Pod Save the World - Biden's controversial pick to run the Pentagon

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

Tommy and Ben talk through Joe Biden’s decision to nominate General Lloyd Austin for Secretary of Defense, a new wealth tax in Argentina, the mass vaccination campaign underway in the UK, reporting on how a Chinese spy developed ties to California politicians, a former Israeli official’s disclosures about space aliens, new Olympic sports, and more. Then Ben interviews French activist Assa Traoré about the fight for racial justice and changes to policing in France and her work as the leader of the Committee for Justice and Truth for Adama.

Welcome back to POTS Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Here we are, Ben. Back in lockdown officially. I'm not going to complain about lockdown this time. So I don't want people to think that I'm being a baby about it. Actually, we have some good news, I think, on the pandemic later in the show. So hopefully that will bring everybody's spirits up. That's the goal today, Ben. We're going to bring up spirits. Yeah, there's light at the end of the tunnel. Just like the Trump presence. Light at the end of the tunnel. So we got a lot going on today. We have a Secretary of Defense nominee. nation. We have a threat by President Trump to veto money for the troops. We're going to talk about whether or not Elizabeth Warren is secretly running Argentina. I'll explain civilian casualties in Afghanistan, why Mike Pompeo is still an asshole, a COVID update, China sending spies to the Bay

area, aliens, and then the Olympics. So a lot of good stuff today. And then our guest today is Asa Treore. Ben, what did you guys talk about? So Asa's extraordinary. I really urge Worldis to stick around for the interview. She started basically what became the Black Lives Matter movement in France when her brother was killed several years ago and is incredibly charismatic, powerful figure who really just tells her story. I mean, the interview is really just the story of what happened to her brother, how she built essentially the Black Lives Matter movement in France and how she's also taken that movement global. So everybody should stick around for that. It's a powerful story, amazing story. I do want to give a shout out to Liliya Pino Bluen, who is just an extraordinary interpreter who brought

this remarkable interview to us today. So thanks so much for all your work on this Lili. You hear that, everybody? You're getting an interpreter on Ponce of the World this week. That is something you're not going to get anywhere else, okay? We're breaking new ground here. I could have tried it myself and French, and it would have not have gone very far, Tommy. Yeah. Well, then no one would have understood it, so I'm glad you guys got an interpreter. Fair point. Fair point. I was so bad at French. You know, look, if we're being honest, I think it was a high school work ethic thing, probably more than anything else.

But I also just not good at memorization. And I felt embarrassed every time I had to pronounce things. Whereas my brother would like, I don't know, when he learned languages, he would just sort of like, sort of goof around with it and like kind of make it a performance. And I just could never get in never get it right. Yeah, I just, I didn't have an aptitude for languages. is I did live in Paris for like six months and got good at speaking French, but not as good as I should have because I didn't like live with a family or anything. And everybody in Paris speaks English to hear your accent. And they just bust into English. To this day, though, it's interesting.

French comes back. My fluent French comes back if I've had several drinks and I'm out in a French-speaking country. Suddenly, my aptitude returns. So I don't know what that's up. out, but it unlocks some part of my brain, I guess. You're just a leader of red wine and Marlborough away from being fluent at all times. Yeah, I led Cody Keenan and I to absent one night at three in the morning. I didn't even know I knew how to say those things, but it worked out. Excellent. Well, I'm excited for that interview. Quick housekeeping. So we just dropped our annual ornaments in the Crooked Store, Ben.

Funny enough, Hannah, my wife just actually asked me about the ornaments. We got two options. We got how the vote saved America. And is that ho, ho, hope. Got it. If you want to receive your fun, Cricket Media Ornaments by December 24th, be sure to order by the 11th. I've actually seen them.

They're really cute. They're really fun. You'll like them. So just go to crooked.com slash store. Get yours. We love puns here. No one loves them more than us. So let's start with Joe Biden's selection for Secretary of Defense because that was the big news this

week. So he has chosen retired four-star general Lloyd Austin to be his. nominee for Secretary of Defense. And if confirmed, Austin would be the first Black Secretary of Defense in history, which is a very big deal. But the selection has also generated some controversy because Austin hasn't been retired from the military for seven years, as is required by law. I think he's been out for four. So more on that in a bit. Austin had a distinguished career in the Army. He served as commander of U.S. Central Command. He was the last commanding general in Iraq. He's a West Point grad. Politico broke this news and they noted that Austin has a lot of experience in logistics

management, which will be really important for the COVID vaccine distribution process. And he also got close to Biden back in 2011 because Biden at the time was running Iraq policy from the White House, especially trying to get all the troops home. Austin was the commanding general. They got to know each other well. Biden was flying to Iraq all the time. So Ben, like pros for Austin, right? He's widely respected. He has combat experience. He's experience in Iraq. He has experience leading efforts against ISIS. He's got a relationship with Biden. He would be this historic first to hold a job that is way too white at the top, just way too white at the top. Downsides for Austin are this waiver issue that I mentioned earlier and the concern about the balance

between civilian authority versus military authority. In fact, this concern is so serious that Senator Jack Reed, who is a senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, says he will not support a waiver for any future nominee for defense secretary. So it seems like the nomination could be in a little bit of trouble and there's some criticism and blowback. Austin is also faced some criticism for being on the board of Raytheon, which is defense contractor. So, Ben, you know, there are probably some people listening to us talk about this who are

like, what the hell are you talking about? Like, why is recent military service a negative in this job? That makes us sense. It seems like that be the exact thing you want from a secretary of defense. An exception was made recently for this waiver rule for General Mattis, who was Trump's first Secretary of Defense. He was confirmed overwhelmingly. Can you like step back and kind of help people understand the controversy here and the concern about preserving civilian control of the military? Yeah. I mean, I, first of all, I think Lloyd Austin is an extraordinary guy. There are few generals

that were in the situation room more, you know, because of Iraq, because of Suncom. And the counter-IS mission than him, just a man of tremendous integrity. So, you know, I think it's important to lay that down because I do have a couple of concerns. In terms of civilian control, I think it comes from a couple of dynamics. I mean, the first is that the U.S. military is just an incredibly powerful institution, the uniformed military, that has its own interest. And I think there's always been a concern that if you don't have a civilian in that position, that the momentum of the military's own interests in resources or in certain policies could kind of

overtake what should be judgments that are made weighing a variety of different priorities. I'll give you an example, so this becomes more real to people. The Afghan surge, which we've talked about a lot on this show, you know, General McChrystal becomes a field general in Afghanistan. He decides that he needs 40,000 additional U.S. troops. the U.S. military, you'll recall, Tommy, kind of fell in line around the general, you know. So whether it was Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, or Dave Petraeus, the head of Central Command at that time, who was above McChrystal in the chain of command, uniformly

just took the same position, you know. And I think that this is the danger, right, that the military, when they're in wars, they want more resources for understandable reasons, right? They want to do the job that's been put in front of them. the question is when you're dealing with like a seven or eight hundred billion dollar budget for instance do you have a secretary defense who can look at that from a civilian perspective and say maybe we don't need those additional weapon systems or maybe I need to listen to the president who's telling me that you know we've got an economic crisis in this country so we have to make some cuts in the

defense budget and so I think on issues like are there more resources put into counterterrorism or wars, or are we going to be able to cut the defense budget? Those are just two examples of circumstances where somebody who's spent their whole life in uniform might be much more likely to kind of represent the views of the uniform military rather than inserting the kind of civilian control of the military that allows you to make tradeoffs, it allows you to weigh, you know, resource requests in one area against other national priorities. And it just, frankly, just has a healthy dynamic in democracies, you don't want militaries to be in positions of political influence. You want them to be, you know, carrying out their professional responsibilities.

