Pod Save the World - Ambassadors Gone Wild

Episode Date: July 29, 2020

Tommy and Ben make the case for Susan Rice as Vice President, the latest on escalating tensions between the US and China, US plans to sell advanced armed drones abroad, two Trump donors turned ambassadors are engulfed in scandal, anti-corruption protests threaten the government in Bulgaria, Bob Gates writes a book and we’re confused, the truth about TikTok and things aren’t looking good for Major League Baseball. Then Ben interviews Israeli news anchor Yonit Levi about the massive anti-Netanyahu protests in Israel.

Welcome back to Potsave the World on Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, your Mets beat the Red Sox last night, and I'm not happy about it. Yeah, and they really shouldn't. They're pretty terrible, pitching-wise, at least. But I saw 7-4. Well, that doesn't make me feel any better. Thank you very much.

The Mets have this app that allows you to try to affect crowd noise so you can, like, hit a button if you think that they should boo. Huh. But it didn't really work for me that well during the first couple games. Okay, well, we'll get to a little more baseball. later because I'm a little concerned about how they're going to do in the coronavirus. We have a great show for you today. We're going to talk about a bunch of stuff. We're going to talk about the case for Susan Rice as vice president. I think you will want to hear

that. We're going to talk about some ambassadors who have gone wild, why relations with China are getting very, very bad. A U.S. decision to sell advanced armed drones abroad. What could possibly go wrong? Anti-corruption protests in Bulgaria. Bob Gates continues to frustrate and confuse me. We'll do a bit about the truth about TikTok. And then, as we said earlier, talk a little baseball. Ben, you did the interview today. Tell us everything. Yeah, I talked to Yonite Levy, who's anchors the leading Israeli newscast every night and is an awesome journalist and a lot of fun too. But, you know, there's so much going on in Israel with these protests, with the COVID outbreak being, you know, increasingly as bad as ours, with Neniao's corruption trial,

with the things that blowing up in Iran, with annexation. We covered a lot of ground, let's say. I think people get a good on the ground look at what's happening in Israel. Good. I actually cannot wait to hear that because I've been watching the images of these protests from here, mostly on social media, and it looks pretty intense, looks pretty bad over there. So I hope everyone's okay. And, you know, BB's not as much of an authoritarian as Trump,

although maybe I know the answer to that and I don't like it. Yeah. Well, you know, and it's personal there. As you only points out, there's 6,000 people outside his house. Wow. That's like the White House. Okay, Ben, let's start with something a little different for us, which is we want to make the case for choosing Susan Rice to be Joe Biden's vice presidential nominee. And so to be clear, we are neutral. We're not picking sides. Susan has no idea we're doing this. But there's been a lot of punditory about Susan Rice's qualifications. And it has been mostly stupid and mostly annoying. So we wanted to make the affirmative case for her as people who know her and then push back on some of the bullshit as, people who have lived some of the bullshit. So Ben, if you don't mind, I'm just going to run through a few things, then we'll kick it over to you, and then we can just go from there. But my first point would be like, if you're someone who cares deeply about academic credentials, Susan attended

Stanford for undergrad. She was a Truman scholar. She was elected Phi Beta Kappa. She went to Oxford on a road scholarship where she got her Ph.D. in international relations. So she is, as we say, in Boston, Wicked Smat. Her foreign policy experience is really only matched by Joe Biden. I mean, she worked on Bill Clinton's NSC for several years. She was Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs at the age of 32. I mean, that is unbelievable. I think she might have been the youngest ever. She served as Obama's ambassador to the United Nations for three or four years.

It's a cabinet-level job. You manage a huge team. You represent the U.S. at the Security Council and all sorts of forums that require public diplomacy. You also have to cajole or pressure other countries to, like, do things we need them to do. And she had a lot of success there, right? She got sanctions on Iran and North Korea. and did a lot of really important stuff. She then did four years as Obama's national security advisor.

And like that job, it's hard to overstate how important it is. You lead the process of creating and managing all U.S. foreign policy. I mean, that's sort of the shorthand. And so, like, by no means am I suggesting that every policy Susan worked on through the duration of her career was successful or the right choice. Like, we've talked about many things that Obama got wrong. The point is that kind of lived experience is in very, and impossible to replicate outside of those jobs. And, you know, just in terms of Susan's

personal views, because, like, so much of what people think of her as a reflection of people she worked with or for, she opposed the war in Iraq. She's a huge proponent of diplomacy and empowering multilateral institutions to solve problems. She was critical in managing the Ebola response. You know, that could, like, maybe come in handy with this whole COVID thing. So a couple criticisms of Susan that we just want to take on. The first is about Benghazi, right? There's all these idiots who are saying, if you name Susan Rice, it will dredge up the whole Benghazi scandal again. And first, I personally can't imagine something that would sound more irrelevant and tired and old in the midst of a pandemic than fucking Benghazi.

But like, okay, I'll take the bait. Let's say voters do care. How about we acknowledge for a minute that Susan's only role in Benghazi was going on a fucking Sunday show days after it happened? Like, the U.S. ambassador to the UN doesn't deal with embassy security. They don't do intelligence assessments. This is Republicans literally shooting the messenger. Why? Because they are big fans of attacking black women whenever possible. They like to focus on the squad. They like to focus on Susan. So let's just be clear what we're

enabling when we buy into this bullshit. And then there's this criticism that she's tough or that she's brusk. And it's like, okay, yes, Susan's a tough negotiator. She doesn't suffer fools. She, you know, is incredibly effective at her job. Mike Pompeo is one of the biggest assholes on the planet. He's currently our chief diplomat, and he's treated as some, like, frontrunner to run for president. So I think we should all think about gender roles in some of these critiques. The last thing is just, like, the suggestion that she has no electoral experience. And yes, it is absolutely true. Susan hasn't run for office.

But she's worked on, I think, every presidential campaign since 1988. So she's got a hell of a lot of political experience. So, Ben, I've been, you know, ranting for a minute. I will pause and go to you here. Yeah. And look, I echo your caveat that every. Everybody's being discussed would be great. We've loved Elizabeth Warren on this podcast.

Stacey Abrams is, you know, best friend of Boat Save America. A lot of good people. Kamala Harris, yeah, amazing people. Exactly, you know, Kamala. But, you know, for Susan, I think I'd focus on a few things. One is she's really the only person I've seen on the list, I think, that has significant experience in the executive branch of the U.S. government, right? At the State Department, at the White House for many years.

and that's going to matter more than usual because the executive branch has been decimated by Trump. So you're going to have to rebuild the State Department. You're going to have to rebuild government agencies that have been hollowed out. And having somebody who knows how government's supposed to function, that would be very helpful. The best example is Ebola.

And this gets at why I think Susan can broaden beyond national security. Her finest hour is national security advisor. Anybody that you asked before this pandemic would have said was the Ebola crisis. Susan is the one who raised the alarm on it early, in part because she'd been a citizen Secretary of State for Africa, so knew that these West African countries were going to have a hard time managing this. She really drove this idea that we should deploy U.S. military forces to West Africa. It's that thousands of troops to set up medical infrastructure there.

That was a total out-of-the-box idea. It had never been done before. Frankly, the kind of out-of-the-box thinking we could have used in March in this country for this pandemic. And it was the key to stamping out of Ebola. And in that process, Susan's not just working with state and DOD. She's working with Dr. Fauci. She's working with NIH and CDC. And increasingly, you know, national security hits immigration policy. It hits health policy.

It hits these other seemingly more domestic issues. So I think if you want someone who knows the executive branch, who knows how to get things done, who knows how those departments should be organized and coordinated, and frankly can help manage a pandemic response. That's something that Susan really brings to the table. I think the other thing is, you know, in this venture more into politics, but the fact that she's not a politician, I think is a potential credit to her in some ways

because, you know, sometimes you don't want the person down the hall to be thinking about running for president, you know. And Susan won't be that. She'll be a governing vice president if selected. And I think that too brings a lot to the table. And what does that mean? It means that, okay, if you want to, you know, given how much stuff an incoming Biden administration can have to do legislatively to get out of this pandemic whole, everything else, you want to outsource to the vice president certain projects. And Obama did this. You know, the implementation of the Recovery Act went to Biden.

