Pod Save the World - Assassinations in Iran & Biden’s foreign policy team

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

Tommy and Ben talk about the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist, what Biden’s national security team tells us about his foreign policy, protests over police brutality in France, infighting at the UN Human Rights Council, China picking (Twitter) fights, a soccer legend dying and Cher helping a lonely elephant find friends. Then Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy joins to talk Iran, Biden’s cabinet and how to make a more progressive foreign policy.

Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, we're back in lockdown. Thank you, L.A. County For your masterful leadership during this COVID time. Like, I understand all the very cold places who are dealing with, you know, everything going indoors. But this is L.A. Okay, it's like 50 in the morning, then it's 70 in the middle of the day. What's our excuse for sucking at this? I don't get it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, that that has occurred. to me. I mean, it raises a question once again, why restaurants were open for so long, you know, at such capacity. That seemed to have something to do with this. I would walk down the street and see all these people in like packed restaurants and think like, this is not going to end well. And it didn't. And so, yeah, the uneven kind of response in terms of what's open and

what's closed has been a little frustrating. For those wondering why we're annoyed. Right now in Los Angeles, you are like not allowed to hang out in a backyard with someone outside of your household, but you can go to a batting cage, a mini golf course, or what was the other one, a go-kart race at 50% capacity or a 20% capacity indoor mall. So you can do lots of things where you have to pay money, but not things you can't with your friends. It just seems dumb. I care about the economy too. I care about everyone getting healthy. But like, I don't know, it just feels like the culmination of really bad guidance and a really hard to solve problem for a very long time.

And it's driving me crazy. Yeah, well, I always hope that this is the last wave, right? So maybe one more proper lockdown into a vaccine, but we'll see, you know. Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, I mean, look, I will lock down as hard as I need to, if it will save people's lives. I just worry that like when you give that messaging over and over again, people stop paying attention and then we get into a worse place and it's just profoundly frustrating. But we got some good stuff today. We just wrapped up our conversation with Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. We, talked about this weird assassination, illegal probably assassination, scary, unethical assassination

in Iran of a nuclear scientist. We also talked about the Biden foreign policy team, some of his concerns about a big arm sale to the UAE and some other stuff. So great, great interview with one of these smartest minds in Congress on foreign policy. And then we are going to cover this same set of assassination questions in Iran. The latest on the Biden national security team and sort of what it says about how we think he'll conduct foreign policy. There are big protests over police brutality in France. Some drama at the UN Human Rights Council.

We'll go through that. There was a big Twitter fight between Australia and China, which is weird sounding, but it's actually a big deal. And then a soccer legend dies and a lonely elephant finds new friends. We'll go through all of that today. before we get to the news, everyone listening probably wants to win these Georgia Senate runoffs. They're a huge, huge deal. That's why we're trying to support people making it possible, all these organizers on the ground.

They delivered the state for Joe Biden. We want to make sure they can do it again for January's Senate runoff. So if you go to vote saveamerica.com slash every last vote, we will help you figure out all the ways you can help people who are doing the work. We're calling it our Peaches and Dreams Fund. You know, if you like 112, maybe that kind of resonates with you. If you were under late 30s, you probably know what I'm talking about. But vote to have America.com slash every last vote. Ben, you want to start with Iran?

Yeah, let's do it. I mean, why not? Why not? Why not sort of, you know, dance our way up to a war like the administration is? So last week in Iranian nuclear scientist named Mosin Fakhrazade was assassinated in Iran. the entire world believes that the Israeli government is responsible. That is both because Prime Minister Netanyahu has publicly called out Fakhrazade before in the past and because Israel has assassinated several Iranian scientists in the past in like 2010 to 2012.

So I figured we could just start with the incident itself before we get to what it means for Biden and Trump. Ben, I was trying to think about like what an equivalent attack on the U.S. would look like. this guy is not a general. He was a scientist. And so the examples that came to mind or the comparison that came to mind for me was like the Russians assassinating the head of DARPA, which does advanced

research for the Pentagon, or the Chinese assassinating the Secretary of Energy since they're in charge of the U.S. nuclear arsenals. Like for listeners, imagine what the reaction would be like if those things occurred. The broader context is important here, too.

I mean, the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal had solved the problem in questions about Iran's potential nuclear ambitions until the U.S. pulled out of it in 2015. Even still, Iran abided by the terms of the JCPOA until 2019 when they started enriching uranium again, but there's still a long ways from getting a bomb. So we're just flagging this because we're not talking about a ticking time bomb scenario or some imminent threat from Iran, talking about killing a scientist to see. seemingly prevent Iran from ever being able to do the research that would lead them to a bomb.

So it just seems like a completely illegal, immoral action, a horrible precedent. It has the potential to lead to retaliation, to kill off chances of diplomacy, just a complete mess. Ben, what was your reaction to this news? What concerns you the most? And, you know, what do you hope a Biden administration can do to hopefully, I mean, we're not advocating a Logan Act violation here. I don't want to deal with that nonsense again, but, like, you know, prevent a war here. I think, I mean, first of all, first we should just say this is wrong, you know, I mean, putting aside before we even get to policy and things like that, you should not assassinate

scientists in other countries, full stop. And I think people are getting far too kind of accustomed to, you know, we assassinated Qasem Soleimani and then the scientist is assassinated and, you know, just like the Saudis assassinated journalists, like this kind of killing of individuals is totally outrageous and out of control. And just to separate out for people, like this person is, you know, the only way you could possibly defend yourself is if you term the person kind of a combatant in a war, right? And so for all the people who would say, well, what about drone strikes and Rovama? Right.

You may have totally disagreed with that. And there are plenty arguments against it. but the legal basis was we are at war with al-Qaeda. So if there are people that we designate as kind of combatants in that war, we're fighting them as if we're fighting them in a war. Qasem Soleimani obviously stretched the boundaries of that because we're not at war with Iran. The administration claimed that the reason they went out of their way

to try to claim that he was plotting attacks was so that they could kind of slot him in that category of a threat to our troops. This is a scientist, right? There's just the leap to say that somehow this is a proper military target to assassinate him in his country, I think is absurd. It needs to be rejected. Because if the Russians started doing this, you can bet that we'd all condemn it. But they're going to say, I guarantee you, they're going to say, well, look at what the U.S. and Israel did with Qasem Soleimani and then with the scientist. This leads to the second point, which is killing him does not accomplish anything.

The Iranians know how to do this. The things that were in this guy's head are known to the Iranian government. They have a nuclear program. They've mastered the nuclear fuel cycle. Yeah, there's steps that they would need to figure out how to take on weaponization. But unless we're going to kill every single scientist inside of Iran, there are going to be people with expertise there. So the idea that somehow just taking out this one guy is going to upend the entire nuclear program, that's a lie. That's not true, right?

