Pod Save the World - An assassination in Haiti and protests in Cuba

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

Tommy and Ben discuss the assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, the ongoing protests in Cuba, how President Biden should respond to ransomware attacks, new US ambassador nominations, the impact of heat waves on marine life, a new dating app in Iran, and soccer and Olympics news. Then Haitian journalist Widlore Meráncourt talks to Tommy about the political situation in Haiti and the context for American intervention in the country.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/podsavetheworld. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, we're one week before being back in studio. I get to see your beautiful face. Maybe we'll shave. I don't know. I'm kind of giving up on life. Maybe I'll dress up, you know. Maybe I'll wear pants. And I'm really excited. I'd be there this week, Tommy, except I'm on a vacation with friend of the pod, Mike Gottlie. I know. I'm jealous of you. I wish I'd gone with you guys and we could have recorded there. Yeah, but yeah, I just can't wait to be back in person. Speaking of dressing like an adult, I had to buy a suit the other day for the first time and I don't know, six, since my wedding. It was not a great feeling when it came to the fit or the cost or just putting one on anyway, but, you know, slowly baby steps back to life. Well, I can tell you, I was thinking about this because it was like the kind of crunch

of this virtual book tour is winding down by after the fall if you haven't already. I realize that there are these days where I sit, in a room and talk for like six or seven hours and I'm like the only person in the room and like what if there was just a camera on that we didn't know about the people on the other side of the screen like it would just look like a man who'd gone insane sitting in a room just talking about authoritarianism for six hours I was like I need to be around some other people please honestly I love imagining you like that just like in the Charlie Rose studio by yourself at like six in the morning I just denounce Singer Erdogan or Victor Orban.

Somebody. Anybody, one of those guys, something. Oh, lots of big news this week, Ben. So we're going to start with the assassination of the president of Haiti, these major protests in Cuba. I'm really interested to hear what you think about that. The debate over how Joe Biden should respond to these ransomware attacks, the election results in Ethiopia are finally in. Some climate change news and some lighter stories out of Iran and South Korea. Lots of soccer and Olympic news.

And then our guest today is a guy named Widlaw, Marin Court. He's a journalist who covers Haiti. He called in just a few minutes ago from Port of Prince. He helped me dig a little deeper into this assassination, the political fallout. And then like, there's a lot of reporting. And then there's the facts that we know. And I think he really helps sort of separate the two out. So that was really great.

And then, Ben, you know, we love doing sports here on Pod Save the World. But if you want to listen to people who actually know what they're talking about, tune in to Take Line. It's every Tuesday. It's a fantastic podcast. They cover the intersection of sports. Love Take Line. Politics. Yeah, love Jason. Former WNBA star Renee Montgomery. She's awesome. She's awesome. She's really good and she knows her shit. She can break down these games. So subscribe wherever you get your podcast. So let's start with Haiti and just indulge me for a minute. It's a lot of backdrops with us now because it's been a week. So last week, you know, a group of trained assassins stormed the home of Haitian President Joe Bonnell. Moise and murdered the president and wounded his wife.

She's recovering in Miami now. The men were said to move in military formations. They claimed to be DEA agents as they entered. At least 21 men from Columbia are believed to be part of the assassination team. Couple are dead. The rest are in Haitian custody. Colombian officials are reportedly looking into trips to Colombia by a member of President Mouiz's security detail.

Haitian authorities have also arrested a Florida-based Haitian-born doctor named Emmanuel Senan. They say he was the one who hired a. a Florida-based security company that then recruited all these mercenaries. And he reportedly once said he was sent by God to take over the presidency of Haiti. So that's not great. In case you were wondering, you know, listeners wondering why so many of these people are from Columbia. It's because Columbia has a really well-trained military, in part because of U.S. assistance.

And security contractors often look to Columbia for recruits. That said the family members of some of these Colombian meds said they were told that the mission was to protect government officials, not assassinate them. So there's a lot of skepticism here and there's understandable skepticism about how this hit team could have gotten in and out of a fortified president's home without some sort of cooperation from Moy's security detail. The assassination has created a huge political vacuum. A lot of people fear it's going to lead to more violence. A quick summary of that political fallout is you have two different men claiming they're the rightful prime minister and fighting for power. The parliament isn't fully functioning because President Moyes dissolved it back in 2020.

so they can't really step in. In the line of succession to the presidency is unclear because the position that's supposed to be next in line is the president of Haiti Supreme Court. And that position is currently vacant because the last person to hold it died of COVID last month. The Haitian government is called on U.S. forces to come to Haiti to help stabilize the country. Everyone seems to agree that's a bad idea. So hopefully that will not happen. You know, Ben, again, we dig into this more in the interview later in the episode.

But I want to get your general reaction to this story because I think it was shocking to all of us that this could happen, that you could break into a president's home, and then just sort of get a sense of what you make of the apparent role of this Florida-based doctor and sort of, you know, the concern that, you know, the U.S. could be seen as being behind this. I mean, this is just a wild and deeply concerning story in every way, shape, and form. I mean, first on this kind of weird nexus to Florida and Columbia, I mean, part of what's happening here is, you know, Colombia has a trained military. They also have had paramilitary organizations operating in Columbia, and it's been kind of a hub for certain kinds of activities over the decades, sometimes with U.S. support in terms of, yeah, like you said, security contractors, people being trained to engage in various missions across the Americas.

And you have this situation where Florida has long been kind of a hub for people coming up from Latin America to plot. I mean, in the Cuban case, which we'll get to, everybody's kind of regrouped in Florida to try to plot, you know, the Bay of Pigs or what have you. But just moving the tape up to recently, I mean, we had this coup attempt in Venezuela, which nobody talks about, right, which happened, which was planned in Florida with some guys who were former U.S. Special Forces who were sitting in prison in Venezuela. We've had reports of like, you know, Mar-a-Lago, like, you know, kind of guns for higher soldiers of fortune wandering around Mar-a-Lago pitching coups in various countries down there. Now we've got, this is different. This is like maybe this Haitian doctor, who knows what it is. We got to get our arms around this.