Chunks of our foreign policy went to Biden. That kind of model could work here where essentially Susan is able to manage certain chunks of farm policy because she's got relationships with everyone around the world, able potentially to pitch in on things like pandemic response. or rebuilding the executive branch of the U.S. government. So if you want someone who can kind of be a partner from day one, understand how the executive branch functions from day one, understand how to walk into every room around the world from day one, like that's Susan. And the last thing I just say is like she's,

this is why I was so painful for some of us to see these caricatures of her. She's like the best friend, boss, you know, partner, foxhole mate that you could ask for. I mean, Susan Rice is just a profoundly good person. And that doesn't always get across because of way people of caricatured her. I mean, I was trying to think of an example. And one unflattering one to me probably popped in my head, Tommy, which is, you'll recall there was a magazine profile of me that didn't go so well in 2016. No idea we're talking.

And so, yeah, so I was getting pounded. You know, I was in the eye of the storm. I mean, people were just, you know, shredding me in the media. it's a pretty lonely thing when that happens. And I remember at the peak of that, you know, when I was just trying to put my head down and do my job, Susan called this big meeting in her office, you know, important. You have to be there. Make sure your schedule is clear.

And, you know, I walk into her office and it's a giant surprise party with everybody that I was close to in the White House in the NSC. Susan had put this all together just to buck me up. And by the way, buck me up, you know, when I'd been the one who got myself in trouble. I just, you know, that's a kind of. a person she's just looking out for you and doing things quietly. No one was going to write stories about that, right? She's just a good person, and I think people would love to get to know her. And look, she doesn't run for things before, but this is also not exactly a normal election, too.

It's kind of the Zoom election. So that would be how I'd sum it up. I mean, could you imagine what a relief it would be for Joe Biden if whoever his vice president is, he could say, you know what, I got to handle everything at home right now. Yeah. I need you to do like a tour of the globe to reassure all these allies that America is back. And to have someone who walks into the room, having spent hours in meetings with Barack Obama or one-on-one, having personal relationships with leaders from Germany to Asia to Africa and everywhere in between, I mean, that is an unbelievable asset.

Yeah, no. And having someone, you know, you could turn to you too and say, hey, look, I got to deal with, you know, passing voting rights and health care and climate. But man, we got to rebuild the EPA and the State Department and all these. Can you go cabinet to cabinet and help these people get what they need to rebuild their workforce? I mean, there's a lot of stuff that she would know how to do from day one that you could only know how to do that if you've been national security advisor and coordinated all those government agencies or you've been at an agency like state and knows how it's supposed to work. You know, so, so yeah, there's, it's, it's an unusual name when it popped on lists.

I think people probably raised your eyebrows, but it's one of these ideas that the more you road test it, you know, and to your Benghazi point, also like, this has been beyond vetted four years of bullshit investigations on this. What Trump has done, you know, should, you know, make anybody blush who was a Benghazi stand. It won't. But I'm trying to imagine the scenario where it's September and October. We're in a pandemic. We're in a depression. We've got fascist militias in the streets. And Trump's

closing argument is Benghazi. Yeah, give me a break. Give me a break. Anybody who cares about that is already voting for Trump. You know, like, I'm sorry. It just is the case. Yeah. Look, all we're asking is stop short-hending her record and experience as being about Benghazi and stop playing into this narrative that suddenly people are going to care about something that they are sick of hearing about. Joe Biden has a lot of great choices to be. his vice president. I will be thrilled no matter who he picks. Yes. But like give Susan Herdu, people go back into government because you finally know how to do the job, right? I mean, like she will be so much better at this than, you know, anyone I think imagines. And so anyway,

that's our pitch. All right, but you want to let's talk a little China here because things are escalating in a scary way and it's happening behind the scenes. I talked a bit about this with Medi Hassan on Ponce of America on Monday, but I want to get your take too because Last week, the U.S. ordered closed China's consulate in Houston, Texas. So U.S. officials told reporters that this facility was well known as a hub for Chinese espionage operations. I don't normally take, like, the administration's claims at phase value, Ben, but in this case, I think we should. I believe them here. So it was a wild scene in Houston.

I think the U.S. told China on Tuesday that the facility had to be closed by Friday. And so apparently consulate staffers were literally driving to Home Depot to buy Ben. barrels and then like filling them with classified documents and burning them. The firefighters showed up because this is all happening in their courtyards. It looks like a total mess. China quickly retaliated by announcing that they're going to close a U.S. consulate in Chendu. This is just the latest, you know, tit for tat escalation in this in this back and forth of the China. We've had the trade war, the terrorists, the threats of travel bans. The U.S. and China have been kicking journalists and air quotes out of respective countries.

Oddly, Ben, Mike Pompeo went to the Nixon Library to give a big. speech on U.S. China policy that was essentially a rebuke of everything that Nixon did. The speech itself was really hawkish. It included all this like chest thumping about the need to confront China. And it was one in a series of speeches in actions by Pompeo and O'Brien and Bill Barr. But the problem is, you know, while these speeches and things inflamed tensions, the Chinese know that they are bullshit, right? Because like Pompeo can denounce China's actions in Hong Kong, but Trump told Xi Jinping on the phone. that he wouldn't condemn the crackdown, and that's borne out.

Pompeo can and should denounce China's treatment of the Uighurs. It's a crime against humanity, but Trump told Xi Jinping that he was right to build the camps. And Pompeo can beat his chest about freedom and denounce communism, but Trump refuses to stand up to these right-wing, like anti-democratic leaders in Europe. So, Ben, just a couple questions for you. Like, first, just on this consulate in Houston, what do you think was happening there? Do you think there's a good argument for shutting it down? And then I'm seeing analysts quoted saying that the U.S.-China relations are at the worst they've been since 1979.

Do you believe that's true? So on the consulate, it's a little dramatic to shut down a consulate. I mean, so we expelled a bunch of Russians, including shutdown a facility. But this was done after they attacked our democracy and interfered in our election. It was in response to something quite specific. Look, the reality is, you know, yes, they're going to be. espionage concerns at a lot of facilities, usually you would start somewhere short of shutting on a consulate, you know, expelling a certain number of diplomats or something. It's like a lot of

things with the U.S.-China relationship where we're kind of going from zero to 60 here in a nanosecond, you know, and so it does feel somewhat extreme. And that leads to the second question, which is, yeah, I actually, I think this is about as bad as it's gotten, in part because usually the the Chinese-U.S. relationship is like a scale, and there's a bunch of irritants and bad things on one end. But then there's usually some area where you're working together. You know, so we had a lot of fights of the Chinese, but like in the first term, they did a lot with us to restore the global economy. In the second term, they were indispensable to getting the Paris Agreement, the Iran nuclear deal. So usually there's good news and bad news in the

relationship. Right now, there's nowhere in the entire U.S.-China relationship that is at all positive. It's all negative. And by the way, that's both parties' responsibility here, the Chinese government and the Trump administration. And so that's new. And the other thing that's, I think, somewhat new is that if you look at the Pompeo language echoed by some of these other administration officials, it really does seem to be not identifying concerns about specific Chinese actions. It's a kind of broad-brushed Cold War, get ready for battle, go to battle stations. on every issue under the sun mentality. And it's also infected the Republican Party entirely.