Which leads to the third point, which is the timing of this stinks. this guy has been a scientist in Iran for 20 years. Like, how come this is the day they decided to kill him in a transition leading up to President like Biden taking office with a commitment to try to come back into the nuclear deal? So it feels very much to my response, Tommy, was, wow, that's brazen, unfortunately not surprising and seems entirely motivated by an effort to undermine Biden's capacity to get back in a new deal by making the Iranians feel like, wait a second, they're assassinating people in our streets.

they've dumped sanctions on us and now they want us to come back into a deal that the U.S. originally violated. So to me, it just makes what was already a tough job for Biden that much tougher. Yeah. And so, you know, you sort of alluded to pieces of this. I mean, every observer seems to think that part of the goal here was to prevent Biden from reentering the Iran nuclear deal. A few weeks ago, there were reports that Trump had asked his foreign policy team for military options to strike Iran. Apparently, they told him, no, that's a bad idea. The Daily Beast has subsequently reported that Trump has given Mike Pompeo, who, just a reminder, Ben, he's supposed to be the country's top diplomat. He's not a Pentagon leader.

He's not the head of the CIA anymore. But Trump has apparently given Pompeo carte blanche to just punish Iran in a variety of ways, short of this report says World War III. On top of that, there's reports that the Israeli prime minister, B.B. Netanyahu flew to Saudi Arabia for the first ever. in-person meeting he had with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. We don't know if that's true or not. But like, it seems like Iran would be part of that discussion. And you're seeing all the sort of same forces in Washington, the foundation for the defense of democracies, Tom Cotton, like, all the warmongers are revving up their anti-Iran deal talking points, right? They're dusting them off after four years of failure and getting ready to fight this thing again. Like, this conventional wisdom that

this could strain Biden and prevent him from getting back in the deal? Is that just because once you insult the Iranians, six, seven, eight, nine, ten times, they won't come back in? Or do you think there are other ways this could constrain him? And then, you know, how do you think Biden can, like, fight through that and get back to a diplomatic agreement? Yeah, so there are a couple ways. You know, one is simply that the Iranians are, you know, so pissed, so pushed into a hard line by these repeated escalations, that, you know, that they don't want to come back into the deal, right? Because it takes two to come back in the deal,

and they'd have to unwind a bunch of steps that they did. Or they feel the need that they have to respond in some way, you know, take some action, right? Some attack against U.S. forces in Iraq or something, which is where they often do that. And then Biden feels like he has to respond to that. And so then there's an escalation that just kind of prevents the clean diplomacy

of get back a new nuclear deal that was working for everybody. That's the first problem, is the Iranian calculus. I think the second is, you know, can Congress seek to tie Biden's hands in some way? Do they try to insert themselves in this at the Republicans at the Senate? But they don't have the House so that's problematic. Which leads me to the main point here, which is there will be a massive influence operation,

a massive push by Israel, by the Saudis, by the Republicans, to insist that Biden not come back into the agreement, unless the Iranians agree, not only to come back into the agreement, but to negotiate new provisions, you know, to negotiate things around their ballistic missile program, to extend some of the provisions that expire in the coming years. They will figure out that the best messengers for this are not the Saudis, but are the Israelis, right? So, you know, you'll have Netanyahu out there. There'll be Republicans in Congress. There'll be Democrats in Congress who are worried getting too far away from Netanyahu might start suggesting, well, maybe we should go back in the deal, but only if the Iranians agree

to negotiate these additional agreements. That is entirely within the control of Joe Biden, his team, to not listen to those people. And I urge them, I plead with them, do not think that there's any ounce of good faith that will be coming your way from Bibi Netanyahu, from Maham bin Salman, and from the Tom Codons of this world. They will convince you that they really for a better deal. They just want to help you get a better deal. They've just done all these things to destroy the Iranians so as to give you more leverage to get to that better deal. That is a heaping pile of bullshit. These people have no interest in a deal. They've never had any interest in a deal. How many times do we have to go through this play? And so this is in the hands of the Biden people

to say, we don't need to listen to these people. And there'll be a lot of people saying, you know, well, but then, you know, the deal's at risk. It's not bipartisan. you know what, like if you can find me the Republican who will deal in good faith on the Iran issue, then sure, I'm open to that, but I don't think it's possible. Well, it sounds like so we'll talk about Biden's incoming cabinet in a minute, but Jake Sullivan, who's going to be the national security advisor, seemed to just say like it's on Iran if they come back into compliance and we can get back into the deal. Is that the sort of simple equation you were looking for?

He said this at a public event, I think, in Minnesota. Yeah, he did. And there was a much dissected close. laws where he also said, you know, and they'd like to negotiate follow-on agreements, right? And here's the thing. There are two, I agree with that. Who wouldn't? I mean, you know, my view is you come back into the deal. You get the Iranian program roll back. You get the verification back in place. By the way, very importantly, you get the United States kind of making amends with Europe who's kept this thing alive by coming back in the deal. And then from that foundation, you negotiate follow-on agreements. And that could be about extending nuclear restrictions. That could be

about ballistic missiles. There's another theory that you only kind of come into the deal if the Iranians kind of agree on the front end that we will negotiate these following agreements or else something bad happens, right? And the problem with that is, sure, who isn't against that principle? It just opens up a new negotiation. Why have that negotiation before you just get back into the agreement itself, you know? And so I'm sure that this is where the, this is where the, rubber will hit the road, is it you trying to just come, come back in cleanly, full stop, and then negotiate things? Or are you trying to kind of, you know, shoehorn in some new commitments to negotiate things? I hope that it's a cleaner approach that is taken. Yeah. Okay. So I mentioned

some of these incoming cabinet officials. The first one, the lucky one, is Jake Sullivan, who will be Biden's national security advisor because he doesn't have to go through Senate confirmation. We talked more about the potential hurdles here in the Senate confirmation process with Senator Chris Murphy. So listen to that. Tony Blinken has been tapped to be the Secretary of State. You guys should all listen to our interview with Tony right before the election because he talked a lot about Joe Biden's foreign policy vision. Avril Haynes was tapped to be Director of National Intelligence, Alejandro Mayorkas for Secretary of Homeland Security, Linda Thomas Greenfield for U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and John Kerry to be the first special presidential envoy for climate change. So Ben, you know,

we talked about this team a bit on Ponce of America on Monday. It's hard not to sound like ridiculously sycophantic because we worked so closely with Tony and Avril and Jake in particular, and they are just like brilliant, great people. But like, what's your reaction to this broader team? What do you think it says about how Joe Biden will conduct foreign policy? Well, you know, I think first of foremost, it's really interesting that he chose essentially a team of people that were very close to him, many people who've been staffers for him, whereas sometimes people pick, you know, prominent, former members of Congress. I mean, we had Hillary Clinton. I, I, I, John Kerry, I like what Biden did. I mean, get your people in there, you know? I mean, they'll grow in stature in those jobs.