Like, what is, you know, like the U.S. should not be a launching pad for efforts to destabilize countries across Latin America. Like, that's not a good part of our history. And we're not, you know, not suggesting any way the U.S. is behind this in any way or even, like, permitting this to happen, although I'm sure Trump pretty much did. But I do think there's something to look into here around Florida kind of regenerating as this place where this kind of weird mixture of political saviors or self-appointed saviors and soldiers of fortune and right-wing interests and other interests, you know, kind of converging. So that's one point. I think on Haiti, you know, I was thinking a lot about this, Tommy, like, you know, we try to give people analysis and proposed solutions. I want to be honest and saying, I just don't know what to do. I don't, like, this country is so profoundly broken in its political system. As you just sketched out, there's no one really in charge. There's gangs. There's, there's. There's. disorder, aid money that's been dumped in has been corrupted, the international community's attention

waxes and wanes, which, you know, I think the only thing we can say is that I think some time needs to be taken in the U.S. government and every government that wants to be a part of an effort to try to address these circumstances, sitting down with whatever Haitian civil society we can engage with and the Haitian diaspora in this country, to not, and this may sound weird in a crisis environment, but to not rush it, you know, like, let's take a step back. What is like the decade effort that needs to happen here? Because there's no short-term fix. And I think, you know, better to do some listening and to try to build a truly kind of constructive multi-year, multilateral effort that has some buy-in from some Haitians and some support from the diaspora, you know,

because we otherwise we risk repeating the mistakes of the past. Yeah, you know, Ben wasn't on the interview with Lord Marincoort, the Haitian journalist I just spoke with, but you know, what you're saying is echoing a lot of the points he made. I mean, the United States started invading Haiti in 1914 under Woodrow Wilson and occupied the country many times, like several presidents, including Barack Obama, sent troops to Haiti. that was part of a relief effort, but even that relief effort after the earthquake in 2010 turned catastrophic because there was this cholera outbreak that stemmed from the UN peacekeepers. So, you know, it's just the old adage, right, the road to hell is paved by good intentions.

I mean, U.S. boots on the ground, U.S. assistance. It's unclear whether it has made the situation better in a lot of cases you could argue that it's made the situation works. And I think a lot of Haitians would argue that's because the U.S. didn't listen to people in Haiti when they design these programs. They just decided to do it their own way. So I think your advice here makes a lot of sense. Like, listen, get it right. Yeah. Don't rush. Yeah. I mean, you were down there. I mean, like it just, did you get any opportunity to get an impression of how Haitians were looking at the U.S. the last time we were rushing a bunch of stuff down there

when you were down there after the earthquake? Like, there was the acute relief effort, which I think was, was successful, right? I mean, when you can suddenly bring thousands of disaster relief workers into a country to physically look for people who are trapped in buildings or get supplies on the ground when there's not enough water or food, right? I mean, there was sort of like that acute moment early on where it was really working. I think the reconstruction effort and then this UN peacekeeping effort is where things really went south and where, you know, you had incidents where people were promised places to work, homes,

whatever it might be and just never delivered on those projects and then aid money, you know, kind of evaporated, you know, was paid to contractors or, you know, siphoned off by corruption. So it just didn't pan out. And obviously you'd be disappointed if you're a Haitian. Yeah, yeah. No. And hopefully this is a chance to learn from those. And some of this was just, I mean, the cholera outbreak. I mean, it's so much has befallen this country. But I do think, like, take some time here. There'll be a political crisis and instability that you'll have to manage as best you can. But, like, be very deliberate.

But, again, I think the U.S. needs to be committed here. This is very close to us. We have a lot of ties with Haiti. And the whole world has a lot of history of screwing over Haiti. So this is not just, you know, charity. This is, and we'll get to this in Cuba, too. this is a bit of a responsibility too. Yeah.

Well, I was going to say, speaking of countries that have been often screwed over by the U.S., let's turn to Cuba. So over the weekend, hundreds of Cubans demonstrated in several cities around the country to protest shortages of medicine and food. Cubans have been, you know, suffering with rolling blackouts and then shortages of even the most basic medical supplies, like, you know, aspirin, for example. On Monday, President Biden said, quote, we stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom and the United States calls on the Cuban

regime to hear their people, end quote. The Cuban government blamed outside agitators for the protests and called on supporters to fight back. There were some reports on Monday and Tuesday, Ben, that of more protests, and I think this time they were met with violence and arrests by security forces. Ben, can you talk about the historical context and significance of what it means to see protests like this in Cuba specifically? And then, you know, the second question is like, what steps you think Biden should or not do here? I mean, the first thing about the historical context is you'll hear people say, this is unprecedented, this is astonishing, you know, some very smart correspondence down there. I used to talk to a lot, echoing that line, even though the scale is only kind of in the hundreds. And that's

because there's such a kind of total prohibition on kind of mass political activity of any sort in Cuba, you know, that really functions as a police state. And there are these individualized actions of dissent or small groups of people. But to see what looks like a protest that we've seen in a lot of places, you just don't see that in Cuba. And so that does speak to a degree of dissatisfaction. I think it also speaks to, by the way, also the fact that these people had, you know, a capacity with greater internet access in Cuba, you know, to be in some way in touch with one another. So that's the extent to which I think this does signal something is going on. and that this is different than something we've seen before.

The other side of that coin, and I was thinking about this a lot watching this all play out, is Cuba is a police state. And we live through Venezuela on this podcast where Washington and Miami kind of went into hyperspace around protests and kind of saw that as the harbinger of imminent regime change. And let's not confuse that. You know, like, even if you want to see democratic change in Cuba, right, which, again, most Americans do, this is a sign of serious satisfaction of cracks in the regime, of young people being frustrated. This doesn't mean that some thundering denunciations from Washington and tweets from, you know, Marco Rubio are going to be the final straw that breaks the back of the, you know, Cuban Communist Party. So that, that, that, that, that, that I just, I've been thinking a lot

about this and dealing with a lot of emotions watching this because, you know, in part, in part because I worry about how it is most likely to play out, right, which is, there are these protests, there's this kind of spike in attention from Washington, and it's very performative. And then there's a crackdown. And then life is continuing to be miserable for the Cuban people. So that leads me to kind of what you would do. I mean, I, you know, I profoundly believe that the United States needs to be doing more to help the Cuban people. We should be trying to provide them with vaccines. And if the Cuban government says no to that, by the way, then say, well, that's on them. We're trying to give you guys vaccines to deal with COVID 90 miles from Florida.

