Pod Save the World - Breaking Down Kamala Harris’s Foreign Policy

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

Tommy and Ben discuss the international reaction to Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race, and dive into what Kamala Harris’s foreign policy could look like based on her record in the Senate, experience during the Biden administration, and advisers. They also talk about Netanyahu’s visit to Washington and planned speech to Congress, resignations of Senator Robert Menendez and the head of the Secret Service, deadly protests in Bangladesh, updates from the EU, and how to escape from a cocaine shark. Then, Tommy speaks with Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian about the 10 year anniversary of his imprisonment in Iran, and what the US government could be doing now to get more hostages home from Russia and Hamas. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Ritz. What a difference a week mix. What a difference of week makes. I feel energized. I'm fired up. Are you coconut pilled? I was at Whole Foods last night. Tommy was sent out to get some garlic and ginger. Okay. And I spied a coconut hard kombucha. Pick that one up.

Would that cost you $14? Yeah, it probably costs you like $14. Yeah, I'm all in, man. I'm all in. It's very exciting. I feel energized. I feel excited. I feel like I was about to,

I literally was about to say I'm unburdened, like naturally going to say it. It does feel like a weight has been lifted from all of our shoulders. I do, look, we are all high on our own supply right now. Yes. I know this is going to get worse. It's okay.

No, it's okay. It feels exciting. It's okay to fall in love and be excited. Thank you. And, you know, like let us have nice things, okay? Yeah. It's okay for everybody to feel like they want to go charge up a hill

and, I don't know, fight somebody or something. I mean, the amount of money, the Harris campaign raised in the day is shocking. I donated money. I did too, right at all. Yeah, let's go. Here we go. I also saw, you know, once again. Which means I've now gotten like 700 text messages.

Once again, all the international news outlets that I go to to find international news are now completely dominated by U.S. elections. I saw somebody tweet a French news story explaining how coconut tree became a viral meme in sport. Which is great. By the way, like the, like the internet's good again, you know, like Twitter was so fun. Twitter hasn't been this good in years. Like, it's all good at them. Also, like, Democrats haven't done well on TikTok since it was created. She's like tailor made for TikTok. Yeah, Taylor made. Hannah was telling me last night that she was that like everything she's seeing is positive.

It's all like super viral. It's doing really well. Like what I love about it is that it's kind of what happens to Democrats with Trump where we like think we're dunking on them by posting these videos of them. Right. The videos are actually like why they. love him. Like the R&C surface that video. Yeah, they keep like thinking they're dunking on her. Here she is laughing. Here she is doing coconut. And it's like, not, not like this. You just created viral videos for us on TikTok. We didn't have to do anything. That's a really important point in observation because they thought they were going to make these like sexist jokes about her laugh or her cackle and try to make it a Hillary thing. And that it was going to somehow cow Democrats. Everyone was like, absolutely not. This person is smiling and happy and we love her demeanor. And the vibes are better. Joy is back. He's back in politics. It hasn't been that way in a while. Oh, it's nice. It's nice. Well, today we're going to talk about all of this, Ben. We're going to talk about the global reaction to President Biden's decision to not seek re-election. We'll talk about Kamala Harris's record and vision on foreign policy. We'll preview the jury stops here. The preview is early Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu's speech before Congress for joint session. Back to Joy, a quick update on Bob Menendez. We'll see what's new with him. The head of the Secret Service resigned. We'll talk about that too. Then we'll explain why there are massive protests. in Bangladesh, some news updates from the EU and cocaine sharks.

There's maybe joy in that, I don't know. Well, a brief, temporary. Yeah, a joy followed by a fall. Joy followed by a fall, followed by the shark getting optioned by Hollywood. Yeah, yeah, no question. Along with its bare cousin. Then you're going to hear my conversation with Friend of the Pod Jason Resign. He is the author of a fantastic book called Prisoner that details the 544 days he spent in

even prison in Iran where he was held hostage unjustly. He also did a podcast with Crooked Media called 544 Days about that story that everyone should listen to if they haven't. But we talked about hostage policy, the Wall Street Journal, Evan Gerskovich, who's being held in Russia and much, much more. We also talked about the new leadership in Iran. So great to check in with Jason. Always, always. Well, Ben, should we start with the- I got one plug. Please, plug. Continuing my tour of essay writing. I have a piece that is out today in the New York Review of books on the rise of fascism around the world. Okay. Timely. So we look at, you know, basically trying and

understand Trump in the context of all these other leaders, you know, what we talk about in the show a lot, Orban, Putin, all these other guys. When does a populist become a fascist? Why are all these guys there at the same time? What are the risks here? What's the history of the Republican parties and the American rights? Kind of weird fascination with strongman politics. So If you were inclined to check it out. Can I say something dorky? I'm mission to dork. I just mentioned the New York Review books.

I think we've crossed that threshold. I find the New York Review of books to be kind of like an enigmatic publication for me. Yes. Because the title makes you think that they're just telling you about some new book that comes out. But then people are always writing original pieces for them. But they're also very paywalled. So it's hard to get more detail. I will preface this by saying they're paywold.

I am reviewing two books. One called Wanna Be Fascist, one called America Last. The Warned to be fascist is about kind of like what the trend is that's happening in the world. America lasts is interesting. It's about the history, like the last century, essentially, the American right having this fascination with Black Strongmen, which is an interesting tour. But you're right. Sometimes you open it and there's like somebody's reviewing like nine books and like a movie or something and then just kind of writing an essay. But I love it.

I've always like nerded out. And I'm just going to plug, the editor is awesome. She's Emily Greenhouse. She's like, I hesitate to say our age, you know? Like, it's fun to, like, have a peer who's, like, running one of these things. Yeah, for sure. It's good. They're doing good stuff over there.

Did you see the clip that went viral, like, the other week on, I think it was on Twitter, mostly, of George Bush decrying, like, strong men and America First ideology in tariffs and talking about how we. Speaking like, cogently. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did. It's like, oh, man, that guy's making sense now. Yeah, that's not good.

That's troubling. Okay. But let's start with President Biden because he made this momentous decision to. to step back. Not surprisingly, U.S. allies sung his praises, Prime Minister Kirstarmer in the U.K., Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. President Zelensky's tribute was especially poignant. He said that Biden, quote, supported our country during the most dramatic moment in history. The subtext, obviously, of all these messages, is deep anxiety that Donald Trump might win in November. The Russians were a little more subdued Ben. Putin's spokesman, Dmitri Peskov,

said, quote, we need to be patient and see what happens. next. I have to say I kind of feel for the Russians here because it must suck to have to rewrite all of your election interference plans. Well, I mean, the same problem that Trump campaign had, right, when they had to like repaint the wall that had like Joe Biden weak on it or something. I mean, all of this troll farm energy that's been ginned up, you know, now they got to repurpose it. I wonder how long it will take them to kind of fix all their copy and get back in the game. Like are they working slow or are they fast? Well, you know, they'll probably walk into the same trap.

They'll like send around, oh, he or she is cackling. You know, next thing they know, some Russian disinformation is actually like a viral TikTok video for Kamala. Yeah, Godspeed. But the other thing is happening now, Ben, is like, you know, all these same foreign leaders are trying to figure out where Kamala Harris differs on foreign policy from Joe Biden. Politico did some great reporting on the contrast that we'll draw from a bunch in this segment. But let's start with like non-Israel stuff because we're going to go heavy on that later. And because BB's coming to D.C. But starting in her Senate days before becoming vice president, Senator Harris didn't have a super long foreign policy record to draw from, but she was in the Senate for four years and served on the Intelligence Committee and the Homeland Security Committee.

So as far as committee, you're going to be on, it wasn't ag. You know what I mean? She was like. We got singing in sec. No. Well, it's a little boring. But she was like doing, she was doing world stuff, right? Yeah.