I think it's right. I would have rather we did that in 2009, to tell you the truth. It was different in second term with, you know, with that team. But, um, It was tough. Jim Jones, nobody really knew Jim Jones as National Security Advisor, and Obama didn't. Good to have your own people. So that that struck me. I think that the second thing is that when you look at these people, what stood out? The carry thing, which didn't get as much attention, that's a big deal. I started asking myself, well, wait a second, does that mean John Kerry's in all these bilateral meetings that Biden's going to be having with foreign leaders? John Kerry's flying around the world? That's a huge resource if you're going to make climate a centerpiece of your foreign policy, I think that almost didn't get enough attention, you know, because part of what we talked about, Tommy, is like, make this a leading bilateral issue. Well, if the foreign head of state knows that when he meets Joe Biden, like John Kerry's going to be in that row of people, and then John Kerry's going to fly out to his capital to follow up, that's a serious thing. And, you know, we don't have a, we have an EPA administrator and we have

a secretary of state. We don't have a minister of a kind of climate, you know, and now we essentially do. That's John Kerry. I will just highlight, these are close. friends. I mean, we should just own that. I mean, Jake and I co-chaired an organization together for three years, Tony, through my book party. You know, Avril's was in the trenches with me for years. They're wonderful people. I guess I'd highlight about Jake, if you listen to Missing America plug last episode, which is a long conversation with Jake, he's really evolved. He's made an effort that I admire to question his own thinking, to be open to different views, to wonder what was wrong about what Hillary was proposing, what Obama did. I think, frankly, become a little bit more

progressive in certain ways. So I think Jake has been interesting in that evolution. Tony and at real, obviously, just incredibly smart people. I think by one question, Tony's had that similar evolution. I mentioned this too because Tony had that interview with CBS where he talked about the mistakes of Syria policy and how searing it was for him and how it lived with him. And it did make me think that all the people who are sort of like lazily saying, this is Obama's third term, are not giving these people credit for having learned from the first and second term. You know what I mean? Yeah. And, you know, and they may have learned in different ways, right? I mean, if Tony's haunted by not intervening, you know, I don't know. I haven't talked to him about it, you know,

but the, they, I know they've each wrestled with it. I real constantly, you know, questioning assumptions. She was at Columbia. She was in the kind of academic world. She was really, I can guarantee you this about Avril Haynes because she was a friend of mine not planning on coming back into government, right? So this was not someone who was like, you know, just trying to stay down the street. I will say the thing to guard against, you know, so that we're not just, you know, being sounding sycophantic. Individually, I love everybody. Collectively, it's all people who are in the Obama administration. It's all people who kind of circulate in similar circles.

You know, there's not an outside academic. there's not an outside member of Congress, Linda, a diplomat, but still very much in the same circle. They should be vigilant about groupthink. And by the way, I don't think that they all agree about everything, but they are from the same kind of universe here. And I'm not even to say blob, because I'd like to think that some of them wouldn't self-identify that way.

But I do think that, that in fact, filling out their own teams and in thinking about who they're reaching out to, kind of getting outside of the kind of D.C. foreign policy world is going to be important. Again, individually, every one of them does that. So this is not a criticism of any one person. It's just that when you look at the slate, you think, okay, well, these guys are going to have to make sure that they're going to have to go the extra mile in terms of filling out their own staffs and their own conversations to make sure that, you know,

that they recognize that they're all coming at this from a pretty similar experience of the last 10 years. Yeah. Yeah, you need like an Arthur Schlesinger, a Seb Gorka. You know what you? The people that really help you check yourself and leave some assumptions. That's actually, that's incredibly good advice. I know it's something that like, I remember you used to do this a lot, right? Like meet with like academics or like opposite.

Civil society. Like civil society, right? It's like you can create essentially a curriculum for yourself. to make sure you're focusing on these things, and it's critically important. Okay, let's turn to France for a minute because a French legislative proposal that would create a fine of approximately $54,000 and a year in prison for sharing images of police officers has led to a huge backlash and just massive protests across France. So this is called Article 24, not to be confused with A24, the production company here in Los Angeles,

but Article 24 would create penalties for broadcasting the face or badge number or like any means to identify a police officer in action if the goal is to, quote, harm the physical or mental integrity, end quote, of the officer, whatever the hell that means. The lawmakers who drafted the bill said basically they just like want to protect cops from online threats. But journalists, free speech advocates, anyone who's, you know, watched the news for the last year was understandably worried. about how vague that law sounds and worry it could be used to criminalize the documentation of police brutality. That concern became even more salient after the recent publication of a video showing French police violently clearing a temporary migrant camp in Paris. Another video came out showing police in France beating the shit out of a black music producer and just a horrific incident. So, you know, Ben, this debate is, it's ugly. It feels very familiar.

two things we've experienced here over the past two decades, right? Like the legislation was drafted in response to recent ISIS attacks. It's got a bit of a mini-patriac vibe because it gives police more surveillance authorities, including the right to deploy drones to monitor public demonstrations. And, you know, there's other issues here like press freedom, the freedom to assemble, the freedom to protest, and serious concerns about police violence, all with this swirling backdrop of COVID lockdowns and terrorism. and concerns about Islamophobic response, and it's all sort of wrapped up

into this big, swirling debate. I guess the good news is it sounds like Article 24 is going to be rewritten thanks to these protests, and maybe the protest is the thing that we just didn't have going for us back in 2001 when the Patriot Act was written or when we had a lot of these conversations. But what did you make of this?

I think it's concerning, and there are two threads happening that are coming together at the same time in France, right, as you mentioned. One is this hypervigilance about police and the other is kind of Islam. And you know, Macron kind of going on offense against, I guess what he would term radical Islam or Islamist and the aftermath of some pretty horrific events. And obviously ISIS has had kind of more, I think, horrific attacks in France and anywhere else. French Twitter is an interesting place, Tommy. Because the French, you know, I've noticed get very sensitive that that we don't understand

their secular kind of values that people should not identify first as religious but as citizens. And that's why these restrictions are not on Islam itself, but on upholding French identity. Okay, that's an interesting debate to have. It just feels very much from watching this like there's a combination of beginning to single out in pretty aggressive ways, the Muslim community, while also beginning to further empower security forces and police, not just in the context, by the way, of the issues with Islam, but there have been Black Lives Matter protests in France too. And all I would say is when we did the Patriot Act