Yeah. It's also probably pretty challenging. You know, if you're a four-star general, you are the best of the best of the best of the best, right? And that is an elite club. And I imagine you spend 40 years in the military with a bunch of four-star, do you become pretty close. So to your point, I mean, having to push back on them on behalf of the White House to implement a policy, I think, becomes even harder. And that's, probably why this would only be the third time that a president has requested or received a waiver. The first was George Marshall in 1950 and then General Mattis in the beginning of Trump's term in 2016. Unfortunately, we're talking about this question of sort of civilian control of the military,

right? And we're not having a conversation about how progressive this choice is, right? Like, I have no idea what Lloyd Austin's politics are. But I suspect, like you said, he's not going to be a person who's going to come to the building and push for budget cuts and say like $741 billion $NDAA is a lot of money. But like I guess the question is who would be that more progressive alternative? Because I don't know that Michelle Flournoy is that person either, right? I mean, she supported, you know, the Iraq surge. Like to someone who's got unbelievable experience, she's a brilliant thinker, she has been

recommended by, you know, almost everybody that is steeped in these policies. But again, it's sort of like to your point, then, like not someone that's going to, I don't know, shake up the building, really. Well, yeah, but I'll say this because my first concern with the selection is the civilian control, the military point. The second is this will be the third consecutive time that a Democrat has won a presidential election and then not chosen a Democrat to be their Secretary of Defense. And look, I don't know, maybe Lloyd Austin, I'm not suggesting he's a Republican. And I think, understandably, he's probably of no political party affiliation because he spent his career in military. And that's right. So it's not a criticism of Lloyd Austin.

The point is, Barack Obama wins in 2008 and names Bob Gates. Barack Obama wins in 2012 names Chuck Hagel. Joe Biden wins in 2020 and chooses Lloyd Austin. It just feels like, why are we afraid to pick a Democrat? There's a lot of Democrats in this country. And so, yeah, Michelle, you know, I'm sure. there are important progressive arguments about where Michelle's been on certain policy issues or the budget. But we do know that she's been a Democrat and she's been, you know, she understands

a Democratic Party and she understands the Democratic, Democratic concerns in Congress. So, so not that she's the ideal alternative, but rather that I would like to see a civilian and a Democrat serve a Democratic president at some point. And because it reinforces kind of the Republican narrative that Democrats aren't ready or somehow serious about national defense in the military, if we kind of confirm that view by picking a general or by picking a Republican like Gates or Republican like Hegel as if we have to be viewing this position from a defensive crouch, you know, that's what bothers me the most about this pick, again, which has nothing to do with Lord Austin. Like, he could be the greatest general in the world. But the reality is, you know,

Republicans appoint people that are going to carry out their national security priorities for for better, good, bad, or ugly. I'd like to see the Democrats pick somebody from our own bench, really, for the, for these types of position. Yeah. Yeah, look, I mean, I'm sort of, I'm put kind of playing devil's advocate here. Like, I, I'm sure Lloyd Austin and Michelle Flournoy would be exceptionally good at the job. I'm just sort of struck by how narrow the sort of boundaries of the conversation are going in. That's right. No, no, that's a good point, Tommy, which is like, you know, you don't see progressives on these lists ever. So it is something to think about in terms of how you're developing your bench.

Whereas, you know, Trump sends Mike Pompeo to the State Department, right, from the CIA, who is like a military first, kill everything, diplomacy later kind of guy and, you know, not a great pick. Ben, random story that came to mind was thinking about Jim Jeffrey and Lloyd Austin, who were like kind of like the diplomat and the senior military leader tag teaming, the Iraq drawdown process. Were you in that deputies committee meeting when Dennis was leading it? And he had, you know, he had asked Jim Jeffrey, the ambassador about some sort of document. And Jeffrey was like, oh, we'll send that over to you when it's ready. And Dennis said, oh, no, no, we have it here actually.

Like so-and-so from your team sent it over to us. So, you know, thank you for that. And he, and Jeffrey in Baghdad forgot to mute his mic. And he was like, get me that motherfucker. Like when berserk and he didn't know he wasn't muted and we're all sitting there in the situation room like everyone is dying laughing and like that's like uh jim jim jim your mic you know jim jim jem didn't love the obama white house either so that kind of came out too um i'll tell you lloyd austin i mean that guy is super intense i mean he's like six foot six and just a big guy with like a deep baritone voice and it was really intense to be in the counter isil meetings with him because he would refer to ISIS as the singular he as the enemy.

So he'd be describing like, you know, you'd be like, so the enemy you see, he's over here, and we're going to hit him here. And it was always like the toughest thing imaginable, like this general just describing, like, you know, in this kind of first person way, how he was going to take out ISIS. And I will say, like, he was the guy who, who, who, who, um, put together, you know, from the military perspective, this, you know, coalition of dozens of countries that ultimately did take out ISIS. I will say it should be looked at, right?

The failure of that probably ill-considered to begin with train and equip program of the Syrian opposition happened under Austin's command. Again, the failure may have very well been with the civilians who provided that mission, but that's something that may get scrutiny. And there were some question. that I hope gets surfaced here about civilian casualty reporting from CENTCOM at the time Austin was there. Again, not suggesting that he was personally responsible for this, but I think it's important

that issues like transparency around civilian casualties get an airing in a confirmation process. You know, obviously they've not featured at all in the last four years with Trump. But I think having come out of a period with McMaster and Kelly and Maddus, it was a would have been even more important to kind of, you know, send a message about civilian control. But, I mean, look, Joe Biden clearly is prioritizing people that he is personally very comfortable with. And I can attest firsthand. He thinks the world of Lloyd Austin. And that's the kind of team he wants. And that's, you know, he's entitled to his team. And they are all high quality people. Yeah, for sure. So, you know, one thing that will be very relevant to whoever gets this job,

whether it's Floranoi or Austin or anybody else, is the annual National Defense Authorization Act. So that is a literally $741 billion bill this year that funds military programs, weapons systems, pay raises, other compensation for service members. Trump has repeatedly tweeted various veto threats around this bill, including if it doesn't include a repeal of Section 230, which is a federal law that gives social media companies like Twitter and Facebook liability protections. Basically, if I tweet something terrible, Twitter can't be sued, but I can. It's the gist of it. There is a reasonable debate that should be had about liability protections and social media platforms and et cetera. But what Trump is doing here is saying that he will cut off funding to the U.S. military because Twitter won't let him spread lies about the election without fact checks, which is obviously a petulant, ridiculous thing to do. So previously he threatened to veto this bill because of a provision from Elizabeth Warren that would change the names of 10 military bases that are currently named after Confederate generals because maybe we should stop honoring Confederates.