You know, Tom Cotton kind of breathing fire about the Chinese at any given moment. And look, we share a lot of these concerns, but it's also lazy. They're not like doing the work. You know, like if you were worried about the Chinese beating us to 5G technology, you'd be investing in that here. You'd be getting together with Democratic countries

around the world to think about how to, call out what they're doing to the Uighurs. Here, we have these guys like Pompeo just kind of pop off from like Washington or the Nixon library. And they're not like doing the diplomatic work to actually try to create some multilateral pressure on China. So it just feels like we're careening into this increasingly bilateral confrontation with the Chinese without a lot of strategy behind it in the first place. Yeah, I think that's right. It makes me very, very nervous. There's a lot of things that will be handed to Joe Biden that will be difficult to manage. This feels like it will be

at the top of the list. Yeah. So last week, this was a disconcerting article to read. The Trump administration announced that they will allow the sale of advanced armed drone technologies to foreign countries, which will undermine this decades-old arms control agreement that America helped write called the Missile Technology Control Regime. That agreement is credited with helping prevent countries like Egypt and Iraq from getting certain kinds of advanced missile tech. It's a very good thing. It's likely that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates would be among the purchasers of these advanced drones. We're talking about things like the MQ9 Reaper. The thing to know about this kind of drone is that these are designed to hunt and kill human beings. So this is not surveillance.

These are much bigger than predator drones. They carry a lot more bombs and missiles, a bigger payload. So if these are sold to the Saudis, they will soon be killing people in Yemen. This decision follows Pompeo's decision last year to declare a phony emergency. and bypass Congress so we could sell more weapons to the same sort of group of Gulf states, including the Saudis. Other countries around the world have purchased or have been approved to purchase Reaper drones, including Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, India. So like the horses out of the barn in terms of this technology leaving, you know, U.S. territory. But there is concern that the further it spreads, the easier it is to just sort of copy it and replicate it. The Chinese

have their own sort of version of the Reaper drone anyway. So, you know, I, I, I think part of this from the White House perspective is they don't want U.S. arms manufacturers to lose out on sales to Chinese manufacturers, which, again, we're viewing war as a commodity. That is not good. Ben, you know, I think the Israelis developed military drone tech, but the U.S. is the largest producer and user of them. Do you think that drones generally are a destabilizing enough technology that there needs to be a more stringent, broader set of international rules of the road like you see with other ways? weapons. And like, I asked this with humility knowing that our former boss certainly used drones a considerable enough. Yeah. Well, no, first of all, look, you should not sell, uh, reaper predator

drones to a guy who chopped up a Washington Post journalist. That's a good rule of thumb. Just full stop, right? Yeah. Never mind, you know, uh, the Saudis and Emirates of both, you know, shown very little regard for civilians in Yemen, right? And so it's not hard to see how these would be misused immediately. And that leads to your point, which is that there should be a different, there should be a different standard about how we think about selling weapons in general. You know, Trump is completely turned it into just kind of like an industry. The more we can sell, the merrier. And, you know, there should, for any weapon systems, there should be some evaluation of, you know, who we're selling it to. And that's generally been the tradition.

I think with drones in general, it kind of connects to the Chinese question in the sense it, there's a lot of growing concerns about artificial intelligence and how it intersects with lethal weaponry, right? You have killer drones. You're going to have killer robots soon enough. You've got killer cyber weapons. And there's not the kind of norms and standards around those weapons as there were around kind of the Cold War era of weapons that concern people, chemical weapons and other things, nuclear weapons, obviously. And so I think this is an area that demands the U.S. not doing this and who cares if we're not getting in the Saudi market for armed drones. But then also, I think the U.S., Europe, other countries coming together and trying to initiate

a kind of global effort to set some standards and norms around how these new technologies are used. I say that with the same humility you do. Part of the reason, though, that President Obama in the second term wanted to have a clear and public set of guidance for how he used drones is so that it could inform a potential international conversation about that. And we talked about that at the time. So even if you think Obama overused drones or should not have used drones, it doesn't change the basic reality that this technology is out there. And the best way of managing it is through some kind of arms control that ultimately you try to bring the Chinese and Russians into. Yeah. I mean,

part of the reporting on this specifics of this sort of advanced you know, drone sales decision was that the administration is considering just fully bypassing Congress entirely for all weapons sales, which is just... It's not how it works. And the Republicans don't have that happened. It would just be a stunning, I guess not at all studying, just the latest abdication of their role in foreign policy and everything else. Yeah. Well, let's just anticipate that they won't take that view of Joe Biden as president. Yeah, that's a good point. Election Day is November 3rd between a global pandemic and voter suppression efforts, it's critical to help every American register to vote and

ensure that every last vote counts, which includes encouraging as many Americans as possible to request to vote by mail. VoteSaveamerica.com is a one-stop shop for voter registration and engagement and has created an amazing hub that compiles the tools you need to request your vote by mail ballot early, to volunteer to call voters, or to be a poll worker and much more. Please visit votesaveamerica.com right now to get involved with every last vote. All right, Ben, I want to our little section of the pod today that's called Ambassadors Gone Wild. So let's start in the UK and have a little fun because last week, the New York Times broke the news that Trump once asked his ambassador to Britain to ask the British government if they could help steer the British open

golf tournament to Trump's golf resort in Scotland. The U.S. ambassador to the UK is this rich prick named Woody Johnson. He is the billionaire heir. So the Johnson & Johnson Fortune, he's a big Trump owner. And he is the owner of the New York Jets football team, which may be the worst thing about him. Johnson was advised by his deputy at the time that it would be unethical to make this ask. That's not a tough call. Johnson forged ahead anyway. He raised the issue with the Secretary of State for Scotland. That poor bastard is probably going to get drawn into so many investigations now.

So additional reporting by the Times showed that this was a pattern. Johnson serves Trump family wine at his events despite the fact that it's probably dog shit. He's under fire also for comments that were considered racist or sexist. a bit of context about Trump's resort in Scotland because this sounds so petty. But when you learn that these Scotland resorts are a financial disaster, it starts to make sense. I mean, the Washington Post said that Turnberry has not turned to profit since Trump bought it. His two Scottish courses lost $14.3 million in 2018. It's also part of a pattern.

Trump wanted to steer the G8 to his resort in Miami. His other resorts have raked in millions of taxpayer dollars when he visits them. And Secret Service agents have to like rent golf carts. at some exorbitant rate. This deputy who advised Ambassador Woody Johnson not to make this corrupt ask was later forced out of his job for allegedly saying something mildly nice about Obama during the speech. I think Johnson told him that he was a traitor. So Ben, of course, like Trump lied about this.

He denied everything. It just goes without saying that like this would normally be, you know, an administration ending story. But the sad truth is that it seems like Johnson's actions and Trump's request are more likely to get Johnson in trouble with the NFL than the U.S. government. And I just, it just blows my mind. It's insane. I mean, especially because people should understand the ambassador of the U.K.

is usually a really important figure. Yeah. And yes, they've been political donors in the past, but smart ones. Really good ones. Because, you know, you have the relationship with the U.K., which is incredibly important. But then also, everybody kind of passes through London. It becomes a venue for a lot of diplomacy,

often hosted by the U.S. ambassador. And so this is a very important post, being used for what to get the British open at the Trump golf course? Like that's such a profound corruption of our foreign policy that, you know, that shockingly is not at all surprising, right? I will say Tommy also, like, as a Jets fan, my owners, right, my three teams, Knicks, Mets Jets, right? The Knicks, James Dolan, widely seen as the worst owner in sports and a total asshole. The Wilpons lost all their money to Bernie Madoff. thereby cutting our payroll, and I think they're also Republicans.

And now this Trump guy owns the Jets, I thought it couldn't get worse until there was recently report that the Mets are being pursued by Sheldon Adelson. So I don't know what I did as a small child to piss somebody off to end up with these owners, but here I am. Would you call this a diplomatic butt fumble? Yeah. Well done. So a lot of world olds won't get that reference.

No, yeah. I Google it before you get mad at me, trust me. Yeah, look, Obama's ambassador to the U.K. was a guy named Matthew Barson, who, like, literally revolutionized diplomacy. He had all these events. He brought, like, you know, Kentucky bluegrass and bourbon. People loved him. Like, he actually did, like, you know, create deeper ties between the U.S. and the U.K.

