Pod Save the World - Can Ukraine Survive Trump?

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

Tommy and Ben discuss the continued fallout from President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous White House meeting, including Europe’s attempt to come up with an alternative peace plan, Trump casually talking about regime change in Ukraine, and the giddy response from the Kremlin. They also discuss the potentially devastating economic consequences of Trump’s trade war with Canada, China, and Mexico, the grim death toll from DOGE destroying USAID, why the Trump administration helped Andrew Tate return to America, Israel blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza, and news from Panama, Venezuela, and Mexico. Then Ben speaks to Natasha Hall, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, about the way geopolitics are affecting the establishment of a new government in Syria. 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.

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monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplysafe.com slash crooked world. There's no safe like Simplysave. Welcome back to Pod Save the World on Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Happy joint session day? Yes, I'm very excited to probably not watch it. I hate watching it. These are weird episodes for us because it's always on a Tuesday. So we record a couple hours before Trump delivers it. So we don't know if he's going to like Frog March Stelensky out there and paddle him like a fraternity pledge while J.D. Vance chortles. You know, who knows?

We could pull out of NATO. I don't know what's going to happen. Yeah. I have to say that I was just in my kids school because they're doing a unit on on understanding truth. And I was talking, and you were supposed to associate with like one of your jobs. So I was talking about like fact checking speeches. I thought you were talking about Paul Pierce.

And I was telling the story about in the first joint session Obama gave in 2009. We had this fact wrong. We said that Americans invented the automobile, which we didn't. And it was like this big thing. It was this, you probably don't remember this, but it was like this mini thing online. It's such a quaint idea. Jesus, yeah. That you actually used to be stressed.

I was like, am I misleading these kids by telling them that you have to fact-check everything you say when the President of the United States is probably not going to fact-check that address? I don't think they're fact-checkers at the White House. What a funny job to have. Yeah, yeah. Okay, some people know. Talk about something you could doge.

There are actually people whose whole job it is to fact-check, you know, speeches, right? And I think it got doged. I'm pretty sure. I would doge the hell out of the fact-checkers at the White House. Yeah. And tonight, Trump's going to announce a military incursion to candidate or something. Yeah. An operation to take out Justin Trudeau.

It's been a long week, not even a week, since the last time we talked on Friday, Ben. Today we're going to cover the fallout from the disastrous Zelensky meeting with Trump on Friday and how Europeans are kind of trying to fill the breach here. We're going to talk about the trade war. It seems to have arrived, although I just saw a clip from the Commerce Secretary saying the trade war could be over as soon as tomorrow. So I don't know. But we're going to talk about the implications.

We'll talk about the latest we've heard about. the impact of all the cuts to USAID programs and how people are dying all over the world. We'll talk about the Tate brothers, Andrew Tate. Do you hear about Andrew Tate in your house as he infected your kids' classroom? Yeah, this is a little toxic masculinity that we hear about. Yeah, the actual worst of the worst. We'll explain why he was allowed into the U.S., then some news out of Gaza about the ceasefire, and then a bucket of stories out of Latin America. There's some interesting news out of Panama, Mexico, and Venezuela that we wanted to talk about. So we're skipping around the globe today.

All the places that Trump may, you know, go to war with. Yeah, good. And then, Ben, you did our interview this week. Who are going to hear? We have a return to the pod from Natasha Hall. Excellent. Syria expert from CSIS. We talk about how the interim Syrian government is doing. Spent a lot of time on what Israel is doing and literally invading Syria. Like, that's something that happens. Seems like a big deal. Occupying huge amounts of territory and taking natural resources.

And then we do kind of a tour of all the extraordinary. external players that are trying to basically screw up Syria's transition, Israel at the top of that list, obviously, what's Turkey up to, what's going on with the Kurds, but also the Russians are back in the picture. Nice. And what I was trying to get my head around in this dizzying conversation, super interesting people should hear about is Israel apparently wants the Russians back in the picture. And maybe, because Natasha's main point is that the sanctions are really screwing Syria.

They can't get any assistance because of the U.S. sanctions remain in place. maybe getting close to Putin, maybe the way out of the poundy box, the Americans, that's the world. That's where we're at in 2025. So you should listen to it because it actually, I learned a lot. I mean, we covered a lot in 20 minutes. What a completely predictable problem, but a bizarre solution. Never would have seen coming in a million years. But yeah, Natasha is really, really smart.

And I'm excited to listen to that. Well, let's talk about all things Ukraine forbid it. So there's been this flurry of diplomatic activity since the disastrous oval office. meeting last week between Trump and Ukrainian president of Volodymyr Zelensky. In the U.S., the Trump administration has reportedly now suspended the shipment of additional weapons to Ukraine. I think this is the money, like the presidential drawdown authority that have been appropriated by Congress previously. Okay. So that comes on top of the basically de facto arms sale freeze to Ukraine that came from the foreign aid freeze because so much of that money goes through the State Department or

some of the money goes through the State Department. There were also a bunch of reports that the Pentagon is now denied that the U.S. Cyber Command was ordered to pause planning offensive cyber operations against Russia. So that's weird. A little worrying. A little odd. Reuters reported that Trump is working on a plan to ease sanctions on Russia. A little worrisome. A little cart ahead of the horse. And then, you know, meanwhile, the Kremlin is just literally cheering for all of it. Dmitri Peskov, Putin's spokesman, said, quote, the new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations, end quote, a new one. This largely coincides with our vision. End quote. Over the weekend, 18 European leaders gathered in London for an emergency summit

hosted by British Prime Minister, Kyr Starmer. Starmor committed to sending Ukraine more military support and he pushed others to follow suit. France put forward a plan for a one-month ceasefire as a way to test whether Putin was acting in good faith. Spoiler alert, he's not. And then finally, today, before we started recording, then, Zelensky released a long message on Twitter that included a lot of the groveling that Trump allies have been demanding for days. I'll read a bit it to you. My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump's strong leadership to get a piece that lasts. Our meeting at the White House on Friday did not go the way it was supposed to be. It is regrettable that it happened this way. It is time to make things right. We would like future

cooperation and communication to be constructive regarding an agreement on minerals and security. Ukraine is ready to sign it any time and in any convenient format. There's some reports that they may even sign the minerals deal sometime today. Here's a clip of President Trump on Monday talking with reporters about all things Ukraine. I want to see it end fast. I don't want to see this go on for years and years. Now, President Zelensky supposedly made a statement today in AP. I'm not a big fan of AP, so maybe it was an incorrect statement, but he said he thinks the war's going to go on for a long time.