Yeah. She was kind of in the internal world. Yeah. While in the Senate, Harris voted for General Mattis to be Trump's Secretary of Defense. but against Mike Pompeo and Gina Haspel to run the CIA. Judgment to lead. She voted against Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo for Secretary of State and then against Mark Esper to be Secretary of Defense.

So some solid no votes so far. Yeah, pretty strong judgment there. Harris was supportive of the Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA. Obviously, the vote itself happened before her time in the Senate. It was 2015. She got to the Senate in 2017. But she also condemned Trump's strike against Qasem Soleimani, the top Iranian general. She also wanted to restrict arms sales to Saudi Arabia because of the war in Yemen

and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. On China, she authored a bill with Marco Rubio that sanctioned officials in Hong Kong who undermined freedom and democracy. And she co-sponsored a bill that would allow the U.S. government to sanction individuals responsible for human rights abuses in Xinjiang province. So, you know, generally speaking, I think she's seen as like less hawkish than Biden, more skeptical of U.S. troop presence overseas. But anything from her time, in the Senate that, like, jumped out at you or do you think it's worth highlighting? Yeah, I mean, first thing, I'm just going to have, like, one pin in Biden's decision. You guys, like, rightly praised it.

I think it's an incredibly, at the end of the day, like, we see him do the right thing, which is a very Joe Biden thing, right? It was, you know, it was a winding road, but he always gets there in the end to the right place on a lot of things. But the one point I want to make from a world of perspective is, look, we were literally joking last week about Kagame, but, like, in this era where nobody gives a power, you know, people like change the Constitution to stay in power all around the world.

Like I think it's an even more powerful example globally just as much as, you know, domestically. So all the more reason why he deserves a ton of credit. I mean, Putin, G, Modi, these guys have never even thought about giving them. God, no. They're like retiring, you know, never mind giving a power. I think, yeah, if you look at her, first of all, like, and maybe not surprising for someone who clearly had national ambitions, but she kind of sought out these portfolios.

That's clear. She also always kind of surrounded herself by, you know, good teams, good experts on these issues. But yeah, I think your laydown kind of indicates that she shades progressive. She's not like Bernie or something. But, you know, she shades progressive in the ways in which she was willing to kind of get involved in terms of Saudi Arabia or, you know, willing to kind of take a values-based position when it came to China and Hong Kong, you know, someone who clearly wants to bring democracy and issues of equity and justice into her portfolio as a senator on these issues. And what I like about it is it's, I always like it when politicians take like their identity domestically and they like stretch it internationally, you know.

So somebody who comes out of, you know, not just criminal justice, but kind of justice politics generally, that's the prism through which she was dealing with international issues. And, and again, willing to kind of take on some difficult political questions as well. So, you know, I think we didn't get to see her for a long time in the Senate before she was vice president, but she was kind of beginning to carve out like a place that feels more in the kind of, you know, for a nerdy. people follow the hill, like that kind of Chris Murphy, you know, you're not left, but or center, you're kind of, you're tilting towards the progressive side of foreign policy issues. Yeah, another interesting kind of footnote to this election is given who's on Kamala Harris's shortlist, this will probably be the first year since the Iraq war began with no major party candidate who voted for it. God. I mean, like this fits into the whole, one of the whole

arguments for a candidacy, not by no means the only one, but, but this sense of like we've been carrying around all this baggage from all these debates for the last 20 years, whether it's a rock or whether it's how you felt about the Clintons or whether it's, you know, now it's obviously been this Trump shadow. And this whole ticket is clearly going to be, you know, unless she swore in a very strange direction, this whole ticket is going to be like a new generation. a new brand of Democratic Party politics, the good of Joe Biden in terms of some things he did around industrial policy and kind of, you know, the future-oriented investments and climate things. But, you know, this capacity to just kind of move into a new era. And on foreign policy in particular, like we desperately need that.

Everybody's kind of so anchored and kind of, I'm glad, frankly, that she doesn't have a huge paper trail in the debates around the war on terror, the surrogens. in Afghanistan or because, you know, we're unburdened by that. It'd be nice to be unburdened by that. We are unburdened by that. So let's talk about her tenure as vice president. So look, she's spent four years at the highest possible level of foreign policy decision making. She was in the PDB every day.

She's in every major national security council meeting. She has attended major international summits on Biden's behalf, including ASEAN, the Munich Security Summit, like all the kind of wonky gatherings. she has met with countless foreign leaders at this point. So there's just like no question that she is eminently qualified for the job when it comes to foreign policy. The question has been who works for her, like personnel. The Wall Street Journal reported today on Tuesday that it's likely that top national security aids for Joe Biden, people like Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, Tony Blinken, Secretary of State,

and Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense are not likely to continue in their jobs. that isn't a huge surprise because all of those guys have those jobs because their relationship with Biden, and I bet they want to break, but it's notable. Yeah, I'd say like a couple things about that. First of all, sometimes you can kind of look at that, oh, she just went to some meetings, you know, what does that really matter? It does, for this reason. Like, there are two things that jump out to me. One is she's been in some pretty like high stakes tightrope type scenarios. Like she was at the Munich Security Conference, you know, which you can, you know, and I have at times, Romano is about, but she was at the one like days before Russia invaded

when it was like super tense. And in these discussions, including with Zelensky, including with Europeans, teeing up sanctions, sharing intelligence. Look, that's a high stakes moment that you can't be in if you're a senator. You can't be in if you're a governor. Like she's been in really tense rooms with high stakes. And I think that does prepare someone. She's also, like you mentioned, ASEAN,

Look, to, as someone who had to go, you went to Ozzyon summits, you know, when you have to go lead a U.S. delegation at a summit with like 10 Southeast Asian countries like that, you know, and she went to Vietnam, you have to kind of get your mind around a whole issue set that is, again, foreign to even most senators, most governors. So this is real experience. It's not just like she showed up and like went to a dinner. Like she's been in tough places, tough rooms and tough conversations. And she's been interacting with. issues that you can't unless you're kind of in the executive branch of this government. On the personnel, she should have her own team. I mean, first of all, you're right. Like, we know those guys. I think Jake, Tony, like those guys need a break anyway. And they're also Biden's people. Like Tony Blinken has been with Joe Biden for decades. I think it's very important for her to figure out, okay, who are my people? And, you know, maybe some of them will be people who work for Biden too. I'm sure some of them will. But it's very important, you know,

to give her the space to build this. So, One thing I'll say is, like, her national security advisor is a guy named Phil Gordon. Guest on the show? Great guy. I mean, like, I love Phil Gordon. In the Obama years, he was the Assistant Secretary of State for Europe in the first term, and then he was the kind of Middle East czar in the second term. Progressive guy, you know, there through the, you know, in the run-up to the Iran deal.

Really thoughtful guy. He wrote a book basically about the history of the failure of regime change in the Middle East, which is, you know, a guy that has been willing to learn the lessons of what's gone wrong with U.S. foreign policy, deeply connected, you know, like Phil's the kind of guy that, you know, knows people all over the world. And if you follow Kamlo's arc, you know, like she's really hit a stride in foreign policy, like with Phil, you know, the last couple of years. So I think she's got a good core team there around her in the vice president's office. And then the question that will be really interesting in the vice president's, will be the first, just like J.D. Vance, who are saying is to tell about what kind of foreign policy Trump might have. You know, it does send a message about, like, who she picks, what kind of experience she looks for in a vice president. And then, yeah, I think she should, you know, she should name, like, a future cabinet. But, you know, you can kind of get a sense of who she calling for advice. Yeah, you have, like, those little, you know, policy coordination groups

and things. People can tell. And just kind of who she's like, who's the sounding board for her. Like, and I think that all will emerge. But the, you know, this opportunity to kind of build a post-Obama, post-Biden, you know, post-war and terror team, it will be an interesting one with a lot of potential for, you know, I'd like to see, frankly, I've long thought there needs to be more diversity in foreign policy, diversity of, you know, ethnic gender, but also, you know, ideological. So she's got an opportunity to kind of take this slate, take some of the best competencies of the Biden administration and then, but take some new flavor that, that, that,

can be really, you know, shot in the arm. Yeah, and she was like the governor of Connecticut, and she won, and she was coming in cold. Like, she would probably look to the previous administration and hire a bunch of people kind of sight unseen or after a meeting or two. Now she's worked with all these people for four years. She knows who's good. She knows who's not good. Like our friends on the political side will make fun of us for talking about ASEAN so much.