We should be, I very much believe, allowing Cuban Americans and all anybody to send remittances to Cubans. That is money that goes to them directly. They, they are, protesting for freedom. They're also protesting because they're starving. And I get that you don't want to line the pockets of the Cuban government, but remittances goes to people, right? And the same thing with allowing travel when post-COVID, obviously. But that was something that was pumping resources into a Cuban private sector. People were staying in Airbnbs in Cuban people's homes. That was helping Cubans, right? Helping them directly. Finding ways that we were trying to do at the the Obama years to allow for more U.S. philanthropy to be active in Cuba. There are a lot of things

that the United States could be doing to directly benefit and signal support and try to help the Cuban people. I mean, I think what we should be doing is lifting the embargo that has punished them so mercilessly and collectively as it is. And to the people who say, well, this is, you know, what about democracy? They released, when we were normalizing dozens of political prisoners. they allowed for and agreed to the expansion of the internet and U.S. technology platforms in Cuba that people are clearly now using. Like the maximum pressure stuff happens and all that stuff gets rolled back. So like the idea that we're just going to turn this place into such a pressure cooker that it explodes,

I think is it doesn't do anything for actual Cubans. Yeah, you know, it's funny. I was looking at a lot of the statements coming out of Florida politicians and, you know, they were sort of, some might argue, overheated in a bipartisan manner. But then hearing you talk now and looking at some of what Rubio was saying, like Marco Rubio sent this letter. He first of all, he criticized Biden for not speaking out fast enough, like whatever. Okay. Again, I think it's good when presidents think before they speak, but Marco might feel differently. But, you know, one of Rubio's ideas in this letter where he laid out like a six point plan to help Cuba was

ID the people carrying out violent oppression, place them on a travel ban list. Good idea. Of course, we should be doing that. But then, you know, in contrast, to you, Ben, he said, we should give COVID vaccines and assistance, but only if that relief is given out by trusted international NGOs. And like, I read that and thought, no, but let's give people vaccines as fast as possible if they need them, right? I mean, there's like a lack of humanity in some of these, you know, 60-year-old embargo-driven approaches. When here's the thing that bothers me so much about this is because people may listen to me and say, well, Ben, this sounds discordant, you know, you're always complaining about authoritarianism

and the need to sanction people in Belarus and stuff like that. And then you're complaining about these sanctions in Cuba. I agree with the idea of there being travel bans and targeted sanctions on people who are involved in bad things. That is not what the U.S. embargo on Cuba is. It is a total, no country in the world is sanctions like this. Like these people are completely cut off from basic goods by our policies. Like the Cuban government is responsible for plenty of bad things. I mean, no way would justify their repressive behavior. But you can't go to Cuba and look at the scale of the poverty that we are responsible for and not conclude, at my judgment, from a moral perspective and a policy perspective, that, yes, the place for sanctions is to focus it on the

people that are doing bad things, not to focus it on every single person in the country. And it hasn't worked, you know. And so what frustrates me about, like, All of this, you know, is that this should be hopeful moment in the sense that Cubans are mobilizing. And the biggest message of Barack Obama delivered when he went to Cuba in 2016 is, hey, look, I want the future of Cuba to be determined by the Cuban people, not by the U.S. government or by the Cuban Communist Party, but by the actual Cuban people. That's actually democracy. It's not saying that we get to impose our will from Washington or Miami or that, you know, Diaz Canal, who's clearly not up to it in behaving. horribly, you know, somehow speaks for the Cuban Revolution permanently. No, like, those people protesting, I want to hear what they have to say. Like, I want to listen to them. And by the way,

if you listen to most Cubans, like they did, like, U.S.-based public opinion research around the opening that we did in normalization. Ninety-seven percent of them wanted to lift the embargo when it opened things up. That seems like a lot. That's pretty overwhelming. So I hope that, again, that the Biden administration, you know, realizes that, you know, There is an opportunity here in the sense that the Cubans are frustrated. The government there is no longer led by a Castro. So this is not, you know, Fidel or Raoul going out in uniform and trying to rally the troops, although I saw they kind of pulled Raoul out of retirement today, which shows you how nervous

they are about the lack of legitimacy that they feel that their government has. There's opportunity, but you have, like, if you're not engaging, if you're not, willing to engage the Cuban people on even basic things, like remittances and travel. And by the way, also, like, why is our embassy not staffed in Havana? Wouldn't it be a good time to have diplomats down there to figure out what's going on? Are they not there because of the acoustic attacks or are the alleged acoustic attacks when they were pulled back? They've never restored the embassy staff and personnel. And we now know that this is a global phenomenon, not necessarily Cuban one. And having diplomats in part, they can.

can try to figure out what the dynamic is in the government, they can try to understand who are these people protesting, you know, better, right? And so I do think that I hope the Biden team recognizes it as it kind of dust settles from this. It's not just a political drama in the U.S. And that the tools you have available are engagement and trying to show that you're on the side of the Cuban people, trying to improve their lives, trying to get more diplomats down there, get more resources down there. And yes, you can say everything that you need to say about human rights and democracy. I don't know why Cuba is the one place where in order to prove that you care about democracy, you have to put an entire country in a hermetically sealed embargo and just

relentlessly screw them for 60 years. Yeah, that seems like a bad policy. Yeah, again, I'm not questioning whether people were hurt by those, you know, whatever the attacks were in Cuba. But, you know, to your point, like, I do think like the takeaway from the segment should probably be hopefully that the Biden team will listen to the Cuban people, spend a little less time, to politicians either in Florida or Washington as they formulate a response because, you know, bad politics in Florida have gotten us into a lot of trouble in a lot of places over the years. And Cuba is one of them. And by the way, I mean, just so I can be clear here, the Cuban government should listen to the

fucking Cuban people. I mean, that should be taken as a given. Like, you know, step one. Like, step one should be a process of opening up space for the Cuban people in Cuba. They can exercise universal rights like assembly so they can access information. I just think actually that all that would be helped. If you just open things up from 90 miles away, this is not China on the other side of the world with over a billion people. Like this is, this is, like we have so much family ties to this country. Like, this should be a situation when the engagement between the American people and the Cuban people can actually accomplish what the U.S. and Cuban governments have been standing in the way of for 60 years, which is just going to moving beyond this insane conflict that above all hurts the Cuban people.

Yeah, a stalemate dating back to the Kennedy administration. Okay, so we're going to keep an eye on this one because obviously, you know, it's important what's happening on the ground and also the Biden administration will face a lot of pressure to do something. The other area where you're hearing that kind of dynamic, like pressure to do something comes with these ransomware attacks that are coming out of Russia. I mean, we didn't even talk about this latest massive ransomware attack on the show last week because they happened so frequently that like we didn't know what the hell to say about. There's like horrible thing again that we barely understand audience. But, you know, there's this debate about what Biden should do about it. And then there's, you know, Ben, you and I live through this so many times, this media framing that Biden is being tested by Putin. And he needs to look tough and we need to deter him.

And, you know, it's a little troubling all the incentives here to like act, act, act and not to just think through it. So, you know, I suspect that the debates over what to do are happening in the situation room. That's good. It's just not great when there's this like outside media pressure. So, you know, there has been some reporting on Biden's options. So Vox actually, like, talked to an expert, had this interesting list that I just wanted to run by you, Ben, and see if any of these, like, sound good to you. So one of the proposals was make this issue bigger than just cyber, right? Spell out this is like a core issue in the U.S.-Russia relationship, make it bigger, try to elevate it, make them pay more attention.