And he better not be right about that. That's all I'm saying. Should that be concerning to Americans? That Russia said that your administration's foreign policy is, quote, largely in line with their vision? Well, I'll tell you what, I think it takes two to tango, and you're going to have to make a deal with Russia, and you're going to have to make a deal with Ukraine,

and the deal can be made very fast. It should not be that hard a deal to make. It could be made very fast. Now, maybe somebody doesn't want to make a deal, and if somebody doesn't want to make a deal, I think that person won't be around very long. That person will not be listened to very long, because I believe that Russia wants to make a deal.

I believe certainly the people of Ukraine want to make a deal, they've suffered more than anybody else. So, Ben, at the end there, Trump seems to be suggesting regime change. Mike Waltz said something similar over the weekend. Kind of amazing that in response to a question about the Kremlin loving his foreign policy, Trump then floats getting rid of Zelensky, which is right at the top of the Putin wish lists. Yeah, yeah. First of all, not the most important thing in that clip, but for someone who truths and tweets as much as he does,

he doesn't seem to understand that a statement that the Associated Press covers isn't just in the Associated Press? So let's put the side. These guys not that smart, among other things. Where to begin? I mean, look, we cover this a few days ago. But the fact that he's still, you know, they came back and clearly in a coordinated fashion pushed this regime change point, right? Because Waltz was saying it on a Sunday show.

This is not like something they're saying by accident. And it's just absolutely extreme. And we have to point out that the Trump administration's response to Zelensky's country getting invaded and Zelensky like heroically marshalling his own people in the world in defense of his country that they think the regime change needs to be there. Remember Joe Biden made that fuck up when at the end of his speech he called for Putin to go? Well now we're just regularly calling for the democratically elected leader of a country that's been invaded to get out of the way so that Russia can dictate the terms of Ukraine surrender. That's what's happening. That's where we're at.

I think the headline for me the last few days, though, is I actually was impressed. You know, we're such Debbie Downer's here these days, but I thought the Europeans reacted well. They're trying. And actually, if you want to compare them to the Democratic Party, they seem to understand Trump better than the Democratic Party. Leadership does at times, which is that this is for real, this is happening, this is not a drill. And so you saw them immediately online, posted their support for Ukraine. They didn't care whether or not Trump wasn't going to like that. They just all did it in unison.

And so there was strength in numbers. That's one lesson. Like if they all go together, it's harder for Trump to attack them when you have like 25 European leaders expressing full support for Zelensky. And then how about a good moment for Kier Sturmer, you know, who, you know, he's taking some slings and arrows. But for him to kind of take this leadership role, bringing everybody to London, having that show of solidarity for Ukraine, having some pretty tangible announcements. So in case people didn't follow, they they're providing building. billions and additional assistance to Ukraine, and they're using it by leveraging the frozen Russian assets as kind of the backstop for these loans to Ukraine. You saw Germany, the Mertz,

the chancellor-elect, get together with Schultz and make these decisions to essentially do away with their cap on how much they can spend relative to the deficit so they could spend more in defense and infrastructure that could make them less dependent on Russia. So you're seeing And you saw, obviously, the French and the British kind of reiterating their commitment to a potential security force. It's European coalition of the willing. Probably not the most fortunate phrase. You know, bring it back. The phrase coalition and the willing to support Ukraine. But we just note, it's important that Starmer and the French are doing this on kind of an ad hoc basis, because it does seem like Victor Orban and Hungary. They're going to start blocking more military support to Ukraine in the EU, which is a problem. Yeah. No, I mean, we talked about this a few weeks ago that they're going to have to move this decision-making outside the EU so that Victor Orban can't come up the works. But, you know, you saw pretty quickly the Europeans kind of come together behind a plan where they're going to be the security backstop for the Ukrainians. They're going to ramp up their own defense production for their own purposes and to be able to provide assistance to Ukraine. That's not going to make whole the Ukrainians in the, you know, medium term. I mean, the danger for the Ukrainians is in a few months. they're going to be feeling the impact of that U.S. weapons cut off.

Yeah. And the Europeans can't ram things up fast enough to make that good. But at least gives Ukraine a much more credible position at the negotiating table to have all of Europe essentially standing behind them saying, we have their backs in the long run. We're ramping up assistance. We're ramping up military production. We're willing to put troops on the ground in Ukraine. So, you know, I do not think it was Trump's three-dimensional chess to get the Europeans to spend more money on defense.

I think it's the opposite. I think the Europeans are like, we can no longer account in the United States. They're not our security guarantee anymore. We have to be our own security guarantee and we have to have our own Ukraine policy. And I think Starmor, Macron, more than anybody else. And Mertz, I have to say, stepping up too

is bringing that together. And Maloney was there. So, you know, you had the kind of less Putin-friendly far right, you know, showing up. Yeah, it was good. It doesn't sound like the Italians want to provide truth, but she has been rhetorically in a better place than you would think.