But I totally agree with you. Like, you can sit in your office and read briefing papers about the Philippines and Cambodia and Myanmar for, you know, your whole life. But when you actually go to a summit and you're going to have to be prepped to be in the meeting with those leaders and, like, really get your arms around those issues. It's just a different kind of experience. You really need. You have to sit there and have like a debate about the South China Sea. You know, you're talking about climate change in a different part of the world. You're obviously talking a lot about China and how it interacts at that region. So you're right. She's got this,

you know, Obama when he came in, he didn't obviously have that experience. And so that, in formed in part his decision to have like Bob Gates hang on at Secretary of Defense and Hillary at State. Kamala has more experience than that, you know, but she'll still want to, I mean, you know, the question is what does she want to supplement? And she can draw from not just kind of military people and national street people, people, people in Congress. Like, there's a lot of smart people in Congress. Yeah, we get some really good natural security people in Congress that could come into the cabinet. So she's got a lot to work with. So I heard you actually say something really interesting. You may, you may meant it as a throwaway on PSA.

but like a Pete Buttigieg could be a secretary of defense, you know. Yeah, well, I'd just love to see him, like, not encumbered with the job of Department of Transportation and just out on the campaign trail. Well, yes. He's so good. So you said it that way. You're like, go do the campaign drill and then come back. But then I was like, oh, Pete would actually make a pretty interesting secretary defense, like running a big organization. But anyway, that's.

No, isn't he his military service? He'd walk out on it. Like, no one studies harder than that guy. Like, he'd be a good communicator. Our buddy Dennis McDonough, who's running VA really well, he could be a good secretary of defense. Hell yeah. Get him all out there. So, Ben, like, it's, you know, some of the Republicans' attacks have already started.

They're going to spend a lot of time trying to tie Kamala Harris to challenges with immigration in the border. They call her Biden's border czar. She was not. She was tasked with trying to address the root causes of migration in Central American countries. But that will be a thing you hear. Can't say one thing about that real quick? Yeah.

Which is that she had the exact same portfolio that Joe Biden had. And nobody called Joe Biden. Biden, Obama's borders are. Yeah, I just think it wasn't as salient. It wasn't a salient. It just points to how disingenuous it is because she had nothing to do with most of the policies, almost all the policies related to the border. She was there to kind of begin to address push factors like governance and corruption in Central America. That has nothing to do with border security.

In fact, they famously got very mad at her, Republicans did, for not going to the border. So give me a break. She's also seen as more progressive than Biden when it comes to Gaza. and we've discussed on this show that she is just better, like, no, full stop at sounding empathetic about the suffering of the Palestinian people. According to that same Wall Street Journal's piece that talked about the personnel, Harris is expected to skip Netanyahu's speech but meet with him bilaterally. And in that same story, an advisor offered this quote that's characterizing what she's going

to say to Netanyahu, which was, it is time for the war to end in a way where Israel is secure all hostages are released. The suffering of Palestinian civilians and Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can enjoy their right to dignity, freedom, and self-determination. Love the first aid words of that. I worry that, you know, the, there's a lot of wiggle room in there for BB, but certainly better than the current status quo. Yeah. I mean, look, there's the, there's the politics. Then there's the policy of this. On the politics, I think Biden had a real problem, like in places like Michigan on this. And I think even though she's obviously been a part of the policy as vice president, you know, there is an opportunity here, I think, to kind of win back some of those voters that were disenchanted. The uncommitted voters. Because they see, they don't see her as like designing the policy. And she's not been designing the policy. And to your point, she speaks more forcefully about, you know, Palestinian, the Palestinian perspective. And actually, was so forceful in calling for a ceasefire that the administration had to clarify that they weren't doing that, you know. So the politics shift on this. One last thank you to Joe Biden for his decision, you know, obviously the most important thing is putting his country first. But stepping on BB Netanyahu's speech. I love it. I love it. I love it. I hope, like, I mean, I'm sure that it had to do with like when he was better from COVID and wanting to address a nation the first time. But even if there

was like a tiny part of him that was like, it'd be nice to just kind of make BB's speech even more of a non-event. Joe Biden addressing the nation right after BB does his Congress speech is kind of wonderful in that manner, you know? Oh, yeah. I hadn't thought about that. I thought about it just sort of stepping on the news cycle generally, but you're right. Yeah, it's just like, who's going to pay any attention to this speech? Anyway, to the policy, yeah, like that's, you know, look, that comment kind of says everything, but it leaves a lot to question, right? Like as the question is, right, returns all hostages. Is that mean open-ended war? If there's a single hostage not left or does that mean like, you know, ceasefire now and negotiate, you know, so they

have to fill in a lot of gaps. And this will be tricky for them. I mean, because they can't really fully deviate. I mean, she's still the vice president. Joe Biden still the president. She's still the president. She's still the vice president. So I'm kind of. She can't really threaten to cut off aid right now. kind of preemptively, you know, defending. I just, I don't know what they'll say, but like, she can't kind of break that much. Therefore, in a world in which she can't break that much substantively from the position of the Biden administration, her tone does matter, because that's where she can, she can choose her own words. She can choose the language she's to describe what's happening. She can choose what to emphasize. And so I would hope that there's an opportunity

for her to kind of emphasize the Palestinian suffering and things like the need to respect the dignity and equality of the Palestinian people in ways that signal something of a new tone, you know, and that alone, I think, sends a message. Yeah, I agree. So before we get to BB's visit, I mean, anything else, big picture, we kind of talk through this as we went. I think the one thing I'd say is that, like, Joe Biden, what's interesting about Kamla and foreign policies, it's not unlike domestic.

You know, Joe Biden's enormous strength in foreign policy is the kind of traditional core alliances of the United States, like what he's done to, you know, repair relations with Europe and Asian allies, what he's done to reinvigorate NATO. The weaker spot, one of the weaker spots has been kind of an incapacity, really break through an outreach to the, you know, global south. And, you know, Kamala had, I think, a quite successful trip to Africa. We talked about it on the podcast at the time. Obviously, she has an Indian mom. Her, I'm excited to think about, like, her capacity to take a message of partnership and

engagement to places like Africa, to places like Southeast Asia, we took Bedazian. Caribbean, too. I mean, she's just Jamaican. Yeah, like because of her identity and also just because of the issue set, you know, climate, technology, these kind of more future-oriented issues. So I think she can kind of open up the aperture a bit. And, you know, we were there in Obama. That stuff matters, you know, like the excitement and energy that people felt in those countries, in those regions, you know, made it easier to bring them on board on certain things. And so I think what Kamala could really do is kind of expand the. scope of countries that we are engaging with and on these issues like climate and AI and, you know,

the future of technologies. And I think, you know, she could bring a lot to the table. Yeah. And the message to the world of the United States of America electing a woman to be president in the United States would be enormous especially. I mean, it speaks to how how crazy our politics must look to the rest of the world that, you know, the United States bans abortion and then potentially elects the first Hey, we're going through some stuff here. Yeah, we're. I think if she beats Trump, it's even more powerful than if Biden had beaten Trump. I agree.