This morning, Trump said another tweet that also added, quote, the bill must allow for 5G and troop productions in foreign lands. Now, of course, he spelled troop, T-R-O-U-P-E the way you would a dance group or comedy troupe. I guess what he's referencing are parts of the current bill that limits his ability to reduce the number of troops in Germany and South Korea. And then there's something I don't really understand about GPS and 5G, but whatever. So, Ben, I mean, I just, the politics of this are just unimaginably stupid. I mean, cutting off funds for the U.S. military because Twitter is mean to you. That's just not a great message. You can't ever convince me that it is.

The House passed the NDAA anyway today, Tuesday. Over the summer versions of the bill had passed with veto-proof majorities. The question now is whether Republicans are going to fall in line one last time or just ignore him. There's rumblings out of the Freedom Caucus that they will support a Trump veto. What do you make of this madness, this 11th hour madness and like care to make a prediction about what happens here? Well, it's completely insane reason to be vetoing the National Defense Authorization Act. You know, first of all, even if you have concerns about Section 230, right, and you want greater tech regulation, like, the NDAA is not like the vehicle through which I'd be addressing that. Like let the new Congress

take that up, you know. And you're right about the politics. Like if a Democrat was, you know, Obama every time the NDA came up, they would always have restrictions in the NDA basically preventing him from closing Gitmo, right? So the laws that said you couldn't transfer anybody out of Gitmo into the U.S. even to a prison here. And we would always kind of consider vetoing it and the kind of collective wisdom of Democrats in Congress and the media was it's political suicide and insanity to possibly veto an NDAA. You'll never recover from it, blah, blah, blah. So there's clearly a double standard here. And I wish, yeah, the Freedom Caucus seems to indicate that they're going to have his back. So as usual, Trump, not surprising that he's

acting like a toddler on the way out who doesn't care about, you know, the defense of the United States. It's just a shock that why were Republicans backing up a lame duck president on a bunch of insane pet projects of his, you know? I would assume that this veto will be overturned, but if enough, you know, House Republicans are still, you know, paying homage to dear leader, this could all get punted to next year, in which case, you know, they'll just pass an NDA very quickly, I think, through the next Congress under Joe Biden. Just an absurd. number of things that are being held hostage to this man's ego. It is just infuriating. Okay, so Argentina. So this is the reason I mentioned Elizabeth Warren. So Argentina passed a new tax on its

wealthiest citizens to pay for COVID relief measures. So this is a tax on people worth more than $2.5 million, which the BBC estimated would impact about 12,000 people in the country. And so it's a rate of up to 3.5% on wealth in Argentina and 5.25% on wealth outside of Argentina. They hoping to raise about 3.7 billion, so about like a 50th of a Bezos, and use that money to pay for actual medical supplies as well as relief for businesses and people. And then I think like a fifth of it is going to go towards developing a domestic natural gas sector, which is kind of random. But who knows? So anyway, this seems like a good idea. We should do this. How about a well tax? Great idea. You know, I'd love to see Elizabeth Warren's proposals globalized. Yeah, no,

And look, I will say Argentina, like a lot of Latin American country, struggles with massive economic inequality. I mean, destabilizing inequality. And that's fueled protest next door to Argentina in Chile. And now we've got a progressive president in Argentina doing, I think, what is a very common sense thing in raising badly needed resources in the middle of COVID and economic crisis through a wealth tax. The thing I'd watch, Tommy, is whether this becomes contagious. in a good way, where government after government starts to see that this is, you know, an equitable way to try to address public needs. It would be a good thing. So you mentioned the issue of civilian casualties in Scentcom earlier. So I wanted to raise that issue about Afghanistan because Brown University

has a cost of war project, and they just recently released it. And they found that in 2019, U.S. airstrikes killed more civilians in Afghanistan than any other year since two. 2002 since the beginning of the war. There was a 330% increase from 2016 to 2019. So 2016 was the last full year Obama was in charge. So 330% increase from the Obama years to the most recent Trump year. The increase is directly attributable to a decision made in 2017 by the Trump team to loosen the rules of engagement for airstrikes. So for listeners unfamiliar with that term, rules of engagement are internal rules for the military that govern, like when you can use force. It can range from when an individual soldier is allowed to fire his or her weapon to when a pilot is allowed to drop bombs on a target.

And so in 2017, for example, the Pentagon started letting pilots hit targets like a narcotics factory, where there wasn't direct fighting happening at the moment, but suddenly it was deemed a military target. This report also points out that, you know, we think fewer troops on the ground should lead to fewer deaths from Afghans. In fact, that's not the case. So when you have fewer troops on the ground, the military has been trying to do more damage from the air and more bombs were dropped in 2018 and 2019 than at the height of the U.S. troop presence in 2011. The report also points out, you know, that military commanders have long known that civilian casualties are damaging to the overall war effort. The report quotes General McChrystal, who you mentioned earlier, who was the ISAF commander, expressing outrage at one incident and saying, quote, we are going to lose this fucking war if we don't stop killing. civilian. So it's crystal clear to him. So, you know, Ben, credit to Brown for putting this together. There's less reporting on the ground there. You know, the lower the U.S. troop levels get, the less

attention, I think, gets paid to the war itself. There's less media who are able to operate without the protection of U.S. troops. So I think reports like this are critical to understanding how bad the reality is on the ground for the Afghan people. And, you know, unfortunately, they also get into the fact that as we are transitioning to training the Afghan Air Force to, you know, to the Afghan Air Force, bomb targets, they too are starting to hit civilian targets at a really alarming rate. So not great. Yeah. And it's kind of depressing that in the Trump years, you know, there was no expectation that they would care about civilian casualties. So what used to be an issue that got kind of scrutiny from the media, they didn't bother asking, right? I mean, he ran on it too,

right? I mean, he said he's going to bomb the shit out of him. Ted Cruz, bomb into the Stone Age. It's like, it's just disgusting that that's a talking point that gets you political points. No, that's right. And I think we in this country need to look in the mirror and think, like, why is it not a bigger issue that we are killing civilians at this rate? When we knew that that's exactly what was going to happen. When he said he was going to loosen the rules of engagement, you know, well, that was clearly going to lead to civilian casualties. This is a man who bragged about dropping the quote unquote mother of all bombs, the largest conventional bomb ever dropped on the country on Afghanistan. Right at the beginning of this.