I don't know if you saw J.D. Vance's interview on Sean Haney about the Zelensky meeting. Unfortunately, I saw some of it. He was, like, giddy. He's so, like, so happy to have been allowed to talk at the Big Boy meeting. And he also parroted Trump's line that it was great TV, which there's been a lot of conversations since the meeting about whether it was a setup or a trap or this. Like, I kind of, the more I thought about it, the more it's like, it's not that black and white. I think, like, Trump and J.D. Vance, they wanted to put on a show for their domestic political reasons. and then Zelensky has his own politics,

and he just couldn't acquiesced everything Trump was saying, and so it led to this collision. But like in the days, now that we've watched sort of the news cycle in the days since, it's clear that Trump, he wasn't offended. He wasn't upset. They're thrilled at how this is playing out. Well, I mean, there's a couple of things I look at.

I mean, one, they, what was interesting to me is they genuinely don't like democracies, you know. I mean, that's the only consistent. system thing and all of Trump's comments, J.D. Vance's comments, if you are a liberal democracy, you're going to be in for it. And so Zolanski, they don't like for, you know, a lot of reasons, which you talked about last time, including he has actually shown personal courage in a way that J.D. Vance has certainly never done. And at the same time, I don't know, like, I noticed that the day of the meeting, it was like an authoritarian dictate went out because

every Trump cabinet secretary was like tweeting, thank you President Trump for showing like the greatest leadership I've ever seen, including cabinet officials who have nothing to do with Ukraine. And that suggests a little concern, right? I mean, you know, when you have to keep telling everybody how great you are, you might think that that might not have gone down well. I think there's them pouring gasoline on a fire they like. You think, okay.

Well, I mean, look, it could be either. No, no, you're, you know what? You're probably right. I mean, common threat in the Trump years is, whatever the worst explanation is, is probably the right one. And you're probably right that they feel great about it. I just, what they did serve to do, though, is just to reinforce the core point that we made the other day, which is that this is an absolute transformation of U.S. foreign policy. And an absolute alignment of the United States with Russia and its view of the Ukraine conflict, in its view of Europe, and its view of democracy itself. and the more J.D. Vance talks, the more he just reinforces that. And there's a through line to him

endorsing the AFD in Germany, you know, beating up Zelensky in the Oval Office, doing victory laps on Sean Hannity. This is a guy that does not like democracy. Do you see that he went to Vermont for a ski trip and people protested him and they were holding up signs that said J.D. Vanskis and jeans? I appreciated that from my New Englanders. Also, I don't think enough is being made about the fact that Zelensky did that whole press conference in English, which, like, imagine doing a 45-minute fight with the White House press corps in the president of the United States in English when that's not, you know, your first language. And he was repeatedly turning to his translator and asking for guidance.

I don't like, we'll see what the followed is. I mean, Marine Le Pen, of all people, condemned the brutality of suspending. Yeah. I mean, when the French far right, which has its own fascist roots, is a little put off, Nigel Farage was attacking the J.D. Vance. I thought that clip might have been AI. I was so shocked to see it. So they've lost Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage. Like that's how far right our government is in this.

Yeah, shit's getting weird. And this is going to, I mean, we should just name. Like, this is changing the way people view the United States of America all over the world. And, you know, I remember what was like to go to Europe right after the Iraq war started. Wasn't that fun? I always try to say that people need to separate the people from their governments. I hope people can do that with Americans, but it's hard to do that when Americans elected this guy knowing full well what was coming. He's a real dick-out.

I think the thing to watch is whether Elon Musk ends up cutting off Starlink access to the Ukrainians, because you see these reports from soldiers being like, we can figure out how to deal with fewer shells or artillery or whatever. But losing Starlink would mean they don't have communication. tools. They don't have coordination ability. They don't have drone operations. Those won't work anymore. So that'd be a huge deal. Last thing on this bench, thank you to everybody who listened to the bonus episode we did on Friday and subscribe to the pod save the world YouTube. We're going to keep doing a bunch of stuff on that channel. So please subscribe. And there unfortunately probably be plenty of things to talk about.

It's way too much going on. Between Tuesday and Tuesday. Way too much going on. Speaking of wars. I just side note, noted intellectual, foreign policy intellectual, David Sacks, had a great, like, like, tweet today, noting that in South Korea, Eisenhower forced the South Koreans to stop fighting, and that's what we need. Conveniently overlooking the fact that there have also been tens of thousands of American troops in South Korea ever since. It seemed to not fully understand what he's waiting into there. I just want to note that. This guy's driving me crazy. Okay.

Speaking of wars, though, the trade war is finally arrived. it seems on Tuesday, Trump slapped a 25% tariff on all exports from Canada and Mexico, with the exception of being Canadian energy, which only got a 10% tariff. He also slapped another 10% tariff on Chinese imports that comes on top of the previous 10% tariff. So the economic impact of these total tariffs is getting very real. Canada and Mexico accounted for about 40% of U.S. imports and exports last year. And this stuff, this is like stuff we all use, beer, oil, ag products.

tariffs will have a huge impact on automobile sales. I think nearly 40% of cars and trucks sold in the U.S. are imported. And the Canadians quickly responded with tariffs of their own, starting with tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods, and they're going to slap an additional set of tariffs on $125 billion worth of more goods in about three weeks, I think. Here's a clip, Ben, of a very pissy outgoing Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, speaking at a press conference on Tuesday. So today, the United States launched a trade war against Canada.

Their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they're talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make that make sense. I want to speak first directly to the American people. We don't want this. want to work with you as a friend and ally. And we don't want to see you hurt either. But your government has chosen to do this to you.

As of this morning, markets are down, and inflation is set to rise dramatically all across your country. Now it's not in my habit to agree with the Wall Street Journal. But Donald, they point out that even though you're a very smart guy, This is a very dumb thing to do. Strong there from Trudeau. I like, I like pissy Trudeau. I did too.

