Pod Save the World - Brittney Griner is Home (with Jen Psaki)

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki subs in as cohost, talking with Ben about Brittney Griner’s release, what a Republican House means for Ukraine, executions and risks of escalation in Iran, Morocco’s Cinderella story at the World Cup, and Jen recounts some highlights from traveling the world with Barack Obama, John Kerry and Joe Biden. Then Brittney Griner’s agent Lindsay Kagawa Colas joins to recount Brittney’s first moments back on US soil, the journey to get her home and what comes next for the basketball star.  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 back to Podsea of the World. I'm Ben Rhodes. And I'm Jen Saki. Welcome, Jen Saki. Great to be here. Live in Washington. Thank you for coming to the lovely town of Washington. Back to Washington. Very few things get me here.

I came all the way here to podcast with you because you are stepping in for Tommy. Those of you have not heard Potsie of America may not know. Tommy and his wife, Hannah, have a beautiful baby girl, Lizette. Everybody is healthy. It's so exciting, right? And she's beautiful. Hannah looks stunning, which most people do not. look at like after they've had a baby. Tommy I'm sure looked fine. But congratulations to them.

Yeah, he's probably a wreck inside, but outside he looks great. And we're so happy for them. As those of you know, this was not easy. And so this is a truly, truly happy thing. We are going to talk about some happy things and, you know, some not so happy things. We'll talk about Brittany Greiner and her release in a very high profile prisoner swap. A bit of an update on Ukraine, including why are there some additional U.S. troops going to Ukraine? so wait for that. A bit of an update on what's happening with the ongoing protests in Iran. Then we'll check in with this big summit that's happening here in Washington with President Biden hosting leaders from across Africa. That also brings us to the World Cup where Morocco is representing all of Africa and the semis that are upcoming.

And we have further corruption scandals and corruption adjacent scandals in the European Parliament. And then we'll talk about a president in Peru who was pretty, you know, Rising Star and now is impeached in police custody. And so what the hell is going on there? It is short-lived rise. Yeah, it was a good ride while he could take it. How are you doing, by the way? Everybody, I'm sure, knows and loves you, but what have you been up to?

Not everybody, Ben. I think we know that's clear. The bubble of this listenership. Sure, okay, yeah, yeah. I'm great. I'm great. I miss being in the White House and kind of waking up in the morning and reading the news and thinking, what is happening with that?

What does Jake Sullivan think? What does John Finer think? It's no longer exactly the same, but it's fun to kind of be on a new adventure. Well, what people may not know, because everybody focuses on your very successful tenure as White House Press Secretary, is it before you were delivering sake bombs to Peter Ducey in the White House briefing room, you were tangling with Matt Lee as the State Department spokeswoman. And Arshad Mohammed. Yes. To me, that was the highlight of your career. This does kind of remind me of the amount of time we would talk on the phone.

during the day when I was there and you were the Deputy National Security Advisor and I would call you, talk about what we were going to say from the briefing and we'd be shooting the shit about all sorts of foreign policy stuff and then I'd say, okay, I have to actually go do the briefing now. I have to go do the briefing

now. So, yeah, that is the best job in Washington I will say. Yeah, and you got to globetrot with John Kerry. You get to, I got to globetrot with John Kerry. That was fun. Traveled, I think, more than 600,000 miles, went to Paris 25 times, also Saudi Arabia. a dozen times. So there's a little bit of everything for everybody in there. Yeah. Well,

John Kerry, you know, left a piece of his heart in Paris. He did. It's still there. It's still there. He used to come and knock on our doors at midnight and say, I want to go out and get a meal, you know, I want to go out and see that city. So I remember when he gave, were you there when he gave a whole speech in French? Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. I certainly was. Which is like probably not, I mean, something he would have done for his presidential run. Right. If people thought that he was in that job to run for president. They didn't see him with his arugula salad speaking French fluently in lovely French restaurants. But if there's a guy that you want to take you out to dinner in Paris, start with John Kerry. We are going to start with some very good news.

Brittany Griner is home back in the United States. She was exchanged on a tarmac in Abu Dhabi on the early morning hours of Thursday. That was quite a video. Wasn't it? It was like weird. It was kind of bridge of spisey, you know. And the fact that the Emirates kind of lends this intrigue. Drama. Felt a little cloudy or something. Yes. Yeah.

Victor Boot, who she was exchanged for, is a Russian arms dealer nicknamed the Merchant of Death. It's never a nickname that, at least not one that I seek out. Somebody who's been of extreme interest to Vladimir Putin, the Russian government, obviously one of the world's, if not the world's most prominent arms dealer back in his day. Also, some of the vast knowledge of where there are caches of weapons everywhere. he may have some practical knowledge that are of use of the Russians. Maybe some ties to the intel community? Yeah, maybe just a little bit. Like, let's just say that I don't think you're a hugely successful Russian arms deal without knowing some people in the intelligence

close to Putin. The downside was that Paul Whelan, who's also been designated as wrongfully detained by the U.S. former Marine, was not part of this exchange. He remains imprisoned in Russia. Basically, the reporting we saw on this gen was that the Russians have categorized him as a spy, which they didn't, Brittany Griner. And so therefore, we're asking for too high price, apparently for the Biden administration to exchange for at this moment. A bit on the reaction, then I'll come to you, Jen. There were some people trying to take credit to this. I saw a friend of the pod, Mahab bin Salman, highlighted his leading role. How close to a friend. Yeah, highlighted his leading role in the mediation efforts with UAE president, Mahm bin Zayed.