You know, because it's like, first of all, we'll be dumb with Trump. I just don't think this guy, you know, will be 83. I mean, he's going to, he's not looking great. Yeah, like, he's not looking great. So like for this fear that Biden, through no fault of his own, had to deal with, which is that the whole Biden presidency, it's been like, is Trump going to come back? Everywhere I travel, every time, it's like, is Trump going to come back? That question will be put to rest.

and will be put to rest by a black woman who is younger. And like, I actually think, you know, for the first time, it won't end all these problems, but there'll be a light, a distant light at the end of the tunnel as she's elected. And that's so excited to think about. Before we get a break, Ben, as you know, this is a historic moment. We got a new candidate. We got the power to stop Donald Trump and the existential threat he poses to our country and to the world. join Votesave America's

2024 volunteer program if you want to get involved and you want to look at the most high impact opportunities near you. So far, over 24,000 people have signed up, including 6,000 on Sunday alone. 6,000 people over the weekend signed up for Vote Save America.

And these folks have already reached out to over 1 million voters. Your participation will make the difference on election day. Go to Votesaveamerica.com slash 2024 and click sign up to get started. Votesaveamerica.com slash 2024.

Can I tell you saying? I'm so jazz. I look so coconut-pilled that I'm going to donate to votes of America. I love that. This is this afternoon. I love that. That's what I'm doing now. I'm just giving money away.

I'm just like, I'm so fired up. You're so, look, we're just, we're full of patriotism right now. This message has been paid for by Votesave America. You can learn more at Votesaveamerica.com. And this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. Okay. Before we get to that moment of joy, we have Israeli prime minister. Bibi Netanyahu in Washington addressing a joint session of Congress.

It'll happen the day this pod comes out. This will be Netanyahu's fourth address to Congress more than any other foreign leader, including Winston Churchill. They thought, this guy, he should talk to us more often than Winston Churchill did. Good job, U.S. Congress. Give me break. So, as we've mentioned, I mean, Netanyahu is there because all four congressional leaders invited him.

So this is a bipartisan bad decision, as so many are. foreign policy. Yeah. An Israeli official told Axios that the speech won't be, quote, defiantly against Biden and will have, quote, a bipartisan message on the need for the U.S. to support Israel during the war. I'm not sure how that message can be totally bipartisan, given that many Democrats want to cut off support for the war, but fine. Axios also reported that Netanyahu aides have previewed the speech with the White House,

so it won't be a total surprise. Now, regardless, as many as 100 House and Senate Democrats might skip the speech. in protest. Here's a clip from Senator Bernie Sanders explaining why. I will not be going to listen to Mr. Netanyahu. I think he's a war criminal. I think he never should have been invited. And I think it's a real problem for the Biden administration. But above and beyond that, Trump will be worse even on that issue. Ben, where do you land before we get to the substance on this question of whether to boycott or not? Boycott. I mean, why on our three, what is there to see? Yeah, I boycott the shit out of this thing. Some troll showing up to like,

you know, basically divide Democrats. like interfere in our politics, try to buttress his own numbers back home. That's the only thing he's doing, you know. A couple of things I want to point out, Tommy. I'm going to be petty before I get a substantive. The Post has a great article today. The headline is Israel's Netanyahu brings his dirty laundry to Washington. Literally.

Now, what this is about is, apparently, when you are staying here in the guest house for visitors, your laundry's done. And here's a quote from the story. quote, the Netanyahus are the only ones who bring actual suitcases of dirty laundry for us to clean, said one U.S. official. After multiple trips, it became clear this was intentional. This is been a thing for a while. These people are so fucking petty that, like, okay, it's one thing if you're, it's like you're at a hotel. And, well, actually, the hotels I stay at.

It's like your kids coming home from college. Yeah, but exactly. Like, these guys are packing up dirty laundry. Trash bags. Give me a break. Full of laundry. So this is who we're talking about with Benjamin and Serena Nanyahu. The other quote I wanted to read from Jerry Nadler

because I read it on the way in here. Benjamin Nanyahu is the worst leader in Jewish history since the Maccabian king who invited the Romans into Jerusalem over 2100 years ago. I'm just going to stop it there. It's a longer tweet. I just thought that was like a massive swing

by Jerry Nadler represents my Upper West Side District of my heart. Jay Nads with historic deep cut. But yeah, look, I actually think one of the interesting things here is when Nanyahu came in 2015, you know, it was the biggest story in American politics for weeks that he did this. Leading up to it.

It was this kind of huge thing. Well, it was the middle of JCPOA process too. He's not having that impact this time. People, there's a kind of exhaustion with him as a personality. Obviously, we have massive political drama happening in this country. It is kind of like, what is he doing here? Like, there's kind of a feeling of like this again, this guy again, you know? And so the Republicans sing gets like some massive, and I actually think they're wrong in the politics.

Like if they think that, oh, they're going to win over Jewish voters. Like, I don't think so. I think Jewish voters in this country have made up their minds by now. And most of them fucking hate the guy. Yeah. Just like an Israel. Just like in Israel. Right.

And so I don't think it's like some big coup for them, frankly. This, you know, so I, for all the more reason to just boycott it. I don't think you're going to like pay some big price with voters. Like, there's no reason to listen to what this guy is to say because he's gaslighting, you know. He's just hanging on to power the same way, like, Trump is trying to cling back to power. And I just don't think there's any reason to pay much attention to it. Yeah. And that's not his only event while he's here.

So he's going to meet with Biden and Harris bilaterally. Netanyahu is also expected to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, I think, on Friday. This obviously comes at a challenging political time for Joe Biden, where considering he just step back and isn't going to run again. But things aren't exactly going well for BB, as you mentioned. I mean, a recent poll found that. 72% of Israelis want him to resign. Maybe Biden can give him some advice. He's not exactly coming here with strong political capital.

About that. We reached out to our friend. Biden can teach him how to say goodbye. Yeah, that'd be nice. Quote a little Hamilton there. Israelis would love that. Lib fantasy. We reached out to our friend, Amir T. Bone, who's an excellent journalist at Haaretz,

to get his take on Netanyahu's speech. Let's listen because we wanted an Israeli perspective on this. For the Republican Speaker of the House to give Netanyahu this invitation to come to Congress in the first place with a blatant intervention in our internal affairs. This is all about Netanyahu's own political survival. It's about him trying to recover the political ground that he has lost since the epic failure happened under his watch on October 7. All the democratic lawmakers were planning to go to this theatrical political speech on Wednesday.

They are basically going to turn themselves into the stage crew of a partisan event meant to help one politician internally in Israel at a time of great division in this country. And again, at the end of the day, it's either you stand with the families of the hostages or protesting out on the streets every day almost here in Israel for a bid against this far-right Netanyahu government, or you choose to stand with Netanyahu. And I think it's clear where these lawmakers decided to place themselves. Any democratic politician who would bother to devote five minutes to this issue and read some polling from Israel and talk to families of hostages

and talk to people like myself who are survivors of the October 7 attack and I lost 15 friends and neighbors on that day. My family was almost murdered. If you just take five minutes to understand and to listen to these voices, from Israel, you will understand why supporting Israel at this moment is crucial and important, but supporting Netanyahu is the opposite. And sadly, I think a lot of lawmakers are not going

to do that homework. That is so powerful. Good advice. Yeah. Like he said, and we revisited his story after October 7th, you know, I mean, And this is someone who, you know, believes deeply in the profound trauma and existential sense of insecurity that Israelis felt after October 7. Just to be good. Amir was trapped in a safe room with his wife and their three-year-old daughter for eight hours.

So this isn't some guy who doesn't get it. Well, Hamas, his own father had to drive down from Tel Aviv to save his life, to fight his way into a war zone in save his life. It's the most incredible story you've ever heard. Yeah. And what he said, you know, if you think you're supporting Israel, you're not. You're supporting this guy. Listen to that message, Democrats.

