Pod Save the World - Bye Bye Bolsonaro

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

Tommy and Ben rejoice over Jair Bolsonaro’s defeat in Brazil and stress over early exit polls from Israel’s election that suggest Bibi Netanyahu might get back into power. Then they cover the latest in Ukraine, tragedies in South Korea and India, the potential national security implications of Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, and some unexpected good news on climate change. Then Tommy is joined by USAID Administrator Samantha Power to discuss the worsening global food crisis, the Black Sea Grain Initiative and why it matters, and the protests in Iran. 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 Potsaf World. I'm Tommy Bitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, the Worldo Classico happened over the weekend. Patriots versus Jets. Oh, that, okay, they're talking about the Brazil and Israeli elections. No. I was very busy doing my civic duty knocking on doors for Katie Porter, so I didn't see the whole game. But did you watch, how to go?

Like I told you, I refused to get my hopes up at the Jets. Like we've now, I mean, we're on our, like, I don't know what number this is of a quarterback that It's clearly not an NFL caliber quarterback that we'll probably hang with for like three years just to make it as painful as possible. But I'm already under the Knicks. Okay. I watched the Knicks. They lost two. But congratulations on a resounding victory in the world.

Absolutely terrible game. By the way, Ben, I did slip in a plug for myself knocking on doors. If you have not voted yet, and let me tell you, the California ballot takes some time, takes a minute. I think is long. I did. I filled out my ballot. I dropped it off. Excellent.

You know, California makes it easy. I had to go to various voter guides to understand. So many. The ballot initiatives and the judges. I know. I know. We got you covered for anyone who hasn't done it yet. Votesaveamerica.com.

That's one of the voter guides I went to. The ballot ready tool. It is so helpful. Yeah. This company is worth it to me for so many reasons. But just to have that ballot ready tool helps you know what's on your ballot, help you help you. You can also find volunteer opportunities if you want to help out.

It's kind of now or never, people. I have like a week left. Yeah. So, yeah, you should be checking out. They can use your help. You should be voting where you can vote. Yeah, please vote at the bare minimum. Lots of big election news that we'll cover today.

So the Brazil's presidential election happened on Sunday that we're getting some exit polls in about the Israeli election that will cover, even though it pains me to talk about exit polls. We'll talk about the latest news about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The national security implications of the Twitter sale, some devastating, devastating, mass casualty events that happened in India and South Korea. some good news on climate change and a little bit of fun thanks to our friends in the UK. And then, Ben, you will hear my interview with USAID administrators, Samantha Power, I believe you know her well. She was down at Morehouse College. She was trying to recruit more diverse candidates into the Foreign Service, into the field of international development. Very, very important worthy goal.

We talked about, you know, the dire state of food insecurity. Why do people say food insecurity? Lots of millions and millions of people are starving because of the pandemic. conflicts in the Russian invasion and the subsequent food shortages. We talked about that and a lot more. So it was a great conversation. Yeah. Great she's doing that. I mean, there's been this chronic problem of an overwhelmingly white workforce in the national security enterprise. And the only way to really fix it is to create pipelines to, you know, people coming in young so that the foreign policy workforce looks like America and we probably get better outcomes if it did.

So good for Sam. Absolutely. Okay, you want to start in Brazil? Yeah, let's start happy. Start with some good news. Yeah, yes. So great news for Brazil. Great news for the planet.

Lula de Silva defeated the current little baby fascist president, Jaiyar Bolsonaro, in Sunday's election. Lula won by 2.1 million votes or 1.8%. It was the closest presidential election in the 34 years of Brazil's modern democracy. Nearly 120 million Brazilians voted. Lula can start to fight. form a transitional government as of today, November 1st. His inauguration is on or will be on January 1st. Bolsonaro supporters are not taking it well. A lot of them set up roadblocks all across the country

in protests. They seem to be just waiting for instructions from Bolsonaro about what to do. After two very long days, Bolsonaro finally spoke today and did a brief press conference. He did not concede the election directly. Instead, he whined about the left and then later had his chief staff come out and say that he'd been authorized to start the transition process. To his credit, Bolsonaro also said, quote, peaceful demonstrations will always be welcome, but our methods cannot be those of the left, like property invasion, destruction of goods,

and restrictions on the right to come and go. So it seems like he's trying to get people out of the streets. Again, Lula is a leftist, former president. He was, you know, I think one of the most popular politicians in Brazilian history when he left office was later arrested on corruption charges. Those were annulled. He will also, thank you.

God take steps to stop deforestation of the Amazon. So Ben, huge win for the world today. How nervous were you, or I guess do you remain about the potential for political violence, sort of all anyone's been talking about in the lead up to this election? Yeah, I mean, it's a huge victory that cannot be overstated for a number of reasons. This is an enormous country, biggest country in South America and was really teetering on the brink as we have been in this country and as a lot of countries have been between an outward autocratic far-right leader Bolsonaro and, you know, and Lula, who's a very well-known leftist figure. But as you said, the outcome actually almost mattered even more because if the kind of two twin challenges of our

time are the survival of democracy and the survival of the planet, you know, another term of Bolsonaro essentially completely giving the finger to anyone who cares about the environment and allowing this kind of unchecked logging and destruction of the Amazon was one of the most dangerous things happening in the world. And if Lula can just put in place basic protections against deforestation, it'll have a real outsized impact in making sure that one of the most important natural carbon capture places in the world, the Amazon survives. I still think that the result was alarmingly close in a lot of ways is a lot of parallels to our 2020 election in the same way that the polls consistently show Lula way up, some of them 15 points.

And Bolsonaro's party did well in down-ballot elections. Yeah. Same thing in 2020. We didn't, you know, we lost ground in the house and, you know, didn't do as well as we thought in some states. It shows that there's a resilience to Bolsonaro's brand of politics. which is kind of outwardly undemocratic. It also shows, you know, there's a similar polarization in Brazilian society as in the U.S.