Two, consider going after Putin's personal money. Three, more coordination with the G7 and NATO. for, I'll call this one, secret hacker shit, where we go after the hackers or Russian infrastructure in some way with our like NSA cyber capabilities, whatever.

I forget what number I'm at. So last one, there's a broader debate. It's apparently happening within the government about whether the U.S. should ban or really discourage paying ransoms and try to cut off the flow of money

to these ransomware groups as a way to make this business not profitable. I wouldn't say that's a very satisfying list in part because it's quite complicated to punish Putin or punish Russia for something unless we can prove he did it or prove he supported it, right? I mean, you've made the point that things don't happen in Russia without, you know, the government knowing it's going on or having some sort of tacit understanding of it. But, you know, that still makes it challenging, I think, to directly punish them back. Any of those options make sense to you? Anything you think is missing

there? I mean, I think that probably almost all of those options. are happening, except for the going after Putin's money probably in the sense that this was clear an issue with the G7. I think that basically that summit with Putin was an effort by Biden to say this is now a cornerstone of our relationship. Cyber is now kind of in the first tier of issues. I think that this question of can the U.S. develop the kind of offensive capabilities to go after some of these networks is the one that's obviously the most opaque to those of us on the outside, but the ones that also might be quite consequential in the sense that, you know, it's not like, and again, there's a degree of technical expertise here that clearly, you

and I would admit, is eluding us. But what I can say is from having been in some rooms where these things were discussed over the years, not necessarily about Russia, but just in general. It's not like, you know, you'd necessarily have to go in and, like, you know, crash the whole electric grid of a city to flex. I mean, can you kind of take down or play cat and mouse or get inside of, you know, government, Russian government actions or ransomware networks? There's a, there's a, there's a bandwidth and degree of intensity that you can kind of hit back. And I think clearly that dials can have to turn up if this continues. Yeah. And I do think, I, I, I, you know, people for me say it, so I won't beat the drum too hard, but like this idea

of being much more public about, you know, Putin's wealth, but not just him, his circle, the people involved in this, who are they? Like, how wealthy are they? Where is their money? You know, can we go after their money if it's not in Russia? Because a lot of it washes around the international financial system. That's tangentially connected to this because the kind of mindset of criminality in Russia that governs everything from the state to these ransomware networks is it's all kind of connected, right? So I think those are all, that's the menu of options. And I think the U.S. needs to be exploring all them. The not paying ransoms make sense to me, except that that's always easier said than done as we experience in the terrorism context. You know, people will pay ransom. And you

screw the businesses. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the last meeting with Putin, I think we restored ambassadors. So at least we have someone there on the ground. Talking with the Russian officials every day from our embassy, a little more ambassador news, Ben. Right before we walked in, I saw Jeff Flake, former Republican senator from Arizona, I believe. I think so. It was going to be nominated to be ambassador to Turkey. L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti will be nominated to be ambassador to India. It's interesting.

Like, you know, I think we always thought that there would be ambassador nominees from not the Foreign Service, from other walks of life, right? Obama named John Huntsman to be ambassador to China. I'm just getting struck by like those are complicated jobs right now. India, Turkey, like, those are not, those are not cushy gigs. You're dealing with like creeping authoritarianism, you know, big disruptive politics. I mean, I don't know, it's interesting. It's interesting choices. Yeah, I mean, I was trying to think about in the Obama years, you know, we had some people who I, who I experienced. actually, you know, I think turned out to be really excellent ambassadors who, who kind of fit this bill of, like, being a very prominent person. So like Caroline Kennedy in Japan, was, you know, was just an incredible diplomat publicly. And, you know, the Japanese people saw it as a sign of

prestigious. She was there. She worked very hard. She, you know, she was very, let's just say, she was capable of getting her phone call returned from the White House of the State Department because she's Caroline Kennedy. And so. So it did, you know, that helped the relationship in a way because you could bring those issues in. But that's a pretty friendly relationship. And I think you're right, the further down the spectrum you move of the complexity and difficulty of the relationship, the more you start to think, like, you kind of want the grizzled foreign service guy in there, you know, or woman in there, you know. Turkey in particular right now is, well, both India and Turkey are incredibly fraught, complicated relationships. And I guess my hope would be to put a positive spin on it, maybe because people like Arsetti

and Flake are public figures, they might feel more obliged to speak out on issues of democracy and human rights because they have their own kind of record on that and they don't want to be seen to be enabling it. So that would be the, I think, the potential upside. The potential downside is obviously you're dropping people into incredibly complicated, multifaceted relationships. And so you want to make sure, by the way, that there's just like a killer DCM in there, the number two at the embassy and an excellent Foreign Service staff supporting it. So for weeks we have been promising you guys the results of the Ethiopian elections. Today we finally get to make good on that promise because the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia

just announced the results of the June 21st election, which itself was delayed twice. As expected, incumbent Prime Minister Abi Ahmed won overwhelmingly in his first re-election bid. However, this election was tainted by the exclusion of voters in Tigray, the northern province in Ethiopia, and other regions who have not been able to vote because of security concerns, opposition, boycotts, harassment, intimidation of members of the opposition. You know, Ben, we talked a lot about Ethiopia lately because of this horrible civil war where Prime Minister Abi sent troops to the Tigray region allied with Eritrea. There have been horrible reports of human rights abuses and other, you know, atrocities. This election happened. The prime minister won overwhelmingly. Does it say anything about his legitimacy or how the U.S. should view as government?

I mean, do you think this moves the needle at all there? I don't think so. I mean, I just think that, you know, there was so much flexing around this election in terms of, you know, the extreme version of, you know, intimidation of certain people to not vote. and kind of the old busing and the supporters, you know, from just the reports that you heard on the ground. And you couple that. I mean, look, he may be that he would have won the election in any case.

But I don't think it, and look, the reality is we're going to be dealing with him as Ethiopia's prime minister. But it doesn't diminish in any way that kind of concerns about the context in Tigray. It does signal, I guess, you know, this is the guy we're going to be dealing with for a period of time. But I don't know that it, given the parts of the country where things are, you know, obviously not at all normal, in part because of the government policy, it's hard to see it as a giant democratic stamp of legitimacy and approval. Yeah, agree with that. Let's shift back to North America because listeners might have noticed that major parts of the West and Pacific Northwest are dangerously hot. So I was 117 in Las Vegas over the weekend. parts of British Columbia hit 121 degrees last week.