Like, why be like a, like he wants to put this veneer, this sheen of bipartisanship over his, like, extreme far right politics and his clear preference for Donald Trump in this election in a few months? No reason to legitimize this guy. No. And the reality is he has done more to damage the bipartisan nature of the U.S. Israel. relationship than any other leader in history. By far. And Israel will be much better off. America will be better off. The world will be better off. When Israel can turn the page on this guy, just like we're trying to turn the page on Trump here. And look, we should just say, like Bernie mentioned in his comment, the man is like, you know,

being charged as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court. It is not the best look for the U.S. Congress to be whatever you think about the ICC. That is the reality. And the ICJ, by the way, just made another ruling about apartheid. West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements were deemed illegal. The occupation was deemed illegal. And so the message it sends to the world is that we don't care about any of this, you know, that we're okay with that kind of hypocrisy. So better to just, you know, have this be as low profile as possible, as few Democrats

possible. And I guarantee you it is not the political winner of the Republicans think it is. Because this man is not like wildly popular in the American Jewish community. So it's just not worth it. Yeah. And it's also, I think it's worth pointing out that basically everybody in Israel now sees Netanyahu is the main impediment to a ceasefire deal. And that from both sides, like the families of the hostages, but also right wingers who don't

want to deal and want to occupy Gaza permanently. Like they, it's clear that Netanyahu is rejecting concessions that his own team negotiated. And it's also clear to me that he made a choice not to come and deliver a ceasefire deal in this speech. He could have. Yeah. But he didn't want to for whatever reason. So, I mean, I think, Ben, the thing you keep hearing the kind of background briefing line from, you know, Ron Dermer and all these people around Netanyahu to the press is this isn't 2015.

This is not him, you know, conspiring with Republicans to take a huge shot at Biden like he did with Obama back then. Like, do you believe him? No, I don't believe him. I mean, nothing's different about Nenya. What's different is like the context is a little different, right? I mean, back then it was like Obama had a clear initiative, the JCPOA that NNNIA. already publicly opposed, and he was kind of coming as a lobbyist against that deal. And so that was the context.

This context is different. He's got an American president, Joe Biden, who, let's face it, has pretty much given a blank check. You know, so there's no Biden policy for him to come lobby against. He's just being a dick. He's coming to fortify himself at home this time. And buck up with Trump, too. And buck up, but he's coming here to basically show the Israeli public the last thing I can you know, the last card he has to play beyond hanging on to the far right is playing the card of,

hey, look, I can still get bipartisan support in the U.S. As much as you hate me, I'm the guy who knows how to play the Americans. Watch me do the Americans, you know, like a fiddle. And so I think it's about his politics back home, his politics of Trump and the Maga Caucus in the U.S. Congress. So, yes, it probably won't be as confrontational as 2015. But that's because what's you going to confront? Because Biden's been, if Biden had stopped giving offensive military assistance, it might be different, you know? Yeah, baby is trying to make up things that Biden didn't give them.

Quick thing before we move on from this. The Houthi rebels were able to somehow hit Tel Aviv with a drone. Almost hit our embassy. Yeah, almost hit our embassy. It was like hundreds of feet from away. Somehow they got through all these Israeli defenses, missile defense systems. Then I saw a report in the Wall Street Journal about how Pentagon officials are, demanding a stronger response to the Houthis. But again, like nothing we've done today does deterred

them. So I don't know, maybe we should try ending the war in Gaza. But finally, Amir had one last message for President Biden specifically about how he could help Israel in his final days in office. I want to appeal to President Biden and anyone on his staff who may be listening. I understand that the president is not seeking re-election. And I want to appeal. And I want to want to encourage him to do everything he can in the six months that he's got left in office to bring back the hostages. This is the most important priority. This should be really the one legacy he can leave behind that he did not leave office on January 20 when there were still innocent men and women in the hands of terrorists in the tunnels of Gaza. And he had a huge impact

on the first hostage release deal in November, which brought us back dozens of people alive, many women and children. And he can still have an impact over here. And the pressure needs to be across the court on Netanyahu, on Patar, in Egypt, of course, on the Hamas leadership, who are the most responsible for this atrocity. But everybody needs to feel the heat. And if one man can do it, it's Joe Biden. Love that advice. Yeah. Especially with Americans being held. And it's a great point, too, that like with Biden, you know, he'll still obviously, you know, do some campaigning when I'm out there. But like part of what he can do is try to close some accounts, right? When you,

you know, your presence is coming to an end. And so getting to a ceasefire, getting the hostages returned, kind of getting Gaza in some kind of place where there's some rebuilding that's beginning, you know, that that would be something that I think will be a natural area of focus for the next six months, probably getting some more aid to Ukraine. Like these big things that they've been working on, I think, you know, trying to kind of lead those in the best possible place, I'm sure that will be a huge focus for them. And Trump will absolutely say keep those hostages held in Gaza until I get to office and then I will release them because I'm the only man who can do so. A couple other quick things, Ben, just a quick update on Bob Menendez, Senator Bob Menendez, who listeners know is recently convicted of taking bribes that included gold bars in exchange for official acts. Menendez announced that he plans to resign from the U.S. Senate effective August 20th.

So happy trails. Good to see him leaving in total irreputed and disgrace befitting a career of it. Relatedly, Kimberly Cheathold that had the Secret Service resigned on Tuesday. She had somehow tried to cling to the job and argue that she was the best person to lead the agency. But that argument was undercut by the fact that Trump got shot. Yes. I mean, she probably could have saved a lot of time by just resigning early. earlier, I think frankly, Biden could have just fired her earlier, too.

Yeah. Or they're a good, like, leadership moment. You need accountability. And the accountability is not on the agents who jumped in front of Trump and did their job. Or the local cops. Look willing to take a bullet, you know, like, you have institutions. There needs to be accountability. That's what happened here.

And now, like, I hope there's, you know, process to just understand. How can we better protect presidents or presidential candidates without, you know, not ever seeing them, you know, like, so I think reviewing protocols and, you know, digging in in a, well, I'd like to think apolitical way, but it probably won't be in Congress, would be worthwhile. Yeah, I definitely think we should learn more, but it's definitely a, you had one job situation. Well, and maybe don't allow, like, a rooftop with a direct line of sight at a speaking presidential candidate to be uncovered, you know, like that. Good note.

I'm not like a security expert, but I would assume that would be one. place to start. Yeah, it's a good start. Let's turn to Bangladesh, Ben, because there have been massive protests there that have left at least 174 people dead. These demonstrations started over a quota system for government jobs that reserved 30% of positions for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh's 1971 War of Independence from Pakistan. Those slots combined with the government's other quotas meant that about 56% of government jobs were reserved for certain groups. In response to the unrest in these protests, the government led by Prime Minister Shea Kassina imposed a curfew in a countrywide communications blackout, cutting people off

from the internet and social media generally. On Sunday, the Supreme Court ordered the quota for those connected to veterans be cut down to 5%. Some students have vowed to continue these protests until the court order is fully honored. Despite this, the communications blackout, an independent journalist named Redwan Ahmed was able to get us a voice note describing what was happening. This is what he had to say. In terms of the government response and their use of power to quail the protest was, you know, to, in my opinion, was very disproportionate. The government used really brutal forces.

They used the police. They used the pro-government activists, the student wing of the Awamilik and other wings. They use the military, they use the paramilitary troops. And it's all against a group of university students, a group of college students protesting for what they said were discriminatory in job sector, in the government job recruitment. So we have seen, you know, I was in the ground with my colleagues.

I have seen reporters getting killed in the protest. There were onlookers, there were bystanders who got, hit by rubber bullets and the bird shots. And there were numerous students. The official death toll stands at, I think, 187 until this Tuesday evening. And like for one is too many. And it's, and you have to remember, like, you were doing this against a group of college goers, a group of university students.

Some pretty horrifying images on Twitter right now of, like, protesters getting just shot at point blank range by the cops. I was thinking, I don't know if we've ever talked about Bangladesh on this show, but there's like 165 million people there. It's like top 10 country by population. I think it's one of the most densely populated countries in the world. The economy is one of the fastest growing economies in the world in recent decades. But clearly, like, the protests show that the growth wasn't felt equally.