And then you have this, you know, guy's asshole, accused of racism and sexism who couldn't manage an NFL team to save his life. But the next example is even stranger somehow. This is a story by CBS News that you flagged. So Trump's ambassador to Iceland is this guy named Jeffrey Russ. Gunter. He was reportedly so paranoid about his safety that he asked the State Department to get him special permission from the Icelandic government, where he was the ambassador, to carry a gun. And he also discussed wearing a stab-proof vest. Now, Ben, for context, you know, in fairness to him, there was a spike in homicides in Iceland in 2017. So that

means that there were four total instead of the usual one to two. This is one of those stories, Ben, where you can tell everyone hated this guy because it was sort of. forced to a dozen diplomats government officials, former officials, and individuals familiar with the situation. Like, people were falling all over themselves to return this call. Here's a window into why. This guy, Gunter, has gone through seven, seven. Seven.

Deputy chiefs of missions or DCMs in 14 months. That's like your number two, who does all the real work when you're an idiot political ambassador like this guy. According to the CBS story, the first DCM prepared for the job for a year, learned Icelandic and then was blocked by the ambassador because, quote, Gunter didn't like the look of him at their introductory meeting. He became enraised at another DCM for leaving snowboots under their own desk during winter in Iceland. We've talked about ambassadors before. Some are foreign service. Some are donors. Some are people from outside of, you know,

politics. Forty-two percent of Trump's ambassadors are political appointees rather than foreign service officers. That's up from 30 percent during the Obama administration. But again, this isn't a problem of picking people outside the foreign service. It's like you probably shouldn't pick, like, paranoid sociopaths, like this guy or Rick Grinnell, to be a diplomat. Like, that seems kind of obvious. A diplomat, right? I mean, seven DCMs, it's almost impossible to communicate how much that that person runs the operations of the embassy.

So that means that nobody has been running that embassy, and God knows what that embassy has been doing. No fault of the people work there. There's absolutely no leadership. Think of the disregard, the insult to the good people of Iceland to do. just have this guy there, right? And yeah, like the safest country I can think of in the world, the guy wants to pack some heat and wear like a vest because he has some movie star view of being an ambassador. Like, what is this guy even into? That he wants to walk around Iceland

carrying a piece and like wearing body armor. Like this is someone with some other problems that need to be looked into. I will say, to plug another vice presidential candidate, potentially, Elizabeth Warren had a very strong proposal in the primaries to get rid of political ambassadors. I think you want to make some exceptions because there's some truly expert people, you know, like Mike McFall, an academic was our ambassador to Russia, not because he was a donor, just because he was an expert. But I do think that trying to hit a baseline of the default being the Trump excesses, like in a lot of areas, may prompt useful reforms anyway. And like, let's stop sending paranoid psychopaths out to pleasant countries like Iceland. Yeah, maybe they

is send our old colleague, Mike Hammer, who is a, you know, an SEC team member of ours, speaks Icelandic. I think Mike Hammer spoke seven languages, actually. Like when we met him, now it's like he's gone on to be ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo. And wasn't he in Chile before? He was in Chile before that, yeah, yeah. We're going to get to Mike Pompeo in one second. This is why I think you guys probably hear a lot of rage and frustration in our voices when we talk about the mistreatment of State Department employees. Imagine the night. nicest people you know who are so brilliant, who are so dedicated to the job that they speak seven language, including fucking Icelandic, being kicked around by some like, I don't know,

optomologist or whatever this schmuck is, donor from California because they don't like the look of them. Like, that's not how you treat dedicated public servants. Yeah. And by the way, people who probably could make a giant pile of money in the private sector, right? So much. Who instead, to be in the foreign service, you kind of sign up for, if not life, for a very long period of time. So you're spending decades cycling around the world. And then some rich guy comes in and starts yelling at you about your snow boots in Iceland. Like the snow boots should be fine. And you're thinking to yourself, man, I wish I got that gig and, you know, Kabul, get out of this fucking hell home. Yeah. So Ben, here's a window into why maybe these ambassadors are a disaster,

why they're picking these terrible people. So the State Department is just totally mismanaged. And this week, the Senate Democrats are releasing a report titled, Diplomacy and Crisis, the Trump administration's decimation of the State Department. It's a very understated title. Politico's Nihal Tusi got an advanced look at this report. The broader release is time for when Pompeo finally testifies on the Hill later this week. But basically, they found that vacancies turnover, fear of political retaliation have led to really low morale and a huge rise in staffers considering quitting. So, like, I'm glad the Democrats put this report together because, one, like you were saying this earlier about, you know, why Susan would be good. I mean, the

the State Department's going to have to be rebuilt. But I also think we need to set the record straight right now when it comes to Pompeo's tenure as Secretary of State. He went after Rex Tillerson. He said they get their swagger back. Instead, he is just like demoralized and, you know, run the place ragged. It's amazing. I mean, every year they try to decimate the State Department's budget and Congress frankly doesn't go along with it. We all saw in the impeachment.

I mean, you know, the extent to which first they, you know, badger these people, they subject them to these ambassadors we talk about or Rudy Giuliani coming in and layering them. And then they don't get their backs, right, when they're attacked. Mike Pompeo was silent while these heroic State Department people were being savaged by his former colleagues in the house.

So the morale there has got to be, and we haven't gotten into like the criminality, which we've talked about on past episodes of Pompeo essentially using the State Department to launch an Iowa caucus campaign and forced through Saudi weapons sales, you know, outside of the normal process here. So, you know, I think that the work that's going to have to be done is enormous because if you've had this exit as a foreign service officers, they're walking out the door with like hundreds

and thousands of years of experience to cumulatively. That's gone. Like, we're going to need to get that back. We need to consider ideas like letting people return at the level they were at, you know, which is not normally the case to just get people back. we're going to have to try to recruit, you know, worldos to come into the Foreign Service to rebuild this thing. And then, like, this guy, Pompeo,

I noticed Tommy in like the story about this report when asked about these very concrete concerns that have been raised by the report, their statement is, quote, the State Department swagger is fully back? Like, what is that? Like, how juvenile can you get, you know? Yeah, they are terrible people.

And the joke's unlike Pompeo, because there's no way Iowa is going for. in this process. Well, and wouldn't he want, by the way, like, well, there's that. You should listen to your minipod on Iowa. But wouldn't they, Mike Pompeo want a well-funded state department and a strong workforce? Like, it's so self-defeating, you know? You would think. Yeah, it makes him look terrible. Makes everyone look terrible. It's just terrible. Let's talk about Bulgaria, Ben, because I don't think I've ever raised the country on the show with you. So citizens in Bulgaria have been in the streets protesting for weeks now about rampant corruption, and they've been calling on the entire government to resign.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borzov tried to mollify them by replacing four cabinet ministers. It did not work. The protests are so strong. So I'm drawing a lot of this from reporting by Radio for Europe, the economists European Council on Foreign Relations. And the story is a bit complicated, so bear with me. But the gist is these protesters started when the leader of an anti-corruption political party drove his small boat to a beach on the Black Sea and literally stepped on the shore

and planted a Bulgarian flag. And he was there to make a point about corruption because these beaches are supposed to be open to the public but it had been closed off and reserved for this rich businessman who's member of a powerful political party that is not, that is not opposed to corruption that is very much corrupt.

So this anti-corruption advocate was quickly like shoved into the water by a bunch of like plainclosed goons and this like viral video was born and that went around the country. And the Bulgarian president, Ruman Radov, sought, he condemned the incident. And despite the fact that the Bulgarian president is basically powerless, the ceremonial position, the police decided to respond. They raided his office. They detained members of his staff in this like retaliatory act, it was punitive. And that led to even bigger protests. Like with

classic what we've seen all around the world, right? Like government over oversteps their bounds and response and at least more protests. So the key thing to understand is that Bulgaria is the poorest and the most corrupt country in the European Union. The protesters, observers, analysts, people say it's controlled by like a handful of unelected oligarchs. They have links to the mafia and people are just fed up with it. Surprisingly, the U.S. came out pretty strongly in favor of the protesters, even more forcefully than the European Union of which Bulgaria is apart.