As if, like, just dropping a big bomb was some achievement. You know, and by the way, if you watch Fox, it was an achievement for years. They would cite it as, like, part of his legacy. And at the convention, the Republican convention, you had speakers, including his grifting sons, like, talking about this, like, it was a good thing. I mean, you want to know why America is not going to win these post-9-11 wars, like, in part because we didn't show enough regard for the lives of the people in the countries where we'd gone to war.

I mean, that's pretty straightforward. And I think this does throw up also huge cautionary. note about, you know, the risks of shifting everything to air power. And, and this is why even in the counter ISIS mission, where Obama got accused of quote unquote micromanaging the military, because he put a lot of these restrictions in terms of what you could do from the air, it was always more effective to try to work with, like, say, the Kurds who were actually fighting ISIS on the ground. Because, again, you're not just dropping, you know, no matter how precision guided the weapons are, like if you're dropping them from tens of thousands of feet, you know,

mistakes are more likely to happen. And these aren't just like mistakes. These are like tragic losses of innocent life. Yeah. And look, there were civilian casualties under Obama, but you're right. I mean, a 330% increase because of these rule changes is, it's a huge deal. It shows you why we have the rules in the first place. I mean, they do matter. I mean, they really make a difference in terms of what circumstances you're authorizing the use of lethal fours. Okay, so let's transition to Mike Pompeo because I couldn't be more excited for him to be the former Secretary of State, but we should talk about the ways he is sort of embarrassing himself or disgracing the office on the way out the door. So first, Ben, there are concerns about

irregularities in the recent Venezuelan legislative elections. The opposition boycotted these elections. They were criticized by the EU, the elections the way they were run were among others. But Pompeo tweeted that the elections were, quote, an attempt to steal Venezuela's democratic future and, quote, an electoral sham. And that is just humiliating for him and for the United States as he is running around supporting Trump's coup attempt, including my item number two, Pompeo announced he is going to give a speech in Georgia. No, not Tbilisi. He's going to Georgia Tech a month before the runoff election that couldn't be more partisan and more politicized. And then remember a while back when we were talking about Pompeo's, you know, the lavish,

like Madison dinners at the State Department for major donors and leaders, an organization called crew. They track like government corruption, basically. They obtained documents that show these dinners cost taxpayers at least $40,000, probably a lot more. So, you know, I know that our punishment, Ben is going to be watching, like, guys like Pompeo like just bang around in U.S. politics for the next few years as he plots a run for president. But, you know, I think we need to make sure we're calling out his bullshit on the way out the door. Because it's just, it's a joke. He's a joke. He's a complete another joke who's debased the position of Secretary of State, eviscerated our credibility to ever comment on other countries' elections, you know, I mean, until we do some serious

homework here in the United States. I do want to just raise one thing time, which is like, oh, he's going to Georgia, like, fine. Is he the closer here? Like, like the, the, the are going to lose these two sentences, but then Mike Pompeo, who's achieved nothing as Secretary of State, is going to come into Georgia Tech and somehow he's like the cavalry is going to deliver this win. This guy's talking about running for president. Who the fuck is going to vote for this guy for president? Like, he's $40,000 on the Madison dinners. He'd be lucky if he walked out of those with 40 votes from the people who attended those dinners. So I don't even know why he's even done the service of being treated like some guy with, like some, if you seen Mike Pompeo

speak, have you listened to him? Does that say? He's not a compelling guy. Donald Trump is compelling. Like, I hate it, but he's like a charismatic guy. So, like, I also don't know why we go through this charade. Like, he's this guy who needs to be taken seriously. Why? Why? Like, what is he achieved? What does he achieved in public life? Nothing. He's achieved nothing. He's a petulant bully. Yeah. I mean, and the good news is Trump running again is going to make me completely miserable because I'm just sick of hearing him and I'm sick of him being like the global narrator for U.S. events. But watching him freeze and infuriate all these clowns who have been looking in the mirror for four years and thinking there the next president

is going to be a tiny tiny consolation press. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I just, you know, Mike Pompeo, I don't know, Tommy. We had to keep coming back to it a couple times. But I mean, this guy, like, of all the Trump lackeys who are not related to him, like he's got to be at the top of the list. He's right up to the top. Okay. So here's an issue he should be working on, which is COVID. So good news. The UK is the first nation in the world to begin vaccination. its citizens. So a 90-year-old woman named Margaret Keenan was the first person in the country to get the Pfizer vaccine. A man named William Shakespeare was the second. No one told the New York Times. We're going to get another like King Lear comparison story. So vaccinating everyone in the UK is obviously going to take a while,

especially because, you know, that version of the vaccine requires two doses. But light at the end of the tunnel, good news. So that's a good news story. So now I'm going to piss you off. We also learned this week that over the summer, Pfizer-Ofer do sell the U.S. more than the original 100 million doses of the vaccine, and the Trump administration turned them down. So that could slow down our vaccination timeline here in the U.S. over the long term and make me put my head through a wall in the short term. So that's very annoying. So let's end with some interesting context, because the most interesting thing I've read about

COVID in a long time was a story by David Wallace Wells in New York Magazine. It was just a fantastic writer. He talks about how the Moderna vaccine, which is basically 95% effective, had been designed by January 13th, 2020. So this thing was like done and in a lab. And the National Institute of Health was starting the process of these phase one trials right around the time when the first death occurred. So we've had this vaccine like in our hands for months. And I'm not saying like we should have just given it then, like obviously not, but other countries have moved faster. So China started administering its vaccine in June. Russia approved a vaccine in August, not the countries I would

normally turn to for safety standards, which is notable. So the piece asked whether we should speed up the sort of clinical trial process and potentially take a little more risk to get vaccines to market faster if that could have saved like 10, 20, 100,000 lives. And what's notable is this has happened with treatments. The FDA allowed emergency use of authorization for several treatments, including hydroxychloroquine, which one could argue makes a strong case against speeding up these processes. But it does talk, it speaks to the inconsistency. So for vaccines, that phase three trial is there to measure efficacy and not safety. So you can make an argument for skipping that part of the process. But, you know, this piece is great because it also talks about how in the future

we might be able to preemptively prepare vaccines for future pandemics in the same way that scientists anticipate the flu strain every year. So it's just worth reading the whole thing. It gets at a broader discussion that we have a lot on this show about how to manage risk with public policy and how to spend money in service of that risk and those policy choices. Because a vaccine scientist at Mount Sinai estimated that you could prepare vaccines for between 50 to 100 viruses and like prepare us for the next round of pandemics for the price of the entire F-35 jet program. So a lot there, Ben, but I guess my question is just, how you feel in about the state of the COVID world these days and like, you know, how we've handled it versus the other countries? Well, I mean, I was enraged

at the news. I mean, like Trump literally, you know, his slogan is America first, you know, drawing on his kind of fascist models from the past. And then this guy like sells out Americans by not trying to acquire as much of this vaccine as possible for their quote-unquote operation warp speed. Like they clearly, they basically made it demonstrably slower and worse in terms of the dissemination of the vaccine to come by not taking this step. At the same time, you mentioned hydroxy. Like there was no scientific impulse to test that and to put more resources behind it. that was done to kind of cover up Trump's insanity at press briefings in a narrative he wanted on Fox News, right? So, you know, reinforces government matters.