and did all kinds of stuff after 9-11, the French and other European countries were raising some of these concerns with us. And the U.S. government told them to piss off and said that they didn't get it. I get that emotions are hot and high right now in France. but listen to your friends here. It's not that we understand the security concerns. We understand that ISIS has been worse for French people, but at the same time, you don't want to overreact and over-correct like, frankly,

we did in this country. And France has done at some points. And I think politically it's worth watching. Macron just feels like he's a centrist who tries to kind of triangulate off of the left and the right. And it kind of feels to me like as he's moving closer to his election, you know, he seems to be moving right on these kind of law and order issues, maybe to create some political space over there for himself. But that's a difficult, that can be a problematic dynamic too, as we've seen here,

when politicians want to look tough, sometimes, you know, for good, sometimes for sincere reasons, sometimes for political reasons, there can be overreached in the law that is hard to undo. So now is the time to ask these hard questions. Yes, yes. It is so, so hard to roll back all these national security laws. If you want a good Twitter follow on these issues, check out Rakea Diallo's feed. She's, you know, give you a view from the opposition, from outside of government, from civil society, from the black perspective in France, and writes for the Washington Post about police brutality and it's just really smart and thoughtful.

Ben, this next issue is one you flagged for the group because you just can't get enough of the UN Human Rights Council. It's a story about how autocrats are preparing for the Biden administration, I think, and, you know, in the belief that he will actually care about human rights. So some counsel basics, right? So the human rights council based in Geneva is made up of 47 nations, each serves, staggered three-year terms. The council's presidency rotates by region. So in 2021, it's supposed to be led by a country from the Asia-Pacific region. And for months, the only candidate that had come forward was the ambassador from Fiji,

who was an incredibly accomplished, impressive woman, by the way. But then, just days before the deadline, the ambassador to Bahrain got in the race, and according to a great report on this in the New York Times, tried to push the ambassador from Fiji out of the race. So you might be wondering, Ben, Tommy, why are you talking about this? Why does anyone give a shit about a fight between Fiji and Bahrain? And the reason is because diplomats at the UN believe that Bahrain's bid is being pushed by the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis so that there's a country that they can control leading the UN Human Rights Council. They want pliant leadership.

And Fiji's ambassador has been the opposite of pliant. She has backed important investigations into human rights abuses in Venezuela, Belarus, Syria, Yemen, all places where the Russians, the Chinese, the Saudis have interests and they would love the international community to ignore. by the way, you know, the council also held a hearing on racism in the U.S. So we are not immune to their eye. Oh, yeah. Ben, President Bush, his administration did not join the UN Human Rights Council. Brock Obama decided to join back in 2009. Trump left it again in 2018 because he just did the opposite of whatever Obama did. Can you remind, you know, listeners why Obama wanted

to be on the council? And what do you think the Biden administration can do if they rejoin? And then what did you make of this dust up here between, you know, a bunch of human rights abusers on this council, which may sound ironic to people, but, you know, that's sort of part of the whole story here. Well, yeah, there are kind of two criticisms to the Human Rights Council of the years. One is that they single out Israel, and two, is that there's always kind of creepy governments on it. Of course, we don't mention when it's creepy governments like, you know, our friends. We tend to get upset when it's people like, you know, the Russians and the Cubans. But look, why does it matter? It's a preeminent human rights body in the multilateral system.

And the good they could be put to, I mean, you know, just in the last few years, like, get, these are the people who did the investigation into Jamal Khashoggi's murder, right? They pointed the finger at the Saudi government. They can do investigations. They can hold meetings. They can elevate issues. So if it was functioning properly in the last few years, this is where the U.S., if we were on that body would be trying to spotlight and apply some pressure around

the Rohingya issue or, you know, the situation with the Uyghurs in Jingjin province. In fact, it was a human rights council group that established ethnically. cleansing took place in Myanmar. So if you have it, you know, they can do investigations, they can spotlight issues, and they can really be a forum for, you know, creating tension on human rights issues in the international system. And so the U.S. should absolutely be back in the mix here and trying to shape the efforts of that body rather than just sitting and being one of the countries that throws rocks at it. I think it's, the reason this call my attention is such an obvious play, right? You have a good.

genuine candidate from Fiji who's going to get on there and be an impartial human rights advocate, which is exactly what you want. Bahrain? Are you kidding me? I mean, never mind their own repression. They're a monarchy that represses the Shia majority. They're an extension of Saudi Arabia. They're separated from Saudi Arabia by a causeway.

And, you know, when they had trouble putting down protests in the Arab Spring, the Saudis world tanks in to give you a sense of this is a proxy for Muhammad bin Salman. This is like making Muhammad bin Salman, the chair of the UN Human Rights Council. Seems like that idea. Yeah, and it seemed, and by the, but the reason it's clever is because the Russians and Chinese who also don't want any, you know, attention on human rights, they didn't put up some U.S. adversary. You know, they didn't suggest that, like, the Cubans run the Human Rights Council. They picked a well-connected country in Washington, you know, like, let's see if the Biden people

will block, you know, Bahrain's candidate to see if they had the Human Rights Council. It's not done by them. So that's the play, you know, and it's so cynical. And it's once again, autocrats thinking that the Gulf can kind of run interference for them in Washington because, you know, under Trump, they obviously could. Yeah. Speaking of cynical anti-human rights play, among the long list of stories that I just like didn't have time to put in today's show was there's been a bunch of reporting about how big corporations like Nike and Coca-Cola, a bunch of others, have been lobbying Congress to weaken a bill that would ban imported goods that were made. with forced labor in the Xinjiang region. That's the region of China where the Uighurs have been thrown in these concentration camps, which I think are, you know, there's lots of reporting about how many of them

have been morphed into forced labor camps. So if all those out there are looking for ways to lobby with their wallets and make their voices heard, check out some of this reporting, it was in the Interceptives, and the New York Times, a bunch of other places, really, really gross stuff. And we're checking out. Yeah. Look, a lot of these U.S. businesses are going to have choices to make about what they do in China in the coming years. And legislation actually can be helpful in kind of removing the, you know, trying to figure out what, what, you know, because think of it this way. If you're a business and you're thinking, should I do business in Jingjing province? And like you and I both think the answer is, no, you shouldn't, right? The argument may come

from that business. Well, if I don't, you know, maybe my competitor will be in there in some passion. Well, legislation that kind of can remove that decision and challenge for you, right? It levels the playing field in a way so that the good actors aren't punished, right? So that the people who say, you know, I don't want to be a part of this, whether it's this repression up here or something in Hong Kong or something involving surveillance. This is regulation and U.S. government action, I think, can help companies so that, you know, they don't feel that competitive pressure. Yeah, very well said. Stick with China for a minute. So this is a story about war crimes.

and then an increasing war of words between China and Australia. So the war crime piece starts with a report by the Inspector General of Australia's Defense Forces that detailed a 40-year inquiry into war crimes committed by Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan. This report found that between 2005 and 2016, 25 current reformer Australian Defense Force personnel killed 39 Afghans who had been captured or who were injured and who were just not a threat, making it murder. It also documented effort to cover up those crimes by placing weapons on some of these people to make them look like fighters. And then just more broadly, like a totally broken, undisciplined culture that read a lot like some of the, you know, deep reporting on problems in the U.S. Special Forces community that we've talked about previously. That report also recommended a criminal investigation into 19 Australian soldiers.