The protesters are frustrated. They want the EU to more forcefully advocate for a rule of law, courts that actually work, democracy, anti-corruption. So, Ben, that might be everything I've ever known about Bulgaria. I don't know how big a deal you think these protests are. It's something we should watch. Or if this speaks to a broader problem within the EU about their ability to actually, you know, police these anti-corruption efforts or help these countries, you know, become more democratic.

Yeah, well, there's been this problematic trend in the central and eastern European, some of the central Eastern European member states of the EU drifting to the right, kind of drifting towards, this kind of oligarchic, you know, thuggish model of capitalism. If you look at Bulgaria, if you look at Hungary, if you look at, you know, Poland, we've talked about, this is, you know, this has been somewhat contagious, right? That this kind of politics as a vehicle for corruption. And I think that that does lead to your point about the EU, which is they need to do more to police this conduct. I'll give you another example. Just last week, one of the last remaining, I think, the last two big independent media outlets in Hungary was just effectively

shut down by the government, right? And, you know, the EU has a lot of leverage. They provide billions of dollars in funding for infrastructure projects in countries like Hungary and into Bulgaria. It's not like a choice between kicking these countries out of the EU or doing nothing. They could leverage these funds. They could use the tools they have to try to show that their consequences for bad behavior, whether it be corruption or anti-democratic behavior. I think the EU is going to have to think a lot more seriously about using those tools in these cases. They've been reticent in the past. I think after Brexit, they're nervous about alienating and losing another member state. But ultimately, the value of the EU has to be that nations live up to a set of standards

and that they're democratic and they're not this corrupt. And so this is one where the EU has to step up. Yeah, I agree there. We'll keep watching this. We also should keep watching a bunch of protests in Eastern Russia, which broke out because basically the elected governor in the region was detained. It's always remarkable to see people in Russia on the streets protesting. It takes a lot of courage, a lot of bravery. We'll watch that closely. I also want to ask you about one of your heroes, your mentors, your favorite people, Bob Gates, because he has another book out. It's like a Don Jr. Pace here. I've not read it. I don't think I will. But I read this review of it in the Washington Post that I thought was interesting. So Gates apparently in the book,

implores presidents and commanders, considering the use of military force to ask the following questions. Is the U.S. military the right or optimal solution to the problem? Are there non-military means that can achieve partial success instead of military force? What collateral damage will there be? Can we anticipate unintended consequences? And he specifically talks about Iraq and Afghanistan where he says the U.S. allowed the mission there to balloon into these nation-building exercises. Now, I guess, you know, Gates once again is pretty harsh on Obama in the book. He says Obama and Trump were, quote, two successive presidents who have signaled an American withdrawal from global leadership. So that's frustrating.

But, you know, he's advocating for like diplomatic solutions that get you partway to solving a problem. But I guess criticizes the Iran deal. He never mentions the Paris Climate Accords. So, you know, Ben, I know. He's so frustrating. I went really deep on this and I got myself worked up. And then I decided, you know what? I'm going to ask you a more thoughtful question, which is, did you?

Bob Gates opposed the 2009 Afghanistan surge when you were in those meetings. Because, right, okay, it's like, you're just trying to trigger me now. Well, no, no. I mean, like, I read all his advice there. Everything he says is correct to me. But I also just read the CJ Chivers book, The Fighters, and the chapter on Marja, which is one of the first operations after the surge that the military took on where they went to the heart of these Taliban strongholds and they said they were going to move in,

boot the Taliban guys out, bring what's called a government. in a box, set it up, provide services, people. It's like this major nation building plan, right? And Bob Gates and Bob Gates's Pentagon were the ones not just pushing for that option, but pushing for tens of thousands of more U.S. service members for that option. And I guess my question is, what was Gates' position in those meetings? Is he now learning the lessons from that time, or is he just sort of hypocritical here? Yeah, let me start from the premise of trying to be, you know, fair to Bob Gates, which, yeah, this urging of military restraint, is good, and I'm glad that a former Secretary of Defense, you know, with a lot of stature is doing it.

There's a couple problems with it. One is just, yeah, the facts of the history. He completely facilitated and enabled this dynamic, or not only did he support it, but Obama was jammed with it. You know, I mean, you'll recall that, like, this McChrystal option is leaked to the press before it's been fully presented to the White House. Obama's completely jammed with this demand, essentially, for 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan. despite Obama telling them, I do not want to nation-built. I want to have a mission focused on counterterrorism and strengthening the Afghan government.

They still are so wedded to the concept of their counterinsurgency strategy, the government in a box type stuff you talk about, that it leads to this massive operation in southern Afghanistan, Marja, enormous amount, peak for U.S. casualties, I think, in the Afghan war, obviously tremendous casualties on the Afghan side. And frankly, what Petraeus and the military wanted to do is move that all around the country. So move that up to the east too of Afghanistan.

And Obama finally said, no, this isn't, it wasn't working, first of all. And they'd give us very rosy assessments of it that, you know, you would use in your press guidance. And then you would learn later, well, actually, it wasn't that rosy, you know. And so they were really selling this. And what bothered me about this is it's not about the past. It's about the fact that he, I don't understand his critique of Obama because his critique of Obama has been that Obama wasn't sufficiently committed.

to this mission in Afghanistan. Like he said that. So basically, you're saying he wasn't sufficiently committed to the very nation building that you were saying has been the problem with American foreign policy. So I want to welcome the critique about not getting into wars, but the things that are necessary to not get into wars are like the Iran deal, which he then criticizes, right?

Or not doing that in Afghanistan, right? And so he takes his criticism, and he says enough to get heads nodding about this, but the logic of positions he's taken and thinks he's criticized, how is Obama withdrawing from the world in any way other than trying to get us out of those wars? Because diplomatically, we were doing all this other stuff, right? So I sincerely want him to succeed in this argument. I don't know how you can be against those things and against the Iran deal, right? to me, those arguments are in contradiction with each other. Yeah, and look, I may be overstating, you know, his criticism of the Iran deal. It might be the usual throat clearing.

It was flawed. It was this. No, no, it's a lot of throat clearing. To your point, like, right. I believe that he is sincere when he talks about the toll it took on him, how difficult it was to see you as service members dying. But it does lead me back to, like, look, I'm rethinking a lot of things from the Obama era. Everything I read about Afghanistan makes me think the 09 search was a mistake. This is the one I rethink the most, yeah. Yeah, and I'm just wonder where the fuck was he with this argument then, because if he's the wise Yoda, you know, calling for restraint, he had a chance to keep 30,000 guys from going to Afghanistan.

And look, what he might say, right, is that, well, you know, we were there, so we had to finish the job. And I didn't get us there, right? I'm sure he supported the war in Afghanistan, though. But I actually don't agree with that. Like, just because we, this is the mindset that gets us in the trouble in Afghanistan and Vietnam and other places, that we go someplace and the mission changes to nation-building. building, right? We went from going into Afghanistan to try to get Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to building a government in a box in Marja, right? And but which by the way, didn't even work. So I just, I think that the logic of saying, you know, all this nation building in places where

we are, I'm for, but we shouldn't start the new wars. I don't know. You have to, you have to apply the logic across the board, which is don't start the new wars and maybe, you know, don't, don't have tried to take on all those things in Afghanistan either. Yeah, the sunk cost fallacy. We've given so much, we can't stop now. It's like, well, that's a recipe for two decades later. You're still there. Ben, let's talk about TikTok for a minute. So listeners probably know the app, lots of dancing, fun, you know, creative short form videos. It's insanely popular, billion plus downloads. I have friends here in LA in the music business who say, like, the entire industry has reoriented around getting songs to trend on TikTok.