Competent government would have saved a ton of lives in a whole host of ways from masking to guidelines, but also now we learn vaccines. I think the bigger point here going forward is, look, this is a competence question. The national and global dissemination of these vaccines is going to be a massive effort over the course of the next year, including for the next administration. I feel so much better with just competent professionals managing this because these are problems to be solved. These aren't ideological disputes. It's like how do we move something from X to Y to Z? I think going forward, though, global health security was something that we were beginning to become much more invested in the Obama years in that pandemic preparedness office that got a lot of attention, that directorate at the White House had focused on pandemic preparedness was meant to be a part

of a global system of pandemic preparedness that had U.S. offices in other countries, but also that coordinated with other countries to learn lessons from past pandemics, to be doing research, to be working together on potentially vaccines. And so, yes, I do think that coming out of COVID, we should never go through this again as a global community. We should have much, much more resources devoted to early warning, to stopping the spread of outbreaks at their source. and yes, surging resources behind vaccines and getting them to the people faster. How is this not worth the investment of, say, just a single arm sale that we'll talk about that's being made to the UAE? If you put your $20 billion into global pandemic preparedness,

you can save hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives if this ever happens again and save trillions of dollars of economic damage. It is a no-brainer in terms of putting resources into this. Yeah, and it just seems like something where you could so easily, share the burden. I mean, every country in the world could put in some chunk of money, try to prepare all these vaccines and just speed up the dissemination. It seems like the most obvious thing we could possibly do. And look, it's all enabled, I think, by this sort of new mRNA type of vaccine that's just somehow faster. I don't get it. And look, we have this legacy of, you know, there was a version of the polio vaccine that I think got one and a thousand people sick.

And, you know, the Hippocratic oath is do no harm. So they wanted to make sure they were harming people here. But, you know, there's got to be a cost. benefit analysis that, I don't know, just maybe thinks about this stuff in a new way because we're going to hit like 400,000 people dead, and we've had the formula for this vaccine since January. There is, and there's no question. You made an important point. I cannot think of a single issue on which international cooperation should be easier because every single country has an interest in there not being an outbreak, even in other countries, right? Because obviously, even if you get your stuff together in your own country, you know, it can spread as long as it

spreading somewhere else. So this is something where the U.S. and China and Europe and India and other countries that don't agree on a lot of things should all feel comfortable putting resources into the same bucket to make sure that the world can deal with this better. If only there was an organization that dealt with world health that we were a part of. It was called an organization. Yeah. Yeah. There's a good place to do it. Okay, a couple more things. So Axios had an interesting piece today that is worth reading in full about a Chinese spy who spent about four years in the U.S. trying to get close with various U.S. political leaders. Her primary targets were in California and the Bay Area, including Congressman Eric Swalwell,

who was tapped to serve on the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee back in 2015. So, like, he would have had at some point access to real information. I think she left in 2015. And there's no evidence that he ever, you know, said anything in tort or did anything untoward. But it was just, you know, she picked a target that later went into a position of serious influence. It's just notable. But this is sort of like a long-term effort to build these ties through fundraising for politicians, networking, even romantic relationships with unnamed Midwestern mayors are mentioned in the piece. Again, in Swalows case, he was warned about her, I think, by the FBI in 2015.

He immediately cut ties. He, you know, no allegation of any wrongdoing. But, you know, Ben, it reminded me of the Russian illegals who spent decades in the U.S. trying to build relationships like this until they were finally exposed in. given the boot from the U.S. in 2010. They later became the genesis of the show The Americans, so we thank them for that. In this case, this Chinese agent, Ms. Fang, just suddenly departed in 2015, so I don't know if they got a tip somehow. You know, it's funny. You usually think about spying and intrigue like this being a Washington thing, but the targets, again, were in San Francisco.

When I lived in San Francisco, I remember noticing lots of consulates, lots of cars with diplomatic plates driving around. On top of that, there's a lot of political leaders. there's a lot of good technology to steal. So, Ben, the Axios takeaway was China's more aggressive. They're more emboldened with their spying. I'm no counterintelligence expert. I had always just assumed that China and Russia had the pedal to the medal. But I don't know. What did you make of this piece? Well, first of all, I'm glad you ended where you did because I'm not a counterintelligence specialist. Either what I'm about to say I don't want to suggest is informed by, you know, classified information I learned in government. But my instinct,

was that this happens all the time from lots of different countries, by the way. Obviously, China and Russia, but I think lots of countries have people who report back, you know, about business developments in other countries, obviously about politics, obviously about national security. So I think people should recognize that this kind of, you know, human espionage is still part of the landscape. The thing that concerns me, Tommy, is that there's been a movement under Trump to kind of kick out all Chinese foreign students who are studying in this country. there are thousands and thousands and thousands of Chinese students here.

And yes, there have been reports that the Chinese intelligence services have used students on occasion like this. It would be an enormous mistake to just toss out all Chinese students because there are some spies that got through. The way to have a more airtight counterintelligence system is to just be good at uncovering who's an intelligence asset. And I can tell you if you kick out all the Chinese students, the Chinese will find other ways to have travelers come here. You just have to be good at trying to uncover these things. You probably can't stop them all. So I do hope that the momentum of this story, which has a kind of DC salacious feel to it because it's a Chinese spy and a young woman, like I hope that that doesn't lead to more punitive measures against international students. Yeah. I mean, the line between diplomat and spy is not

fully spelled out here. Obviously, a sexual relationship is another level. I mean, if she is, diplomats build relationships with political leaders to get information to report back. It's called a cable. Yeah, yeah. You know, I guess like the line for an intel person is you're undeclared in the country or also maybe you like slip somebody a thumb drive and try to spy on their comms or something. But like, yeah, I mean, to your point, the Chinese are doing this all the time. The Russians, the Israelis, a lot of people spying on a lot of people.