And, you know, that accountability stands in stark contrast to Trump's repeated pardon of war criminals here in the U.S. But here's where the war of word starts. So a spokesman for China's foreign ministry tweeted, shocked by murder of Afghan civilians and prisoners by Australian soldiers, we strongly condemn such acts and call for holding them accountable. This was along with a kind of like realistic rendering, drawing, computer image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to the neck of an Afghan small boy with text on the image that said,

don't be afraid we are coming to bring you peace, It's like super creepy image. The Australian prime minister called the tweet repugnant. He asked China to apologize. Instead, China doubled down. They seemed to maybe borrow from the U.S. debate where they said, you know, Afghan lives matter and said Australia should apologize to Afghanistan, which the Aussies had already done. So clearly they were just like China wanted to get engaged in a fight here.

This comes at a low point in relations between Australia and China. The Chinese were furious when the Australians called for an investment. into the coronavirus outbreak. They were also mad at Australia's comments and positions on Hong Kong and the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. So, Ben, there was an interesting BBC piece last year in 2019 about how 2019 was the year when a ton of Chinese officials got on Twitter and they started these kinds of public fights with this like scathing, not at all diplomatic tone. And I just wonder what you make of these like super online Chinese diplomats. Like, we, We've seen them fighting with like Susan Rice over racism in Washington, D.C.

I mean, does it concern you to see this Chinese strategy of picking these fights and creating controversies that rose to the level of the Australian Prime Minister when there was actually no role for China in this conversation about Australia and war crimes in Afghanistan? And also, like, no sincerity, you know, I mean, do we really think that the Chinese or that concerned about the violations of human rights, given what they're themselves doing in Jingjing problems? Yeah, the thing that is interesting to me about, Tommy, is that China is an incredibly centralized system.

It's a very controlled system. So I don't think that you would just have a whole bunch of diplomats popping off like this on Twitter freelancing. You know, I mean, this, you know, so the first thing people should keep in mind is, like, this is clearly some broader shift in how China thinks it should engage the world. I do think that they're feeling their, you know, their oats, as it were, in the sense that the U.S. has been rapidly declining under Trump. They're the next kind of big kid on the block. And they love to go around and bully, particularly, you know, countries like Australia that are a little smaller.

I think in response, that means that the U.S. needs to get together with like-minded democracies. And Murphy talks about this a little bit, but, you know, in Europe, in Australia and Asia, so that these countries aren't alone in fights. because I think that's part of what this is designed to do, is to intimidate individuals who are critical of China or particularly countries, kind of the size of Australia, big enough to be important, not big enough really to be in the same way class as the Chinese. That's what this feels like it's about to me. And it's, you know, unfortunately, kind of what the Russians do, right? They like to intimidate individual officials. They like to make you think twice about saying certain things about them when you're in government. You know, if I'm an assistant secretary of state for something, do I really want to have these kinds of, you know, quasi-violent attacks launched my way from, you know, Russian Twitter and now Chinese Twitter?

I think it demands a unified response from democracy, so nobody's hanging out there by themselves. Yeah, like Darry was over. Yeah, like Darryl more was. You know, I'm sure he doesn't want to talk about any of these issues ever again. I mean, ever again, right? And that's not good. You should feel, yeah, you should feel not alone, you know. Yeah, he's a citizen.

Two more things before we get to our interview with Senator Murphy. The first is Diego Maradona. One of the greatest soccer players in history. He died last week at the age of 60. If you have not heard of him, do yourself a favor, go on YouTube, find like a compilation of goals. There was a great HBO documentary about him last year. But now police in Argentina, where Maradona is a god, are investigating his death.

and they searched his doctor's house. Last month, Maradona had surgery for a blood clot in his brain. Back in the day, he had serious substance abuse problems during his career, lots of cocaine. Ben, any thoughts on Maradona in this investigation? I think you've been going deep into some rabbit holes on this one. Yeah, well, I love Maradona and definitely check out the YouTube goals. And as a guy who's like 5'7 and played soccer when I was growing up, you know, Meredona is like 5-5.

So the short guy, like just crushing it was always an inspiration in it. Yeah, thighs like barrels to the strongest legs you've ever seen in your life. It's insane, totally insane. And somehow quick, even though he was portly, shall we say. The thing that, you know, I went down the rabbit holes, it's fascinating, right? Like the ambulance times were delayed. The doctor was, you know, allegedly, you know, according to Meredona's family, not properly, promptly responsive and maybe questions and medications.

the broader common I'd make is this guy, God is exactly right in a country that has divisions and so Maradonna's kind of unifying figure and the thing is, watching this, you know that if they don't get on top of this fast, like the conspiracy theories that they'll be living in

for the rest of time, you know, I mean, this is a big deal and so throw the resources that you have to to establish ironclad what the hell happened here if there was any you know, malpractice and anything untoward, because if you let this thing fester, given the size of this guy in Argentina's imagination, like, you're going to be dealing it for a while.

That's a very good point. Yeah, this sort of not probably not remotely analogous, but it comes to mind because I just watched this interesting documentary on Bob Marley was the assassination attempt on Bob Marley, I think in the 70s. It's not entirely clear who did it, but they were competing political factions who were trying to vie for his support. He was about to do this big public concert, got swirled up in that. There's an incredible novel called A Brief History of Seven Killings that is worth reading on this by Marlon James. It's like, it's a hefty, hefty book. No, I'll check it out. I love Bob Marley,

though. Oh, Ben. So it's 688 pages. It's going to take you a while. But you have like all these different perspectives. You have like gang members. You have people who are friends with Marley. You have like a CIA contingent. The book takes you all the way to like, you know, New York in the 80s, right? Like follows these guys forever. It's like it's a masterpiece. You'll love it. Last story.