But it is clear that there is some behind the scenes. One of the few places that has good relations or a good is probably strong word has, let's say, very robust working relations with both Russia and the U.S. They were behind or involved in a complex swap of hundreds of prisoners held by Russia and Ukraine a few weeks ago. The White House though denied this and said that this was a deal between the U.S. and Russia and the U.A. was kind of a venue for this exchange happen. Now, the Republicans, rather than celebrating one of our greatest female athletes being home and reunited with her wife, Kevin McCarthy said, this is a gift to Vladimir Putin and it endangers American lives. And he added that leaving Paul Weillan behind is unconscionable, which there's a lack of internal logic there because we would have had to give up more people for Paul Weillan. John Bolton, another friend of the pod, said that terrorists and rogue states all around the world will take note of this. and it endangers other Americans in the future. And there was a little more Republican response

from that vein. But Jen, just to start with your reaction, what was it? I mean, do you remember when you learned that Britney Griner was detained? I mean, you were a press secretary. So what was that like? And how did you think about that at the time? Well, I mean, it was back in February, right? And things were not great at that time. And certainly the U.S. relationship with Russia was already bad at that time. And as things started progressing and getting worse in Ukraine. And Putin and the Russians became seemingly crazier and crazier and more like they were losing and losing. Yeah. It felt not desperate, but a little bit like, I don't know, are we going to get her out, right? Is she going to get out? That's not uncommon, as you know, to feel that way. But it felt the hope of getting her out, I would say, was not high. Not a foregone conclusion. Not a foregone conclusion, right? Because what we remember, we didn't even have a military conversation with the Russians for a period of time, right? So how were we going to get?

Brittany Griner out of Russia. There was a decision, of course, to basically make clear publicly that she was being detained and not held in a way that was legal. That's a big decision by government. But I was, when the news came out last week, I was thinking, one, those are the best days in the White House, right? Because it is just like pure joy, happiness. There's so much anticipation, stress. I read a report and I don't know if this is true that CB. had some of the news ahead of time and they had to get them to hold it. So that would have been a case where you or I or some other combination of people would have had to call the president of CBS, right, and ask them to do that. That's what you're so nervous about

leading up to those announcements. Just something screwing it up. Something could screw it up, right? And until the person is in safe airspace, you don't really know. So I was thinking of my former colleagues there and just kind of that breath of relief, lack of sleep when they knew that she was safe.

At the time, I remember, well, when I was in government, I remember there's always this balance between there are usually people who are supporters of the person detained. Yeah. Who want you to be very vocal on their behalf. Yes. And then there's usually the people who are trying to get that person out and the government who are like, don't raise the profile.

Don't say anything. Don't say anything about this because raising her profile may raise the price that Putin is asking for. How did you guys wrestle with that? You were at the podium, I'm sure, getting asked about this or people criticizing Biden for not talking about it more. I understood at the time was like, well, these guys probably don't want to talk about it more because they want to put a bigger target on her. But how did you navigate that? That is most of the time, right, is policy experts, people who are actually working on the negotiations saying to you, and they certainly did in this case say very little, right? In order to make progress on getting her released, we needed to be quiet.

That was the case here. Even though I left six months ago, I'm pretty certain that continued to be the case because of how they behaved. And that is almost always the case. Now, what's so hard is that most public servants I know and probably you know, you know, you know, wear their hearts on their sleeve. And you have to go up. And I remember at the State Department feeling this way, every day people would ask. And back then, I remember Jason Rezion, the journalist, Washington Post journalist, being detained. His wife had been detained with him.

He was in Evan Prison. The whole thing was heartbreaking. And the only thing we could say was, we're doing everything we can to get him out, which is typically. Typically the frame of what you can say. And the reason is because the more you say, the higher their price could be, the more at risk you could put any deals or negotiations. But it's really unsatisfying and heartbreaking. And family members feel heartbroken by it, too, from the outside. When the government is saying very little, their assumption is that nothing is happening.

Yeah. Now we're in this kind of place where, on the one hand, we've seen in the last decade, a recent estimate that there's been 170. 25% increase in Americans being wrongfully detained. And a lot of that, most of it, is in places like Iran, China, Venezuela, Syria, Russia, you know, places that don't like us. And we're in this kind of weird loop where this is increasing and you're conflicted because giving up a guy like Victor Boot is a high price. Or he's a creep. Yeah. He's a creep.

He's a creep. Yeah. And yet, like, you need to get people home. Yeah. And the world is what it is. And we don't pay ransoms here. So we end up with prisoner exchanges and swaps. I mean, how did you, how of your views of this issue?

We've dealt with so many of these cases over the years. Like, how do you think about the choices that presidents ultimately have to make about whether and how to get people home? I mean, probably some of the more difficult decisions presidents have to make, maybe aside from going to war or using military force. Because every deal is imperfect. Yeah, right? They're all imperfect. And to get Brittany Griner home, you had to give up the merchant of death, right? Yeah.

Now, granted, he only had six years left on his, the time he was supposed to serve. So I don't know that it was as crazy as the Republicans conveyed. You weigh those things, too. If he was in the first year of his sentence, I don't think they would have released it. They probably would not have. But every decision and every deal, you make a calculus, right? That there's going to be something messy about it. And also in this case, they, of course, made the deal.

that didn't include Paul Whelan because there wasn't a deal to be made with Paul Whelan. So that's difficult. But at the same time, and I think, you know, I and you as well have had the benefit of getting to know a little bit or knowing the stories of some of the family members and people. These are human beings, right? An imperfect deal still means Britney Griner is home with her family, right? It still means, and I guess we'll see that there is some channel for bringing an American home. And there was because we saw Trevor Reed come home too. this summer. We'll see. But yeah, you know it's going to be a messy day in a White House or a State Department or the national security team when these deals are announced because there's something you're giving up for it.

Yeah. No. And it should be noted that if we were just giving up everything, we'd be home. There's clearly lines that the Biden people won't cross. Well, Putin did indicate that there would be an ongoing channel on prisoners. The war in Ukraine, on the other hand, he kind of gave a gloomy summary. about this is going to be a long-term thing, like no end in sight, essentially was the line from Putin. An article that, you know, caught my attention, Jen, was about these additional U.S. troops that were being sent into Ukraine before anybody freaks out. No, these are not being sent to fight Russians, but rather because of the volume of weapons that are going in and because of the complexity of some of those weapons, include, you know, air defense systems and drones, that the kind of contingent of, you know, defense. personnel, defense at Tisha office at the Kiev embassy is going to be beefed up a bit. Yeah. This takes place amidst an incoming Republican House majority that has vowed to, you know, conduct more vigorous oversight of Ukraine spending, has said there's no blank check in

Kevin McCarthy's words for Ukraine. When do you anticipate in this space of like the oversight of the weapons we're providing and how the Biden team is going to be dealing with? a potentially adversarial house, well, not potentially, but on Ukraine, we just don't know how adversarial. It's not Hunter Biden. Yes. You know, it is what it is.