And there's an enormous evangelical Christian population that has been kind of radicalized in politics and forms a big chunk of the Bolsonaro base. And so it's very interesting to look at how Brazil and the U.S. kind of mirror one another. I think going forward, you know, so far Bolsonaro hasn't tried to initiate a coup, which is what he was warning he might do and which, you know, people like Bernie Sanders have come on the show to talk about. That doesn't mean they're out of the woods. Right. And that's good time. Yeah, there could be continued disruptions. There could be continued demonstrations. There could be, you know, January 6th happened a couple months after our election. He could quote unquote,

find fraud, right? Exactly. This whole thing was an allegation of voter fraud. Then there's some step along, some interim step along the way in December 19th where the election authority gives him a diploma, certifying the results. Like there's all these things that should be ceremonial in the process that, like, God knows what wrench you could throw in there. And we have to remember that Bolsonaro, time and again, has learned from Trump. There's no other leader who's so self-consciously modeled himself on Trump. Same social media strategy, same consultants. And so just as Trump fixated on those ceremonial gates that had to be cleared, that's where Bolsonaro could train his energy. He only spoke for a couple minutes. He may be saving his rants about fraud for somewhere else. And also, there are undemocratic ways they could just try to make life hell for Lula as president. If people want to, you know, I want to take seriously, people sometimes ask for recommendations for further exploration. The Edge of Democracy is this documentary that came out a few years ago about the prosecution of Lula. And how much they kind of, the right wing, worked the courts to basically

overturn the government and throw, and that's not to say there's no corruption in the loft in Brazil. There's, there's been corruption all over the place in Brazil. But you could see a scenario where like civil unrest and legal challenges, just kind of this paralysis takes hold. Yeah, messy. Still better outcome is assuming Lula gets in that presidential palace. What do you think the odds are that Trump called Bolsonaro and told him not to concede or like passed a message along through an intermediary like his son or something? I said Steve Bannon's ranting and raving that Bolsonaro shouldn't step down. One million percent that happened. I want someone to report it out. Yeah, remember Bolsonaro was up at Mar-a-Lago. Jason Miller was down

there, ban on there, ban on it's been all over the Bolsonaro thing. It's getting COVID everywhere. And look, we should say that it was notable that the night that these results came in, the Biden administration, Justin Trudeau, Gabrielle Boreach down in Chile, I'm sure others, like people were fast out of the gate with statements congratulating Lula. I think there was a smart effort that's kind of what Bernie was trying to get ahead of. Yeah, just, yeah, hey, the world is recognizing Lula as the winner. And I should say, in Latin America, part of what's working against Bolsonaro is, as we've said,

a million times in the show, there's this movement to the left. You know, Lula was the, he's the OG. You know, like he much more than Fidel Castro is kind of the parent figure to today's Latin American left. It's an economic, populist trade union block. It's not full communism. And so I think you'll see, you know, some warm feelings from some of this next gen leftist cohort.

Yeah. Okay. So you win some, you lose some. And we don't know that we lost some yet. But the early exit polls out of the Israeli elections suggest that former Israeli Prime Minister, Bibi Ninjahou, in his ultra, ultra, ultra, ultra, right-wing allies may have won enough seats in Parliament, in the Knesset, their parliament, to have a majority to get 61 seats and restore him as prime minister.

Listen, I hate myself for talking about exit polls. I'm talking about foreign exit polls. I mean, honestly, like, honestly, like, what lesson has to be. have I not learned? I'm talking about foreign exopoles, let alone American ones. But it would be disastrous. So we'll keep an eye on that. And I swear to God, Ben, if I hear anyone in the Democratic Party say, B, B, B,

God love you, I love you, or any of that shit, I'm going to lose my mind. Yeah. I mean, we should note that the exepoles show him up. I think the last election, they similarly overstayed to B.B. support. Yes, they did. So, like, that's the read of hope that I can have. on to but it does look you know like there's a very real chance he could be able to form this government keep in mind too sometimes the drama of crowning votes in israel and forging

coalitions can take a little time that said given how narrow it is like his only pathway is likely with the most odious far-right coalition that we've had in israel to date and and bb returned to power with an enemy's list and having survived the various crimes he committed that they just haven't been able to prosecute on a timeline before this election is not going to be an appetite. It's not good. And we can get to it if it goes that way. You know, tensions are high with Iran. You know, MBS is fluxing in the region.

Like there's things that could go wrong here. And yet, to your point about Democrats, he will be working against the Biden administration. Every step of the way. No matter how many times Joe Biden tells him. Every step of the way. God love you. I love you, Bibi. Like, he doesn't love you back. And let's not make the mistake of thinking that, you know, because you were friends with the guy 30 years ago that he's somehow going to be able to you out now. Yeah, my guy, Iyer Rosenberg over Rights for the Atlantic,

great follow, great voice on Israeli politics is in my DMs telling me to chill out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's like, take some time. We'll see what happens. We'll see. It's early. As we learned in the Obama campaigns, exit polls, we're often. wrong. Yeah. But sometimes right. College settlements are still out. Okay, let's talk about that's the nerdiest joke I've ever read. Merging of our interests.

Awful. Okay, Russia, Ukraine, want to talk about it? Let's do it. So, you'll hear Samantha Power and I talk about the efforts to preserve this diplomatic agreement to get grain out of Ukrainian ports through the Black Sea. That deal needed to be reauthorized anyway,

but then was in more jeopardy after Russia got very mad at Ukraine for attacking its Black Sea fleet with a swarm of explosive laden drone boats. It's obviously absurd for the Russians to be mad that the Ukrainians would attack back at the ships launching missiles at their cities. Attack their military. These are military targets. But Ben, have you seen, have you seen the video that was on Twitter from the drone boats?

Yes, yes. Getting shot out by helicopters and stuff? Yes, I did. Yeah, yeah. It's just wild. I mean, it does, it's kind of interesting how this war emerges. very old-fashioned war with new technologies because the Iranian kind of kamikaze drones that really, you know, are a very dangerous weapon, right?

They just, you know, you don't know where they're going to come from and they're not super high tech, but they can achieve an effect. This is an interesting kind of reverse engineering of that, you know, and the Ukrainians have been quite good at going right to the core of Russia's military advantage, you know, not shying away from trying to hit, you know, things like their Black Sea fleet that are vital to their sustainment of their warfare and far away from the front line. And it is a good indication of the Ukrainians kind of being entrepreneurial and finding ways to project power far beyond where they have like a physical presence. Absolutely. So the other sort of development,

I mean, the Russians continue to just hammer energy and water infrastructure, civilian infrastructure in Ukraine with airstrikes. The Associated Press reported that Russia, is now recruiting U.S.-trained Afghan Special Forces soldiers to fight in Ukraine, which is, you know, depressing and awful. Iran is reportedly sending more of the drones that we just talked about in weapons to Russia. The Washington Post had a long report on Russian efforts to subvert the government of Moldova through its intelligence services. That's worth reading. And then there was a report in NBC News that President Biden lost his temper at President Zelensky during a phone call in June, When Zelensky asked for more aid, I guess Biden had just been like, here's a billion dollars worth of new aid.

We're going to give you. Zelensky was like, great, here's my new list. Question is whether this was sort of like a momentary hiccup or maybe a sign of things to come when the politics of just constantly pushing out billions and billions of dollars worth of assistance out the door gets more difficult. I don't know. It's hard to tell. Yeah, I've heard, and this is, I'm not citing any specific individual conversation. But, you know, there have been these rumblings that the relationship between Biden and Zelensky wasn't necessarily as rosiers had looked on the surface, you know? Like, you hear that from some journalists kind of, but nobody quite, I think a story like this was going to come at some point.