It's that powerful. So TikTok has become controversial. It's owned by a massive Chinese technology. company called ByteDance. BightDance was founded in 2012. They own a bunch of other technology apps like news aggregators in China and stuff. The concern that American officials have about TikTok is that the company could potentially be pressured by the Chinese government to censor content or handover user data. TikTok says they've never been censored by the Chinese government. They never been asked to make changes and that they store all their U.S. user data in Virginia or Singapore. It's worth noting that India blocked TikTok and a bunch of other Chinese apps. Recently, that was in the wake of a border clash between the Chinese and Indian troops,

but it's notable. Mike Pompeo was suggested that the U.S. may follow suit as part of these sort of punitive steps against China. Kevin Roos, who's a great technology reporter at the New York Times, did a smart piece, I thought, to separate like the real concern from some of the hysteria around TikTok. He argues convincingly, in my opinion, that focusing on TikTok's a bit of Red Herring. It's just, it's very popular, but there are lots of other video games and apps and platforms that are owned by Chinese companies that we just don't know about or aren't as familiar with. It could pose a similar risk. Now, the answer is like smart regulation and rules of the road and not banning them. Then what is your take on this like growing public

debate about the risk from TikTok? You hear about it a lot on the right from sort of China Hawks. Then I think there are parents who have sort of good faith concerns about their children, uploading their facial images when facial recognition technology is the next step in the world or AI, maybe it could be used to like train Chinese AI. What's the rational opinion on this? I mean, look, I think you should definitely be concerned if it's a Chinese company. There's not really the kind of firewall between that company and the government is there is here, you know, that the Chinese government has generally been able to get what it wants. from Chinese companies, that's how the Chinese companies are allowed to operate, you know, in this

kind of quasi, you know, capitalist quasi-closed society. And so that means, yeah, there's scenarios where they could vacuum up data to improve their facial recognition capacity. They could, you know, use TikTok to monitor people's views, that kind of thing. But, you know, the reality is also that any social media platform has some, you know, Facebook is going to, you know, vacuum up your data and sell it to advertisers and, and maybe the Cambridge Analytica that, you know, help swing elections, right? I mean, I think the point is that it's hard to tell kids, you know, and I can't believe I just said kids like I'm some old, old guy, you know, but it's hard to tell people, you know, don't use this because, you know, this one happens to be Chinese. I do think for any social media user, just be mindful. that nothing is as private as you think it is, or even if a public platform, that the data that you upload could be used for purposes other than what you intended, you know, which is to entertain your friends and followers. Just kind of know that, right? You know, have that in your head. I'd like to see government begin to regulate these platforms. We can't necessarily regulate

them the same way we can in U.S. companies, but we can in terms of things that they do in the U.S. So the point is, I don't think the answer is kicking them out, shutting them down here. I think it is a mixture of like we should be regulating big tech anyway to deal with some of the issues of hate speech and disinformation we've talked about. And that users should just be mindful of the fact that the data that they're uploading is probably going to be used for other things. And if you're comfortable with that, then you're comfortable with that. Good advice. Last thing. So we started at the top.

I mentioned that your goddamn Mets beat my Red Sox. They play again today. I think they play a couple more times. But I'm a little nervous man about this season actually happening. I'm shoehorning this into Paze of the world because technically the MLB is an international league. The Florida Marlins season is now temporarily suspended after 17 players tested positive for the coronavirus. This feels like it's going to be a big problem. There's no like bubble system like the NBA has to quarantine players in one place.

Teams are bigger. There's more travel. I understand why, right? You can't like shrink down the league. I guess you could have done like multiple bubbles or something. How are you feeling about the likelihood that the MLB is going to happen, college football, the NFL? I mean, I guess the NFL has shown a willingness to continue playing a game at great health

risk to the players. So maybe they're in a different category here. But I don't know, 17 players on the Marlins seem like a lot. Yeah, I had this feeling watching baseball that I'm not going to be watching a World Series at the end of this process. As much as I wish I could and wish it would happen. I mean, it's a microcosm for what's happening more broadly in the country, like just this incapacity to do everything necessary to deal with this. An inability in this case to get on top of it, even after it was known that some of these players were sick or tested positive.

They were still playing, and that's how more people got sick. You know, so baseball is going to have to obviously tighten this down. But I think we all have to, like, I want sports as much as anybody. It sucks not having sports. But, like, you know, are we going to make college? kids who aren't even paid to play, like no way that should happen. There should not be college football, right? At least these professional athletes are kind of making choices and have a means, right? There's college sports, to me, sounds insane to risk. And at the end of the day, it's like,

nobody is happy with where things are, but the reality is it may be better off to just accept that 2020 is going to suck, you know, and we'll all come back at this in 2021, because otherwise, there could be, you know, a lot more of this. Yeah, I mean, to all the people who think, like, well, they're young, they're healthy, they're pro athletes, they'll get the flu, it'll go away, they'll be fine. I mean, there's a 27-year-old pitcher on the Red Sox who now is a heart condition and can't play because of the coronavirus. For every player you see, there's a coach or a manager or trainer who could be in his or her 50s, 60s, 70s who could literally die if they catch it. I mean, there's a lot of ways this thing breaks worse than a bunch of players not getting the

disease and not being able to go this weekend. Yeah, you know, and we, And we don't fully know what the long-term consequences of having a severe case of this are, you know, heart disease, lung disease, you know, that, by the way, as you point out, can impact athletes' careers disproportionately. So, man, I would err on the, like, I'd love to see sports, but I just, I hope they err on the side of caution in all regards. And I truly hope that these college kids who aren't paid, which is a whole other atrocity, are not forced to do this either.

Yeah, I agree with that. Okay, we're going to take quick break and we come back. We're going to have Ben's interview with Yonit Levy about everything that's happening politically in Israel, including the coronavirus, including these massive protests that we're seeing. And my deep abiding hope that one day, B.B. Netanyahu is not in charge. So stay tuned. Hey, I'm Akela Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. We're the hosts of What a Day, Crooked Media's Daily News podcast. Look, we understand keeping up with a flood of news every day is hard. There are updates on

coronavirus, Disney reopenings, animal news. What else? So much else. But we're here to help you cut through all that. We break down the biggest news stories each day and help you understand what's important and what you can do about it, all in 20 minutes or less. Episodes of what a day come out every morning, Monday through Friday at 4 a.m. Eastern, wherever you listen to podcasts. But you actually don't have to listen that early. Don't get up that early, please. I'm now very happy to be joined by the Israeli journalist Yonit Levitt. Yonit currently anchors Israel's top primetime news program.

She's someone who's interviewed me, and Unite, I think those were probably much tougher interviews than this one is about to be. But you're as smart as anyone I know about Israeli politics, so really glad to have you on finally. Thank you, Ben. It's great to be on, and I'm wondering how the tables have turned. I mean, I've been asking these tough questions for so many years. And finally, revenge is yours. Yes, we're serving government long enough, and they give you a podcast, is what we've learned in America. So, look, we're really happy to have you on because in the last few weeks, with everything going on here, I think Americans have increasingly seen these images of mass

protests that have broken out nationwide in Israel. And I know that these have many causes. Prime Minister Ninhardin now is handling of the coronavirus, some concerns around, you know, anti-democratic moves. He's currently facing charges related to corruption. But I wanted to ask you, what set off these protests? Who is leading them? Why have they grown so large? And how have you seen them evolve in the last couple of weeks. Well, I mean, it's really interesting, and we are living in the age of unprecedented events, right? But this really is unprecedented. And there are many groups protesting. They don't have a central leadership and they don't have a clear leader. But what they do have is a lot of frustration and a lot of rage, and it is targeted against Netanyahu personally.