Yeah. Look, I mean, I think a couple things are true. I mean, one is the U.S. has provided historic amounts of assistance in the last year to Ukraine. Also, it's happened so quickly that there's no way that there weren't weapons that were left, that were left behind, that should be tracked. That's obviously something that should happen anyway. It's also true that public support has decreased by a lot, actually, for continuing to provide support to Ukraine. And the Biden administration is still going to want to do it.

I mean, the president will still want to do it. And if the U.S. doesn't do it, it's going to be hard to keep Europeans and others doing it. So hence a challenge. But Kevin McCarthy and like the crazy wing of his party, one of the things, one of the hills they have decided they want to die on is assistance. to Ukraine, right? And you already saw this play out a little bit in the fall where Kevin McCarthy kind of said, we're not going to do any more of that or whatever his quote was. And Mike McCall said, yes, we are, right?

And so this is, that is setting up to be a conflict. But the oversight thing, oversight is what I think the Biden administration people sitting there in the White House and my old job, your old job, are focused thinking about, right? Not just on Ukraine, but on Afghanistan, on a range of, issues that were hugely difficult, complex foreign policy issues that the Biden White House had to deal with. And the Republicans are going to look for places to kind of poke at them and find cracks in the sand in. Yeah. Well, as we experienced on matters like, you know, Benghazi, that the complex foreign policy challenges in the fog of war don't translate well into Republican oversight.

But on Ukraine, it strikes me like, so on both of these, I think it's important to separate out. there are legitimate policy questions, right? Yes. So on Ukraine, sending some more people, actually, I think is an appropriate way of saying, we do want to make sure that if we're providing tens of billions of dollars in weapons, that we have better oversight into where those are going. And there's an accounting mechanism and there's proposals in Congress for, you know, some kind of inspector general review.

Like that all seems appropriate to me. Totally. Because it also might help them make a case to the public, hey, we're taking very seriously like the, how we're tracking it. Yes. But then the nonsense is Marjorie Taylor Green standing up in front of an audience saying like not one more dime for Ukraine, send it to the wall. We use the money for Ukraine to build a wall, you know. Yeah, which is crazy. I mean, that's exactly.

First of all, the Biden administration was always going to want to track and take steps on oversight. Yeah. Yeah, they were trying to give away weapons. Right. Right. And that's kind of what a responsible government does. Right. And the Marjorie Taylor Green wing that is going to suggest that giving money to Ukraine, continuing to help Ukraine fight against Russia is a waste. That's going to be a louder and louder voice, right? In the Republican Party. And they're now, even if it's a tiny majority, it is a tiny majority. That's going to be something the Biden administration is obviously going to have to deal with. So politically, how much on the oversight piece do you stand back and say, these people are crazy? They're trying to distract you from the problems that you actually care about to do these investigations into Hunter Biden and Afghanistan and the rest of it versus how much do you have to take it seriously and, you know, provide all these, you know, witnesses and documents about Afghanistan two years ago. Like, what is that balance between calling out what they're doing?

Yeah. And I, because I don't, I wrestle with this myself. Like I look back on, say, Benghazi. And part of me thinks like, well, one, we should have called it out. more aggressively at the outset. And two, we should have just given them everything right away. Yeah. Because like the drip, drip, drip is terrible.

The drama of like, you know, three years later, like we found Hillary's email server, you know, like, not that we even actually tell you the truth, I didn't know about Hillary's email server. The same. Hard same. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, where do you stand on these questions of like tactics, you know?

I think the biggest lesson is that you have to call out the BS early, right? Otherwise you're legitimizing it. And I actually think this is going to be harder for the Biden White House and the administration than people may think because Democrats, a lot of them, they are kind of nerdy, played by the rules, people. This is like one of the reasons I think it's like such an endearing group of humans and people. And if you treat everything like it's on the level, you are legitimizing it. So I think they need to call out these sham investigations, these sham lawsuits, which we're seeing happen around. the country, they're not really doing that yet, and they need to start doing it. At the same time, you can't assume that just because there's information traveling in crazy right wings, you don't

need to combat it. I mean, they need to have, and I think they will, preparation to fact check, put out details, dump information, as you said. And like you said, I would just get it all out. It's going to be such a noisy first six months of things. Yeah, yeah. It's better to get it. It's better to get it out than to drip, drip, drip with it, for sure. So it's also like a presidential cycle that'll be starting. And we know that another issue that always like travels strangely in American politics is Iran. Yeah. You know, we're at a pretty delicate moment here.

Obviously, everybody is supportive of the protesters. Can I ask you? Are you surprised the protesters have lasted as long as they have since we've seen protests, I mean, over different times. But they seem to be. I was at first. Yeah. Like I because there's been a rhythm to these things in the past where there's some protests and then They build and then there's a kind of pretty vicious crack down and then they they hang on

But they kind of get smaller this grew and when it stopped surprising me is when you saw that this was like Not about just politics yeah like this is about the entire society you know this is like so this isn't just like people are pissed about the budget Yeah, people are pissed about one election yeah they got thrown these are people are like just fed up with the whole they're pissed that structure of Iranian society, particularly how women are treated. Yeah. And so I don't know how you put that back in a box. Yeah. But meanwhile, these people have dramatically accelerated their nuclear program.

Yeah. And the nuclear deal is you're probably not going to make a nuclear deal with people in the middle, midst of this kind of crackdown. And the Supreme Leader's not a spring chicken. Let's just say that he's not in like, you know, tip top health here. Yeah. So this, the volatility of this issue for the next couple of years and how that interacts with like American politics, right? Let's say the Iranians are dashing out to get a nuclear weapon. Yeah.

You know, this could be one to watch, right? Totally. I mean, it's interesting because in some ways it's been a little bit of a back burner issue, at least in the public, right? Not for you and probably listeners. But for the last year, it could become a huge front and center issue for all the reasons you said because there's going to be decisions that Biden administration has to make, right? There's no path forward on a deal.

Never mind. I mean, the Russians and the Chinese are also two members of the P5 plus one. So there's also that. Yeah. But if the Supreme Leader is not doing well in health, if there's no incentive for leadership in Iran to engage with the West, like what happens there? You know, the talking point, but it's also true, right, is always that, you know, options remain on the table. Options are like military action. Is the U.S. going to do that? So there's a lot of things that could really come into play in the next year or so that are big decisions for Joe Biden, big decisions for, you know, responsible men. members of the global community, Iran could become a big front and center place.