This is great, you know? Yeah, a little context. It's like anger translator for Trudeau. Yeah, a little bit of context just to help explain why he's so pissed. So the North American tariffs are ostensibly about pressuring Mexico and Canada to do more to stop migration and stop fentanyl trafficking into the U.S. But southern border crossings are way down, way, way, way, way down. In part because Mexico sent 10,000 troops to the border.

and according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, only 0.2% of all seizures of fentanyl entering the U.S. are made at the Canadian border. So this is a made-up problem to begin with. But despite that fact, when Trump first raised this and threatened tariffs a few months ago, Canada took a bunch of additional steps to limit fentanyl trafficking, including appointing a fentanyl czar. They're going to invest like $200 million in combating gangs of traffic fentanyl. and according to authorities, less than half an ounce of fentanyl was seized crossing the Canadian border in January. So it's all working pretty well. Mexico is also promised to retaliate. We're not sure how yet.

So have the Chinese with the Chinese foreign ministry tweeting, if war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war, or any other type of war, we're ready to fight till the end. Yikes. Any other type of war kind of got my attention. Me too. Joltz. Didn't eat any coffee this morning after I read that. Yeah.

So sometimes there's a method to Trump's madness on trade. I genuinely don't really get the endgame here. You have any thoughts? This is pure dumb fuckery. I do have thoughts about the end game. First of all, let's note that in the same way that Trump, you know, yes, Zelensky and Trudeau have in common that they're leaders of democracies. Trump doesn't like democracies. He doesn't like Zelensky because Zolensky actually has physical and personal courage, which Donald Trump does not.

He doesn't like Justin Drew because Justin Drew is much better looking than him. You know, I truly believe. that's like part of the deal here. Okay, I'll take that. He's a very handsome man. Yeah, he's got to sick bad. Let's go through this. So first of all, to your point, the Canadian angle of this has never made any sense because you could at least think that, okay, these terrorists are pressuring Mexico to try to stop border crossings. That is not a problem at the northern border. Anybody's driven across that border knows it's like a very orderly place, you know. There's not like fentanyl streaming across the border. And this is really dumb. And just to give people a sense of what

this is going to do to your cost, 63% of U.S. vegetables come from Mexico, right? That's your groceries. Those prices are going to go up. 60% of crude oil imports the United States come from Canada. That's going to make gas prices go up, particularly in the Midwest, particularly in Trump country, where they refine a lot of the Canadian crude. The U.S. automobile industry kind of operates wholly on supply chains, different parts and things that flow in from Mexico and Canada. And so the price of a car is going to go up dramatically. And the U.S. auto industry, saved by Barack Obama, is potentially going to suffer a huge harm relative to their competitors because the cost of just making a car in the United States can go way up because of what Trump did. That's just a little bit

of the economic impact that this could have. And look, if Trump, you know, calls it off in two days because the market, I mean, what people should watch is Trump sometimes does seem to respond to the stock market. It's like one of the only things to check on his behavior. That headlines in stocks. But I don't even know what victory he's going to claim because there's nothing left for Canada to do. Remember they appointed like the fentanyl's czar and they, you know, pledged on a billion dollars to stop fentanyl when they're not even anything to stop, which leads me to, you know, Trudeau said this a few times and he said it again today. He said that he thinks Trump's goal is to wreck the Canadian economy so he can annex Canada.

I take that really seriously. I mean, I don't think Trudeau is being hyperbolic there. He's dealt with Trump for a long time now. And there's no other rationale to me about why he's fucking with Canada so hard. I'm telling you, I've been doing deep reading in history. These guys, like territorial expansion becomes the game for these aging autocrats. And it explains why you would also run the bus over Zelensky to normalize Russia. annexing 20% of Ukraine, like whether it's Greenland or Panama or Canada, you know, this repetition

of Governor Trudeau, it's kind of not funny and dickish, but like he seems to like really have something in mind for Canada. And that should worry people. I don't think we're going to get there tomorrow. But I mean, four years of Trump, like God only know, it's been less than two months, people. Like, you have to use your imagination of where this thing could be in three years. and it's not inconceivable to me

that he actually has territorial designs on Canada. Not inconceivable. I think it would be wildly unpopular. Oh, yeah, and I put this at a low probability, like single digits, but just the fact that it's not an insane thing for the Canadian Prime Minister to say maybe this is what's going on, that shows you the kind of error that we're currently living here.

Also shows you how it's being received in Canada. It's gone from them, you know, booing the National Anthem a couple times to like really, pretty intense anti-American sentiment, understandably. Doug Ford, the Premier of Ontario, canceled All-Star-Link contracts, canceled contracts with any U.S. companies. Like, Canadian nationalism is a weird.

I've never seen it before. It's a weird thing. But, I mean, that's how much we're exporting nationalism. Yeah, good for us. Yeah, the International Chamber of Commerce has warned that this could sink the world into a new Great Depression. Well, last time in 1930, the Smoot-Hawley tariff,

you know, didn't exactly get us out of the Great Depression. and it gets a little deeper into it. Named after Josh Holly. Just kidding. That was a really nerdy thing, I apologize. Smooth Holly? I was doing a lot of terror-freating. I love a good tariff reading.

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sent off their 90-day subscription starter kit by going to fatty15.com slash world and using code world at checkout. So we're, as you guys know, trying to keep a handle on the damage from the gutting of USAID. It's going to take years to assess the full damage, but, you know, it is no exaggeration to say that right now people are dying because of these doge cuts to USAID. The New York Times published a piece last week listing some of the thousands of programs hit by the cuts. Among them are projects that vaccinate children from polio, conduct Ebola contact tracing, and provide the only source of water for a quarter of million people displaced in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The global drug facility, it's the world's largest source of tuberculosis medicine.

