in all total, like eighty three percent of
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: USAID programs are canceled. In ninety four percent of the
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: staff were laid off. Some were re hired by the
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: State Department, but that was after a long independent process.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: So the suggestion that you know, they destroyed it, they
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: fed into the wood chipper exactly what Elan said. That's right.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: And so I just want to start with some of
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: the specific examples you just mentioned and then ask you
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: about the broader long term impact of the cuts. Let's
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: first watch this clip of Musk talking about usa D
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: from May of twenty twenty five, and then I will
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: ask you a couple questions about it.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: But many many times over with USAD and other organizations,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: when they said, oh, well this is going to help
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 4: you know, children, or it's going to help some uh
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: disease eradication or something like that, and then when we
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 4: ask for any evidence whatsoever, I say, well, please connect
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: us with this group of children so we can talk
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: to them and understand more about their issue.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: We get nothing, don't.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: They don't even try to prevent a show. We should
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: come up with a with a show often meaning like
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: it's sort of like well, can we at least see
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: a few kids, like where are they? If they're in trouble,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: we'd like to talk to them and talk to their caregivers.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: And then we get a thing as a response, because
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 4: it's what we find is an enormous amount of fraud
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 4: and graft.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: That's a term he used. So Elon has repeatedly made
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: claims more recently like quote, they cannot cite a single
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: name of someone who died out of the millions they
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: falsely claim have died, not a single name. You responded
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: to him on Twitter with evidence you saw with your
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: own eyes from your reporting trips to places like South Sudan, Uganda.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: The list goes on, can you tell us about those
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: trips in what you saw?
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I traveled to South Sudan, for example, and
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: found kids who had died very early on because they
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: were HIV positive. They had been kept alive by the
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: PEPFAR program that President Bush had started in two thousand
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: and three that had saved twenty six million lives so far.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: And I think that Musk and Trump did intend to
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: keep much of those HIV AIDS programs alive, but they
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: fired the health workers who had been the connector between
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: the system and the kids who were receiving these often
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: AIDS orphans who were receiving the benefits. And so if
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: you've got a you know, eight year old kid, for example,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: who is on ARVs to prevent AIDS, and you know,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: how is that kid possibly going to navigate the system
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: to manage to get those medicines. And so, you know,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: one boy called Peter Dundee died, Another Evan Anzu died.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: There were a number of you know, these kids who
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: had died that health work has told me about. Then
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: in Liberia, for example, uh, you know, dropped in one
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: village in a childhood just died of malaria because the
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: malaria medications they they had been supplied, in some cases
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: supported by the US, but maybe more important, the US
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: had supported the pipeline that transported them from the warehouses
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: in the capitol to the individual clinics. And without that pipeline,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden, you know, collapsed. And if this
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: had happened over time, if the US had said, look
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: a year from now, we're going to stop that pipeline,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: you know, Uganda might have been able to adjust. But
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: it happened right in the middle of a fiscal year,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: and there was no time to make these adjustments, so
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: that little child died. A woman, that Yama Freeman, mother
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: of two. She in another village in Uganda. She was
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: in labor, she was hemorrhaging, and the US had provided
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: ambulances precisely to reduce maternal mortality in an area that
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: had very high levels of it, and those ambulances remained there.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: But dosee cut the fuel, the diesel that had gone
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: to power those ambulances, and so when Yama Freeman was hemorrhaging,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: the villagers called the ambulance and said, you know, this
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: woman is dying. And they said, well, you know, send
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: some fuel over and we will come and rescue her.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: But of course they can't do that. A bunch of
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: the strong men in the village put her in a hammock,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: put her on their shoulders, and they raced down this
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: path toward the hospital, shouting encouragement to her. But she
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: bled to death on the way. And you know that
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: would not have happened if for the cost of just
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: maintaining diesel to ambulances we had already provided. And I
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: could go, you know, on and on and on, and
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: when you go through these village, a little girl called Jibiah.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: You know, everything went wrong in her case. The US
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: had provided bed nets to prevent mosquito bites and malaria.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: A bednet cost two dollars. It's incredibly cost effective. So
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: Jibia's family their bed net had holes. They couldn't get
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: a new bed net. She got malaria. Normally there would
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: be a community health worker who would connect her to
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: the system get her medication. The community health workers had
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: been fired, the clinic no longer had had anti malary medicine.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: She got very, very sick and needed to be rushed