Yeah, it's something to watch because there's just not, I mean, to use the diplo speak, but there's not any off ramps. No real off ramps inside. You got, you know, their nuclear program expanding, their society imploding, their leader on his last legs, they're pouring weapons into Ukraine on the Russians behalf. So this could almost kind of become an appendage of that war. Yeah. It does worry me.

On the affirmative side, what is happening here in Washington and may not be getting the coverage, but it will here on Pots of the World to reach you. But President Biden is hosting the U.S. Africa Leaders Summit. This is a really good thing. It's basically President Biden has invited all of the leaders from the African continent to the White House to the U.S. for a series of meetings this week. He's taken, you know, clearly one of the things they're trying to address is how the Africans feel left out of the international system, right? And so sometimes the U.S. calls up and lobbies these countries to vote for us and some UN resolution on Ukraine. But they feel like, well, we don't have seats at these tables. So as part of this, Biden has announced his support for the African Union, which is the kind of umbrella organization for Africa, to join the G20 permanently and to have a greater stake in institutions like the IMF.

That's all to the good. You know, they're emphasizing, which echoes from the Obama administration, like the economic potential. There's going to be a bunch of business deals between African countries and American companies. There's going to be a lot of focus on food in the global food crisis because of Ukraine. Climate and the potential to help Africa develop clean energy sources. A backdrop to all this is China and Russia. So we talked on this show, Jen, a bit about how on the Russian side there's some ugliness with like the Wagner group and some Russian mercenaries like running cobalt mines and DRC and places like that. But the bigger thing, I think, is China really fluxing has spent a lot of time, money and effort down there.

I mean, you and I were talking about this, like, give us some of that texture. Because Africa increasingly has felt like it's being courted by various. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, look, I mean, Africa, and you saw some of the leaders or people from different things saying say this, is basically that African leaders feel like they're a problem to solve and not an opportunity. right, but Russia and China in different ways see Africa as an opportunity. And the United States has in fits and starts, I will say, over the course of the last few decades, seen it as well. I mean, obviously it was a huge priority for President Obama. We were both there for that. But now what's challenging is the African leaders are coming. This is a great thing that Biden administration is doing, as you said, and they're whining and dining them and hosting them and they'll be announcing deals and things. But what it made me think about and what we were just talking about is when I used to travel with John Harry, jet-setting around the world.

Yeah. Whenever you go to Africa, you'd come and say, here, we have this deal with this company for you or we have this aid and assistance. Now, the United States leads with, which is a good thing, requirements on human rights and accountability and things like that. And a lot of these African leaders would say, okay, my friends are the Chinese over here, they are giving me the same money or more and there's no strings attached. So why am I going to take your deal?

I'm not changing my human rights rules here. And that's something people kind of miss, right? We're trying to compete with our values, which we should. Yeah. But it's challenging to try to do that in Africa where the Chinese are just playing by a different set of rules. So it's really good they're doing it, but I think those challenges still exist. Yeah, no, the Chinese don't attach a lot of strings. No.

You know, Mackie Saul, who has the presidency of the AU right now, he's this president of Senegal. First of all, he's kind of an interesting character because we went to Senegal. were you on that trip in 2013 No I was at state I was jet sitting with John Kerry

You were jet saying Yeah so we didn't get to We travel a little heavier But he was like the Democratic Success story Yeah Like their civil society It mobilized to make sure

That the outgoing president And try to stick around Well fast forward like a decade In Mackey Saul is now the guy That you know people aren't sure If he's gonna leave office And he said though He had a quote that kind of summed up

where you're talking about the summit, he said, when we talk, we're often not listened to. Yeah. Or in any case, not with enough interest. This is what we want to change and let no one tell us, no, don't work with so-and-so, just work with us. We want to work and trade with everyone. That's actually a pretty— I'm not married. I'm dating all of you.

I actually kind of respect that quote because he's basically like, number one, you've got to listen to us and take it seriously. And number two, you know what? Like, whether it's America or China or Russia, like, we're just going to, like, we're going to do what's in our best interest. I think the case the Biden people have to make, and we try to do this in the Obama years, you may not like some of our stuff on democracy, but the Chinese actually are not really investing in your capacity. Yeah. Like they're coming in and they want your minerals. They want your resources. They want to take from you. It's kind of a colonialist.

Yeah. Not entirely, but I don't want to like totally shortchange it. Some Chinese investments benefit the communities where those investments are made. But what America can do is like build up capacity in these countries. And on an issue like climate change, which I hope is a real focus, like these countries in sub-Saharan Africa are going to have to both mitigate the effects of climate change and rapidly scale up clean energy development if we're going to survive. Because like if they use coal to develop, like, we're not going to deal climate change. And this can be very lucrative to them. And this can help Europe deal with its own energy crisis if like hydro power is coming in Europe from Africa.

So there are ways that I think we can offer a really good deal for these African countries, even if like, yeah, like we're going to. not want them to cancel elections, you know, have coups. It's like multiple things are true, right? I mean, many of these leaders are looking out for their own interests, right? Which is kind of what you're supposed to do as a leader. Yeah. They are trying to get aid and assistance and investment from lots of places. And the U.S., to your point, is trying to do this in a way that's advantageous mutually, right?

That sometimes is a harder pitch to make, but it is true and better long term. Yeah. And also, like, the U.S. relationship with Africa, and this is another good thing about the summit, is it's not just the government. It's like the African diaspora here. It's the business community. It's, it's, it's, the NBA has like an African league now. Like, we should be expanding in pop culture. Like, there's a much bigger relationship we can have in Africa. Sports is a part of that. And you notice there's a soccer tournament happening now. Morocco. Cinderella has captured our hearts, right? I mean, this is the first African team to make the semi-factory. finals of World Cup, they have just slayed European empire. Yeah. Right? It's kind of unbelievable.

So first they take out the Belgians who were like obviously terrible in the Congo in other places. Then they take out the Spanish, you know, we all know about that empire. Then take out the Portuguese, like, you know, who had colonies in Africa as late as the 70s. And now they will be taking on their own former colonizers to French. I mean, that would be to take out four European empires in row. I mean, that's something. I love the Ben-Rhodzianness of this whole thing.