It supplied TB meds for 3 million people, including 300,000 children. They have had their whole operational budget wiped out. In Nigeria, 60,000 kids under five are at immediate risk of death due to the gutting of the malnutrition program. the head of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation in South Africa predicts that a half a million people will die in the next 10 years because the organizations that treat them have lost their grants. There are just too many programs and stats to name here, Ben. But when you see Elon Musk claim that no one has died or no one will die, just realize

how brazenly dishonest that man is. No, that's just a lie. I mean, because it stands to reason if you're giving life-saving nutritional assistance to people in a famine in Sudan, if you're giving life-saving, drugs to people in places like South Africa and you stop giving those things to those people, they will die. They are dying. People have already died because of Doge and many, many more people.

When we say many, we're talking potentially millions of people will die because of this. And the other piece of this that I think people don't fully appreciate is USAID, imperfect as it was, and, you know, we'll have to build a new and better development agency under the next Democratic president, was a force multiplier because they would give. a certain amount of funding that kind of allowed for an organization to grow around that funding. Right. And so, you know, other philanthropies or other countries would kind of come on on top of USAID. And it's kind of a rugpole, to use a phrase we're using a lot on this pod, where if you remove

the USAID funding, those organizations collapse. And so you lose not just a USAID funding. You lose the other funding that went into that organization on top of USAID. also because of the Europeans needing to ramp up their defense spending, they're cutting their development budget. So the Brits said that they're going to basically find the savings in their development budget to fund their military budget. Which is because of a Trump demand.

Because of a Trump demand. This is a Keir Starmor wanted to go to the White House and be able to deliver to Trump a tiny, but an increase in defense spending. Yeah. So this is going to ripple out. I know a lot of people that run kind of small NGOs that rely on USAID funding, those NGOs might go under because. of the withdrawal of USAID funding.

And again, that means that you're losing more than just USAID impact. It's going to kind of reverberate for years through the kind of global development and philanthropic community. And real people are going to die. Real people are going to suffer. There's going to be more instability.

There's going to be more disease, more things, more migration of people, by the way. Like all the things that Trump says he wants to stop. And all the people who work locally for these organizations in these afflicted parts of the world suddenly are out of a job and have nothing to do. I mean, it's a catastrophe.

And they're like the best people. You know, it's hard. Yeah, the mind share we're losing. And also, you know, this brings us to these memos that were written by a USAID employee named Nicholas Enrich. So until recently, he was the acting administrator for global health. He wrote a couple memos kind of laying out the barriers put in place to actually implement these waivers that Marco Rubio said had been issued for life-saving programs.

But he says the issues in actually implementing the waiver came from, quote, the refusal to pay for assistance activities conducted or goods and services rendered. The blockage and restrictions. of access to USAID's payment systems followed by the creation of new and effective processes for payments, the ever-changing guidance as to what qualifies as life-saving and whose approval is needed in making that decision. And most recently, the sweeping terminations of the most critical implementing mechanisms necessary for providing lifesaving services. But besides that, is all going good, Marco. He specifically penned the failures on, quote, political leadership that

will no doubt result in preventable death, destabilization, and threats to national security. on a massive scale. And for his candor, this man was put on leave. Of course, of course, yes. He basically pushed out of the organization. ProPublica also wrote a piece about how the U.S. government is refusing to pay about $2 billion worth of work for services already rendered. So it's just like hard to think of a more perfectly Trumpian policy than stiffing humanitarian groups doing life-saving work for stuff they've already done.

Yeah, they're probably, you know, operating on a tight margin again so they could put those people out of business. I mean, what all this shows you is there's this kind of, combination of not caring and not understanding. Like, they don't give a shit that what they're doing is going to cause people to die. And they also just don't even understand what they're cutting. And actually, you know, just following John's, you know, back and forth with Elon on X. You know, he wants to present it as, oh, no, I'm actually going to save that program. It's like what he said, you know, when we found out we stopped Ebola, we turned it back,

as if that's like some great thing. Talk about the least fucking efficient thing in the world. The efficient thing would be to not kill the program and to like look at this thing. Understand it first. Yeah, understand it first and then select what you want to cut. Just like, it's massively inefficient to just cut everything and then be like, oh shit, we better have the Ebola people like someone go find them and rehire them. Like this is idiocy masquerading as competence and it's cruel at its core.

Yeah, and like these programs are complicated. funded in weird ways. Like, you're like, why is HHS actually paying for this program that USAID administers? I don't, like, there's inefficiency. There's things we should change and streamline and improve. But the fact that Elon just, like, stormed in there with a bunch of 19-year-olds who are fluent in, like, using big data sets and AI, and they decided they just understood how everything worked and they just destroyed it all and then try to piece it back together after.

You're right. It's like the height of stupidity. And what they're going to find out, too, is that there's billions of dollars that goes to like American farmers to buy the food that we send over there. So it's going to screw a lot of Americans in that way. You know what I always think of you just mentioned David Sacks. David Sacks does a podcast called the All-In podcast with some other terrible people. One of them, this guy named Chimov, who infamously said that caring about the weaker genocide

was below his line. He just didn't care. And it does seem like that mindset is just kind of permeated the entire U.S. government now. It's not just that, you know, we can't do everything. We're going to have to be able to fund some things and not others. It's like, you know what, I just don't give a shit. So it doesn't matter to me. Anything that doesn't enrich these guys is below the line.