And look, this is one of those cases where I kind of see both sides. Of course. Of course. is to get as much as he possibly can for his country and his people. That's the role he's playing. That's what his people want him to be doing. And that often involves kind of holding our feet to the fire. And I do note that every time there's any release, he's very laudatory of Biden and the administration.

But that's what he's doing. And if you're Biden, that would be frustrating because you're like, well, I just, you know, tens and tens of billions of dollars in aid are flowing where I have all these other problems around inflation that are being exacerbated by this conflict. So I understand Biden's frustration. I think this is going to interestingly come to, may come to a head in the next couple months because it's midterm madness. We're holding out hope.

People should be knocking on doors. We're hopeful. Desperately won Katie Porter back in there as well as a lot of Democrats. But if we lose the House, right? Kevin McCarthy's kind of gone on record and saying. Yeah. We're not going to write you a blank check. And so therefore, I think the normal instinct would be, hey, in this lame duck session,

and what that means is the congressional session in November and December before it flips the Republicans in January, maybe try to do some really big aid package to the Ukrainians that can at least get us through next year so that we don't have to come back to Congress. However. Yeah, we also have the debt ceiling. Exactly. So much to get done. to get done. And so we had the discussion last week about the diplomacy, you know, I got a lot of feedback on that, good, bad and ugly. But the point is, again, not any

wavering of any support for Ukraine. It's that part of what Biden, I'm sure, foresees is it's going to get harder to continue to provide the level of funding that we're providing. We're talking, you know, 50, 60 billion dollars. These are the kind of supplementals that we had for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it'll be an interesting early test of how the Biden team wants to approach that if they lose the house as to whether or not they go big in the lame duck or whether they punt it to next year thinking, you know, Kevin McCarthy, we're going to call his bluff if we need this additional funding for the Ukrainians.

They're going to need funding either way, right? Because if the war is going, they need to fund that. If somehow the war ends, there's a huge rebuilding effort that has to take place. There's still food shortages. I'm sure Sam talked about that. So this is an issue that this question of what is the end game, what is the end state of our policy, how much and how long are we willing to fund this? It's just going to be an increasing part of the political discussion. Yeah, I mean, Sam mentioned in our conversation that one of the good things Congress did on a bipartisan basis was actually give them some flexibility to allocate funding based on need that's kind of downstream from the war.

So, you know, if there's a famine in Yemen because they can't get food because Ukraine can't export grain, it seems like they have more flexibility. But, yeah, I think in a more politicized environment leading into a presidential election, that flexibility probably goes away. And it's something we shall all be worried about. Ben, in much dumber news, have you heard that Elon Musk bought Twitter? I've been made aware of it by some very, very concerned people. Some very concerned people. Yeah, some of which is very well-founded, some which is less well-founded. I'm sure you probably talk about the well-founded fears.

We can do both. I don't think Elon Musk is kind of like whoever the U is out there. You're probably not the person that is in his crosshairs. Yeah, also, I mean, there's people who seem to think like he's like a Russian stooge. And if that's true, your concern should probably more about SpaceX and their contracts with NASA in the military than Twitter. But back to Twitter I mean the impact to the sale was like pretty quickly Not great a bunch of trolls were like oh let's all tweet the N-word now

Or other like vile stuff We also all had to endure Just much more of Elon's terrible jokes and trolling and carrying sinks around And just the guy the personality is just horrendous Yeah not exactly a winning personality No, no But there are some people who are worried about the national security implications It's come from a couple different angles

So there were reports that Twitter is severely limited The number of people who can moderate content and that doing so impacted their ability to deal with misinformation in Brazil during the election on Sunday. Obviously, that's worrisome. Worrisome in the Israeli elections. Also not ideal for us since we have midterms coming up. And then Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut has requested that the Committee on Foreign Investment review the acquisition, given that the Saudis are the second largest shareholder. Now, the Saudis bought into Twitter in 2011 and then 2015, and they've held those shares since. So it's not new, but I imagine they think, well, does the risk profile change now that Twitter is a privately held company?

There's less transparency. There's less disclosure. We should also just point out that, you know, there were reports a year or two ago that the Saudis installed a spy at Twitter. Yeah. And again information on dissidents. Yeah. They recently threw an old man in jail for 16 years for tweeting. For tweets.

So bad actors, certainly. And then there was also a report in the Washington Post today about the U.S. disrupting a China-based attempt at covertly. of them actually, covertly influencing U.S. elections that was happening on Twitter, makes you wonder how Elon will respond, given that, you know, he sells a lot of Tesla's in China. So, I don't know, how are you, this is, were you? Yes, it does. It really does. And it doesn't worry me because he's a Russian steuge. It worries me because he's a tech bro. And despite his massive ego and his desire to kind of be present in the public square, you know, at the end of the day, he's interested in money. And you have

two countries, Saudi Arabia and China, that I think are literally at the top of the list as countries that use their wealth to try to gain an advantage and gain leverage over people, right? And so what are the two concerns that are related? Saudi Arabia has put people in prison for tweets, has put spies in Twitter, and would like to know who are the human beings behind accounts that I'm sure are critical of MBS if they're not, you know, been wrote, you know, like I do it, you know, with my blue check mark that I don't have to pay for. But Elon Musk has talked a lot about rooting out bots and authenticating users. Well, there's some people that have very good reason to be anonymous on Twitter.

Yeah, like not wanting to die or get dismembered. That's right. So weirdly, Elon Musk's stated objectives are very similar to Saudi Arabia's, which is, hey, we want to know who's tweeting what on Twitter. And if you think this is a small thing, again, some of it. the example, an old guy who literally tweeted in this country, then gets thrown in prison back there. We're talking about people that could go to prison for tweets that they've already tweeted, you know, if the Saudis somehow can get their hands on the user data about who that individual was. That's a big concern. And then China, you're right, he is massively exposed

in China, like the Tesla business model and supply chain relies very heavily on China. We know China uses that to leverage U.S. companies to do what they want. And so if the Chinese want to have free, you know, free reign to run their disinformation campaigns on Twitter, or if the Chinese would like information about who a particular user is, that's a real concern that they could have this leverage on Elon Musk. So I think, again, the concern is not that Elon Musk is going to cancel the resistance Twitter. The concern is, you know, Saudis and Chinese and disinformation campaigns. Probably Indian journalists and dissidents. I'm sure, you know, yes, exactly.