Again, that's Canada hitting 121 degrees. Many homes in the region don't have air conditioning in the Pacific Northwest because it just doesn't get that hot usually. And these heat waves can be lethal. Three times more people died in British Columbia during the heat wave period than normal, we think, because of this elevated heat. They can also be lethal for wildlife. Here's example, Ben. So in the Salish Sea, which is a small sea in Washington and British Columbia, An estimated one billion, that's billion with a B, small sea creatures were basically boiled alive on the beaches in the shoreline.

So these little guys like clams and stuff, they're important to the ecosystem because they filter the water. They keep it clean. They're part of the food chain. It also hurts businesses. Commercial oyster farms operate in two to three year cycle. So a mass die off of clams and oysters and things like that can mean you're out of business until like 2023, 2024. So that's just a tiny sliver of the impact of climate change. I was trying to think of how to make this actionable for listeners, Ben.

So here's one idea. There have been these studies recently that show how news coverage of extreme weather doesn't get tied to climate change, especially local news. It just doesn't get mentioned. So one thing I think people could do is if you see that happen, reach out to your local news, your local TV station, your local paper, politely encourage them to talk about how climate change is leading to more severe weather. Because if the media is not drawing that link, how can people draw that link? I think that's an important thing we can do. I think it's incredibly important.

And, you know, it won't fix everything. I mean, we just lived through, I mean, with COVID, you know, people could be educated that, you know, if you wear a mask, you could save your life. And people would still not do that. But it does make a big difference. The one thing I just add, Tommy, is like, I've been thinking about this watching this latest season of extreme weather. The fires are kicking into gear in California again. It looks like it's going to be another record year. in that regard.

I mean, the only possibility is that we're dramatically underestimating this. And, you know, the COP conference this fall is designed to kind of re-up Paris, you know, and up the ambition. There'll be the question of what does the U.S. do with Biden's plan. The one, see, I'm just going to plan here, and we've talked about this a little bit, is there's a world in five years from now where, like, this is what the world is doing. Like, the entire apparatus of international relations is this giant. project of trying to catch up to climate change. I mean, it's going to end up there, I think,

at some point anyway, where like the dominant issue in every multilateral forum and the preponderance of our foreign policy is climate change. It's kind of just a question of how fast we get there. And I think the people in government are beginning to prepare for that. Yeah, I do too. I hope. I really hope. A couple more things. So the Iranian government, government launched an Islamic dating app in an effort to get people married and increase birth rates. According to Bloomberg news, Iran's 20-20 birth rate fell to a 100-year low. So this app then is called Hamdam or companion. Foreign dating apps are still banned in Iran. So my apologies to all the listeners hoping to swipe right on a Tehran-based haiti. But Ben, I admittedly completely missed the dating

app era because I was dating Hannah. But do you think Iranian singles are going to feel free to be their authentic selves on a regime-bless app announced by an organization in Iran that reports directly to the Supreme Leader. Is that a good setup, you think, for finding love? Yeah, let's just say that wouldn't be the first place I'd go to start sharing, like, my personal details or, like, I, too, miss a dating app, but I've got some friends who are in known, including, like, people have been through divorces, and it's, like, stumbling into a whole new world. And so they tell me all about, like, and you just text on the app and you, this and that. I would, let's just say, like, I'd be worried enough doing that with, like, just some random

company in America, you know, given, like, data protections these days. Like, I'd probably take a step back and, and go for the more old fashion pitch than the Islamic Republic's dating out. Yeah, it's probably hard enough, like, trying to be funny or keeping track of who the hell you're talking to. If you have to worry about pissing off the Supreme leader, that's, you know, that's an X factor that I'm not ready for it. Yeah, you just want to, you just want to just side-set that all together. Um, I also wanted to flag for you an interesting South Korean strategy to stop the spread of COVID that was announced after South Korea recorded 1,100 new cases on Sunday. So according to the BBC, gyms in Seoul in the

Greater Seoul area have been told not to play music with a tempo higher than 120 beats per minute and treadmills can't go faster than 3.7 miles per hour. The goal is to prevent people from breathing too hard or splashing sweat on each other. So basically, shout out to everyone who's been half-assing it at the gym, it turns out you're a patriot and you're just doing your duty to stop the pandemic. That's their spin. Half-ass-ass-it, save a life, and you don't have to deal with that person, like, cranking it up to top speed to just show what a badass they are, you know? I mean, I think we can all agree that that person needed to be reigned in anyway. I mean, probably didn't need a pandemic to do it, but you don't need that guy just being like a fucking animal on the treadmill

or something, sweating everywhere, making sure everybody sees, like, you know, that guy usually has like the music blasting so you can hear them at the next treadmill over. So, you know, maybe this can be a new normal that deals with that problem too. I can't remember the name of the gym in DC. It was like 13th and you or 14th in you. There was like a guy who used to like just climb one of these eye beams and would just hang from the ceiling or like, where those fucking masks that like simulate high altitude. I'm like buddies. Totally. Calm down. You know, just go to just go to Barry's boot kit. Just like do a gym class. Just get out of our face with this. Can you can I check a the detour on the DC gym thing real quick, which I said, like, I almost, when I read these

stories about ex-members of Congress who, like, really privileged, like, they can go to the gym, the members of, like, why would you want to keep going back to work out with, like, members of Congress? I mean, I know there's, like, you should have lobbying in the ferry stuff, but, like, tell you the only thing worse than that guy is picture, like, close your eyes and picture a lot of members of Congress and thinking of, like, wanting to have them next to you on the treadmill either, you know? You want to see Chuck Schumer in the steam room? I don't think so. Yeah, I mean, enough said.

Enough said. Or I'm good. I'll lobby somewhere else. That's cool. Chuck does seem like he likes a good steam, though. Like he seems like the kind of guy would. Oh, definitely. Yeah.

Yeah, you definitely like that friend you have who thinks that a good schvitz is a workout. Yeah, yeah. I'm kind of one of those guys myself. So, yeah, I endorse it. Hey, steam away, my friend. Speaking of workouts, let's talk a little soccer. So amazing games over the weekend. So we had Argentina winning the Copa.