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: to the larger hospital, but the ambulance is there too,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: had lost their fuel and by the time she got there,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: she was almost dead.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: And she died shortly after.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: You know, a fourth grade girl ranking number three in
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: her very large class, dead because of the reckless way
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: in which Musk took a part aid.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the reporting folks should read all of
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: your reporting on this. I mean it's gut wrenching. You know,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: you're talking to kids, caregivers, your caregivers who have HIV
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: who will die because they will no longer get accessed
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: to the drugs they need. And you know, when you
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: see Musk. It's hard sometimes to determine whether this is
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: malevolence or ignorance. I also interviewed a former USA D
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: staffer turned whistleblower named Nicholas Enrich. He wrote a book
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: called Into Wood Chiper about experience at USAID, and he
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: talks about finally getting to brief that sort of Trump
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: administration officials who were sent over to USAID as part
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: of this leadership team about the work they've been doing.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: I think he got like five minutes. He focused on
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: public health, and one of the Trump saffers said to him, Wow,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: there really is so much that USAID does that we
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: never knew. This is the story that needs to get
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: out there. And then another said, I had no idea
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: you did all this as a Republican. When I think
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: of what USAID does in global health, I assumed it
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: was just you know, abortion. So it's like profound ignorance
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: and lack of interest. And then the other part of
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: must defense is like, well, if all these people died,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: if all these kids died, it would be a huge story,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: would be front page nuge, which like the suggestion that
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: mass death in Africa is necessarily a huge story in
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: the US media just demonstrates such a profound ignorance of
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: how the press works in the US that it's hard
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: to wrap your head around that this is like one
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: of the world's smartest men. You just does he really
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: think this?
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah? You know, I've I wondered about musk motivations. And
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: you know, he had been so successful in the business
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: world by disrupting things and blowing it up. And you know,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: SpaceX succeeded in a way that Boeing and Lockey did not.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: And he made mistakes along the way, but then he
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: was able to correct them. But when you're dealing with
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: an AID agency, when you make mistakes, then the result
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: is dead kids. And the result is a bola now
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: in Congo, raging out of control. And I think that
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: that kind of recklessness was paired with a lack of empathy,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: kind of an indifference to kids on a different continent,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: and that combination of recklessness and indifference has just been
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: enormously lethal.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you mentioned a bowl as the Democratic
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: Republic of Congo has had this horrible bold outbreak. I
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: think there's been twelve hundred plus cases, well over three
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: hundred deaths. How do you think the USAIDS absence and
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: the actions of the Trump administration have made that crisis worse.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: So with a bowla the most important thing you can
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: do is get an early warning, just tackle it immediately
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: when they're just a few cases on the ground. So
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: this began in Itruri and northeastern Congo. It's an area
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: that I've traveled through. It's a difficult area to work
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: in because there is conflict there. But the US did
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: have had previously funded a lot of work in eastern
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: Congo and had a network on the ground, but that
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: was all defunded, and so all of a sudden, doctors
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: are and nurses are not staffing local clinics to the
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: same degree. They're off growing their cassava. And then even
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: if they find something, they're no longer you know, reporting
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: to NGOs, which are reporting to the US.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: And so.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: The bull outbreak happened and grew before anybody was there
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: to blow the whistle. And it was also it was
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 3: a it was a different species of bull virus, so
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: it was harder to it was harder to kill vaccine
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 3: for this version for this that's right, and so this
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: you know, this would have been a challenge, but everybody
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: there on the ground tells me that unmistakably, it would
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: have been caught earlier than it was, and that there
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: are many more cases as a result, which means it's
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 3: harder to do contact tracing, it's harder to contain it.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's zoom out a bit. So there have
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: been efforts to track the total impact of the USA
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: cuts in terms of mortality. There's some researchers at Boston
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: University who created a tracker. I think they estimated that
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: over seven hundred and eighty thousand people have died as
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: a result of those cuts. The medical journal The Lancett
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: published a study estimating that nine point four million additional
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: deaths could occur by twenty thirty. Up, could you help
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: us give us your sense of how you make sense
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: of these studies, because including their limitations, because it is
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: challenging right to project the impact of USAID cuts into
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: the future. But I'm curious what you make of the methodology,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: how accurate these claims are, the likelihood that they could
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: change if you know, a Democrat gets into office and
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: you know, revamp some of these programs.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think the methodology is actually reasonably sound,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 3: but that we have to be very skeptical of these