We're going to talk about a story about Cher and a very lonely elephant named Kavan. So Kavan, the elephant, spent his entire life in a notoriously awful zoo in Pakistan. He had a partner who lived with him from 1990 to 2012 and then she died. So this poor elephant and their very social creatures has been just like heartbroken. and lonely ever since. And activists, including Cher, have spent years trying to get this elephant out of Pakistan, out of this zoo nightmare. And this week, they were finally able to get Kavan on a plane to Cambodia,

where he is going to spend the rest of his life at a wildlife sanctuary with a bunch of friends to keep him company and lots of territory to roam around in. He's been called the world's loneliest elephant, lonely no more. If you want to make yourself weepy for no reason, go to the Four Paws International. Twitter feed. And you can see a photo of this sweet elephant holding the trunk of another elephant for the first time in eight years. And it's just a very nice image. They'll probably like try to kill each other tomorrow. Who knows? But, you know, they're animals. But it's very nice. So good work, share. Good work to all the not at all famous people who probably did way, way, way more work

on this project and spent years on it. But, you know, it's nice. It's a nice story to end our segment here, Ben. Let's, I'm glad to feel good about this. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm very pro-elephant, Tommy. You should know that about me. Pro-elthin. I'll just throw on one world or nerd out of this, right? We had done all these wildlife protections in the Obama administration, largely aimed at saving elephants and rhinos

who were subject of poaching particularly Africa. And Trump undid those two. So maybe in addition to share, the U.S. government can get back in the business of combating wildlife trafficking and saving the elephants who aren't in zoos. One, it's the humane thing to do. Even though fucking Don Jr. and Eric and those idiots love to like cut off elephant tails and kill big cats and things. But too, there's often a nexus to like organized crime and bad regimes doing all this poaching.

Like they're funding those activities by killing these elephants. Yes. And when I got into this in government, like there's a for the governments, the value of that conservation and having wildlife parks and things like that relative to like what some poachers are making and you're giving in broad. lives, it's also a huge resource for these countries. I mean, I valued for the humanity reason and the environmental reason, but also, you know, it's screwing countries that are losing tremendous resources, conservation. Yeah. Hillary Clinton was super into this. I remember talking about it with her once and her eyes lit up and there was like facts flying in me from every direction. She was like deep, deep in on this. So I had to do, I had to brief her after, it was in the second term that we did this kind of big EO because John Podesta was really into it too.

And then I remember I had to call her. And I thought it was going to be this easy call like, hey, guess what? You know, we banned the ivory trade and we're paying for some, you know, guards at park, national parks and, you know, ex-African countries. And they, I think she grilled me for like 30 minutes, you know, a bit like. Yeah, that sounds right. highly specific categories of ivory and why won't we banning all of the ivory and were we going to try to recover it? And did I know like the training of the border guards

at the wildlife parks and South Africa? Like she was deep on this. Real deep. That sounds like a very typical Hillary Clinton story. Yeah, right? You hear about it. You think it's a quick briefing. She knows twice as much as you. Yeah. And she's a walk. Like this is what we're talking Like she was when she gets into something, which is not everything. But when she gets into something, she goes pretty deep somehow. Yeah, she's a very, very smart person. Okay. After a quick break, we will have our conversation with Senator Chris Murphy about these

assassinations in Iran, the Biden national security team, and what a refreshed democratic foreign policy could look like in a Biden term. So stick around for that. You will not want to miss it. We are so excited to welcome back, Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut. He is a member of the Senate foreign relations. committee in one of our favorite people to talk to on the show. Senors, great to see you again. What's up, guys? Thanks for having me. So let's start with the big news out of Iran. A scientist named

Mosin Fakhrazid, an Iranian nuclear scientist, was assassinated the last week, reportedly by the Israeli government. I've seen you tweeted your reaction to some of this news. Has that been updated at all by any additional information you've gotten or have you gotten a briefing from the administration? Like what is your sense so far of what happened and what we know? We have not received any briefings from the administration as of yet. As you both know, it is unlikely that anything like this happens without U.S. knowledge, more likely United States approval and perhaps United States participation. There's a good reason why we don't assassinate foreign leaders because when we engage in that kind of behavior,

it ultimately lends an authority to that kind of action that can ultimately boomerang on the United States. It was a reason why we pressed the Israelis to forego these kind of actions during the eight years of the Obama administration. And if this is really about trying to tie the hands of the Biden administration with respect to reentering the nuclear agreement, it's absolutely disastrous because there is no path to a safer Middle East without. our ability to restart at least some elements of that agreement. And so, you know, we don't have all the full details. We have not been briefed inside Congress about this. But if the United States had something to do with this, it is going to accrue to the detriment of America's security, both in the short run and in the long run. So on the idea of, I share obviously your cynicism,

You know, when there's somebody that we've known about for 20 years and he just happens to get assassinated a few weeks before a new president takes office, makes you ask questions about the timing. But, you know, we see not only this assassination, we've seen a lot of sanctions added on top of the existing sanctions that have been reimposed on Iran because of the decision by Trump to leave the JCPOA. It feels like they're just throwing up as many obstacles as possible to, to, to restive. returning to the deal itself. At the same time, I know there's going to be pressure on the new administration to not come back into the JCPOA unless Iran agrees to negotiate, follow-on agreements.

If we're just looking at the potential for a clean return, you know, the Iranians come into the JCPOA, America comes back in, you know, what do you think the appetite is in Congress for that? What is the current support for just no follow-on agreements have to be added to this? There's an understanding that some of the sanctions that have been imposed on top of this may have to be relaxed too because they're additive to what was part of the JCPOA. Is there support in your view in Congress for that kind of just clean return? Or do you think Congress is going to seek to put itself in the middle of the policy and try to put conditions on the administration to add bells and whistles to the old agreement? I don't think the dividing lines on this issue have fundamentally changed over the last four years. I don't think that there are Democrats that supported the JCPOA that now would draw a new line.

I also don't think there are a lot of converts to our side. I don't think there are likely many Republicans that have changed their mind. They want all of these issues to be litigated. The problem for Republicans is that they have now had four years to test their theory of the case, right? Donald Trump came in, obliterated the JCPOA, and articulated the Republican case, which is that we should ramp up sanctions, sort of blow past the levels that were in place prior to the JCPOA as a means of getting the Iranians to come to the table on everything. And Mike Pompeo wrote down what everything was, right?

He had these 12 demands of the Iranians. He had four years to effectuate this policy. And he didn't just fail. Pompeo failed miserably, right? Not only did he not get the Iranians to the table on any of his 12 demands, the Iranians got closer to a nuclear weapon. They're now two months away rather than 12 months away. They started shooting at American troops inside Iraq, something they weren't doing when Donald Trump took over. And so while Republicans are going to object to getting back into the deal, they really don't have a leg to stand on because we've tried their way and it didn't work.

So I think the support exists, certainly with the Democratic Party, for Biden to reenter the agreement. But remember, there are two sides here. And the Iranians are also going to ask for more, right? The Iranians are going to say, well, you know, we want reparations for all the damage done to our economy once you walked away. And, you know, we shouldn't be willing to agree to that. But we should also just understand that it's not just the United States that's going to be driving a hard bargain. If we're back at the table with the Iranians, they're going to be driving a hard bargain as well. Yeah.