America tournament, 1-0 over Brazil. That Copa, America is the South American football championship, so it's badass teams. It gives Lionel Messi, Argentina's star player, his first international championship, so that is very cool. And then over in London, England played Italy in the Euro 2020 championship, and that's the tournament that decides the best European team. So England hadn't won a major international tournament since they won the World Cup in 1966, so the entire country lost its fucking mind.

the reactions range from funny and I saw lots of videos of guys who really shouldn't be naked in public ripping their clothes off outside Wembley Stadium and there was not at all funny there were fans storming the gates fighting their way into the stadium without tickets

Italy won three to two in a shootout in extra time it was heartbreaking for the English team and then it got really ugly afterwards because there's three black players on the England side who were subjected to just vile racist abuse on social media from so-called fans. The abuse was widely condemned by fans, by

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, even Prince William. So just a few thoughts, Ben. One, international soccer has a huge racism problem. It was laid bare in this tournament and hopefully it'll get more people to take it seriously. It was unbelievably frustrating to see members of Boris Johnson's cabinet denounce these racist attacks after the game when they had been criticizing the players for taking a knee before games to raise awareness about racism. And then again, I'm glad Boris Johnson condemn this stuff, but he probably should do a little more soul-searching about his own past racist comments, maybe speak up a little earlier.

So, Ben, I noticed front of the pod, David Lammy was quoted in a bunch of places saying, you know, this is why we take a knee. And it was good to see, like, a principal leader like him speaking out. Yeah, I mean, remember, and we talked about this a few weeks ago, the report that the Johnson government kind of blessed, that concluded that there was no racism in the United Kingdom. They moved past that in Britain. How about go?

And like, you know, talk about putting the lie to that. You know, if the prime minister has to condemn the racism directed at the black athletes, like, you know, presumably there's still racism in the country. I mean, I do think that overall, that whole experience, though, like, because there is something interesting about watching these international soccer competitions, particularly the European teams, where increasingly, like, there are a lot of black and brown players on these teams. And you had that interesting debate after the World Cup when France won and, you know, with a lot of black players and was kind of proclaiming how this shows, you know, that everybody's

French when people are like, well, you know, treat everybody is equally French. And that sparked a bit of a debate. Here, too, I think what was healthy is that there was this kind of awareness of, like, look at this multiracial team. These guys, and what I loved is they all seemed to like, like each other and have each other's backs. And one of the great things about sports is it kind of shows, you know, not all the time because there's often problems on teams, but like sometimes teams demonstrate that like the problems in a society can be worked out on a team, you know, and you didn't see sniping after the game. And, you know, I think the players white and black know that everybody had kind of contributed to the run that they made and anybody can kind of have an

unlucky penalty kick here. So I think altogether it was like a, it felt like a healthy moment for England, even if it also exposed the amount of work that remains to be done and, and why people like these players have become advocates. Yeah, I mean, to your point about the English team, it was just an incredible group of players. And they really did come together and the coach supported them. And then, you know, and then you guys like Marcus Rashford, who's this fantastic. He's so good. Yeah. And so he's seen, he's a hero because he's a badass player, but also because he campaigned to convince the government to continue a free meals program during the pandemic that fed over a million kids. It was going to get cut off because schools closed during the pandemic, so they're going to cut off the school lunch program. But he stepped out and said, look, this program helped me.

He grew up poor. And so they continued it because of his advocacy. And then months later, the government voted again on extending the program and actually voted to cut off. off the free meals. And Rashford organized a task force with all these businesses and individuals to raise private money to feed these kids. And then once again, he shamed Boris Johnson's government into extending the free meals for kids. So like this guy is a saint. And the point is for these black players, it doesn't matter how good you are on the field. It doesn't matter how good a person you are off the field. You are one whatever incident, some asshole decides away from being subjected to

vile racism. And like, that is what is wrong. And that's what's awful. And that's why these guys were raising awareness about systemic racism before the games and taking a knee and why we should listen to them and not denounce them for protesting. Yeah. And we talk about a guy like Marcus Rashford.

He's, he's 23 years old. So young. And so the fact that he's already done on these things is unbelievable. The movie had on that pounc, by the way, was like, it was like a half degree shorter and it would have been like the sickest move, you know, like. Like he basically like faked the goalie to go one direction. He just blew the kick because he kind of got over it, as he said. But, you know, when you look at a guy like that, the reason this is so contested, right?

The reason people tell athletes to shut up and dribble or to not take an e-all, the rest of it, is they know that Marcus Rashford is probably a hero to just about every kid in England, whether they're white or black. And, you know, those white kids are watching that example of his activism. It's like, no, no, no, no, like, just play soccer. we don't want you to be setting this example over here of being an activist. There's a reason for the intensity of both the degree to which athletes feel compelled to be activists these days and the degree to which people want them to shut up.

Yeah, it's bullshit and they should keep talking and keep playing because they're an awesome team. Let's close with some Olympic talk. The games officially started on July 23rd, but yesterday we learned that spectators won't be allowed to most events. This comes after another spike in COVID cases in Tokyo. It's really just the latest reminder of what a headache these games have been for the Japanese people. Speaking of headaches, Ben, Team USA basketball is having a hard time right now. Yeah.

They lost Nigeria on Saturday. The first win by an African team over a U.S. men's national team for context. The U.S. beat Nigeria 156 to 73 at the 2012 Olympics. So, like, that's quite a swing. The Nigerian team has gotten a lot better. There's NBA players on the team now, right? Like, it's just a more international sport. But then two days later, Team USA also lost to Australia.

So not like the dream team so far. That said, the guys have barely been able to practice together. They're waiting on a couple players who are playing the NBA finals to join the team. So they have some time to get it together. But, you know, tough start. The USA women's basketball team plays their first exhibition this Friday. I think they've won seven straight. They're total badasses.

So we should look to them as well. I mean, I saw the Nigerian thing. I was like, maybe like they just don't have the guys out. yet. And then I saw like Kevin Durant and the team Lillard. Like they had they had like a bunch of all-MBA guys. They had some guys. They just they just beat us. I mean, one of the things to watch the NBA is the success that it's had globally, you know, if you look at the NBA itself and the percentage of players who were European, African, we've had some Australians, had to Luke Longley, you know, like, I mean, it's a global game and that's going to mean like it's not going to be like

the dream team rolling in and just steam rolling everybody. It's like a, in miniature, it's like what's happened in geopolitics. The U.S. like peaked in like the early 90s. And then like, you know, now we've got like the, you know, the very success of basketball is leading it to be internationalized. Yeah, the days of the Michael Jordan version of America drinking like eight scotches and then just dunking on everybody. And then just winning by like 70 points against people who were just honored to play them, you know.

Yeah, that's right. The best was Vince Carter. like literally dunking on that seven foot French face. Yeah. One of the best highlights of all time. I think the Knicks like may have tried to draft that seven foot French guy too is one of part of our checkered history. But I could be wrong about that.

But maybe it was another French guy we had on that. Okay. We won't talk about it. We've got to. Yeah. We won't talk about it. Can I give you three more Olympians to watch? Yeah.