This is how I follow sports. I love it. Yes. I mean, this is why people watch the world. I mean, not everybody watches. But one, you love to root for the people who nobody expects to do well. Then when there are cooler, higher-level stories, like you just said, you root for them even more. And it kind of sports.

It brings the world together. So we've got Morocco versus France. And then we have Croatia versus Argentina. Yeah. Do you, I mean, is there a Jen Saki favorite here, not the U.S. team is out? Well, now you've really made me root for Morocco. Oh, good. I've convinced me. I'm just going to say Croatia, just because it feels like... I like those guys. Yeah. You know, it's small country. Yeah. Like, they're older guys. Yeah. It's funny now that, like, some soccer player is like 38 and they're like, oh, he's ancient. And we're kind of like... It makes me feel kind of old, you know? Right. Remember when we were the people who were young bucks who were just like too young for our jobs?

Now we're like, now we're like, why don't you know to use TikTok? I'm like, I'm trying. Go away. Leave me alone. Get up my long. Yeah. Seriously. Why don't you? of these people appreciate. I will say that of all the sports, these are like good-looking guys, too. I'm just going to put that out there. That is true. I'm not going to lie.

Maybe it's because they're very fit, you know. We've watched many of the games with our very good friends, the Noresh. And it's very gendered to say this, but our friend Jess and I will Google the players. Yeah, yeah. And I will share details about them. It's not always their look. Sometimes it's like their family where they grew up. Well, the Moroccan guy, did you see the guy who brought his mom on the

field. And this is something worth watching, you know, this guy, his mom, and she's got the, like, full, like, hijab. And, but she's got like a, like an iPhone around her neck, you know, like, like, anybody's old mom who, like, just kind of clueless about technology. And he's, like, dancing with her. Yes. She's the flashlight still probably on her phone. Flashlight is definitely on. This is why everybody loves the Olympics. I mean, I am, I could cry over how much I love the Olympics. Yeah, I've seen you. Yeah. I know. I just get a, it's a similar thing, right, where you see all these global dynamics. You see these athletes who are kind of out of the public eye, their family members. It is like the world coming together around sports. So it's good. I will tell you it's interesting. I cry more because of like a sports. Like some something about sports. Like if there's just some cheesy wind in about like the player who overcame adversity. Oh my God. And he wanted to like do this for his family. For some reason I'm sitting there like crying watching this stuff. I am too. I don't know if I told you how I tweeted so much about the U.S. Olympic trial swimming that Katie Ladecki DM'd me because I was like such a crazy supporter.

Oh, that's awesome. Well, you, people don't know. I mean, you were quite the swimmer. I was like a mediocre. But I do love sports and I love everything. When the Olympians came to the White House last year, I kind of like freaked. I don't get easily nervous. Who were you most excited to meet? I just wanted to meet all of them. I'm like the badman player. You're like, where's the fencer? I was excited about everyone. So, yes. Well, so just to round out the show here, listeners know that the World Cup has, unfortunately, like, a darker side.

And we've detailed, or Tommy's detailed on world corrupt, some of those issues. The corruption issues involving Qatar traveled a little bit this week. So I thought, just give you an update on that. There was like a pretty massive scandal in the European Parliament where the Belgian police have arrested four people, including the vice president of the European Parliament. Parliament. Now, these four were charged with corruption and money laundering. Katar was, you know, widely reported as the Gulf country that had been providing bribes and other gifts, I guess, valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars. So we've talked a lot about the, you know, the impact of not just Qatari, but golf money in this city in Washington. Good to know. It's not just here, I guess, but good on the

Belgian prosecutors for getting after that. It's just a reminder that. There's a lot of money flowing around out there, and a lot of it comes from the Gulf. That's not the only place. We don't mean to single out entirely here, but I'm glad to see a little more scrutiny on this generally. Yeah. And then one other story we wanted to flag, because this is another wild ride, Peru, where we covered a bit the election of Pedro Castillo, who's a leftist leader, rags, not riches,

unless there was a little corruption there. He was a teacher. Yeah, yeah. He came from a very humble background. And really like a pretty rapid fall. Yeah. He was impeached after basically it became known that he was going to try to dissolve the Peruvian Congress and install an emergency government. Yeah.

Basically, he knew he was going to be impeached. He was trying to get ahead of that by like dissolving the parliament and making himself, you know, impeachment proof. Actually, it sounds unfortunately a little familiar. Yeah. It seemed kind of a little closer. These things where you used to talk about these countries, you know, like, oh, it would be so crazy. How'd that even happen? It'd be crazy that that happens. Like, basically, you know, we know what this is like. So the good news in a lot of ways is that the institutional framework of Peruvian democracy held. And this failed. He was impeached. He was actually detained. The attorney general there put out a statement saying that he was being held for violation of the Constitution order. Now Peru has its first female president. Yeah.

Dina Bluarte, who took office as president on Wednesday. She was the vice president, took us to you, also a leftist, but the sixth president of Peru in five years. Yeah. So they've got some work to do to kind of steady the shift there. Yeah. Stability will probably be her objective. We'll see whether she's able to do that. I do think it speaks, Jen, to the, you know, we've welcomed generally the elevation or the victories of a lot of left of center or left-wing governments.

in Latin America where there's obviously deep-breed inequality and a lot of reasons for ambitious left-of-center or leftist governments. The problem is always meeting those expectations, and if you're having trouble meeting those expectations, not reverting to undemocratic, you know, behaviors to insulate yourself from accountability. My hope is Peru can both stabilize, but then also in that neighborhood where you've got a really exciting left-wing president in Chile in a lot of ways, Gabrielle-Borich. And you've got in Colombia, new left-wing president, Petro, like, we got Lula back in Brazil, like, let's hope that this can stabilize. Yeah, that this whole situation can stabilize.

She called for the new president called for elections, right? Yes. Which seems like a good sign. Yeah. I think you need a mandate, right? Yeah. And it's hard to just govern the country. Yeah.

You know, when the guy who you were running mate for is, you know. Yeah. When your former running mate has been thrown out. Yeah. Feels like you need that. You need that mandate. Yeah. I actually was going to ask you, so did you ever, because I was saying my last foreign trip in government was to Peru, to Lima, and they had one of these six presidents there.