The point I'm getting at is it's an important country, an important relationship. So the prime minister's critics have long accused her of, using the government to turn the country into a one-party state and crush their democracy. It's like watching this. I mean, how worried are you about Bangladesh sliding into autocracy and how do you think it slots into this broader kind of anti-democratic trend we've seen? I included them in that article I referenced that I wrote earlier. They had a quote-unquote election earlier this year. Back in January. And in the run up to it, she detained like literally tens of thousands of people, including, by the way, people like, you know, Muhammad Eunice, who the Nobel

prize-winning microfinance pioneer, like a manifestly good man, you know, like, and kind of crushing dissent. And so she's, you know, had some autocratic tendencies, but man, they're coming out in full force and basically turning this country into like a pretty harsh one-party autocracy, you know, live fire on protesters. This quota system speaks to like a patronage economy where like, you know, only certain people aligned with the ruling party and their kind of origins and their interests and their cronies can benefit. So to me, it's a signal, you know, we've talked about, I mean, just globally, how this kind of,

you know, I was about say strong man, but this is clearly the strong woman version. And like this brand of politics is just spreading everywhere, right? I think also for the United States, look, there is a pretty deep, you know, trading relationship and economic relationship. And it just begins to raise questions about, hey, like, when are you going to have to take a step back? When, like, I think the U.S. needs to be much more vocal about this. You rarely hear the U.S. kind of weighing in on issues in Bangladesh. I'm not suggesting we have a ton of leverage to do something other than use our voice and kind of call this out, keep a distance, provide some support as we can as a lifeline to kind of opposition by speaking out for this, by raising it in international forums. But yeah, this is taken an increasingly dark turn.

Yeah, agreed. But at the same time, as we talked about with Kenya, and this is a much more extreme example, that students, it's, young people getting on the street. So, you know, as we've seen recently, the autocratic trend is very powerful, but the pushback is getting more powerful, too. Like, you know, whether it's the Indian election resulting a surprise next door to Bangladesh, whether it's these kind of protest movements, it does feel like there's more and more willingness by people at the ballot box or in the streets to begin to push back. And that's the only hopeful. And they evolve into zero-sum contests pretty quickly. Yeah. You know, you're like, you're not seeing a lot of protests that are like, we want to get

rid of this that tax on some fuel subsidy. It's like, we're sick at this whole thing. It's like, let's burn this whole place down. And that part is a little frightening. A couple quick updates from Europe. Well, that's true. The danger is like a civil conflict collapse center, which would be terrible. Yeah. So a couple things from Europe. So Ursula von der Leyen secured another five years as the president of the European Commission, which is the top job in their system. We also noticed that across the EU, countries are looking at conscription as an option to build up their militaries. So Sweden was the first to do it, but Politico reported that Germany, the UK and the Netherlands might follow suit. Just an interesting, I think, byproduct of the Russian invasion of Ukraine

in concern that as Trump gets elected, he could hobble NATO and that these guys are on their own. I think the Trump hedge piece of this is super interesting. Yeah. It's leading to pretty broad consequences. Also, I don't know if you saw this. There's a fantastic video circulating from the French National Assembly. So by tradition, the first legislative session, it's chaired by the oldest representative in parliament and the youngest member acts as that member secretary. So they like stand in the well and they greet everybody who votes. It's kind of weird tradition. It is a weird tradition.

It's a bunch of people walking up to a pot, placing paper in there as they vote. And then you're supposed to shake the hand of this youngest member. That member right now is a 22 year old member of Marine Le Pen's National Rally Party. So this guy is standing there waiting to shake everybody's hand as they come through, and it didn't quite go that way. So all the far left MPs refused to shake this kid's hand. One very large, like Algerian MP got in his face and looked quite menacing. And then the absolute best part, the coup de grace, was one MP extended his hand and then hit him with like a little rocks as a paper shoot. Yeah.

And just like it humiliated this little baby fascist. I love that. I love it. This baby fascist who looks like it kind of, you know, he looks like the kind of fascist-adjacent-adjacent-any-type. Yes, a little T-PUSA kid, yeah. And I get, you know, I love the, the panache with which the French are like giving the finger. I mean, they could have done the old, I'm dating myself here, like the handshake, whoop. To your hair. Yeah.

Yeah. But, yeah, no, that, that was a fun watch. Yeah. And the Algerian guy, like, I'm pretty sure he said, I'm going to kick your ass there. Yeah. It was some school year. It was some school year. It's tough.

And then finally, Ben, the Olympics start in Paris, I think on Friday. Let's go. How pumped are your girls to watch a little gymnastics? They're really excited. We watched Simone Biles in one of the kind of warm-up competitions. No, actually, it was the U.S. trials. We watched her floor routine a lot of times, I've got to say. So they're like super jazzed about the gymnastics.

My eldest daughter Ella swims, so she's like super into like watching swimmers. I'm, of course, going to try to launder the basketball under the. Oh, yeah. Didn't we almost lose to South Sudan? One point. I was kind of rooting for South Sudan. Of course, they need to win. Yeah, they need to win bad.

But yeah, I love the Olympics. I can't wait. Hannah told me that there's a Simone Biles' two-part documentary on Netflix right now. Yes, there is. Yes, there is. Actually, I'll probably be watching that. Yeah, I figured you'll be watching that if you hadn't already.

Well, I'm very excited if the Olympics. All right, finally, Ben. Shark Week might have officially ended a couple weeks ago, but it seems that the sharks of Brazil are still going hard at the after party. So Brazilian sharp-nosed sharks off the coast of Rio de Janeiro were found to have high levels of cocaine in their systems. There's a few ways these sharks could have picked up the drug, runoff from illegal labs, absorbing the waste of drug users from sewage or there are more a fish know a guy who knows a guy. Important safety notice. If you or a shark you know corners you and

starts monologuing at high speed about their unwritten screenplay, you have to punch them in the nose and then back away slowly. That's how you fight off a cocaine shark. But my question is, where do these Brazilian sharks get their money to support this habit? It's pretty expensive. And like what do they do? Like, what does a shark do? I mean, of all the living things that you don't want to see loaded up with like a massive amount of cocaine, I kind of feel like a shark is, like maybe that maybe that was like the jaw shark because I was wondering about this shark that all sudden is like I'm just going to eat like a boat you know like oh yeah maybe it's kind of wilding shark you know yeah it's kind of 80s too you know like grow up it's very 80s it's like uh like is there

like a shark's like a shark's got together on cocaine you know um it's like it's like it is a I mean the movie is just waiting to be made waiting to be made cocaine bear it feels like the sequel I mean like you know on land on sea the next one can be like I don't a bald eagle on cocaine or something like so we get oh that's a good idea yeah He just comes for you. Just like it comes screaming down. Wits your nose off. Try to like extract the cocaine.

All right. We'll get the WME on the phone and write this thing up. Okay, we're going to take a quick break when we come back. You're going to hear my conversation with Jason Rezaian about his podcast, 544 days, about his experience being held hostage in Iranian prison and how the U.S. government could do more to get hostages home. So stick around for that. It has been 10 years since our guest was unjustly detained in Iran when he was working as the

Hey Ron Bureau Chief for the Washington Post. He ended up spending 544 days in the notorious even prison and later wrote about that experience in his excellent book, Prisoner, and in his podcast, 544 days. Even better podcast. Fantastic podcast. Co-produced by Cricket Media, by the way. Now he advocates on behalf of hostages and political prisoners all around the world. Jason Rezion, great to see you.