Yeah. So you mentioned possible U.S. knowledge of or participation in this assassination of the scientists. So, you know, this question is a bit in the weed, so I hope you'll endure me in my like Wikipedia level knowledge of these issues. But the U.S. government banned political assassination in 1976. It was executive order 11905 by President Ford. It was reigning in some of the worst excesses of the intelligence community in the 50s and 60s. That EO was updated a couple times by Carter and by Reagan to ban indirect U.S. involvement in assassinations, political assassinations. So my question is, is killing a scientist a political assassination?

Like, what category does that fall into? And therefore, would it be illegal under U.S. law to be indirectly involved in killing this individual in Iran? Yeah. And, you know, we could do an entire podcast on the law of assassinations because you are right. It is an executive order. Interestingly, though, it is not a statute, right? Congress has actually never waited on this question, but it has been a longstanding executive order that has been reaffirmed by Republican and Democratic administrations. I think the answer to your question, Tommy, is, of course, a scientist is a political figure.

because in this case, there are very few political appointees in Iran who matter more than the chief nuclear scientists. This guy didn't sort of rise through the meritocratic ranks. He was appointed by the political leadership, endorsed by the political leadership of Iran, to effectuate a political goal, which is either the effectuation of a civilian nuclear program or, the ability to ramp that up into a pathway to a nuclear weapon. So I don't see how you could make the case, and I'm not sure the Trump administration, we didn't try, that this wouldn't be banned under the existing executive order. So one of the dynamics of the assassination, of course, is that I think all of us looking at some outside would assume, you know, there's an Israeli role in this in some fashion. The Israelis have not been particularly subtle about

not sending that signal. And we've talked before on this show about Saudi Arabia, UAE, Israel, you know, the U.S. partners in the region who've kind of felt obviously very emboldened under Trump. I noticed your complaint last night on Twitter around the briefing you received about the massive arm sale to the U.E, the F-35, one of our most sophisticated pieces of machinery, reaper drones, which can, you know, kill civilians in places like Yemen, where the Emirates have been engaged in a war the last few years for destructive purposes. You know, this was not a part of the splashy announcement of the Abraham Accords, which was cast as a peace agreement.

Most peace agreements, you know, don't come with under the table massive sales of F-35s and Reaper drones. And, you know, there have been reports even as recently as the last 24 hours about the UAE even kind of supporting proxies against the wrong people in liberal. Olivia, what is your concern about this arm sale? And the most important question is, is Biden on the hook for this? Can Congress play a role here? Do you think the new administration should pause this? Or was this kind of committed on behalf of the U.S. as a part of this Abraham Accords formula? And the Emirati is going to put that into play if the arms are withheld? Yeah, I mean, a ton of really important questions there. I mean, first, we all have to assume that there was

some invisible ink on the Abraham Accords, and that when you reveal it, you find Reaper drones. And so I do think there will be a question as to whether the UAE feels like it has to make good on its commitments if the United States doesn't ultimately deliver all of the weapons in the sale. And by the way, this is a dizzying array of lethal arms

that we have never, ever been willing to send into the Middle East. Why on earth does the Middle East need Reaper drones? Never mind F-35s, especially when the recipient of these drones has been regularly participating in the killing of civilians, either by accident or on purpose inside of Yemen. So I think the briefing that we got last night, I hope was equally disturbing to Republicans and Democrats.

It was crystal clear that the administration is rushing this sale through and has not dotted eyes and crossed T's that the Emirates have all sorts of commitments they would need to make that they have not yet made in order to receive these weapons. And so without getting into the details of how this sale is structured, it is likely that even if Congress couldn't overturn this sale before the end of the year, there would be an awful lot still to do under a Biden administration and that the Biden administration may, have some ability to hold back some of these weapons or place new conditions on them. It's just impossible, as you know, to get this largest sale actually done and completed before January 20th.

And my hope is that whether or not this gets sort of officially noticed before Biden takes office, he'll take a fresh look at whether there's wisdom in giving this level of arms to a country that has a history of violating arms embargoes, transferring weapons to Salafas militias inside the Middle East, and occasionally killing civilians with the weapons we've already given them. So speaking of the Biden team, you know, the president-elect has named several members of his national security team. There's more to come. I guess the subhead of this interview is that you're a good Twitter follow. And I was reading the thread you had the other day about the ways U.S. foreign policy has become sclerotic and, you know, dangerously rigid and inflexible,

basically. Can you talk us through what you think some of those problems are? And do you think, from what you've seen so far, that this is the right team to address the ways that U.S. foreign policy has been stagnant and, you know, not address the changing world around it? Yeah, I love everyone individually who's been appointed to this team. I don't know all of them well, but those that I do are smart, they're principled. And many of them are very open to these new ideas. You know, specifically, I've talked to Tony Blinken at length about my belief that we have become, as I said, in that thread sclerotic in the tools that we deploy.

I mean, today we essentially sell weapons to our friends and we sanction our adversaries. And we are sort of left with a really narrow, set of options when we're trying to protect our interests around the globe. So, you know, I've made the case that we should be doubling, at the very least, the size of our smart power tools, right? Things like hard dollars to use to make countries energy independent of Russia, you know, real resources to combat propaganda around the world, not just a couple, you know, extra dollars thrown to, you know, Twitter threads. And I think this team is open. to it. Would I like to see somebody on the national security team that has not served in office

before? Sure. I think it serves every president to have some folks at the upper echelon of their national security team who come in as real outsiders. But the folks that are been named so far, I think, are open to some of these new ideas. But I will add that a lot of this is dependent upon Congress. You know, the president plays the cards that he has in his hand, and it's the budget that gives the president cards. So so long as Congress keeps approving budgets where we spend 20 times as much money on defense and intelligence as we do on the State Department in USAID, you know, there's not much the president can do with that limited toolkit. So, you know, one question, I think, is also how to manage the, this.