But I was going to ask you this question. I didn't, and I didn't preview this for you because you talked about all the travel of Kerry. Yeah. You did a bunch of travel with us and with Biden as well. Yeah. What are your favorite standout foreign trip memories? Oh, my God. Is it a favorite foreign trip, a favorite place, a favorite thing?

Yeah. I always think about places I love. love to go back to, right? So on that level, Vietnam is just an amazing place, just kind of the old versus new, how they're right next to each other. I also went when I went with John Kerry, he had not been back to some of the places where he had been during the Vietnam War, like bars and restaurants. So seeing it through his eyes was completely fascinating. I mean, I went to Cuba. I think that was maybe my last trip. And being there, as much as, you know, it's been a lot of. It's been a a up and down journey, I can diplomatically say with Cuba. But, you know, that felt, I still have

pictures of kind of the old city and, you know, just pinching yourself that you were there. But I would say my favorite thing, and this didn't matter as much about the place, was when I was a spokesperson at the State Department, one of the reasons it's like the best job, one of the best jobs, is you've a seat at the table for negotiations for the most part, unless they're cut down to leader to leader and just seeing all of that transpire, whether it was in Vienna, oftentimes in European capitals, I remember one time, do you remember, will you remember, I'm certain, because we've talked about how they've kind of fabricated what actually happened when we did the chemical weapons deal. Oh, of course, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So when we went back to Europe to do the chemical

weapons deal, and I remember sitting at the table with Carrie and Wendy Sherman and all of these chemical weapons experts. And we were worried the Russians weren't going to stay, right? They were kind of threatening to leave. And I passed a note that just said, we've heard from the press that their reporters and some of their delegation are packing their bags, right? So I passed it to. The Russian reporters.

Yes. I passed it to John Kerry, who is not discreet in this sense, right? And he said, my spokesperson over there, Pass me a note. So, you know, even though that deal obviously fell apart and what have you... Well, no, I mean... Well, it was very effective. Removed a lot of chemical weapons. It removed a lot of chemical weapons. What I mean?

I don't want to overly celebrate. It didn't celebrate the Civil War. I totally agree with you. Yeah. But being there in those moments, it's really remarkable. And I, so I'll remember those two. That's actually a good reminder, too, of, like, how human the dynamic is in those meetings. And also like the way in which the press component interacted with it, like you mentioned Russia, Medvedev before he was like a raging fascistic alcoholic like he's now, threatening nuclear annihilation when he was like a wannabe Western. OG Medvedev. He used to, he clearly wanted Obama and him to have some relationship.

And so what we figured out is that instead of doing the, you know, you can bring the press into the beginning or the end. And if it's the beginning, it's just like the press comes in and people read talking points and say, we're looking forward to a full and frank discussion and nothing happens. Obama realized, I think it was actually Obama realized this, but like if you put the press, it brought them in at the end, what Obama would do, and I saw him just a couple of times is the go, the go, frankly, would all kind of have to go to the side. Yeah. And there's this moment where the two leaders are sitting there together. And he would always lean over and be like, you know, really help me if you could see. say something about like Iran sanctions, about how like Iran needs to get its act later. And and this worked a couple of times. And like, because like there were these things that like

actually would have been hard to get him agreed to in like a formal meeting. But then you get him to say something that is a bit further out in front and from the press. Now, of course, Obama then got in trouble because before one of these press sprays, they were talking about a missile defense member and he said Medvedev is when he's going to leave. He's like, I will transmit that to Vladimir, you know. So it can backfire too. But. It can, but that's true. It's such an important part of the whole thing, as are these relationships. I mean, the fact that Obama at the time could say that to him, right, and try to get him to do it. And Kerry, who, you know, I worked for him when he ran for president and there was this perception of him at the time that he was completely aloof and kind of not friendly. I mean, first of all, when I interviewed with him for the job, he gave me a huge hug. And he's like a very friendly outgoing person. But what I saw from- People miss that about him sometimes. People miss that about him. But diplomacy is really about politics, but in people's domestic, in people's countries, right?

And Kerry used to always talk about sometimes to break the ice, people's, their elections, the political challenges they were having. Because even though they're different in different countries, you know, he could relate to that and sometimes break the ice with them about why it was hard for them to speak publicly about something or make a particular decision. Yeah. It's, of course, when you're talking to you, you've got this unique, I mean, who else? had traveled with Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Joe Biden like this last few years. Can I... All different cats. Probably, what's your diplomatic answer to how a Biden trip is different than an Obama trip,

different than a carry trip? Oh, man. Okay. First of all, a carry trip, and any reporter who traveled with us at the time would say this, too, you never knew how long you'd be gone. Yeah. This is the thing because... Oh, you guys would leave and we'd never know when you're coming back.

Right, because the State Department, it's such a smaller footprint, meaning fewer people than when you travel with the president. So, you know, you have the plane as the Secretary of State and he would say, we're going to stay two more days. We're going to stay three more days. I started packing like extra socks and underwear and not to over there. But because you just didn't know. He was also somebody who had a tirelessness about him. Obama and Biden have this in different ways.

Otherwise, you couldn't be president. But Kerry would stay up until. He'd have dinner with someone for six hours and then come back to the hotel and want to like talk at two in the morning. Yes, want to kind of go through his speech. at two in the morning. It was just tirelessness about him and relentlessness about him. And Obama trip, I mean, you know, as president, it's pretty regimented, right? But he also was willing to buck the model of what had always been done and try new things, right? And willing to take risks in a different way. Yeah, my favorite thing about those trips was he would, you know, he would

give kind of highwire speeches or he'd do town halls with like young people in countries, where that didn't happen. Or he'd like there'd be some, like we go to favela in Rio, right? Like, he got out of, even though he's in the bubble. Like he would try to do things to like. He was open. He was open to not following the same model of how every president had always done every trip and who they'd always met with, which is a huge gift.

And he could pull it off. I would say Biden, he's known a lot of these people for decades, right? In different ways. And I remember going on his first trip with him last year, a year and a half ago. It's all running together. It feels like forever ago. That trip to Europe feels like a million years ago. So long ago.

And he was just so happy because he loved being at these international forum where he's discussing issues. And he wants to listen to what everybody is presenting and have conversations with them and have the dinners and have the side conversations. And I remember there was this theory because he was two hours later, something to his press conference. Yeah. This is something that would not have happened with Obama. No. But maybe would have happened with Kerry and Biden. And the reporters were texting me like, where are you?