So that this kind of authoritarian creep into Twitter could, you know, Elon Musk could be either intentionally or unintentionally opening the door to that. And it does make you kind of depressed when you step back and think, what are our big social media platforms? We've got Mark Zuckerberg's owned Facebook. And we've talked a lot about the damage that's done. Love it. We've got the Chinese own TikTok. And we have now Elon Musk. who is literally in business with the Saudis and relies on the Chinese and his supply chain,

that doesn't make you very hopeful about the intersection of social media and democracy. It does not. Drew Harwell from the Washington Post tweeted the following, quote, the ultra-maga hot babe who tweeted that Obama was an Illaminated to her 26,000 followers was actually a Chinese operative. I think that pretty well summarizes the state of the state of social media. I mean, we're just going to have to, like, at the end of the day, I think, we're all going to have to figure out how to not be as relying on this platform. I agree. I agree. I agree. The other really interesting article, it's sort of too long to summarize,

but Ken Klippenstein and The Intercept wrote about efforts by DHS to monitor and take down misinformation. This stems from the 2016 election and the Russian interference. It started under Trump and has gone on until today. But it gets at just how difficult it is to deal with misinformation and disinformation and foreign actors, but like not cross that line into a place where you have dangerous government censorship. It's like an incredibly hard problem. And I think I am, you know, I'm sympathetic to the argument that like ultimately the greatest threat of all is an overbearing government, you know, controlling speech, right? Like that's why the First Amendment exists. But that doesn't mean the U.S. government can just rely on these private companies to police, uh,

misinformation and the stuff that we've seen over the last few years. I mean, they've completely failed. What we've learned is we can't. And what worries me in this case, you spoke, I think, very smartly about Elon Musk's not really making a good business decision in pouring, you know, what, $44 billion dollars in Twitter and taking on a billion dollars a year in interest on debt for a company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue a year. It's a less than even the debt he has to finance.

Who has bottomless wealth? It's the Saudis. You know, and so, yes, they've been a partner. They've been invested in Twitter, but they can write a check tomorrow for $40 billion that they wanted to. I'm not saying they're going to buy the whole thing, but they can, if Elon's looking for a lifeline, you know, their capacity gain more and more leverage is there. And the dystopian scenarios, we all wake up one day and all these platforms are kind of owned by China and Saudi Arabia. Yeah. And like, look, I mean, the committee on foreign investment, like SIFI. reviews. It's so opaque to me. I have no idea how it works. I think it's just like an interagency

governmental thing. I mean, it seems like the, you know, it's a little too late for that at this point. But I mean, maybe there's a way to sort of look at it in hindsight and see if there's increased risk, but you can't block it at this point. I think, yeah, and it's really expanded over the years. Like when I would start to attend those meetings, it'd be, you know, the hypothetical I'd give, you know, the Chinese, Chinese, or no, it was even more like. China is going to buy a bunch of land next to a military base. Yes, yes, yes. Let's maybe not let them do that.

Exactly. But now it's really expanded as we've gotten more concerned about particularly Chinese investment in the U.S. in sensitive areas. In this case, what Chris Murphy's doing that I think is really smart, it may not block the sale, but it is kind of laying down a marker, right? So the scenario I just articulate that I was worried about that if Elon wants to get bailed out of some of his exposure on Twitter, the Saudis could write that. check. This is kind of planning a flag and saying, and you know what, like the more you rely on

the Saudis, the more regulatory scrutiny you may get. That's a good point. And you're right, as a private company, we don't, you know, you don't see the books in the same way. And so you need the government to get involved. Yeah. Okay, so there were two recent, truly horrible mass casualty incidents that I think are worth mentioning. And, you know, truthfully, Ben, we struggle with whether to include these kinds of topics on the show because often it's just like horrific and devastating for the people impacted, but not always a, you know, a policy nexus. But in these two cases, I actually think there could be one. So the first such incident happened in India where a 754 foot long pedestrian bridge collapsed, killing 134 people, many of them children. A hundred and eighty people were

rescued from the river that the bridge was spanning. Authorities have arrested nine people associated with the bridge's operation. And the reason I wanted to mention this, Ben, is because a member of the Congress party has alleged that BJP leaders in the region had recently announced the reopening of the bridge as a Diwali gift to the people and did so without ensuring it was safe. And so the BJP is another political party. It's the one Prime Minister Modi is a part of in the area where this happened, Gujarat province, is Modi's home turf. He was the governor there back in the day.

So, I mean, it feels like time will tell if there is some sort of political element to what happened or if this was just like a horrific incident. in a dilapidated bridge that wasn't well maintained. But I mean, like, you know, for Modi, the political risk of the story about maybe corruption, maybe criminal negligence. I mean, that is one that voters understand and frankly, one that he's used in the past when incidents like this have happened. Yeah, it illustrates why things like a free press matter.

Because, you know, sometimes we talk about this as just kind of an amorphous value out there in the world. don't lock up journalists, don't harass journalists. But the real world consequence is, you know, investigative journalism in India is really on the back foot because Modi has made life so miserable for people like Rana Yub, for instance, friend of the pod, who've tried to help them accountable. Part of what is so concerning about this is, like, is there an Indian media that can get to the bottom of this? Yeah, because BJP announced an investigation and like, sure. I don't have any faith in the BJP investigation. And this is a huge, yeah.

I mean, if some, you know, political agenda led to the unsafe opening of a bridge that killed this many people and children, like, that's why you have investigative journalism. And so to me, it speaks to the need for there to be a check if I'm Indian. And I want an argument for democracy that's not just kind of a, you know, professorial thing about why democracy is good. it's like you don't want your bridges to collapse, so therefore you need institutions and people that can hold people in power accountable. And this, I think, highlights that. It's a really good point. The second incident happened in South Korea in Seoul where a massive crowd, I've seen estimates

of like 100,000 people were celebrating Halloween in this one district. And I guess this enormous crowd, and there was very little crowd control to be seen, tried to squeeze through a very narrow alley at one point that created a stampede and killed over 150 people and injured 150 more. And basically what happens is people get stuck. Someone falls over. Another person falls over. The crowd keeps moving and people just get crushed. I mean, it's like literally the worst thing imaginable. Horrible. And again, many of the victims were teens, 20s. You know, they're out celebrating Halloween. And so the interior ministry is vowed to investigate. They've apologized. The mayor of Seoul has apologized, rightly so, because it seems like, you know,

the authorities ignored several warnings about crowd control and safety issues. President declared a week of national mourning. They went to a memorial. I mean, it's like the worst thing you could imagine. But again, like the kind of thing that could have enormous political ramifications if voters in Korea decide that like negligence of a party or a political faction is what happened. Yeah. And this president was already not in the strongest position. Now, he's not the one that is kind of as directly responsible as the local authorities there. But there's a sense, I think, in South Korean politics that things are not that stable right now, you know. And there's, look, there are huge issues in that part of the world. And you want, like any democracy

today, but you want there to be kind of a trust between political leadership and the people. And this is the kind of event that breaks that trust down. Yeah. Yeah. Ben, I have something very rare for you, which is a good news story about climate change. Good. Ready? Let's hear it. So now. Now, NASA recently installed an instrument on the side of the International Space Station. It's called the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Source Investigation Instrument. I call it Emit for a short. The purpose of Emit is to basically see how airborne dust impacts the climate, but it is also surprisingly proven to be incredibly good at detecting areas

where there are huge plumes of methane gas getting released into the atmosphere. So basically this thing's like spinning around the globe, and it's found like 50 gigantic hotspots of methane gas being released, which is good news because cutting methane gas emissions is critical to limiting climate change. Now you can find those areas and try to fix them quickly. And so this instrument, I think, got installed in June very, very recently. So they're just getting started here. So shout out to the scientists and NASA.