We're doing it. I mean, again, I'm not revealing any, you know, any secret here. But, I mean, you think the United States doesn't like want to know what's happening in other countries. Of course we did. Speaking of knowing what's happening in other places, we have to talk about aliens because the former head of Israel's defense ministry space directorate says that aliens exist, that the U.S. has made contact with them. But they asked, the aliens asked us to not go public with this news yet because the world isn't ready. He made these claims in an interview with Yediot Oronot, which is a major Israeli newspaper. The general said the aliens are just as curious about us as we are about them.

that the U.S. and the aliens have a joint underground base on Mars. Maybe the least believable part of the story is the claim that Trump was on the verge of revealing all this news, but didn't because they asked him not to prevent mass hysteria. I kind of think he's like a mass hysteria fan if it's politically advantageous. So again, for our listeners, neither of us got briefed on any alien intel or if we did, we would lie to you about it. But it's fascinating how stories like this pop up all the time from seemingly very credible sources. You know what I mean? Like there's fucking

Pentagon videos of UFOs flying around. This dude ran Israel's defense ministry for space. And it's like, I don't know. If aliens exist, it's all just hiding in plain sight. And I don't know what to make of it anymore. Well, Harry Reid, too. Have you ever heard Harry Reid? He insists that their UFOs

funded for years. I mean, look, to the longtime world those, right, who stuck with us, you'll recall that we were very supportive of the march on Area 51. totally. I don't know what happened to that. I don't know why that got shut down. I know there risks involved. I know it's hot out there. But come on. I mean, not in COVID. Everybody should be locked down. But I mean, people need to go check out what's happening here. Actually, Marches on Area 51 were actually exempted by the L.A. County rules. That's a very inside L.A.

being pissed about COVID restrictions. I will say, though, that the Mars underground base is when you start to think that maybe this guy who was once very on top of things for Israel, like that a screw would pop loose. I'm trying to envision the underground base on Mars that the U.S. has been furtively running somehow. Right. So, yeah. How would we get there? How would we get there with no one seeing us getting there? So I thought about this too. So the base would have had to have been built by the aliens and we'd have to hit your ride, I guess. That's my only explanation. So we hit a ride on the U.F. Wait, you just, no, that's, so we hit a ride on the U.S. So it's so fast.

Yeah. It's not picked up by telescopes and stuff. You just stick your thumb out and you look friendly. Yeah. Yeah, though they haven't had the serial killers issues that we've had back here. Yeah. That's fair. That's fair.

but please pick your sport. Let us know how we can support you, maybe set up a GoFundMe. We'll start your training regimen, but you just got to let us know today which direction you're going. So I've got what, skateboarding, surfing? Breakdancing, climbing, and surfing.

Now you are in Venice, so you've got the ocean. I don't know how the break is, though. I didn't tell you, I mean, you've been to weddings with me. I mean, I think it's a no-brainer of break dancing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I could get to work. I mean, the only risk there, I would say that this would be a sure thing, except for my hamstrings.

Because basically what I can see here is that like I'm going to tear muscle trying to prepare for the U.S. Olympic team and breakdancing. You don't want to tear. So that might suggest climbing. I don't know. Climbing seems so hard. Can ranting become an Olympic? Yeah.

Okay. Well, you know what? We'll go back to them. You and I know how this Olympic thing works from our experience with Obama trying to get the games. Basically what happens is every country goes and make a big presentation. They do it all in good faith, trying to get the games to their city, and then a bunch of autocrats hand bags of cash to the folks in charge. Yeah. And that's why we struck out. I did get to represent the United States as the official delegation to the closing ceremonies in 2012 in London, which was one of the coolest

things I did in government. And it was me, Susan Rice and Reggie Love and Michelle Kwan, you know, the figure skater, wonderful woman. And, Reggie disappeared for very long times, usually between the end of the day and the next morning. And I think he did really well at some like casino or something. So there we were like representing the United States. And Reggie always turned up for his duties, right? But I think he also made, made a little money on the side. Who knew about London Casino is not me? I've been reading Obama's book and his like early campaign Reggie stories are the best. Like Obama's like the most miserable he's ever been on his life.

He's like sitting on a plane with Robert Gibbs and Gibbs. And like, are you having any fun on this campaign trail? I was like, no. Reggie turned around. He goes, if it's any consolation, I'm having the time of my life. Which is true, which is true. Which is true. It is the funniest thing in the world to say the next president of the United States.

But that's why everybody loves him. He's like just a beloved human being. Yes. All right, that's all I got for the news section. When we come back, we'll have Ben's interview with Asatrayori about France and Black class matter. So stick around for that. You will not want to miss it. Okay, I'm very pleased to be joined by Asa Traulet, who is a racial justice activist and the founder of the Truth for Adama advocacy group in France. And we're very excited to be able to have her in doing this through interpretation. So thank you, Asa, for

joining us. Thank you for having me and for taking this fight beyond the French border. across the Atlantic so that my brother's name can resonate to defend all the victims of police brutality outside of France. Well, why don't we start with your brother? Americans obviously know all too well the names of people like Michael Brown and George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, but they may not know your brother's story. And so why don't you just begin by telling us what happened your brother in 2016 so that we get to know him a little bit and then we can talk about your activism? My brother died on the day of his 24th birthday.

My brother died on the day of his 24th birthday. And what happened to him is exactly what happened to George Floyd, that image of, George Floyd's death that we all have in our hearts is exactly what happened to my brother. They died screaming the

same words. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. That image that has shocked and horrified the entire world that we learned through George Floyd is exactly the same that happened to

Adamat Treore. As I mentioned, my brother died on the day of his 24th birthday, that 19th of July 2016. That day, the town hall had called to let him know that his ID was ready to be picked up. That day, he just wanted to go out for a bike ride. It was a beautiful sunny day, and he just wanted to enjoy his bike ride. but he didn't have time to do that. And it's important for the world to know that here in France, an idea is just the prolonging for black people of what slavery was.

He didn't have on him his protective vest, which is what the idea would have been. And because of that, he was just pinned to the ground and he was subject to a chokehold. That day, as he was riding his bike, he saw that the police was doing an ID check, and he was just going to continue along, but he was stopped.

And when he saw what was going on, somebody else also got involved, and in that situation, Adama managed to run away because he knew that he was getting trouble without his idea on him, and he found shelter in an apartment of somebody he knew. What I'm about to tell you is what we were told by the police at the first hearing on that very night. We were told that my brother was pushed by the weight of three heavy bodies, and that he was pinned to the ground and that they crushed his chest. And then they threw him in a police car,

and what he screamed was, I can't breathe. he wasn't brought to the hospital, even though the hospital was close by. They decided that they would just let him die the way one would let a dog die in the police station's courtyard in the full sun. As I mentioned, they just threw him in that police station's courtyard. and we asked to have police reports of what happened that night to Adama Trouret, and we didn't see right away reports from the EMTs, from the medics. And when we finally got a chance to see them, we learned that through what the EMTs said,

my brother had handcuffs to his back and therefore the front of his body was pinned to the ground so they didn't give him any kind of first aid the way an initial police report said that they had done. They couldn't have done that because based on the medics report

we know that they had not placed it in the recovery position the way they should have so there was no first aid given to him. Actually, the EMTs asked the police to remove handcuffs, and they said no. They told them he is only a 25-year-old young man. You can't do that.

My brother died at 7.05 p.m. and we didn't learn about it right away. Nobody informed us of that. They decided that they would just let him die. He should know that in France, an ID is something that was introduced for the first time at the time of slavery, a black slave. If he was found on this tree without his ID, he could be killed right there and then.