transition from this very unusual team that's leaving, I noticed that Jared Kushner's on his way to see his buddy, Muhammad bin Salman, one more time. It's going to the bank. Yeah, trying to get that back end payoff for four years of good service. But to me, it begs the question, not just from a legal perspective, but really from a foreign policy perspective, senator, someone who's looked at things like the Saudi relationship, the Turkey relationship where there have been all these concerns about corruption and what kind of deals were actually made that we don't even know about. Do you think that part of trying to change

the nature of our foreign policy is also going to have to be taking a look back and trying to figure out what happened within these relationships? Again, not legal investigations, but in terms of Congress as an oversight role, you'll have a cooperative administration when it comes to things like witnesses and documents. Do you think that looking back at the conduct and potential corruption of some of these relationships that we've discussed is worth doing, or do you think that that could prove to be a kind of divisive distraction? No, I think it's required. You know, we need to understand, you know, why we have endured these bizarre turns in policy. We need to understand why Erdogan can pick up the phone and five minutes later get a dramatic 180-degree

orientation of American policy in Syria. We need to understand why our Saudi Arabia policy went so quickly off the rails. The question is, you know, can we find the answers? I mean, some of this may be that, you know, Trump just wanted to do anything that Muhammad bin Salman wanted or Erdogan wanted because he knew that after he left, you would get more favorable business treatment. And so there may be no paper trail there. There might be no secret deal. It may just be that Trump was trying to be nice to folks

who ultimately could pat his pockets once he left office. And to the extent there is a paper trail, you have to make sure that it remains. And so a lot of what we need to do right now is put some pressure on these departments to not burn the documents. And so I've already sent correspondence to a couple agencies to, you know, make sure that they're complying with the Presidential Records Act

and that, you know, whether it's their private email feeds or their public paper trails, that they're not destroying any of it. Yeah, I'm sure Jared is archiving all those WhatsApp to Mohammed bin Salman. Yeah, yeah, right. Not to be cynical. So, speaking of cynical, a lot of your colleagues on the Republican side are finding a newfound interest in vetting and qualifications for nominees. I've heard concerns that some of Biden's nominees might not get committee votes. Nira Tandon was put up for the office, the OMB, the Office of

Management and Budget. John Cornyn's spokesman suggested that because she had sent me in tweets about Republicans, that might be a non-starter. What do you make of this, you know, newfound interest in vetting? concerned that McConnell and the gang might try to be actually looking to veto some of Biden's team, or are they just looking for, you know, a few individuals to take down as, you know, I don't know, to make news? John Cornyn went to the floor today, like hours ago, and gave a whole speech about how he wasn't going to confirm anybody unless there was a full disclosure made as to the foreign business relationships of that.

that just gives you an indication as to how the sort of short-term memory phenomenon is going to play out in the Republican caucus, right? They are going to hold themselves to zero precedents. They are going to hold themselves to nothing that they said, to no defenses that they mounted of President Trump over the past four years, and nobody should expect them to because they are shameless about it. They are shameless. There is no ounce of contrition in their soul. And so you shouldn't think that they are going to feel any pressure to treat Biden's nominees like they treated Donald Trump. Now, the question is, are they going to be so unreasonable in the standards that they set that we're going to have a crisis right off the bat in that the president-elect can't get any of his cabinet

named? I think that will be difficult for them to do. I think that they really do risk a backlash from the public if they are stopping the entirety of Biden's national. security team or his domestic team from being placed. So I think they probably will pick their spots. They won't have, they won't necessarily be logic behind who they fight, but they're going to probably have to fight a few out just to prove to their base that they, you know, aren't, you know, providing 100% support. But I don't think that this is going to be a constitutional crisis in a way that I might have feared a month ago. I've talked to enough Republican senators that I believe that there's a pathway to get a good chunk, the vast majority of Biden's cabinet picks approved.

I hope that's true. I mean, in 2009, our experience was they were, it seemed like once Republicans sort of took down Tom Dashel, they let some individuals who you would have thought had worse vetting problems through eventually. But I'll knock on wood, I guess. Yeah. Whatever bottom was there in 2009 and it wasn't much, doesn't seem to be there. One last question, Senator, you know, you and I have talked about democracy a lot and how can the United States kind of help mobilize democratic forces around the world that have been under siege. And I think that the assumption that a lot of people like you and I had is if there was a Democratic Senate, that the best thing we could do is a comprehensive democratic set of reforms in this country, you know, an HR1 type effort on voting

rights and the wiring of democracy. That may be difficult in the event that the Republicans maintain control of the Senate or in a 50-50 Democratic Senate. What do you think the Biden team should do coming in? What is the most important thing that they can do? Beyond the kind of rhetoric about we're back and we're in supporter values again, concretely, how do you think we can restore some sense of democratic example or some sense of momentum to those forces from Belarus to Hong Kong to wherever who want to be able to see something hopeful in the United States related to democracy? Well, I mean, Ben, you and I have talked about this a lot. And I think, you know, part of what's important here, and you've led in a lot of this thought already, is, you know, creating a real common purpose amongst democracies in the world to give, you know, democracies a sense that there's a new reason to be part of the club.

Because the reason for, you know, most of the last 100 years was to combat Soviet aggression, right? And that kind of, you know, that's not as relevant today. that way. But we haven't replaced it with something new. The rise of China presents democracies with an opportunity, right, to sort of understand what you get for membership. If we have a coherent strategy between the United States, Europe, and frankly, democracies in Asia that are not so excited about China dominating their economic sphere, you know, then we have a reason to invest in the project. It does, though, mean drawing a line, right? And sort of saying, who's, in the club and who's out of the club. Part of what has been, part of the disaster of the last four years has been that there's been zero cost applied to countries that have slipped out of the

club. And so that's a difficult exercise, sort of saying to a nation, hey, listen, you're no longer with us and there's consequences for sort of going the way of Orban. But at some point, if you don't deliver consequences to anybody, you don't kick anybody out of the club, it becomes difficult to keep folks in. So I think that common purpose is going to be important. Senator Chris Murphy, author of the book, The Violence Inside Us. I should have mentioned that. Fantastic book.

Great Twitter follow. U.S. Senator. Thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate it. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Thanks again to Senator Murphy for doing the show. Ben, good to see you through our lockdown wormhole here.

Yeah. I can censor frustration time. I was very mad. Although, if you listen to the, there's an episode of the Daily from this week about the vaccine that lays out a timeline. Like, we're obviously at the back of the line here, but it did make me feel a lot better about the way that thing could be rolled out, especially when you have a competent Biden administration. Well, that's right, because it feels like from everything I've read and heard, like it's kind of almost at that stage where it's like a logistics challenge, right? Yes, totally. If you know the thing works, then it's just about.

distributing it, storing it, disseminating it. And a competent government will make a huge difference. Totally. I wish we had them today because, but this will matter having smart people getting things done. Totally. Yeah, when the job is getting like 600 million of the same size glass tubes and transporting, procuring them and then transporting them places at like sub-zero temperatures, it just takes technocrats. You just need like super capable people. You don't need Jared. Jared Kushner's roommate's probably not going to pull that off for you. Anyway. He's too busy making a piece.

He's too making a piece with his wallet inside of you right there. Anyway, Ben, good to see you. Thanks everybody for tuning in, and we'll talk to you next week. See it. Pots Save the World is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Kyle Segglin is our sound engineer. Special thanks to Quinn Lewis for production support. and thanks to our digital team Elijah Cohn, Nar Malkonian, and Milo Kim, who film and share our episodes as videos every week.