And I don't know, maybe at the next cop summit they can figure out a way to use this technology and clean this stuff up. I don't know. I thought you were going to say that the good news story is that Brett Stevens wrote a cover story for the New York Times opinion section. You're right. Saying that he now believes in climate change, but the market will fix it all with its invisible hand. Did he really say that? I didn't want to give him the click.

I didn't click it either. I just read the headline. The market will. Yeah, but anyway, I just wanted to get that in. Noted climate denier. Now, I actually think this is a really relevant story to fly because part of what we have to watch over the next five, ten years is we all know. that government action is insufficient to hit even the Paris objectives at this point. There is, I think, something important happening in the markets, right, where a combination of overwhelming

amounts of investments like in the Inflation Reduction Act, which hopefully they'll rename for history as Climate Change Reduction Act, takes hold and creates market incentives for people to invest in these technologies. But the big missing piece has always been, you know, what are their game-changing technologies that can help us deal with this. And I think sometimes people who care a lot about climate change don't want to suggest that there's just a technological fix out of this because that's kind of something. If you really push the right wing on this, they kind of say, well, you know, someone will then something to pull all the carbon out of the air. Now, that said, we are going to need technological fixes. And look, we're going to say the

right wing. Like some of our friends in the left think that like capitalism has to be a eradicated before climate change we manage. And like maybe, maybe there's a version of this planet where that is true and we'd be in a better place, but it ain't happening. So we have to leverage capitalism and technology to try to deal with the problem. That is exactly right. I mean, look, I could mount an argument that it'd be great to start fresh without our brand of capitalism. You know, I'm watching the White Lotus now too. People should check that out. But it's not going away. Right. And so we have to work with what we've got. And this kind of particularly as more and more money is flowing to research and development,

you know, the more we can, this is a good example of what technology can do, is really pinpoint what the difference makers are so that with the limited resources we have, we can focus on those things that can be most impactful. Yeah. One last thing before we get to the interview with Samantha Power. So, Ben, our friends in the UK are once again blessing us with some comedy, with some laughs. This time it comes in the form of a reality TV show. So a conservative MP named Matt Hancock was suspended after joining the cast of, I'm a celebrity, get me out of here because he did so while Parliament was in session.

This is the British reality show. I guess celebrities, they go live in the jungle for a few weeks and they compete. It sounded vaguely familiar to me. I guess it's been around since 2002. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like every reality show. Yeah, that's very good. Send some people somewhere and see what happened.

This guy signed up for this show and was just kind of like, fuck off from work for a couple weeks. He served as a health minister during COVID. So he might be an idiot, but he's not a backbencher. The decision is not going over well in West Suffolk, his constituency. Andy Drummond, the deputy chairman of the West Suffolk Conservative Association, told the BBC that he was looking forward to seeing Mr. Hancock, quote, eating a kangaroo's penis. The Scottish National Party spokesperson Pete Wishart said, quote, it speaks volumes that Matt Hancock would rather be stranded in a remote jungle eating kangaroo testicles and spend a moment longer on the Tory benches at Westminster. Apparently, kangaroo genitalia is a core part of this show.

Hancock's not the first conservative MP to do the show. Another one named Nadine Doris was also suspended when she did. I'm a celebrity, get me out of here back in 2012. Are you interested? I want to know this focus on the kangaroo. I really do too. I do, but I don't. What is that about?

Yeah, I guess I don't. I'd like someone to explain to me why. I don't want to actually see it. Yeah. And maybe we have to bring in our friends from Rational Fear podcast in Australia to do this workforce. Yeah, or Lammy. I'm just probably below.

Jamie's big right. Well, the funny thing about Lammy is, like I did his, he has a radio show, like an old-fashioned radio show. Oh, is it like LBC or something? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think it is LBC. And so I did that.

And it brought to my attention that actually British MPs can interestingly kind of just do more stuff than our mess. members of Congress can. Why? I don't know. Like have a side job? They have side gigs, you know, like I have no idea what that is. Ted Cruz has a podcast, man.

I guess, well, maybe our members do and just nobody is interested. Remember Bernie had a show that's pretty popular? Yeah, I just does feel like there's more of a profile outside of Parliament for these people, but I don't know that I'd want to watch. Now, I don't really watch reality shows to begin with, but like, if I did, I don't know I'd want to watch members of Parliament. Nadine Doory is kind of hilarious in an unintentional way. like she's worth a Google for like some of the ridiculous things she says.

Who would be the American? This is clearly something Matt Gates would do. He would clearly eat a kangaroo dick. Yeah. You could see what happening. That's probably right. It just feels like that to me. You know, you're right though that I feel like maybe because of prime minister's question time,

it's like you kind of have to mix it up constantly if you're an MP over in the UK because like there's no hiding from it. Yeah, yeah. You're going to get worked over. Yeah, you're going to get worked over. So you might as well be out there and owning it. If we could steal anything from their system, it would be that. Imagine if the President of the United States went up to Capitol Hill once a week, once a month.

I don't care when it is how often and just got grilled by the opposition party for like an hour. It would be great. I think Obama would have kind of enjoyed it. Remember when Obama went to the Republican caucus meeting? He loved that. And he just ran circles around them. And then the, you know, the red hen civility police told us like he was too good at the session. And then I think the next time they've refused to air the questions.

Yeah, they wouldn't do it live. Yeah. It'd be interesting to see Joe Biden's tack. He would probably go full sender. Yeah, he'd be buddies. Very long, uh, long wind-ins about how long he's known, whoever asked the question. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, I don't know. There's a celebrity show called Alone that Hannah got really into where they, like, throw real survivalists out in like some intense places like Patagonia or the Ark or they have to just live off the land for months until they like essentially starve to death and have to leave. It's pretty intense. But not a lot of celebrities out there. I hope they come in and help you out if you reach the end of the line there. Yes.