Yeah, if you're not doing like a pump and dump spack, he doesn't care about it. Okay, let's talk about some other odious characters. Not equally odious, far more odious. The Tate brothers. So I guess half the audience is probably like, who are these guys? The other half, the listeners who have teenage kids are like, I fucking hate that guy. So some context. Andrew Tate is he's a former kickboxer turned social media influencer.

he says racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic things all the time on purpose. Andrew and Tristan Tate were charted with rape and human trafficking by the Romanian government. Andrew Tate has also been accused of battery and sexual assault by women in the UK. Andrew Tate first broke into the mainstream in 2016 when he went on the British reality show, Big Brother, got kicked off the show halfway through obese British authorities, were investigating him for rape allegations. Andrew and his brother then started a webcam business, which evolved into this massive social media following. And videos featuring Andrew Tate have literally been viewed like tens of billions

of times. I think he was the most Googled person for one month in 2022. So he's just massive following. And they've parlayed that social media following into creating these bullshit online universities that sound like kind of like Trump University pyramid schemes. He's also created kind of like retreats and seminars that are almost cult like where like these men pay thousands of dollars to fly to Romania to hang out with Andrew Tate and like fight each other and do all this weird shit. There's this amazing vice documentary that's on YouTube came out a couple years ago if you want to go deeper. This reporter literally like got in the ring and physically fought with some kickboxer

as a way to like earn his way into more access to Tate's events. But anyway, so Andrew Tate has been kicked off of various social media sites, but like nothing has dented his influence and popularity. And the reason this matters is because this guy is massively popular. popular with teenage boys. You have teachers in the UK who've had to put together like specific programs to combat the proliferation of his views in British elementary in high schools. There have been surveys that found 80% of British boys aged 16 to 17 had watched Indutate videos. There were similar surveys showing he had huge influence among Australian boys. And on top of

that, he's like big in the CPAC alt-right like a manosphere world. And so despite all that context. Last month, the Tate brothers were allowed to travel to the U.S. The Romanian government reportedly lifted its travel ban on the Tate's after pressure from the Trump administration, specifically from friend of the pod, Rick Grinnell, who apparently like rode them to do this. So Tate's a huge Trump fan that kind of reach around here is he says wonderful things about Donald all the time and attacks his opponents. Trump claims to know nothing about his administration pressuring the Romanian government, but like this is just another example of the way this man is just poisoning the culture.

And this is what America prioritizes around the world because nobody outside the United States who's any familiarity with this case and with Enter Tate believes that Trump or like the Trump administration didn't make this happen. The guy was no doubt. I mean that. Locked up for a long time, you know, under house arrest. And all of a sudden now he's out in Miami back doing pods. I actually just looked, you know, if you peruse his Twitter, just to make sure people don't think you're inaccurate in your summary.

He's literally just posted something by himself on a podcast, not this podcast, and lost 24 hours saying, quote, the average white family has a different approach to their financial stability and emotional investment towards children than third worlders. You can call me racist all you want. Third worlders will just have kids without saying, can I afford this kid? and Andrew Tate reposted that. Yeah, I just saw him use on the Patrick Bet David podcast, which is kind of like a right-wing manosphere thing. This posted a few hours ago.

They were doing a breakdown of the Zelensky Trump meeting, and he was making this really misogynistic analysis of European leaders and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So yes, they're... Well, I mean, the other thing is the read up, I mean, the rape allegations are beyond credible. Watch the Vice documentary. And absolutely horrifying. And you kind of celebrate. this rape culture. So it's not like something he shies away from. And so if you have a son,

you don't want it to be like entertain, you don't want them to be like entertain. You have a daughter like I do and you do like I don't want my daughters to be around people like that. The one thing I'll say that's remarkable to me, Tommy, is the, you know, we don't talk that much about QAnon. It's always like the people that are most on the nose as to what the Q&N people say they're fighting, who seem to become heroes. Oh, I know. Oh, I know. Of course. Like, like, this man is involved in sex trafficking and child, or like, allegedly, I know we have to say, you know, but like this guy is as everything that that movement says it's fighting, but then they celebrate him because he doesn't like the lives or something. Well, Trump lets the Silk Road guy. Yeah.

Out of prison who, you know, maybe you could argue a sentence was too long. But there was like the Silk Road, which is this, you know, early online site on the, like, the tour network where you could buy all kinds of child pornography and drugs and like. all the things that these sort of right-wing nagatypes say they're trying to fight against. Yeah. Yeah. That's their idea of free speech, I guess. But it's disgusting. But yeah, it's good to know that our diplomatic dollars are going towards.

Well, Rick Rinell, the acting president of Kennedy Center, too, like among other hats that he wears. There's a rumor that Rick Rennel might get tapped to play some sort of diplomatic role in Ukraine too. I mean, it's just because he's a troll. So Trump lets him troll around. He'll troll Ukraine. he'll troll the arts in this country. You'll troll people that don't like Andrew Tate. Like that's all Rick or not does.

Yeah, it's good stuff. And he riches himself along the way. Yeah, I'm sure he's making it. And deals with Jared Kushner. Lots of cash with Jared Kushner. All right, speaking of the sort of special representatives run around the world for Trump, let's talk about Gaza.

Because on Sunday, Israel stopped all humanitarian aid from going into Gaza in an effort to pressure Hamas into accepting revised ceasefire terms, international aid groups, the UN, Arab countries, Egypt, Qatar, they all condemn the move. but the White House supports it. This comes after phase one of the Gaza ceasefire officially ended this past Saturday.

Phase two was supposed to be negotiated during phase one, but I don't think those talks ever even started. At least they never got off the ground. In lieu of phase two, Israel said it agreed to a different proposal that they said came from Steve Wittkoff, Trump's Middle East envoy. Under Wittkoff's plan,

the ceasefire would continue for seven weeks until mid-April through Ramadan and Passover. Half of the reigning hostages would be released on day one of the extension. the other half when a permanent ceasefire agreement is reached. Hamas refused to accept this deal. They want to stick to the original framework. Not surprisingly,

those painstakingly negotiated. So Israel has ramped up pressure on them by closing the crossings into Gaza. In response, Hamas said, the decision to suspend humanitarian aid is cheap blackmail, a war crime, and a blatant coup against the ceasefire agreement. According to the BBC, 4,200 trucks a week had been going into Gaza,

now that number is zero. And food prices are already spiking. And things could get worse. the Israeli public broadcaster Khan reported that the Netanyahu government has what they're calling a hell plan, which entails cutting off water and electricity to Gaza, displacing people again from the north and setting them in the south and prepping to resume fighting. So according to the Guardian, Hamas is also prepping for a return to war by harvesting explosives from unexploded Israeli bombs to use as weapons. So really, really ominous. Perfect encapsulation of the

one element of the stupidity of Israeli policies that they drop so many bombs that their own bombs that were provided by the U.S. will then be used against them. I mean, you can't encapsulate the cycle of violence any clearer than that.