Is something happening in the United States? Like, has there been an attack or something? It was really that he was just shooting the shit with Tony and Jake and Toria and just talking about. Basically, the prep session became a. It wasn't even a prep session. It was like they were just sharing and talking about the conversations they'd had that day. And I was like, nothing's happened. I promise you.

I swear. They're literally just catching up. They're just gossiping. about their day. Which is actually, my favorite part was usually like Obama, too, like to like gossip about foreign leaders like when you get back on the plane and did you see so and so and so and so had too much to drink at the dinner. Yeah.

That stuff is fun. And I did think when I saw Biden that trip, it must have been surreal. He's been going to these meetings for like 40 years, right? Because as a member of the Senate Farm Relations Committee, then his vice president. Yeah. And how, you know, validating it must be to suddenly be the top guy in the room. You know, like, you've never quite been that, you know, like that must have been a really interesting experience. Yeah. I also think the thing that people don't give him credit for or it isn't going to, you know, is that he is seen as this, like, kind of knee jerk person.

But he's actually very patient with relationships and the care and feeding and kind of the sowing of the seeds that he'd done with all these European leaders, some for decades, some for less time. But I saw that so much happened in the early weeks and months of Ukraine where he would spend hours on the phone with Macron, with Zelensky, with the Germans talking and engaging. And when he goes to these summits, they all have legitimate personal relationships. And they have like this history. Yeah. Well, look, Jen, this is fun. And I hope you enjoyed it. Where can people, where should people look for you?

What are you here to plug? Oh, I don't have anything to plug. I'm just plugging Tommy's new baby. It's so exciting and so happy for them. He's going to be a great dad and hands on an amazing mom. He will be a great. Well, yeah, we knew that. We knew that. I think Tommy will also be a good.

Tommy's going to be an amazing dad. No, I'll be on your MSNBC and NBC channels. There you go. Look for her. You can look for me there. Yeah. All right. Well, Jen, thanks so much for being here.

Thank you. It was great to be with you. We're really happy overjoyed, actually, to be joined by Lindsay Cagawa Colas, who is Brittany Griner's agent, an executive vice president of Washterman Media Group, and was with Britney Griner when she met her when she reached U.S. soil. Lindsay, thanks so much for being with us. You are so welcome. Thanks for having me, Ben. So let's just start with what's in every his mind. How is Brittany Griner doing? Well, I think she's doing pretty well. She's sampling all of the cuisine that San Antonio has to

offer things like pizza and lots of barbecue and Mexican food. So she's doing that, but she just, she really seems to be doing so, so well. Brittany is incredibly resilient and always has been. And, you know, through this process, I think she's probably learned a lot and I'm excited for her to be able to share. But she just seems to be doing really well. And also, you know, credit to Speja and the piece of re-emerission program that she's taking her time to utilize those resources, I'm very grateful. And she's been very open to that support, knowing that this was a big experience, right? And you don't exactly know what to expect.

But from having been around her and having talked to her on the phone, you know, every day since she's been home, FaceTiming, she seems great. That's just wonderful news. Well, let's just go back in time here. So talk a little bit about, first of all, before we get into kind of the process of how you guys dealt with the U.S. government, like who is on the team here? We obviously got to know Brittany's wife really well and just incredibly articulate, a powerful voice of her own. But, you know, who was kind of from the moment she got detained, kind of, I always interacted with kind of families and their representatives. And I always found that there was always like a really tight net group. Like who was kind of team Brittany Griner in this, this ordeal?

Well, you know, we had the court team in the first moments when it was, you know, 530, 5 a.m. Pacific time when the call came in that Britney. had been detained on February 17. So that was me, Cherell, and Tracy from my team. So Tracy Hughes. So it started as her just core representation team. And then it pretty quickly then started to include our council. We were lucky enough for our chief legal counsel, Mike Pickles, actually practiced law in Moscow and speaks and reads fluent Russian.

So I don't want to call any of this process lucky, but I think we were fortunate to have someone who had actually practiced law and had experience at a white-collar law firm in Moscow. So Mike very quickly became involved. All of our folks in and around our talent came involved. You know, Casey Wasserman got very involved. Her team was very involved. But I would say in the day-to-day, the Corps was me, Shirel, the Russian attorneys on one side. And then that was sort of separated from the movement and building that.

And that was really about our core Wasserman team that built and executed a strategy in addition to the WNVPA, which as a union came together to support this movement in really unbelievable ways. I mean, they are a model in terms of sports and activism. I think you probably know always have. Yeah. Right? So they've been doing this work. They just found a new, a new thing to do it around. And they did it so well.

And they showed up every single day. and it was so critical to the work that everybody was really invested in just the end goal being Brittany needs to come home, right? Like, whatever we're going to do, it ran through the lens of, is this going to help get Britney home? And the discipline required to be a part of that, it was a lot. It was a lot because there's a lot of people who want to tell you how things need to happen. Yeah, well, I was going to ask you, I mean, there's always attention early on in these processes where you maybe don't want to raise the profile too high because you want to see if the justice

system will free you're in Russia. You want to see if you can work something out quietly without kind of raising awareness in ways that might make the price go up for bring someone home. I could sense at the time that you guys did let that play out. And talk to me about the decision to start to kind of really raise the awareness of this, raise the pressure, start to press more publicly on this. Yeah, it was all part of phases of a strategy, right, where we gave, this is such a unique case. So I'd love to think that we've provided some sort of a playbook for bringing more Americans home. I'm not sure that we did. I do think that, you know, what we did is probably pretty interesting because of the way that it evolved over time. And so over those 10

months, it started very quiet. Well, for weeks, it wasn't even known that she had been detained. But part of that was because she's actually a star in Russia. You know, she's, been going in and out of Russia freely and was very well known and loved as an athlete there for seven, eight years at that point. So there was a hope that this could be resolved through essentially sport diplomacy and that the sanctity of sport and need for athletes to be able to travel freely was going to come through and sort of win the day for us. You know, but then there's an invasion and then there's a war and there's all these other factors that you couldn't even have written it. Like you couldn't write a more difficult situation. And so it was really just