There's some like health checks and you win like 500 grand if you are the last one. But, you know. Was that like a COVID watch? You know, we just kind of get into shows and get stuck in them because they're, you know shows that are like good but not good enough that keep you awake. Yeah. It's one of those. I would. So we watch it in nice.

for bed. I will never skip past like one of those, you know, 10,000 word New Yorker pieces about somebody who went to the Arctic and, you know, survivalist exploration. Yeah, those are good. I love that stuff, you know. I just read a long piece. I have like three open that you told me to read. There was a long one about the U.S. effort to arm the Ukrainians. It's worth reading. That's interesting. Joshua Yaffas, friend of the pod. We've had, we've had Josh on. Yeah, he does the whole history of it. Yeah, it's good. It's good. Okay, we'll take a quick break. And when we come back, you will hear USAID administrator Samantha Power. So stick around for that. Our guest today really needs no introduction. She's one of the world's biggest Boston Red Sox fans,

even when it's tough at times like these. She worked at the White House, the national security staff. She was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. And she continues her government service today as the administrator for the U.S. agency for international development. Samantha Power. It's great to see you. Lovely to see you, Tommy. Now, do you watch World Series games when it's not our people? I do. My baseball affliction is deeper than any one team, unfortunately.

I was watching Bears Bengals until Hannah said, why are we watching this? I said, you're right. And we watched the show called Welcome to Rexum, which I highly recommend if you like soccer. But, Sam, I digress. We're here today to talk about the work you're doing, I think global food and security. And so I'm hoping we could start there because I think listeners hear us talk about this in sort of a one-off way. Like, you know, there's man-made famines in places like Yemen and Ethiopia because there's a war in the country or, you know, crop failures lead to food insecurity in some region of the world or climate change, you know, or the Russian invasion creating food insecurity. But what's your general sense at the moment of the scale of the problem and, you know, sort of the number of people around the world who are in need of food assistance?

It's bleak. I will say right off the bat that the Congress put the United States in an incredible position to lead in the response, the humanitarian response, because with the Ukraine supplementals that passed earlier this year, they actually gave us flexibility to provide humanitarian assistance also to those crises that were indirectly affected by Putin and his ridiculous and horrific. invasion of Ukraine. And so we are the world's leading humanitarian donor and always are. But the gap between us and other countries, unfortunately, in many respects, is widening. But fortunately, in the sense that it is because of bipartisanship, actually, around the provision of that assistance. So to your question, the needs are massive. The number of people going hungry in world has risen by 150 million since the start of the COVID pandemic, according to the UN. And that's the backdrop then against which Putin invades Ukraine and then compounds that hunger crisis by blockading food from leaving Ukrainian ports by himself imposing a ban on

Russian fertilizer exports for many months. And part of the issue in Tommy, you and I have talked about this, I think, in the past, is that conflicts just don't end. People like Putin add new ones to the ledger, but there remains millions of displaced people from Syria because there is no resolution to that conflict. Sadly, the Yemen ceasefire that had been extended on a couple of occasions has not yet at least been extended an additional time, meaning that that conflict could really bust open again, compounding then the pre-existing conditions. which are climate change. And then now a new preexisting condition is, for many countries,

dependence on, you know, food being sent into the market from places like Ukraine. Russia put in place a fertilizer ban before it invaded Ukraine. It now blames U.S. sanctions and Western sanctions on high fertilizer prices. That's just nonsense. They were the ones who held fertilizer back with their own export bans and export restrictions. but it's kind of like a perfect storm of the tail end of the pandemic where countries have borrowed to get through the pandemic, then, you know, higher temperatures or more climate shocks, you know, whether floods or famine or floods or drought, I should say, and then throw on top of that

a war that has massively contributed to spiraling food and fuel prices. and you have as many as 150 to 200 million more hungry people this year than you had last year. My God, that is bleak. Well, so what we're hoping to talk about today was something called the Black Sea Grain Initiative. Can you sort of explain what it is to listeners and why this is so important? Well, when Putin invaded Ukraine, you know, he went out everything at once. recall he was sending missiles as well into the western part of the country. He had great ambition to decapitate the Ukrainian government in a matter of days. He really seemed, he and his generals

seemed to have thought they could actually take Kiv and might have forgotten that there's some Ukrainians who live in Ukraine, who got a vote there. But part of the strategy was also, you know, to take over strategic assets. And he had already done that by occupying and staging an illegal annexation of Crimea, you know, as many as now eight years ago that was. But taking the southern parts of Ukraine with access to the Black Sea, very, very important to his war plan. And, you know, again, strategic access to water,

always being something that generals seek out and even brutal dictators like Putin. But part of the idea as well was let me use the control that I have, my Russian dictator, over these key areas to prevent Ukraine from being the breadpasket of the world, which it had been for so long, one of the most substantial wheat, corn, oil seed. producers and exporters on the planet. And just to give a couple examples, Lebanon and Egypt, each, about 80, more than 80 percent of each of their wheat comes, in fact, from the region, from Ukraine or Russian, principally from Ukraine. And so in blockading the main port of egress for Ukrainian farmers' produce and for their grain,

you could you could do two things one hurt the global south potentially then creating more pressure on the ukrainian government or those like the united states who support the ukrainian government to push for negotiations sooner right because if you're if you're hurting and you're blaming the war rather than the invader um that could cause you again to to uh to pull away your your solidarity with Ukraine, even if you don't believe it's a good thing that one country is invading another, if you're hurting and your people are hurting and you no longer have the fiscal space to borrow, to subsidize, for example, fertilizer purchases for smallholder farmers, you know, maybe you can turn the global south into either a neutral force on this war, which would be good for Putin,

or as a force pushing the Ukrainians to turn over territory and just end this thing. So that's one aspect of it. But the other thing he's doing with this. blockade, which began right when the war began, is starving Ukrainians, uh, for Ukraine's farmers. And, you know, this was a major exporting country before the war, 20% of the GDP came from agriculture. Before the war in Ukraine, 40% of its export revenue came from agriculture. So if you're Putin and 95% of Ukraine's agricultural, uh, grains, uh, flow for, from the Black Sea ports, you can actually deny those farmers,

their livelihoods by blocking those ports. So flash forward, President Erdogan, Secretary General Gutierrez, got personally very involved, seeing the effects on global food prices, because irrespective of where the grains are going, just taking that amount of food off the global food market is gonna cause prices to spike,

and that's what happened. And they got involved and they negotiated an arrangement where Russia agreed to this joint inspection process where, you know, everybody could say, okay, it's not going to be arms that are flowing out. It's just going to be food and that verification could occur. And then when Russia was the recipient of an attack on parts of its Black Sea port facilities, in response to that, Putin pulled a plug. on this deal. And I will say for the period between August and late October, when he pulled the plug, when that grain deal was actually working, global food prices came down. And, you know,

about a quarter of the wheat exports to low-income countries actually came out of those ports. Putin has been saying, these are only going into rich countries, this food, it's all fake. It's not about the global south. That's flawed in two respects. One, a huge chunk of it is going to the global south, and that's incredibly important, like the countries that are traditional recipients of Ukrainian exported grain. But second, when you put more food out onto the global market, that's going to lower prices everywhere. And that's exactly what happened for that brief window, August, September and much of October, where the Black Sea grain deal was functional. Having now suspended that deal, what has happened is we've already seen

wheat and corn future prices go up. We're already the FAO, the food and agricultural organization that the UN is already saying that food prices generally are going to go back up, even the uncertainty, because there's still some question about whether it can be relaunched or whether it might be negotiated again in a manner where it can be resumed. But just even the uncertainty around it, you know how markets work. This is already, you know, costing people meals, for sure. Because prices go up, irrespective of whether food was about to arrive or not, you know, everybody is projecting in their own market structure. So already, just in the few days since Putin has suspended Russia's participation, that uncertainty is having a very, very negative effect. Again, already against that backdrop of such acute food insecurity around the world.