I think we just need to be clear there's so much happening in the world. This is a war crime, you know? You're cutting off all assistance to, you know, besieged people is against international law. Like, again, and nobody seems to give a shit. the court they would investigate that the ICC is being sanctioned by Trump. So this is what it feels

like to live in a world with no rules. You know, for all of Joe Biden's many, many, many, problems, particularly on this issue, at least six months ago, people would have like paid attention to this. Now it's like, oh, yeah, there are no rules. Israel going to, I mean, you know, Israel right now has invaded an occupied part of Syria and like Trump administration, fine with that. They cut off all assistance to Gaza. Like, this is what a world without rules feels like. We live in it fully now. And Trump, they just, they just bypass Congress to send another $4 billion worth of weapons to Israel, including $35,000, 2,000 pound bombs. I think that gets the shipments under the Trump administration to $12 billion total. So again, like, yeah, I know that

Biden administration policy was terrible. I am surprised at this point that there are no, maybe once the fighting resumes, there will be a series of protests again. Well, it doesn't help the Trump, like, truth the other day that, you know, he's going to cut all funding to any school. There's a protest and deport the people. So this all this connects. This stinks. I will say to the people that, you know, were okay with, like, you know, cracking down on

those protests and, like, you plowed some ground for this, you know, like, here we are. This is what it feels like and it's not good. Yeah. Okay. We're going to take a quick break. But before we do, Ben, we. We've got some exciting news. Our book imprint, Crooked Media reads, has a new novel coming out.

It's called Woodworking by Yellow Jackets writer and culture commentator Emily St. James. It's out now wherever you get your books. All right. I know you are you a Yellow Jackets fan? Yeah. My sister was really into that show. It's kind of scary. It's like kids killing each other.

Yeah. Anyway. Dark times. The woodworking is an unforgettable and heartwarming debut following a trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other trans woman she knows, one of her students. The five-star Goodreads reviews are already pouring in and woodworking is featured on them in AV Club's most anticipated books of the 2025 list. Publishers Weekly says, St. James enthralls with her depiction of what it's like to be trans in a conservative and insular community and the courage it takes for people to openly be themselves. Get your copy of woodworking

right now at crooked.com slash books. Potta of the World is brought to you by acorns. They say money can't buy you happiness. That might be true, but money can make you feel a lot of other things like stressed, guilty, overwhelmed. That's because when you're not in control of your money, your money can control you. Acorns is a financial wellness app that helps you take control of your money with the simple tools that make it easy to start saving and investing for your future. You don't have to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals. You don't have to be rich. Acorns lets you get started with the spare money you've got right now, even if all you've got is spare change. You can create an Acorns account and start

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all-time customers who have already saved and invested over $25 billion with Acorns. Head to Acorns.com slash world or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non-client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorn's Tier 1 compensation provided. Investing involves risk Acorns Advisors, LLC, and SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at Acorns.com slash world. A couple big stories out of Latin America that we wanted to highlight. So we've talked a couple times, Ben, about Trump's obsession with the Panama Canal. He claims the canal is controlled by China. It's not. It's controlled by a Panamanian government. But for about 30 years, two ports on either side of the canal have been owned by a Hong Kong-based company called C.K. Hutchinson. Earlier today,

we learned that C.K. Hutchinson has agreed to a deal to sell over 40 ports to a consortium of buyers led by BlackRock. It's a $23 billion deal that includes two ports in Panasonic. So Ben, reading about this did make me wonder if political pressure from Trump forced the deal to happen, or if Trump knew this deal was in the works, which is why he started talking about it so we could take credit. I don't know if I'm bringing too much red string to the broadcast. Well, I mean, look, this is what's so dumb about all this in the same way that the critical minerals from Ukraine are not really the game changer that Trump is casting them as. I don't think a Hong Kong-based port management company no longer managing a couple of stations on the Panama Canal makes a shits bit of difference to anything in the world. It's all just this kind of optics of like, you know, Trump is getting the Chinese out of the Panama Canal when it's, you know, just like some port management company, which by the way, probably made a lot of money in the block. Like, C.K. Hederson is doing just fine.

Yeah, 23B. Yeah, I think. Not bad. Yeah, I think 23B is fine. It's probably a little higher than they paid for the port. You know, maybe they did a couple of renovations like, you know, to drive the valuation. So there's an absurdity to all this, and nor do I think that this will end his fixation on the Pan Amal Canal. And this is what leaders around the world need to get.

You give Trump his pound of flesh. He'll come back for more, you know. Then he'll come back and say, we want to operate the canal or we want to, you know, Americans don't have to pay to go through there. And so, you know, it's tough for Panaw because they're a small. country, but I don't think this is going to reduce the degree to which he still fancies the canal there. No. And also last week we talked about the U.S. using Panama as a staging ground for deporting migrants.