Okay. Zion Wright from Jupiter, Florida, competing in skateboarding, which is going to make its Olympic debut this year. These are all Americans again, by the way. I'm feeling team USA right now. Josh Wheeler from Sacramento, California. He's competing in wheelchair rugby. That sounds like a badass sport.

He took a silver back in 2016 in the Paralympics, so this is his moment. I got to figure out what channel wheelchair rugby is on because I bet they kick the shit out of each other and it's intense. Last one. Alephine to Leamuk. She's competing in the marathon.

I cannot think of a more grueling Olympic sport. She was born in Kenya, now lives in Flagstaff, Arizona. She took first in the 2020 U.S. Olympic team trials. So feeling good about our chances. I'm a runner and I got to say like it's it's hot in Flagstaff, Arizona. Like trading around there must be intense, you know? I mean, that's got to, like, it's got to help. It's like 100. Yeah, it's like 110 degrees there. Yeah. So how do you do that? I, like, I don't know how any of these people, do any of the stuff, you know? Like, I don't know how any of these

people do any of the stuff, you know? Yours has been better shape than we'll ever be. Yeah. Again, Alephine, Toulamuck, Josh Wheeler, Zion Wright, three more badasses endorsed by Potsay of the World. By the way, now that you can pay college players for endorsements, I do think we should find and sponsor an NCAA athlete. So we should think about that. Yeah, that's a good pick. Yeah. Kick him some World O Bucks, you know, get a name on a jersey. Okay, cool.

Yeah. All right. When we come back, we take a quick break, and then we will have my interview with With Lord Marin Court about the situation on the ground in Haiti, so stick around for that. Our guest today is Widlaw Marincourt. He is the editor-in-chief of the Haitian news outlet Aibo Post and is calling in from Port-au-Prince. Widlaw, it's so great to connect with you.

It's good to be with you. I really appreciate it because I've been reading your stuff very closely the last few days and very grateful that you can make the time. So, you know, my first question to you is, you know, Haiti was dealing with some serious political challenges before President Mouis was. was assassinated. And then, you know, we had Moyes dissolving the parliament, ruling by decree. There was also a difficult economic situation made much worse by the pandemic. There was a breakdown and security and the rise of a lot of gangs and kidnappings for ransom. Has President Moyes'

assassination greatly impacted that situation on the ground for your advertising citizen? Or like, how is it impacting the people of Haiti right now? Well, I think you can see the impact on several front, right? The first impact is the deepening of the political trauma, because before the president was assassinated, you had some sort of constitutional crisis, because last February, the opposition called and said that his mandate expired, and you had discussions about that ongoing all the way until now. And now you have another crisis, because you don't have a head of government and a lot of people I talk to, a lot of constitutional lawyer I talk to talk about what they call a constitutional dessert. What is it? It's the fact that every

virtually, every democratic institution in Haiti was dismantled in the past three, four years, right? So you don't have a parliament that is functional. The parliament is two branches. You have the deputy chamber and you have the Senate chamber. The deputy chamber is nonexistent and you just have one third of the parliament. So this one third of parliament has only 10 elected officials and these 10 elected officials are the only elected officials in the country where you were supposed to have hundreds, you know, because we did not hold elections on time. We can go into details why we did not hold elections, but in fact we did not hold elections. And you have, you have a lot. this situation and you don't have a judicial system that is working properly. And on top of

that you have the world security thing, right? You have one week before the president was assassinated, about 20 people were killed by gangs. And during the month of June, at least 13,000 people flee their homes because of gang violence. And all the way until last year, actually, kidnappings and I mean not even last year actually the past for the past few years Haiti was mailed as you said by political violence assassination of opponent to the government assassination of random people and kidnappings that you know create a situation of tension and fear in the street yeah I mean you also you know you this amazing piece today that talked about you know the person who's who's

of us maybe being behind this assassination, this Florida-based doctor he's suspected of playing a lead role in organizing this assassination. Before I ask you some more questions about the political situation, what do we know about this guy and what evidence is there that he was behind this plot? Well, that's a good question because I want to stress as a journalist that where the information that we have is coming from and what we know. And I don't want to jump into conclusion, actually, which we go to what his effective war was in this war assassination thing. Because what you're hearing, of course, we have yet to hear from him directly, but we interrogated and have discussions with people who were close to him.

And these people are telling you that he is someone who had, of course, political ambition. He planned to run for president this year, and we spoke to someone who wasn't allegedly in his team. We were helping him put together some sort of plan, economic plan for the country. But when you ask, do you guys think he plan to assassinate the president? And everybody you talked to, we were close to him. I mean, at least those we talked to would say that we don't think so. We don't think he did it. We don't think he had any plans like this.

But the narrative being put forward by the Haitian National Police, at least is telling that he is, along with two unnamed people, the mastermind, allegedly, behind the attack. But we have yet to see more evidence. We are waiting for the evidence. And we are waiting for, you know, more details with regard to how someone who fought for bankruptcy in 2013 could organize something so expensive. You know, we were talking about private jet. We are talking about hiring Colombians. We are talking about people who were paid thousands of dollars for being in Haiti.

I mean, there are lots of questions. And like I said, this is what we know. I don't want to jump into conclusion. We are waiting for more details. The FBI is being involved. At least one of the people that was part of this plane allegedly was in the past a DEA agent, at least one of them. these are details that we want more information as well. Yeah, I think you're right to be cautious and to continue to collect more details. So back to the political situation that we started with. I mean, you have two men claiming to be prime minister and vying for power. You have a parliament that's only partially operational under Haiti's constitution. The president is supposed to be replaced by the head of Haiti's Supreme Court,

but the chief justice recently died from COVID so that position is vacant. The U.S. has called for an election by the end of the year, which seems challenging, to say the least. Do you have any sense of what the process to create a new government might look like or who is vying for it? Well, let me add a layer of complexity to what you just laid out, right? You have, the constitution of Haiti was, is coming from 1987. It was changed in the, I think it was in 2012. via amendment, but this amendment is controversial because not a lot of people recognize it, right? According to the original version of the constitution, if the president died, like we are in this state right now,

he was supposed to be replaced by, like you said, the head of the Supreme Court, we died by COVID, through weeks, I guess, I think, before the assassination of the president. But the second version of the Constitution said that in this case, the parliament should get together and choose a new head of government, the national assembly, so the two chambers. But you don't have a national assembly because you don't have a parliament. So this is why people are talking about constitutional design, because you don't have anything in the books to solve the situation. that you are in it right now, right? So if you talk to different constitutional lawyers, they will tell you that what would be best now

is to have the different stakeholders get together and find a solution. And some of them are saying that the solution that is closest to democracy would be to choose one of the 10 elected officers in the country to lead. But as you probably know, a couple of days back, the parliament or the rest of the Senate get together to elect their president as the president of the country.