continuing to move along that timeline, getting a lot of really great advice. I mean, there were a lot of advisors on this really smart people with a lot of specific experience that I never would have met or might not have ever met had it been for this experience who gave so much time. People like Fiona Hill, you know, heard her on podcast, tried to get introduced. You probably know Fiona. I mean, brilliant mine. And the White House, actually convened after our meeting in the Oval, a group of experts to help weigh in on how we can think about certain strategies. But getting to that point, I mean, the quiet phase just began to escalate. And I think it was just a matter of wanting to make sure that Sherell can get a meeting

and get the phone call because we just needed to be reassured that the commitment was real. Yeah. Well, and then, you know, that pressure kind of helps the administration and the president be able to make a hard decision, you know, like doing exchange. I, and then what kind of contact did Shirel or you all have with Brittany when she was in detention? You know, I remember it was a long time to get that phone call. Like, did you have any sense of how she was doing what the conditions of her confinement were, particularly in the penal colony? Yeah, I think part of why we were able to be, let's call it patient. I prefer to call it discipline because this was every day this was part of plan. Her Russian counsel actually saw her about twice a week while she was in pretrial. So there

were some spans of time where things would happen where they wouldn't get access, but it didn't ever go very long. So we had eyes on her pretty regularly. So while the U.S. government was being denied access, you know, as part of all the political games that were being played, our Russian attorneys were able to see her. And they were my first conversation every morning. So we had a pretty good sense of at least physically and mentally how she was doing based on that. them having eyes on her, them developing personal relationships with her. But we still were looking for that real-time voice contact. And that's where it was so important to make sure that Sherell could finally get that to hear her wife's voice in real-time.

Because we would hear stuff from Brittany in letters, but it might be a few days late because those letters are monitored. Sometimes they could be handed over. Sometimes they couldn't. But we communicated with her via letters. Some letters were, we would mark them take-back letters where her attorneys would, she would read them in the room and they would take them. them back, other letters you would take to her cell and keep them. So we tried to keep her in the loop on what was happening, but also keep in mind that there were always going to be security concerns. We all, you know, know, Brittany Griner, the basketball player. We all see, you know, the news

footage of her. Like, what do we not know about her as a person? You know, you've had this relationship with her. And what do you think people need to know about, like, her as a person and how she handled this as a human being in an extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Well, I'm so glad that people have been able to see some of the footage that has come out because you see, you know, that sparkle that's in Brittany and that kindness, right?

And certainly the courage to have endured this and still walk out of there with this sort of joy that all of us encounter every time we're around her. When she walked off that plane and we got to see her face, that sparkle was still there and I was so grateful for that because it is so

Brittany and the stories you've heard Roger tell about her on the plane and that the first thing she did would introduce herself, right? You saw all of that energy and we're just so grateful that it's still there and that we got her in time

because she is just an incredible human being. I mean, you saw early on in the advocacy where we wanted to make, we wanted to make sure people understood this was a pay equity issue. We also wanted to really lean into emphasizing her as, you know, a servant and as someone who was very much focused on service and giving back, genuinely so, right? I remember her calling me and saying, hey, I've seen a lot of un-house folks

around Phoenix on the street. It's really hot. Is it okay if I just give them shoes? She said, yeah, definitely okay, but we can actually make this bigger for you. So she was driving around Phoenix handing out shoes to people and called just to make sure that that was okay. Definitely okay. So we just helped her connect with local organizations to make that bigger. But she never did anything for attention. And I think that that's going to be how this all connects. She has always worried about making sure that people who maybe had been rendered invisible for whatever reason or who had been bullied or ignored were brought into the light. And I think that's what she's going to do now. I think a big part of that is going to be making sure that people

understand that she's overjoyed to be home, but also heartbroken that Paul didn't come home too and wanting to now use this platform because everything has changed for her now. Everything has changed and she's going to have the resources and the ability and the eyeballs to help tell stories about other wrongfully detained Americans because she wants them to come home. And so that commitment is real. We talked about it last night on FaceTime. She's been thinking about it for a really long time, 10 months. Wow.

Well, look, she can make such a huge difference. I mean, and we'll have another conversation about pay equity and why arguably the world's best women's basketball player has to go to Russia to play. But I, the last thing I'll just ask here, because then you've got to go is just, so what, you mentioned helping bring home wrongfully to 10 Americans. She's this huge platform now as an athlete, as an activist, as a symbol for so many people, and now it's just someone who's been through this extraordinary intense experience. I know it's early days, but like what can you tell us about what's next for for Brittany. I think I'm going to let her share that. Well, that's a good answer. Yeah, that's a good

answer. But no matter what, though, but I think what people need to know today, because I really hope they keep paying attention. I mean, Brittany is an American hero. She was before she went. She's an Olympian. She's a champion. She's an advocate. She's an incredible human being. And people just didn't know her. And now they do. Right. And that is going to be something. And so everyone who's paid attention, who is probably here for the politics of how did she get home, you know, how was she used as a political pawn? All that, yes. But everything has changed for her. And because of that, everything has also changed for the WMBA. And I think that's really exciting and to wait to see what she's going to do with that and how the WMBA can utilize that visibility now. I mean,

that's something to pay attention to. Yeah. Well, look, it's so, it's so, it's so, good to have good news. I know a hard and emotionally taxing that process is. So it was agonizing 10 months, but thanks you for all the work you did and your team. And obviously, we're all just overjoyed that Brady's home. So thanks so much for joining us, Lindsay. Well, thanks for having us on. And thanks to everyone who wrote, who called, who joined in the movement, you know, obviously thanks to President Biden and the entire administration because she's not home unless he makes that. Oh, yeah. You know, it's a tough call to make. This business is just full of really hard choices.

And this was a hard thing, and we're very, very grateful. Well, we can't wait to see what she has, you know, she can do so much. And we're so glad that we have that opportunity to see what's next for Brittany. So thanks. And best of luck to you. Thanks, Ben. Appreciate it. Okay, bye.

Bye. Thanks so much to Jen for, you know, riding shotgun today. Actually, more being in the driver's seat. Thanks to Lindsay Coloss for letting us hear a little bit about how Brittany Griner is doing. And thank you for listening. We'll see you next week. POTS of the World is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley News. Saul Rubin is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Segglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,

Feebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth who upload our episodes and videos at YouTube.com slash crooked media.