Man, that is a brutally difficult problem because I guess, you know, how do you tell the Ukrainians not to wage war against, you know, know, ships that are blockading their ports that are launching missile and drone attacks against them, you know, Russian forces in the region, but also, you know, clearly Putin is taking this as a pretext to pull out of a deal that I don't know, maybe he didn't want to be in in the first place. I'm not sure how you all view it. It seems like a hard problem is what I'm saying. That's a great. I mean, I think there was a lot of question about whether the deal would be reupped in November. So we're now in the month that in any event, there was a question about whether Russia would wish for it to continue. And there were a number of statements in recent days

by senior Russian officials prior to the attack that again became Putin's pretext that gave one reason for some pessimism about Russia's enthusiasm to continue the deal. But at the same time, even in that period, I think many in the UN system, for example, were very optimistic because you have leaders from the global south raising their voices. And again, this is before it was suspended, but even for the renewal, saying President Putin, you know, this matters for the world, this matters for hungry people, this matters for the global south. And I would know, Tommy, that two things. First, just to your point about pretext, you know, Russia itself, Russia is saying, oh, this has made the Black Sea, you know, these attacks on ports have made the Black Sea now insecure. It's too dangerous.

you know, this kind of alibi, Russia has hit Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea. Repeatedly. Yeah. Right, right. So, you know, it's, you know, the notion that this is what has made life in the back, Black Sea dangerous, needless to say, is specious. But the second thing, just to flag, is that I was struck as a former United Nations, you know, official, U.S. official at the United Nations at the statements in the Security Council,

since Putin has withdrawn or suspended, I guess, participation in the deal. I mean, hearing the Indian ambassador, the ambassador from Mexico, the ambassador from Ghana, you know, each raising their voices in a very, very pointed way to say, this is about hungry people all over the world, in a sense, let the grains go. And so, you know, I think there is still hope that that pressure from, you know, It's one thing to hear that pressure from Western countries. Sure. You hear it from, you know, Prime Minister Modi's ambassador in the UN Security Council.

That's not, the India has been in a studied neutral position, you know, at the UN throughout this whole crisis and to be vocal and to say, you know, that this is really harmful to the world's poor and to the world's hungry and Modi's credibility in the UN system to speak to that message of all messages. I, you know, that is, that has got to be at least some factor in Putin's calculus. So, Sam, you were, you were in Ukraine back in October, I believe. I was curious how that visit compares to previous visits you made to the region and also to, you know, to Ukraine back in 2015. Well, so I was back in, in the capital in Kiev at the beginning of October. And I will say I was there just days, I think maybe four. four or five days before Putin, you know, began this, these, this barrage of missile attacks on

on the Capitol. So I was there in, in a moment that I know so many Ukrainians are nostalgic for, you know, before it really has turned even darker, you know, for people living in, in areas that are not proximate at all to Russian forces that have liberated themselves. I mean, the Ukrainians are so proud of having won the Battle of Kiev. But when I was there, and again, it's just a matter of weeks ago, cafes were open, culture was returning. You really had a sense that you were in a cosmopolitan Eastern European city. And to be clear, this week, you know, there are blackouts.

There are sirens around the clock. Monday mornings are particularly grim, as Putin seems to have decided that that's how he wants to usher in the work week in Ukraine by just pulverizing civilian infrastructure. energy infrastructure. So, you know, I just want to note that I was there at a particular time, at a moment in time, and things have really deteriorated because of Russian forces savagery and Putin's own decision-making and seemingly deliberate desire to ravage energy infrastructure in advance of the winter. Water infrastructure. Energy and water, exactly. So having said that, what I do want to point to is,

is what you mentioned, which is the contrast between when I had last been there, which granted was a long time ago. But I'm proud because USAID and the U.S. government have worked in hand and glove with the Ukrainians in a number of domains that I was really, really struck, had borne such fruit. So on the one hand, you could say between 2015 and 22, that's seven years. That's a very long time. On the other hand, it's the blink of an eye in areas like, building an independent media, you know, just having a crew of journalists who are actually holding, even under martial law, you know, the Ukrainian government, Ukrainian officials accountable. Obviously, they've rallied around the flag as Ukrainians to a large extent, but they are

documenting war crimes right alongside some of the civil society groups that USAID has funded for a long time. USAID has worked for years in strengthening the agricultural sector that we talked about earlier. And what's been amazing is doubling down on that work during the war. So now helping them build storage silos or giving them grain sleeves, the farmers, so that they can store grains that may be now on a much slower timeline to get out of the country because of this on again, off again, blockade by Putin, helping farmers get access to loans, you know, helping them get loans also that will help them recover machinery, farm machinery,

equipment that Putin's force is destroyed. A lot of territory has been recaptured by the Ukrainians, helping with demining, working with the State Department and others. One of the projects that I saw when I was there, Tommy, was a drone project. And drones now, of course, have taken on a very different connotation with the Iranian supplied drones causing such, such harrowing loss of life and destruction. But the drones, the U.S.A.D.A. is working with the U.S. craniums to provide are drones that allow farmers to spray pesticide and to lay down fertilizer while there is a risk of unexploded ordinances on the ground. Oh, wow.