Great to see you, Tommy. Thanks for having me back on. Truly great to see you. And honestly, if you guys are listening to this and you have not listened to 544 days, give it a shot. It's an excellent, excellent series. But we're going to talk about a lot of the issues related to what Jason discussed in the pod and in his book, which involves around this growing trend of hostage taking all over the world. So last week, Jason, we saw Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gerskovich was sentenced to 16 years in a high security penal colony on completely bullshit espionage charges in Russia. Al-Su Kermasheva, a Russian-American journalist who has been detained in Russia for the last nine months,

was sentenced to six and a half years in some secret trial. We actually spoke with her husband, Pavel Bouturin, earlier today. This is what he told us. No matter what I say, it doesn't quite adequately describe the pain, the daily pain that we go through without Alsou. The girls have been without their mother for over a year now. And, you know, that year, you know, we, We try to put on a brave face as we go on live TV, but we are hurting. It's been a very difficult time for us.

My communication with Al-Su has been very limited. The only time we heard her voice was at a couple of court hearings where she was able to talk to journalists about her horrendous conditions and her inability to speak to her children. For many months, we know that she was held in a tiny cell sleeping, and eating about three feet from a hole in the floor that served as a bathroom. It was thanks to our advocacy work that there has been a slight improvement in her conditions. But she is in a very bad place. She does not belong in a Russian prison cell. She belongs with us at home with the children. You know, Jason, I just, you know, I can't imagine what it would be like to have my wife,

you know, being sentenced to a six-year sentence at a Russian prison. I know this is so personal for you, given your experience. But I just want to start by asking for your reaction to that clip and these two unjust attentions in Russia. Look, I've met Pavel and their daughters, met the parents and sister of Evan Grischkovich and so many other families. Pavel's right. She doesn't belong in Russian prison. She belongs at home with her family. I think the despair, the sense of grief and heartache and the not knowing really is the worst part of these situations. You don't know when it's going to end, if it's going to end. And, you know, when I heard the news of Evans' verdict and then also's on the heels of that,

I thought to myself, okay, well, this sounds as though, you know, there's a concerted effort inside Russia to push the ball forward. Now, it's hard to say if that means that there is a deal that's about to be made or they're angling towards a deal being made. But one of the things that I remember from my own experience is that this idea of a looming verdict, on the one hand, you know that it's an arbitrary number, it's meaningless, it's based on nothing, but it's also official, right? You know, the specter of having to spend 16 years, six and a half years in all suitz case in a prison for nothing more than your nationality and the job that you do is fucking ridiculous, right? And it's not something that anybody in any country or any field should have to

face, which is why, you know, I'm out there talking about this issue as much as I can. there's several dozen Americans that this affects directly and their families and their communities. But that several dozen protracted over the last decade means a couple of hundred people. And dozens of congressional districts, dozens of companies, communities. And it's gone from sort of an esoteric, hard to understand, set of problems, to one that a majority perhaps of states has had to deal with in the last few years. And so I try and convince people, hey, look, this is not some kind of weird partisan issue, right? We either, you know, negotiate or we don't negotiate. This is an American issue. Fellow citizens are being targeted

because a growing number of states think that they can extract something of value from our government by holding our fellow Americans hostage. For me, That's unacceptable. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so just for more background for folks, the Obama administration was ultimately able to negotiate your release directly with the Iranian government. There are some people who think that in Evans' case, his sentencing might be viewed by

the Russians as a phony but necessary, you know, administrative step that would then allow them to negotiate a prisoner exchange. We don't know yet. Hopefully that proposition is being tested. and obviously U.S.-Russia relations are frots to say the least after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But I know you've also been working with a think tank in Washington called CSIS on policy recommendations for when it comes to hostage taking. Can you help us, you know, walk us through a few of those? Yeah.

So, you know, I approach CSIS, which is really sort of a center-right think tank a couple of years ago about trying to do some work around this issue. And this concept grew into a really extraordinary group of experts from the national security background from State Department, congressional staffers, former hostages, relatives of hostages, law enforcement officials, all sorts of people who have experienced this from every angle. and it's co-chaired by Senator Gene Sheen and former National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien. So, you know, quite a bipartisan, by design pairing. And what we're trying to do is to pinpoint what the motivations are for the states that do this. Because historically, when we have a problem like hostage-taking, which the Biden administration declared a national emergency back in 20th,

2022, when we have these sorts of crises, we respond to the most recent iteration, right? You'll remember that the Obama administration did a policy review of hostage taking. But that was based primarily on the problem of the moment, which was groups like ISIS or Al-Qaeda taking American hostage. Those groups essentially don't exist in the same kind of way that they did back then. And they certainly aren't doing this kind of hostage-taking. but states are Iran, Russia, China. So what we're trying to figure out is, one, what are the reasons that these governments are doing? Two, is there an incentive policy or an incentive, you know, a built-in incentive by negotiating for the releases of prisoners?

I think one of the things that we've come to grips with as a group is people don't come home without concessions, right? deterring this problem moving forward is another issue entirely and we have recommendations on that both at the law enforcement level but also at the commercial level trying to dissuade people

from traveling to certain countries maybe putting travel taxes on travel to certain countries that you and I might not think of as destinations for Americans but that attract a lot of dual nationals home

but but really overall trying to offer the U.S. government across the board a series of recommendations and really some inspiration to think more creatively about this because it's a problem that's a face humanity for thousands of years and it ebbs and flows. I think, you know, we've successfully put people on the moon. We can fucking figure this out too. We can figure this out. Yeah, and listen, You're right that it's a problem that ebbs and flows. And it's also one where the criticism of the response seems to be the same kind of things. Like, for example, you always hear that hostage negotiations or prisoner swaps lead to more hostage taking.

There are people right now saying that Joe Biden's decision to get back a WNBA player named Brittany Griner is the reason Evan was taken. What's your response to that kind of thinking or response? My response is, first of all, there are people who have specialized in this issue for a long time, and no one who specializes it sees a correlation between negotiated release and more hostage-taking. The reality is there's nothing standing in Russia or Iran or China's way from doing this. They've taken our idea of a free and independent judiciary and used it. against us, right? You can remember back in my case, you know, there was all sorts of public posturing around the idea that, you know, we don't want to comment on a sovereign nation's

judiciary. You know what? You know, I wish folks had commented on it. And if you, if you fast forward 10 years, some of those same folks, folks that you worked with, you know, are out there calling this hostage taking now, right? I think, you know, we've kind of ripped the Band-Aid off a big part of it is calling this what it is and then addressing it. I hear so often, you know, well, we need to let the Russians have a face-saving option. You don't take fucking hostages if you're worried about saving face. That's just not part of it. Yeah, that's exactly right. Look, my reaction to this is exactly yours. Like, I feel like a nation's obligation is to protect its people and when someone has taken hostage because of their nationality, then we have an obligation

to that individual to get them home. That seems like quite obvious to me. Otherwise, what's the value of our citizenship? Right. Exactly. It's like on the most basic level. Now, you're, and you're also right that negotiating the release of anyone or negotiating anything involves talking with bad guys and giving up something in exchange for something. And that process is easily demagogued in the political arena. But I do think, you know, my, I'm a partisan hack, but my observation, is that Republicans are worse in this stuff. You know, they still attack Obama over the talks with Iran. They still attack Obama for negotiating the release of an American soldier named Bo Bergdahl, who was held by the Taliban. Trump was just not treated the same way, even when he was cutting deals with the Taliban or,

you know, North Korea. Or like just getting back a famous rapper, you know what I mean? Not from a hostile state, but just kind of doing it for political reasons. So like, do you guys have thoughts on how to fix these political incentives because Robert O'Brien, who you mentioned, had a, was a national security advisor for Trump and was the lead on the hostage. Yeah. Before he was national security. I mean, he is one of the leading voices on depoliticizing the issue, right? And I think if you were to ask him, he would say that, you know, he's of the opinion that

making financial resources available to bad actors that do this makes it more likely for them to do it in the future. My response to that, and I have a very good working relationship and friendly relationship with him and all of the other commissioners, is that if we freeze money from various countries, whether it's Iran or Russia or China, and dangle it as something that they have an opportunity to get back if they do X, Y, and Z, we should assume that their response is going to be, hey, fuck you, we don't like X, Y, and Z. We're going to do ABC instead, right? And you're still going to give us our money back. That's what they've been doing. They've been successful at that. So I think, you know, if you look at the Iranian instance, the more pots of money that you,