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: numbers because we don't have good mortality data and the
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: you know, one of the things that AID cuts did
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: is it also decimated the data collection process, so that
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: makes it harder to actually figure out the impact. Early
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 3: on in my reporting in Africa, I was I thought
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: that some of these numbers were exaggerated because local health
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 3: systems had actually managed to reallocate myny in ways that
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: somewhat softened the blow. But then and also, you know,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: people have reserves. They don't die immediately. You stopped getting ARVs,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 3: and it's not that you you know, drop dead right away.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: But over time, it seemed to me that mortality was
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 3: increasing precisely for that reason. It was catching up with people.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 3: And if they're malnourished and also get malaria, then they're
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 3: you know, then they're more likely to die. And so
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: I think that you know, mortality for example, is going
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 3: to be higher as a consequence of the USAID demolition
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 3: in twenty twenty six than it was in twenty twenty five,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 3: because it is to some degree, you know, cumulative, and
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 3: so I think we should be very wary of the numbers.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: But the kind of general order of magnitude of hundreds
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 3: of thousands of deaths a year I think is fundamentally right.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: But the exact toll is going to be I think
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: unknowable until we resume data collection.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned this example in Congo a minute ago
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: of you know, these sort of like frontline workers who
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: went from you know, warning USA D about able outbreaks
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: to farming essentially right, so that we kind of lost
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: this global health infrastructure in a lot of places. I'm
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: curious how hard you think it will be to build
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: that back, because we got a bunch of Democrats who
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: are going to run for president in twenty twenty eight.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: Hopefully one of them wins. Hopefully that individual will want
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: to build back usaa D. But I think you've seen
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: the good parts of USAID. You've also seen the programs
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: that don't work as well, And I'm curious what you
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: think of how to build it back and what reforms
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: you could or should be implemented.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 3: So, I mean, one of the astonishing things about this
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: is that humanitarian aid is actually pretty pop among Republicans
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: and Democrats alike. And the Rockefeller Foundation dist had some
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: polling about this, and you know, and Americans think that
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: about twenty percent of the federal budget goes to this
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 3: kind of foreign assistance. In fact, it's you know about
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 3: it traditionally was about one percent. It's you know, it's
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 3: a tony. It's twenty two cents of every hundred dollars
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 3: of national income in the US that is going to
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: this kind of aid. And so, I, you know, I
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 3: certainly hope that Democrats will try to revive it. I
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: don't think that it was a fatal decision to move
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 3: it to the state department. You know, they're I mean,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: there are arguments either way. Moving things is always a
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 3: little chaotic, but I think one could reasonably keep it
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 3: in the state department. But it has to have support
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 3: within the state department, and it has to have funding.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 3: I I do think that periodically, Democrats and Republicans alike
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 3: have invested in, you know, projects that are a little
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 3: on the ideological side. And Democrats tended to invest in
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: women's empowerment programs that sometimes were well grounded, but sometimes
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 3: we're kind of touchy feely, and it wasn't obvious that
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 3: they had good evidence behind them. Meanwhile, Republicans invested in
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: abstinence only programs that did not seem to help fight
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 3: HIV AIDS, for example. So you know, I think a
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 3: starting point is to really look at evidence based programs
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 3: that have randomized control trials behind them. Given the limitations
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 3: on resources, make sure that you're investing in the places
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: that need it most and in the programs that need
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 3: it most. You know, Sudan and Sudan is the world's
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 3: worst humanitarian crisis right now. It desperately needs assistance and
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 3: it's not getting it. Somalia is a catastrophe right now,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 3: and likewise isn't getting it. I mean, it's one of
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 3: the problems with the Trump assistance that it's being it's
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 3: now dished out in a sense in exchange for other benefits.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 3: So okay, if you give rare earth mineral contracts to
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 3: American companies, then will help you fight malaria? So boy,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, I hope it'll be revived and then we
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 3: can turn the trajectory. Some of these doctors and nurses
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 3: can move from cassava farming back to saving lives and
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 3: will all be better off if they do that.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope there's a widespread commitment among all the
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: Democrats running in twenty twenty eight. In Republicans too, by
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: the way, to restore a lot of this funding, especially
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: the life saving humanitarian aid to starving people in places
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: like Sudan. That also has to be coupled with a commitment,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: by the way, to go after bad actors like the
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: United Arab Emirates who are helping feeding the conflict in Sudan.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: The list. But it's just so obvious to me that
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: we could help avoid future conflicts if we take care
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: of people in some of these places. And instead, President
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: Trump took all the savings he might have gotten from
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: DOJE and put it into a catastrophic war with Iran.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: So don't we all feel safer because of that? Yeah?