Now, you have to sort of say that there are two main groups in particular. The people who oppose Netanyahu politically and their main agenda is to push them out of office. And then you have to, office, you know, they're furious at what they see as the Prime Minister betraying their values and not resigning after being indicted. Now, these are people who in generally have been protesting against Netanyahu for years and years. But the second group that sort of was brought forth because of the coronavirus are younger Israelis, middle of the road, some of them are even Netanyahu voters who are hurting very badly in the wake of the coronavirus and the economic crisis, right and the pandemic has dealt a critical blow to their financial situation they see a prime minister

who in their eyes not only doesn't realize this right and comes you know starts setting up an economic plan he declares with pomp and circumstance but then the money gets stuck in bureaucracy and they don't receive the money they don't see it but they also see a prime minister at the same time that they are struggling asks for tax exemptions for himself right and they see him dealing and what they think is petty politics instead of helping them out. And they're furious. So for the first time in a long time, Netanyahu is really at a sync with some of his supporters. And this is a man with very sharp political instincts. And of course, the coronavirus is the backdrop of all this. So you have to say, Ben, we're not seeing a revolution here, right? I mean, Israel is a democracy. Netanyahu, if he will be replaced, will be replaced in the ballot box. And on election day, however close or far that may be. So you mentioned election day. I mean, what are the goal of these protests? I know some people are obviously calling for Netanyahu to resign. We've seen very powerful images of protesters kind of outside of its residents. But when you look at the broad-based and these two groups you talk about,

what would they like to happen next? Is this about getting, you know, just relief from the economic fall of the coronavirus, or is it about a desire for political change? And if it's political change, you know, Yonita, I know you've had to anchor three election nights in the last couple of years. Are you headed to a fourth sometime soon? Where do you see this going? God help me, if we're ready for a fourth. I should rigor at not being paid per election night broadcast and only a monthly salary. But seriously, we may well be staring down the barrel of fourth elections in a year and a half. I mean, just take a moment to try and realize what that means. If we do take that reckless road, it will be because Netanyahu decided to take that road,

not because the protesters did. Now, we have to say something about the option of fourth elections because it has been discussed rather loudly in Israel in the past week. And we have to say that if we will have these fourth elections, they will be different from that cycle of three elections that you mentioned. Because at the end of the third election, in March 2020, when coronavirus is on the rise for the first time, Benny Gantz, Netanyahu's main challenger, who fought as well as he knows how, and blocked Netanyahu's victory three times, basically in a shocking move, joined forces with him, right, and established a unity government, thus losing the confidence of his voters. I'm saying that because this time around, there's an opposition that is

deeply, deeply fractured, right? And we always said about Benny Guns that he doesn't have of the killer instinct. Well, it appears that he does have the killer instinct, but it's directed towards his own political career. But seriously, you know, the rationale for Nenayahu is let's go to elections as quickly as possible. I don't have a challenger. The more I wait, Corona and economy might deteriorates. And of course, the main part of his trial commences in January. It's still very complicated if he wants fourth elections. You know, he has to break the agreement with guns. It's a reckless move, and he's going to have to convince Israelis that it's something that's worthwhile and he's not doing it just because of his legal predicament. But when you ask what the

goal is, that was a long-winded answer to a very short question. I apologize for that. When you ask what the goal is, these protesters, again, part of them want to see him out as quickly as possible. The other part just want some sort of assistance with their economic woes. But we have seen 6,000 people outside of the Prime Minister's residence last Saturday. People standing around, you know, know, different crossroads in Israel from south to north. So this is a big, big deal. Yeah. Well, you need to give a long answer because it's Israeli politics,

like American politics always needs a long answer. So to unpack some of the other things lurking in the background here, you mentioned the corruption trial. You know, he began standing trial for these charges earlier in the spring. Now the trial is to pick back up in January, as you mentioned. What's going on with that? Why this pause? How much do you think this has shaped kind of Netanyahu's view of his own political situation? Where do you see that storyline going? Why the pause? Because sadly, the Israeli judicial system works

slowly. And I know that looking at it from the American system that works quite swiftly, it seems strange. But there's no, I mean, there's no foul play here. I mean, the proceedings aren't compromised. it's just the way that the Israeli system works. It's very slow. When you look at Omerd's trial, Prime Minister Omerd, who was Netanyahu's predecessor, that took two years, right? So this is, by Israeli standards, by the way,

the fact that the judge said this week that Naini will be required to show up three times a week when his trial commences in January is actually quite quick. But I think, again, the salient point is that Netanyahu, and again we talked about the elections, Netanyahu, if he wins, and this is important to say again,

for three attempts, he did not win a majority in Israel. The magic number in Israel is 61. You need 61 members of Knesset to form a coalition and to set up your government. He failed to do that three times. If he wins, and this is right his big dream, if he manages to do that, he will try in any way to delay the trial

to maybe, again, in his wildest dreams, somehow managed to stop the trial completely, right? If he manages to either seek immunity for the Knesset or a bill that retroactively prevents the trial, this is all sort of in fantasy land right now, because again, he failed to do that three times around. But that would be his plan. His plan would be to try and delay the trial as much as he can. You know, he, of course, would say this is a witch hunt, there is nothing here, et cetera, et cetera,

texts that could seem familiar to you from other examples. So basically in the current status quo, right, he doesn't have the strength in the Knesset to do some of those more extreme things you mentioned like have immunity, you know, delay or cancel this trial. And so the incentive for another election might just be to try to address that problem. But at the same time, he doesn't seem to be in particularly strong political standing, right? I mean, so that's kind of a dilemma he's facing. Exactly. And on the one hand, as you say, to finally break out and have that success and try and delay his trial. On the other hand, of course, this is a huge gamble, right? Coronavirus, the economic crisis, it is a huge gamble. And that's why I think he has not yet decided what to do. So another issue we watched closer from here is possible annexation of certain. settlement blocks in the West Bank. A lot of build up to this, a lot of anticipation of this.

It seems to be somewhat on hold now. How has the current political dynamic, the protest, affected annexation, and where does that issue current this now? Again, annexation has been put on freeze right now because of the situation in Israel, right? I have to tell you that we put out a poll a few weeks ago, asking Israelis what they care about most. And, you, you know, And somewhere between 70 and 80% said the one thing they care about the most is coronavirus and their economic woes. You want to guess, Ben, how many Israelis said they care about annexation? Definitely less than 50%, I would imagine, right?

4%. Four percent. So you, you know, I think that was an important moment for Netanyahu to realize that if he's trying to push forth this plan, Israelis are not with him. They're not on the same page. they're probably not in the same library as he is. And I think it's important to try and say this right now. First of all, there have been, as you know, many warnings around the world, for example, you know, and from Arab states, the ambassador of the UAE to Washington had a strong warning

directly to the Israeli people about the risks of annexation. The White House pushed the breaks on this, right? Realizing that in Nahu's coalition, he doesn't have coalition, even though he does have a coalition, Benny Gantz is not with him on this annexation thing. I mean, Beni Gans was signaling the White House saying, you know, guys, you should push the breaks on this right now. And of course, as I said, it's the coronavirus in Israel and in the U.S. that created this situation where people have more urgent things to deal with. But I would want to say this, Ben. I mean, you've known Israel for a long time. You know that annexation has been for many years an idea that.

kind of lived in the fringes of the Israeli political spectrum. I mean, Israelis, you know, maybe there was a politician, one or two politicians who talked about it, but no one acted upon this. And what is different now is that Donald Trump signaled that this is a possibility. Now, of course, this raises the question. What happens if Trump loses? On the one hand, this could be a signal for the Israeli right saying, okay, guys, it's now or never, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But in the other hand, Beebe has always been kind of trepidacious when it comes to making those kind of sharp, stark moves. And he might be afraid of the Biden administration trying to rescind annexation. So I would basically say that it's off the radar right now, but it's not completely off the table. Yeah. No, it's interesting that at a time, you know, Netanyahu often focuses on security threats, Iran, issues related to the Palestinians. You know, people are focused on COVID and the economic fallout. there like they are here. It makes complete sense.