So in France, for a long time, an ID document is something that is used to kill black people. we didn't learn that my brother had died that night. We didn't find out immediately. I was actually abroad. I had left the country the day before. My other brother called the hospitals and then he called the first aid center and he was told that he should call the police. which in and of itself is not normal. My family arrived at the gendarmerie. My mare was son. So my family arrived at the police station

and my mother said, I heard that my son is not doing well. The answer was, oh, don't worry, he's fine. He's just under custody. So my mom asked, do we need to hire a lawyer? And the answer was, oh, don't worry if a lawyer is needed, we will deal with that. So my mom responded, well, if anything were to happen to my son, I will press charges. No, no, don't worry, he's fine. So my brother tackled the door and asked whether

he could see a high-ranking officer. And finally, he managed. And finally, he managed. to write there and then they told them that my brother was dead. They were already trying to hide evidence had the crime scene, just like they had hidden to us that my brother had been dead for several hours. And that's where the fight started. I had boarded a flight on the 18th, and right before I had spent, spoken to all my little brothers, and actually I called, I hadn't seen Adama, and he spoke to me on the phone and said, are you going to come back? Can I still see you? And I said, no, I'm already on the way to Paris. Can you come back? No, no, I'm already on my way. Well, he died on the 19th,

and then on the 20th, I came back. And that's when it all started. where the war machine started for all of us. And why do I say war machinery? Because we've all become soldiers in spite of ourselves, in spite of what our will was, myself and my family are now soldiers as part of this war in which there's really no feelings on the other side.

there's no remorse, there's no emotional involvement. They have all the money in the world, and they have the justice system on their side, and it is something that isn't stopping. And actually, the criminalization of my brother started immediately after that. When my brother died, The system pulled down a manual. I call it a manual.

It's as if they had a manual teaching them what to do. And it says that it is not the police being responsible for what they did, but they are the victims. And my brother, on the other hand, is guilty. They say that he was a criminal, that he was. that he was up to no good, that he was a member of the mafia. And on the other side, the police were just his victims. On the 19th of July, riots broke out right away in our neighborhood.

And at first, the media showed up because of that, not because of my brother's death as such, but because they wanted to film the riots that had broken out. And that was before I was even back yet. And when I got there, I said, there's a young man who died. His name was Damatreuré and he was killed.

And we demand to have his body back. So that's when our fight started in our neighborhood, in our town. young people, groups of them, assaulted the town hall, and they held a press conference. This happened before I even got back, and they did a sit-in in front of the police station, and they were gassed right there. In the beginning, they said that the cause of death for my brother was a cardiac arrest and that he was on drugs and that he had drunk alcohol, but that wasn't true.

And we started immediately to demand to have an autopsy. So they did a first autopsy, and then at the prosecutor's office, we were told, we know that you're from Mali and you're Muslim, and in your religion, the tradition is that the body needs to be buried within three days of the death, and therefore we took the liberty of contacting our friends, and there is a plane waiting at Chard de Gaulle to take your brother's body, your brother's body back to Mali. And we absolutely did not want that.

We wanted to have the opportunity to have a second autopsy. This is something that in France happens systematically when there was a death in an environment when there's immigration involved. They try to get rid of the body quickly without performing. autopsies. We said, look, we're not our parents. We are people who were born and raised in France. We're French citizens. We know what our rights is. And one week after, we managed to have a second autopsy, where we found out that the cause of death was not some kind of infection. It wasn't a heart condition, it wasn't due to alcohol, it wasn't due to drugs.

So we managed to request that there would be a follow-up, and we managed to obtain a change of venue, which happened then in January 2017. It was moved to Paris and there's a panel of three judges overseeing that. This was a result of a fight that lasted three weeks and then the case was moved to Paris. This is when the war started and it's a war based on expert reports.

Before I can move on to, explaining to you how this expert report war is going on, and then we can talk about the mobilization that followed that. I want to give you a little bit of context. Immediately, as I said, that war machinery started, and four of my brothers were put in jail. My brother asked them, why are you doing that? And the response was, tell your sister to shut up. And my brother then replied, you can put all of us in jail, but we will continue our fight. All of my brothers are now in prison. All of Adama Traoré's brothers are incarcerated.

In particular, Bagu, who's the younger one, who was actually present on the day when, Adama was arrested because he was the one who was subject to the first ID check. He was put in prison right away because the objective is to weaken him, to stop him. There have been over 70 police men that pressed charges against him, saying that he was the instigator for the riots that day, and he risks to be kept in prison for over 30 years. This is how the French system wants to stop us, wants to make us shut up.

I actually have four different cases brought against me. There's one that I still have to fight out in court. My court date is set for May 2021. And the reason for this one is that I stated, Adama, the police killed you, but they will not kill your name. And this is what made me deserve to end up at a trial. Here is how the French system wants to silence us.

There's over 30 young people from where we come from who are now in prison. Because the movement started where we're from at a very personal level with a lot of young people getting involved. They want to attack us. They want for us to give up. As I said, my brothers are now in prison. Now we're in the middle of a war based on expert reports with France. There's over 10 of them. If we had trusted the French justice system,

my brother allegedly died due to a heart attack or due to an infection or due to drugs and alcohol or even due to sickle cell syndrome, which is really not even something that runs in our family, they come up with these exotic conditions in a very racist way. They even say that he died due to the heat because there was a heat wave or for other random diseases. each time there's a new one. So we took to the street. There were demonstrations, and we asked, we demanded,

for these reports to be considered void because they were done by charlatan doctors. Some of them even refer to him with the wording subject, belonging to the black race, not even by his name or a name. We did have a victory because this expertise which exonerated the police attributing the cause of death to the excessive heat was considered void. and on the second and third of June, we had 120,000 people on the streets in Paris.

For the first time ever, there was such a massive event, which is very symbolic, a very symbolic value for France. It was in Place de la Republic, and it was right in front of the courthouse, and this is a date that is now written in stone in the history of French police violence. This expert report situation happened exactly at a day's distance from the death of George Floyd. You know, when we arrive at those two and very joint,

and we're more of 120,000 in the street, When we gathered over 120,000 people in Paris on the 2nd and 3rd of June, that was the result of work that we carried out for over four years. The Adama Committee worked all over France in big towns and villages and small towns and in the cities in the poor parts of town. and we spoke to young people all over these places, trying to make them see how that was their fight as well. When we talk about injustice, when we talk about discrimination, it's important for us to create a network based on solidarity. So we reached out to the LGBT community,

to the community of, cleaning ladies who were on strike to students, to the Green Movement. So in those four years, we started to get organized at a local level first. We didn't reach out outside of what we knew. And we asked all those people to get involved. We did that with initiatives such as, a huge outdoor barbecue where all we could afford was small t-shirts that we gave out. But we invited a professional boxer so that it could be attractive for families to come out and

join us. And by doing that, they could talk to each other and they could become aware of what the situation was. And when we did that, when we did that event with the boxing champion, the French government actually sent the military, as they would have done at the time of colonization, because they didn't want for us to do that. They didn't want for us to get organized. And then the movement became national. And on the second and third of June, at the Paris event, we had people from low-income neighborhoods, but also from the upscale neighborhoods.