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 3: And I mean, you know, we'll spend far, far more
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 3: on the Iran war than we were ever spending on
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: these life saving programs. And you know, one of the
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 3: things I hear a lot on Exodus that look, you know,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: it's not our job to save all these people, that
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 3: we can't do everything. We can't do everything. But if
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 3: any of us were next to a woman in an
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 3: ambulance that run out of gas and she was hemorrhaging
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 3: and dying in that ambulance, for one of ten bucks
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 3: worth of gas. Of course we would reach into our
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 3: pockets and help. And you know, this is a chance
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: for the country to do that in ways that advance
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: American interests as well as American values, and we have
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 3: failed on that because of Elon Muska, Donald Trump.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: And relatedly, I think, of course, if you know, if
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: I were to see someone like Elon Musk or anyone
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: else take medicine, life saving medicine away from a child
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: and then that child died, then of course they deserve
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: to be blamed for the outcome of that move in
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: that decision. Finally, I just wanted to ask you about
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: a separate piece you wrote back in May about what
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: you called a quote pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: against men, women, and even children by soldiers, settlers, interrogators
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: in the Shinbete Internal security Agency, and above all prison guards.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: This is a really you know, a deeply reported piece
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: that was met with a fierce pushback from Israeli Prime
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: Minister being in Yahoo. The Israeli Foreign Ministry called it
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: quote one of the worst blood libels ever to appear
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: in the modern press. I think they have threatened legal action.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: I was just wondering if you could describe sort of
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: how you reported out that piece and what your reaction
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: was to the reaction and the pushback from Israel.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, given the threat of legal action which prims from
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 3: Ndaniahu has promised, I shouldn't say much, but let me
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 3: say that this actually the roots of this came two
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: years ago when I was speaking to a peace activist
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 3: in a Palestinian in the West Bank who had been
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 3: arrested and told me that he had been sexually assaulted
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 3: by his jailers. And he told me this was he thought,
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 3: you know, quite widespread, but because of Shane, people didn't
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: talk about it. And so that's what sort of seeded
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 3: the idea, and I began to ask around. And then
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 3: this year I took that on seriously, and I wasn't
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 3: sure it would be possible to report that people would
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 3: be willing to talk about rape and assault. But it
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 3: turns out that if you asked the question and spread
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 3: the networks, then people I found fourteen people, fourteen different
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 3: people who independently aware of each other, told me about
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 3: having been sexually assaulted. And uh, you know the that
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 3: that pattern in prisons by settlers, by shinbet It, I
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 3: think it's what happens when you get a combination of
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 3: dehumanization of Palestinians and anger at them and complete impunity
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 3: in the in the prison process. And you know, I
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: wish that I knew that there would be a very
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 3: harsh reaction. Of course I expected that week. It's one
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 3: reason why we fact checked it out the Kazoo. But uh,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 3: it was certainly more hostile than I had expected. And
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 3: I just wish that the response were more along lines of, well,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: let's investigate and prove Christoph wrong. Yeah, let's let the
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 3: Red Cross in and and talk to these prisoners, Let's
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 3: let lawyers back in to the prison system. And you know,
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 3: so far there hasn't been much inclination to do that.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, unfortunately Netanyahu was one speed, right, which
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: is attack demagogue, you know, deflect from whatever responsibility. I'm
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: with you that I wish the focus had been on
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: the impact of on the victim's support for them preventing
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: this from happening again. There is you know, we've all
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: seen video evidence of Israeli prison guards, you know, allegedly
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: raping a Palatine prisoner, right, so this is this should
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: not have surprised anyone, even though the reporting. The what
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: you reported was shocking should shock the conscience, so well, listen.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Nick for doing the show today.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: It's not easy to get to South Sudan. It's not
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: easy to get to the places you're reporting from. It
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: takes a lot of time and money, and you do
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: it at personal risks to yourself on to the people
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: who travel with you. So we're very grateful to you
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: for the work you're doing and thanks for joining the show.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 3: Thanks for shining your light on this topic.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: Thanks you gotta, Ni Christoph for joining the show and
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: talk to us next week. Pozz of the World is
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Alona Minkofski,
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: Michael Goldsmith and Nisha Bonnergy. Our team includes Matt de Grope,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: Ben Heathcote, Jordan Kanter, Kenny Moffatt, David Toles, and Ryan Young.
• 1:31:14
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• 1:31:16
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