And so seeing these farmers bring this technology to bear and being able to support that. So I was just very struck. And this remains true even with these barrages of missiles that, and I met with President Zelensky, that they are so determined to get their economy going. even alongside this need to win the war and win various battles. And, you know, it stands to reason because they need tax revenue. You know, lots of parts of the country are stable militarily, even if now, again, there's much greater risk of incoming than there might have been even just a month ago. But that planning that the Ukrainian government is doing, which we worked with them on, you know,

how to do procurement in a more transparent way, so there was less susceptibility to corruption, how to vet officials so that they have the kind of integrity you need. And we need this as USAID because we're providing such significant resources. We need that oversight. You know, we need that transparency so as to ensure that taxpayer resources are going exactly where they are intended. But seeing over just that relatively short period of time since I was last there, how much more advanced these institutions are and being reminded, Tommy, that's what Putin hates. You know, remember that speech he gave before he invaded. That's the thing that makes him crazy, is that they are progressing and that it became harder for the oligarchs, you know, to do their dirty

business there in Ukraine. It wasn't, you know, by any means perfect. But if you look at, again, the strides that have been made in integrating Ukraine's economy and its export market, you know, to Europe and two markets elsewhere and not just to the former Soviet Union countries, which is what it had looked like really until the last decade. All of that gave him and his cronies, you know, much less leverage over what was happening in Ukraine on the things that we all focus on, on security policy and questions related to security arrangements and NATO and all the rest, yes. But this other piece of it in many ways got less of attention. It was just remarkable, how they had translated the professional workforce that they've long had, the incredible educational

base, you know, into a country that was really making inroads in building a tech sector, an IT sector, and again, strengthening those institutions in a way that meant that it wasn't just about what leader was in power or not in power, but seeing those checks and balances, which had been at quite a nascent stage, you know, growing up and now trying to sustain them, in wartime, which is what USA is working with our partners on the ground to try to do. It's impressive. Last question for you, sort of a change of gears here. So, you know, we witnessed Iran's Green Revolution together from the White House in 2009.

I asked President Obama about that period of time recently in the U.S. response, and he said it was a mistake to not do and say more at the time or at least sort of like put our values on the tablefront center. Fast forward to today, I'm just sort of curious. how you have felt watching this new iteration of this incredibly brave, you know, woman-led protest movement in Iran and what you think countries can or should do to support them? Well, I mean, my first reaction is one of awe, of course, I think like most of ours. And just the bravery, these women and young men know full well what the Iranian regime is capable of.

I mean, that's been a galvanizing feature of the movement is these remarkable young women and, and again, young men who've been killed asking just for basic rights and basic dignity. So every day they go out on the streets or every day, you know, they mark up a billboard with graffiti or, you know, pour red paint into a fountain or, you know, hold up a placard, you know, demanding something as basic as the ability to. to choose their own destiny. They know they're taking their lives into their own hands. And so, you know, it's just when I think, again, of the luxury of the world that I grew up in and the rights and the privileges that I have been blessed to be able to take advantage of.

I mean, that's just looking for opportunity to be able to, again, carve their own pads and not be dictated to. and and and and and and muzzled and stifled in their in their human flourishing and development and and so that's incredible but it's it's also heartbreaking Tommy because the the the the weight of the state there as we've seen time and again and this is not the first and is not uh it it's continuing now we're at 45 days um you know it does not uh doesn't seem at all to be to be petering out if anything, more families are, you know, getting activated by what is being done to their loved

ones and being engaged by their sons and their daughters about the future that young people need and covet. But again, seeing the hammer come down on these innocent lives and all the talent that is being and joy that is being extinguished is also searing. In terms of what we are doing, you know, the effort to pinpoint those responsible actors make their lives much more difficult, make the operations that they are conducting, much more difficult the sanctions against the morality, police, and others. Treasury's effort to make it easier for American companies also to be able to ensure that that young people have access to the technologies they need to be able to communicate

with one another. You know, our sanctions were pretty restrictive. And so opening that up, I think, has been, has been important. But Tommy, it's also striking the silence on the global stage. I mean, more countries need to be raising their voices. Iran is definitely outnumbered and certainly marginalized at the United Nations. There's no question. But those countries that have leverage behind the scenes, you know, some of whom have their own human rights challenges, and that's part of the issue. They duck this, you know, one of the singular moral questions of our time, right, is whether young women, young people, you know, again, get to grow and flourish on their own terms. And so I think part of what we are doing is the United States is

working through Ambassador Thomas Greenfield and Secretary of Lincoln and others, but to try to broaden the coalition of countries that is, that is, you know, again, making clear that in this day and age, you know, these kinds of actions to suppress such basic shows of freedom and dignity, you know, have no place in this world. But the more company, the better, the more that that regime, which is already feeling, I think, unprecedented pressure from bottom up, but to feel that as well. in the international system in a much more intense way, I think can be important. That's a really good point.

Administrator Power, thank you so much for helping us understand what's going on. We appreciate it. It's great to see you. Hope to see you in person soon. That would be one time. Maybe we'll come in D.C. can run around. I don't know. I think you're on the road increasingly, which is wonderful for the masses.

So we're glad to see us back out there. Yeah. Thanks, yep. All right. Well, travel safe. See you soon. Thank you. Thank you, Sam Power, for joining the show.

Ben, you haven't heard the interview yet, but she did give a shout out to you and your Mets. Sort of like in a sincere nice way. I know. She sincerely feels me as a long-suffering Red Sox fan who after 2004 was no longer suffering. So I appreciate that. I will say one other, we were talking to the New York earlier. One other plug I want to make is Evan Osnos has an article about the billionaire Chinese sugar daddy for Steve Banner. it. Yep.

Which I don't think it's got enough attention that this guy was like full on Chinese intelligence operative and may still be. Straight up. So basically like, you know, it's kind of ambiguous. Some people think he still works for. He clearly did work for Chinese intelligence. Imagine if like crooked media was funded by like a Chinese intelligence operative. I think the right would pay some attention to that.

You might get noticed. The War Room podcast is maybe a product of Chinese intelligence. I mean, the music when they go to ads is about. how we're taking down the CCP. Yeah, but it would be like, and look, maybe this guy has undergone the conversion he says where he's now a dissident, but like it would actually be the most genius thing possible. Yeah, I'm just saying it's weird. Well, to say like, you know, he's flipped when, in fact, he hasn't flipped.

That's what would happen in the spotlight. Or he's associated with someone who's like the last holdout to the anti-shee kind of block within China. Nothing good. Boji-like kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. It's how a tycoon linked to Chinese intelligence became a darling of Trump. It's a super fun read and people should check. Yeah, I listened to him on fresh air, I think, talking about, but I do have to read it

because Evan's really good. And his book about his time living in China and reporting from China was fantastic. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I mean, I don't want to go because when we get up from these chairs, John Faberow is going to just fucking cover us with exit polls and polls out of Pennsylvania and things that are to make us feel sad. This is my safe space.

The only reason I want to go is I think I may have like achieved an early New Year's resolution. What did you do? I occasionally, you know, I do pay attention to feedback. I've been told I say like too much on this show. I think I made it all the way through a podcast without saying a lot. Good job. So just want to let people know. I read the bad reviews as well as good ones. I'm trying to get the PSA crew to swear a little less. I know I've said F more times on this episode than I'd usually do on this show, but I will not give up swearing. I will just get you know, three an hour versus like 45 when Dan and John get teed off. Okay, that's all I got.

All right. Talk to you. POTS of the World is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Muse. 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, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth who upload our episodes and videos at YouTube.com slash crooked media.