We had blacks and whites and all religions and atheists. We had everybody there. And even for people who are white or are in a... or come from the elegant neighborhoods. The point was, if you are not directly involved, that's fine, better for you, but you can still denounce what goes on. You can still protest against it.

And people attended, and we were there united as the French people and the images of this event were very striking, and they reached the four corners of the world. So we protested because of what had happened to George Floyd, and we talked about police impunity, and we talked about the racism of police. And what this meant in terms of what the French government was doing, we actually were in a situation in which we created a platform which was online and through social media we were able to communicate pretty quickly and we obtained over two million visualizations. Of course, the French government declared that this event was illegal and we just fought against that and we continued to tell people,

just come, come to the street and protest with us. That day, the French government sent the police to my place. I had already left to go to the event. There was somebody at my place, and I told them, if the police, shows up, tell them that if they want to talk to me, they can come to the demonstration.

And if they want to arrest me, if they want to say something to me, all they have to do is show up there. After that, there was another big event, another historic date for France, which was the 13th of June. That day,

at the demonstration, there was a group of fascists, an extreme right group who put up a huge banner on a building, and the police just let them do it, let them go ahead with that. But we managed to take it down, and there was a moment of great cohesion where we all got together and we all confronted them. And that, and that was a great victory for the entire movement, and that's when the Adama Generation movement truly started. If I am fighting now, it's because I want to protect others.

My brother is gone, and my brother is not coming back to life. However, if his name can manage to change the destiny of somebody else or can manage to turn around this war machine, it will not have gone in vain. I want to make sure that this death sentence that seems to be bending on the heads of my brothers can be turned around. Our brothers, our brothers, our black brothers or non-white brothers, are considered as people who, who don't have a right to build the future of the world, the future of France. They're seen as people who cannot be involved in the creation of their own future life.

The French government thinks that they have a rate of life and death over the world, our brothers. And it is important that we can pull the curtains and reveal what truly goes on in France. France is not just the country of fashion and the Tory fell. It is a country where a lot of people are victims of abuses. A lot of people are mistreated. And this happens in. And this happens in the country, which is the cradle of human rights. What do you think, I mean, obviously your story is so powerful, it answers nearly all of my questions.

What do you think your brother would think if he could see this movement in his name? How do you think your brother would view everything that's happened in the last four years? We have written a book that's called Lettra Adama. I wrote a book. by the title, letter to Adama, where I talk to him and about him. I did that eight months after his death because I saw the way in which they were talking about him. They didn't even use his name.

They would depersonalize him. And in this book, I tell him about what happens, each and every day. I tell him about his death and about how we are building the network we're building. And then I talk about him and I want for people to get to know him and to become close to him. Because Adama Traoré's life does not start on that 19th of July 2016. there are a lot of things that it's important for people to know about his life and they need to know about that as if he still existed. His story goes back to what happened to our father and to our parents

and to our grandparents back in Mali where our father, our father, left his country and went through many other countries to come build a better life for all of us in France. And we had grandparents who fought in the war between 1939 and 1945, and one of them died over here, and another one came back without a leg. and one of them was a village leader in Mali, and that's Adama's Trauere's life as well. The name Traore means warrior. Even the name itself as a history is important.

So I feel it is my duty to talk about who my brother was, about the fact that he had interests. He was passionate about soccer, for example. He followed soccer teams all over the world. Now, if my brother was here, I think he would do even twice what we've been doing. This fight that we've been carrying out, we've been leading, well, I'm sure he would do exactly the same. I don't know what he would say,

but what I do know is that we owe it to him. We owe it to Adama. I don't know. I want to say he'd be proud, even though it's not even the right word. I want for him to know that his name is a name that now brings hope that brings change and that is connected to the idea that people can live in a freer world.

Yes, hopefully the book will be translated to English and more people can learn your story. One last question. You talk about how you built this movement around your brother's name in France. obviously the George Floyd protest here, you know, contributed to the momentum in France. Are you hopeful that some of these different movements for racial justice and for justice more broadly in different parts of the world can become connected in the same way that you connected with LGBT activists and green activists inside of France? Are you hopeful that we can create a sense of global solidarity around these justice movements? We have already created committees in Africa, in Senegal, in Mali, in Spain, in Montreal, in the Arab world.

the aim is to create movements of this kind all over with spokespeople who are ready to join the fight because we don't want for our fight to be confined to just black people or two working-class neighborhoods. we want to create a world in which all of those who fight against a system who is oppressive can work together. In the beginning, we were talking about a convergence of the fight, but I quickly realized that that wasn't the right way to frame it, because the other entities felt that when we got in, it's as if we were sort of stealing their fight

or taking over in terms of what they were already doing. So I realized that the right way of talking about it is alliance and solidarity, because when you have solidarity, alliance is immediately developed. If I don't want for somebody to be killed, I immediately don't want for women to be victims of domestic violences, and I side with women who are striking in terms of better working conditions, and I side with the Green Movement, and I side with illegal immigrants. this creates a network

based on connections that can be promoted and become a lot stronger where everybody does that in their own country but they do so together because if everybody carries out their fight on their own

it's a lot harder whereas if we do so together in everybody in their own country in their own world, well, success is inevitable. Well, thanks. I think that's a great note to end on. I hope our listeners, you know, find solidarity in your story and motivation in your story.

And, you know, we know that there's a lot more work to be done, but I feel more hopeful with people like you leading that effort. So thanks so much for joining us and thanks for everything you're doing. Thank you. Now in France, the situation is the one I described, and doing something in the United States like we're doing is important for us because it gives more power to what we're doing. We're now waiting for one last expert report that is supposed to come out in January, and we had to send it to Belgium because in France they couldn't get their act together. in any case, again, thank you, and thank you for giving even more force by way of your support to our message of hope.

No fight can be advanced without solidarity, and this is a fight that belongs to all, regardless of one's color, religion, what food they eat, what they believe in. we all want is to live in a world that is more livable and with liberty for all. And this is how we have set it up in France, and we have no intention of letting go. Bon chance and bonsoir and thank you for the translation. Yeah. Merci, bien. Merci.

Thanks again to Asa for joining the show. Thanks to Reggie Love for the memories and the laughs. Thanks to the Olympic Committee for hearing our case. And that's all I got. I mean, we covered a lot of ground time. And you can feel the balance shifting away from Trump. But you've got to get some shots in before it's too late. It's good.

It's good. I'm very excited to see Biden filling up this team. I was really excited right before we came in here to see a news report that was quoting Jake Sullivan talking about eagerness to get back into the Iran nuclear deal. Yeah, so lots of good stuff. Lots of good changes are afoot, the light at the end of the COVID tunnel. So stay tough, everybody. It was locked down for a little while longer, mask up a little longer.

We'll make it through this thing. But see you next week. See you. Pazade of 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.