you know, freeze and make potentially available to them some time in the future, the more hostage taken you're going to see from the Islamic Republic. In the Russia case, you know, the more true Russian assets that are being picked up, whether it's spies or assassins, both of which they've tried to get home in releases. And the more Americans who continue to risk everything by entering Russian territory, the more American hostages you will see in Russia. So I think that there's this other element of it, you know, especially at a time when we see so many people on on Instagram or TikTok talking about I'm gonna I'm gonna hit every country maybe hit every country except for the six or seven that the State Department has designated

as as a threat to taking you hostage yeah good call good call there I was um listen uh all of us did some stupid shit in our 20s but don't go visit north korea guys it's just it's not worth it look when I feel like it's safe to go back to Iran you and everybody else who's listening and watching we'll all go together I don't think it's going to be any time soon. No, no, until then, chill out. Hamas and other extremist groups took about 250 people hostage on October 7th during the attack on Israel. About 120 hostages are still being held in Gaza, though Israeli intelligence reportedly believes that 46 of them may be dead.

Eight American dual citizen hostages are believed to still be held in Gaza. Given how long it's been and given how clear it is, that Bebeenit Njahou, the prime minister, it's just not prioritizing getting these hostages back. Do you think the Biden administration should be negotiating unilaterally with Hamas or through Qatar or somebody to get Americans home? Personally, I do. I mean, I don't think it's that Netanyahu doesn't care. I think that there's concern that there are people in the Israeli government

and within Hamas who want to elongate the hostage situation for their own political reasons. And if those are at odds with Americans coming home, I'm all for us trying to negotiate those releases directly if we can. And I think that the Hamas hostage taking of Israelis, but also so many other nationalities, right? A lot of those people, the 250 plus people, were either dual nationals or guest workers. I want to talk to the State Department about this. Their count was that 40 nationalities were represented in that event. And, you know, you had babies and you had, you know, very elderly people, people in their 80s and 90s. The horrific audacity of that, I think, has put this hostage issue in the minds of many more people.

around the world than it had been in a long time. And I think whatever can be done and needs to be done to bring those people home as safely and quickly as possible should be done by our government, by those other governments that represent these individuals, and frankly by the Israeli government. Yeah, I could not agree with you more. I think this is a moment when we got to say, Bibi, disagree with you, and we're going to do our own thing here because you're not getting it done. Jason, when I think back on 544 days and your podcast about your experience, and since that time, how much hostage issues have driven

not just American foreign policy challenges, but global ones, it feels like it was ahead of the curve in some ways? I mean, do you think you were just like in this really unfortunate place to be at the leading edge of this trend growing again? Or like, why, why? Why? Why? is that? And what do you think people can learn from the show today about what's happening now? So I do think that what happened to me was the beginning or at the beginning of a new wave of this. And as soon as I was released, within a couple of months, Nazanin Zegari Radcliffe, this young British-Iranian woman who had a daughter who was only two at the time, was taken by the same goons that took me, very similar circumstances. And, you know, I connected with her husband, who was a British man in the UK.

And then there were others, right? And then there were cases in Venezuela and Russia. And I was really banging this drum that, hey, look, this is a problem that's getting worse and worse. And it's no longer these terrorist organizations and criminal. gang's doing this. Yes, they still do it, but the main perpetrator is governments. And so I think, yeah, we were a little bit ahead of the curve in calling this out. And I'm thankful that the U.S. government, the Canadian government, the U.K. government are starting to catch up. But I think that the European governments are still fumbling around trying to figure out how to respond to this.

But I've been really encouraged by the community of people who've been, who've been a affected by this, who've come together to try and figure out effective ways to combat it. And in terms of the podcast, I mean, look, I tell people, you know, it's the best podcast you may never have heard, right? It's a really good show, right? And I think if you listen to it today, it'll tell you a lot about what's going on in these hostage situations.

Also, you know, we had this great, incredible fortune. of interviewing a series of Obama-era officials who all have much bigger jobs in the Biden administration who you can't get two minutes with now, right? And I think it's very reflective of their positions on foreign policy. And I don't know, I just think it's a really good historical document. I thank you and the guys for believing in it. Oh, my God. I mean, it was an honor to work on it with you, but you're right. I mean, when you think about some of the names of people that worked on your case, I mean, they're, you know, some of the top folks on the Biden team. But also, I mean, I think what I really took away from the show was you hear about these cases, you hear about Evan or,

you know, other names. And it, they become, you know, people on the news. But to hear you and to hear your wife, Yegi, who was also held by the same, you know, IRGC goons for a long period of time, like talk about the impact on the news. you on just a human level, like how frightening it was, what it was like to get out, I think is a credible window into an experience, you know, I wouldn't wish on anybody. I think that for us being able to share that and then just kind of give a little bit of background on the production of that show for people, we started recording. I think the first interview I did was with Ben. And it was maybe four or five days before.

before lockdown you're in D.C. And, you know, so then I'm doing all of these interviews in my basement, you know, from the closet. From the closet with John Kerry, right? And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, was, was pregnant during that whole time. So, uh, you know, a lot of nights spent on the living room, uh, couch after dinner, uh, with her feet up saying, okay, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to roll the tape now. You're ready to talk. And, um, and I think that that intimacy, really filters through. Yeah, then you're retracking VEO with, you know, a four-week-old crying in the background

thinking, might I ever sign up for this shit. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Been there, my friend. Final question for you. I mean, you are an Iran expert on top of, you know, all this expertise in hostage policy. Iran has a president-elect who's viewed as a reformer for the first time since 2005. Do you have, how much hope do you have for a change? My hope for change in Iran is driven by my faith in the people of Iran.

It's an incredibly educated, highly civilized and cultured, an angry population, right? And they've been fed lots of promises from lots of people over the last couple of decades. And I think that they're really at their wits end. I think that President-elect Pazeshkian will say a lot of the right things and he will be open to engagement and outreach with the West and specifically the United States. I don't think that we should think of him as a real driver of change. But the one wildcard in all this is that Iran's Supreme Leader is 85 years old. He's getting up there. He's getting up there.

I mean, these clerics tend to live for a very long time, but not forever, as far as I know. And when he dies, there will be an inevitable push and pull for power and a struggle inside that country. And I think we have to look to him as sort of a potential Gorbachev type figure, not someone who is a firm believer in the idea of changing. things up, but one who reluctantly realizes that the tide of history might be turning against the system that he helped propped up for a very long time. That's my hope. And that's the lens I'm going to look through. I like that. I like that hopeful lens. Well, listen, everyone should check out Jason's book, Prisoner, in this podcast, 544 days. Jason resigned. Great to see you. Thanks, Tommy. Thanks again to Jason Resion for joining the show. And to all you cocaine sharks out there,

get help, you know, it's not too late. Yeah, I mean, you know, like there's booze, like there's, you know, there's other things you can, a little slightly less, you know, like a little ketamine, you know. Yeah, like one of those puffer fish. Maybe like MDMA sharks, I don't know. I would rather get some rolling sharks. Just some kind of chill rolling sharks, you know, that'd be better. They just hug you and they go away, rub their fins against you.

Did you just, yeah. Did you see the video of the crazy seals, sea lions, like an attacking, people on the beach in San Diego? Yeah, you got to not get too close to those things. Is that a cocaine seal or like that? I think that's a get the hell out of my house seal. The other, the scary one are the orcas that are fucking up boats off the Azores.

I don't want to fuck with any orcas. If orcas decided they didn't like us kind of as a general policy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's not let that happen. All right. Talk to you guys next week. See it. If you want to get ad-frey episodes, exclusive content and more,

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