He was supposed to be sworn in, but, you know, there are discussions which regard to his legitimacy and some people don't like him personally. So this warning event didn't go as planned. But we are still waiting and there are no clear path, no clear answer, neither in the books, neither in the law in the constitution of the country. And if you talk to the actors, actually, all of them, most of them will, you know, bring up some sort of solution, you know. And I think the international community will play a major role in getting people together and bring. a solution. Yeah, wow, that is complicated. Well, speaking to that, you know, international community role, I mean, the U.S., United States specifically, has a history with Haiti that I say ranges

from, you know, bad and damaging to complicated, right? I mean, the U.S. has sent troops to Haiti and occupied it several times under several presidents, going back to Woodrow Wilson. The U.S. and the international community's efforts to help Haiti after the 2010 earthquake turned into a disaster when UN peacekeeping troops discharged waste into a river and created a cholera outbreak that led to 820,000 cases and 10,000 deaths. So, you know, I offer that background for listeners because when you hear about, you know, the U.S. role going forward or a Florida-based doctor being involved in the operation or assassins yelling DEA or calls to send U.S. troops to Haiti, there's a history there that makes

all of these conversations more complicated. Do you get the sense that Haitian citizens would like to see the international community play a role or support this investigation? I mean, and how is like the U.S. and the international community being looked at in this context? Well, I think there is two things, right? There is the inevitability of the involvement of the international community. And there is what does the Haitian people want. I think, like you said, brilliantly, the international community have a long story and long history, actually, of, you know, complicated relationships, quote-unquote with Haitians. It's the cholera epidemic of the UN, but it's also the rapes.

It's also the hundreds of kids that were fathered by UN peacekeepers that are right now in Haiti without any help whatsoever, right? It's, you know, the wall of the U.S. in elections in Haiti that is still being questions by historians. So given the power of the U.S. in Haiti, given the power of an institution like the U.N. in Haiti, given the power of different order international nations like, you know, the France and all these folks, they have a weight that is very strong. Let's put it that way. And they are now deciding some stuff that is being questioned by the civil society, right? You have, for instance, the UN chief, Madame Lalim, who went on public recently to say that the current prime minister,

Mr. Claude-Josef, should stay in power all the way until the next election. But if you ask folks in politics here, they are outraged by this. Why? Because they are asking themselves, if there is nothing in the book to tell us how to solve this, what gives Madame Lalim some sort of legitimacy to decide on these things, right? So there is this first part of the question, but there is the second part also, because in my reporting, I spoke to Luegelhoffox in the street, I spoke to specialists, I spoke to all sorts of people,

and the sense that I'm having is a lot of people don't want boots on the ground. Lots of people don't want another invasion of Haiti because of the past that we just mentioned. Because I spoke to one lawyer who told me it's time now for the international community to sit down, and listen to the civil society and listen to the people, because they've been raising their voices for the past three and four years, but the U.S. especially did not listen, and the U.S., you know, supported the regime of Mr. Juvenel-Mois, despite all the allegations of corruptions,

despite all the lengths to gangs that human rights organizations were mentioning. So I think supporting the Haitian civil society and talking to different stakeholders would be the path forward if you ask us most of folks, at least the folks that I spoke to on the ground right now. That's what they are telling me. Yeah, I think you're getting at a really important point, which is that Americans often want to help, think they're helping. But, you know, the road to hell can be paved with good intentions. And that's not just, you know, when it comes to sort of military occupation or boots on the ground. There's also a lot of reporting and conversation in recent weeks about how international aid to Haiti has failed, you know, to make life better. In some cases, may have made things worse.

It can increase corruption, you know, jobs that were promised as part of infrastructure projects didn't materialize for people who were promised them. There was a lot of anger at the Bill and Hillary Clinton for the role they played in post-earthquake recovery efforts. And there are some people who argue that the best thing that the U.S. could do for Haiti is to stop trying to help because the U.S. is making things worse? I mean, do you think people there agree with that? And if not, is there a better approach to get to a place where the assistance provided is actually helping the people who need it? Well, I think you mentioned something that is really important. And I think it's a very interesting example. Right after the earthquake, the world came to Haiti, actually,

not only the U.S., but several other nations and NGOs. Actually, we called Haiti at the time. And all the way until now, actually, the nation of NGOs because we had so many NGOs and money was pouring in. And we thought that, you know, the country would be in the better foot years after that. But they set up an organization called CER H, which was led in part by Bill Clinton. And these organizations had the whole of coordinating the help and, you know, making sure that you know, we had a leadership to take care of and creating priorities and things like that. But years after that, for instance, in January, which was an anniversary for the earthquake, I have reporting in my media saying that we still have people in tents.

Of course, they are not in the same capacity. Of course, it's not the same number of people under tense. But this is a testimony of the failure. We have reporting, for instance, saying that the Red Cross amassed about $1 billion and only about 10 houses. And I think it was eight houses were built. A lot of the money came back to the original donors. A lot of the money were spent in consultation. And if you see the studies, and if you see the documentaries that came out from this period,

one of the things that they all mentioned is how the foreign nations, including the U.S., came in the country, did not listen to anybody and thought they knew better than Haitians, they knew better than Haitian authorities, which are sometimes very corrupt. One should say that. But there were people in the civil society that could help. There were people that were specialists in Haiti that they could have consulted with. But most of the time, they thought they knew better. And this is the end result. And I think As Haiti is going into another crisis, I think it's important that the international community take a pose to reflect and think about what happened last time they came to help and what they

can learn from this episode. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. So my last question for you, you were obviously covering, you know, this, what's happening on the ground closely. Where can folks find you on Twitter? Where can they find your website if they want to subscribe and read your stories and share them? Okay, so I am the AD20 for Aibo Post.

We are on online news organization. It's the address is AiboPost.com. We are on Twitter. It's Aibo Post and we are on Facebook as well. But if folks want to follow me, it's Whitlow, W-I-D-R-E. I am putting out from time to time updates about our reporting, so you can follow me there. Excellent.

Well, I will also retweet your feed because you've been doing amazing work covering what's happening on the ground in Haiti, and I'm incredibly grateful for the time you made for us today on the show. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks again to Widlaw, Merincourt, for joining the show. Thanks to you, Ben, dialing in from the Cateau de Gottlieb, even though it's a hotel room. Yeah, yeah, well, proximity to the guy, yeah, but we're going to have some fun out here,

and then I can't wait to be back in that studio there. We are going to have a good time. Well, talk to you soon. See you. Potsave the World is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Kyle Segglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Yale Freed, and Phoebe Bradford, who film and share our episodes as videos each week.