So here there's obviously been this debate, and we've, you know, talked about it on this podcast, within the Democratic Party, about how to respond to the moves by the Nanyahu government in recent years, first in, you know, breaking with my old boss Barack Obama, very publicly and politically on the Iran deal, then embracing Trump. And then, of course, this kind of momentum towards annexation, which cuts against, you know, the Democratic Party's platform support. supporting two states. And you and I actually met in Washington, which feels like a million years ago, but it's only a few months ago. Yeah, you were kind of traveling around evaluating Democratic

Party views of Israel. And the debates have been, okay, is there have to be some conditionality of assistance of Israel takes a step of annexation? Are there other things that we can do to kind of revive a Moribund two-state solution? How closely are people, people in Israel following these debates in the Democratic Party. And what would you say to Democrats about how the debate is being received inside of Israel? Well, first of all, Israelis follow it closely. And I think it's okay to say that they're interested in how this affects them. Now, again, through Israeli eyes, there are two things that are going on here. One is the drift of the Democratic Party away from Israel, which I think Israelis think, is things.

they don't have any control over, they may be wrong, right? And the second thing that is going on is Netanyahu and the Israeli right drifting away from the Democratic Party. Now, it might not shock you, Ben, to hear that many would emphasize the first point and sort of deemphasize the second and maybe even failed to see the connection between the two. But definitely, Israelis are following the debate inside the Democratic Party. It's very interesting to follow, right, between the centrists and the progressives. And we talked about this when we met, right? that for the first time, Israelis heard prominent presidential candidates talking about conditioning aid to Israel. I do think many Israelis breathed the side of relief when it became clear that Joe Biden

is the nominee. But yes, they are conscious of the fact that this is an issue that should be addressed. And, you know, this is obviously, you know, being discussed in the context of annexation, but, you know, the other policy, main policy difference previous administration that one I served in was Iran, obviously. You need, somewhere there's tape of you grilling me on every detail of the Iran deal. I always like to start with you before moving to the U.S. media because I knew you'd really give me my paces on that. But the thing I'm watching now, closely.

By the way, it's not somewhere, Ben. The recording is right on my bedside, and I see it occasionally when I need to remember what a sharp journalist I used to be. Yes. Yes. Well, back when there was like highly substantive things to discuss. But right now we're watching this kind of string of explosions inside of Iran. You and I might both have our suspicions that those might not just be happening by coincidence.

You know, one of the things that I've wondered is, you know, whether or not, as with the talk of annexation, you might see much more aggressive Israeli action against Iran and its nuclear infrastructure. And I run up to an election, even in a transition. I remember in 2008 when Obama got elected, that's, you know, the Gaza war took place. Are people watching this situation closely? Are there concerns that, despite, I think, the very broad concerns in Israel about Iran, are there concerns that this could escalate more dramatically than what we've even already seen?

Well, first of all, Israelis are definitely watching this closely. And I think, you know, generally speaking, in the realm of the hyperbolemen hypothetical, right? I think it's important to ask, what is the end game, right? I mean, let's say one of us was intimately involved with the Obama administration Iran policy and with the JCPOA, right? And I think the important thing to ask ourselves now is at the point that we are, right, what would you advise the Biden administration? Would you say, you know what, try bringing Iran back to the negotiating table and maybe creating a deal like the JCPOA a little better than the JCPOA. And then I'm turning the tables back on you and asking, do you think that if that is

what you would recommend, maybe, maybe the fact that you have leverage, maybe the fact that advanced centrifuges are blown up in the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz is not necessarily a bad thing. I know I'm probably getting you all Huffy. Am I getting you all Huffy, Ben? No, but look, I've heard that argument. I don't, the reason I don't agree with it is essentially that, look, you got to get, I would like to see us get back to the foundation of what was in the JCPOA to build on, right? I mean, obviously, you know, the other concerns people have, provisions expiring,

ballistic missiles, you know, you can't get to those things unless you stop a nuclear clock. And I think the only way to solve the nuclear clock with any degree of confidence is a diplomatic agreement that, you know, has an inspections and verification regime. And my worry is that the combination of action, sanctions, and whatever's happening now, you know, is going to make it, it's going to be hard enough, I think, to get Iran to come back into a deal that it feels like, rightly, the U.S. violated before they did. I worry about this kind of making it politically impossible for the Iranians to find that road back. But, you know, we'll see. I mean, what's interesting is that if that's the theory of the Israeli government, it's interesting to me that that's a theory, and I'm not saying you suggested that, but if that is the theory of the Israeli government, it suggests that their policy isn't just capitalizing the moment of Trump.

It's also perhaps trying to shape whatever negotiation a Biden administration has, right? I mean, that may be another way of looking at it. I would make this point. This isn't an issue, I believe, of timing. I'm going to throw you to a very strange direction right now, but bear with me. There was a great Hollywood producer called Robert Evans, who once said that luck is the combination of opportunity meets preparation, right? I doubt that he ever thought anyone would use that sentence while talking about the Iranian

nuclear program, but what I'm trying to say is that these kinds of events, like what happened in the tons. again, I don't know who did it, but these kinds of events have, need preparation, they need opportunity, they need intelligence. This does not happen because someone says, okay, we have two months to shape something. Let's do it quickly. Yeah, no, I understand that. And, you know, I guess it's the one way to look at it, though, is that there's no way in which this would be happening if there was still a JCPOA, right? The U.S. wouldn't permit it, you know. And so to me, the basic policy tradeoff continues to be, can you roll back the Iranian nuclear program with greater degree of confidence through diplomatic agreement or through kind of ad hoc actions like this?

And that's where they'll have to be an alignment, or, you know, between the U.S. and the P5 plus one. And the question of how Israel positions itself in that, is it a spoiler or is it essentially excessive? that new reality if Joe Biden's elected, that will be an interesting test, early test of a Biden-Metanyahu relationship, you know? For sure, for sure. But again, as frustrated as you are, looking at the fact that President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, I think, again, the question to ask is, what now? What do we do now? And what do we do now if Joe Biden is elected president? If I had answers for that, I would be running for office in Israel, but I do not. And I will not. No, I appreciate it. Well, look, we covered a lot.

I hope to get back to Israel when we're freed from our homes. How has COVID been for you? I know you've got young family and you've got high-stress job. I mean, it can't be great. As best as I can with the world turned upside down. How are you doing over there? Yeah, as best I can with the world turned upside down. you know, and school probably not opening in the fall.

Learning had a homeschool of three and a five-year-old at times. I hear you. All right, well, look, it's great talking to you. Hopefully we'll have you on again to cover developments as they appear in Israel, and I hope you guys are staying safe and well. You too. Thanks to Yonit for joining the show today, Ben. Thanks to you.

I hope I didn't bum you out with all this baseball talk at the end, I feel like. No, baseball is my favorite sport, man. I'm bummed out that there's not much of a baseball season. And I'm bummed out as always watching Taiwanese fans, like, you know, having the time of their lives in the stands because they... Love life. They crushed. They're just loving life. I didn't know this Sheldon Adelson thing. That's fucking brutal. That's all I need. I mean, at least the payroll will be bigger, but I don't know, it's not worth it.

Do you buy these rumors that Barack Obama is going to buy an NBA team someday? Look, I think Barack Obama is going to be very involved with the NBA one way or another. And, yeah, being a great owner, but, you know, they're growing their global business. They're in Africa. other and obviously we talked about China. So I think Barack Obama, you know, world's biggest NBA fan is going to be a big asset for the NBA. That would be fun. That would be a fun gig. All right, buddy. Well, great to see you. Thanks everybody for listening. And we will talk to you next week. Potta of the World is a product of crooked media. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.

Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Chris Basil. Kyle Seiglin is our sound engineer. Special thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Malkonian, and Milo Kim, who film and share our episodes as videos every week.