We should want to flag that a group of lawyers that brought a case against Panama in front of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, arguing that Panama has violated the American Convention on Human Rights by detaining these migrants. And then there's a specific argument around these 10 Christian Iranian converts who, should qualify for asylum because they could be put to death for converting under Iranian law. So that's sort of in the mix. There's lots of legal challenges now happening to these immigration measures put forward by Trump. Yeah. And well, it won't, you know, in the end of the day, of course, it won't be the U.S. that suffers. It'll be like Panama that suffers for just having

to be dragged along with our inhumane deportation policy. Yeah. Also in the courts, the Supreme Court is going to hear a case from Mexico this week about whether American gun companies can be held liable for cartel violence committed using their weapons. So Mexican authorities say 70 to 90% of guns found at crime scenes in the country are trafficked from America. In total, about $170 million worth of guns are trafficked from the U.S. to Mexico each year. The case challenges decades of precedent involving the Second Amendment. Federal law protects gun manufacturers from liability. Why? It shouldn't. Oral arguments happened the morning of this recording, and it looks bad for Mexico with both liberal and conservative justices questioning the validity of their argument.

But for more on the case, check out this week's Monday's episode of our Supreme Court podcast, strict scrutiny. But then, you know, I've read about this and I could imagine Claudia Shanebaum saying, I'm slapping tariffs on all U.S. policies until the White House addresses the scourge of U.S. guns coming into Mexico. Yeah. That would be completely valid. Yeah, the cartels just come in here and buy up a bunch of A.R. 15s and stuff totally

legally and just take them across the border and that's how they arm themselves. It's not that complicated. I mean, there's, there's a sickness in the United States that, you know, people, you do have to look at this country from the outside end. I mean, the, the Chinese, you know, and I'm very critical to the Chinese Communist Party, but in that statement that we referenced earlier, for instance, they were kind of like, guys, like, the fentanyl crisis is your crisis. You know, like, they're not all these other countries with, you know, there's something broken in your society. And instead of trying to fix it, you come over here and tell us that we have to, like, do

all these things. You're going to tariff us over federal, you know? And the same is true here. Like, we are buying the drugs from Mexico and setting the weapons, the cartels because we can't have rational gun laws. and then we're punishing these other countries for things demand that comes from the United States or guns that are available from the United States.

Like, we would do the world a much bigger favor if we just fixed ourselves than anything else we could do. Rational gun laws, like, addressing the crisis of belonging is driving people to fentanyl, you know, legalized drugs so people can just buy some fucking gummies down the street instead of having to, you know, buy them from a fucking cartel.

Like, there are fixes to these things that are not trade wars. Yeah, or the CIA flying drones. Or the CIA, like, doing regime change, you know. One other story, last one out of Latin America. So bad news for anyone is hoping for a, you know, broader reproach mod between the U.S. and Venezuela. So Trump is officially ending Chevron's oil license in Venezuela and giving them 30 days to end their operations there. So pretty quick. It's just some history on this.

Chevron has been operating in Venezuela for more than 100 years. During Trump's first term, the administration told Chevron to wind down operations as they put in sanctions in place against the Maduro government. Then in 2022, the Biden administration renewed Chevron's license to operate in Venezuela and provided some sanctions relief in this deal that was designed to incentivize Venezuela to hold free and fair elections. Fast forward to last year's elections. That didn't work.

They were globally criticized for being rigged. The leading opposition figure wasn't even allowed to run. But the Biden team never rescinded Chevron's license. I think they probably wanted that oil flowing into global supply when gas prices were high. When Trump was elected and Marco Rubio became Secretary of State, I think I assumed that it was only a matter of time until Trump went back to like kind of a maximum pressure, maximum sanctioned policy on Venezuela. But then surprisingly, Chevron got a brief reprieve Rick Cornell, Flutob Venezuela to bring back

six Americans who had been in prison. So the question is, okay, what changed? according to a really interesting story in Axios. It was... Two things you don't usually hear it together. No, they do pretty good work. It was parochial Florida politics. These three Cuban members of Congress basically forced Trump's hand.

They threatened to withhold their votes on the House budget deal, unless Trump canceled the license to allow Venezuela oil exports to the U.S. So it's just like, I knew bringing this up would trigger you to the moon, you to the moon because it's just amazing that an entire hemisphere is determined by parochial Miami politics. Three South Florida Republican members of Congress that nobody's heard of, you know. I mean, we talk about APAC on this show and the influence of the Israel lobby. This is like the APAC of the Western Hemisphere, the fact that we outsource to like literally a few neighborhoods in South Florida our entire Latin America policy.

crazy because these people have a multi-decade personal vendetta against the cuban communist party is absolutely fucking insane and by the way like there's an inflation theme to today's show because i can tell you like taking chevron oil from venezuela off the market on top of your trade war is not going to dislodge maduro it's not going to lead to democracy in venezuela it's not going to be some bank shot that hurts the Cubans, but it is going to raise prices for Americans who buy gas. So, congratulations. What are we doing here? I'm so confused by it all, the totality of it. Well, they just, they seem to not think that any rules apply to them in terms of like, if you do X, Y will happen in the economy. And we're already seeing prices go up and the market

go down and job losses and then you're going to get the impact of the federal government. If you were trying to crash the U.S. economy, Tommy, you would literally do everything that they're doing. You would start a trade war. You would gut the federal government. You'd like plow like money into unregulated crypto markets. Like they're good. And actually maybe the best case scenario is like an economic crash that like kind of wakes this country up. And so we don't have to like get into a war that would be woken up or something or a pandemic. But, This is crazy. No, the real problem is Zelensky didn't wear a suit.

That's the kind of thing we're pissed about. I'm upset about that. Final thing, we often end with something fun and light. I haven't really seen a lot of it lately. The world's not feeling like. So I just heard this amazing story about a heroic person, Ben, that I wanted to tell you about. So rest in peace to this Australian man named James Harrison, OAM. Incredible story, right?

So this guy was an Australian blood donor. He saved himself 2.4 million babies by donating. his rare plasma. He was like, he had this, uh, the rare antibody called anti-D. And so he donated blood, uh, 1,173 times. I think he donated like every two weeks since the age of 18. And in the, in, in so doing, like, save literally millions of people himself. Like he, when he traveled, he would find a place to donate blood abroad. I mean, this is the kind of Australian ingenuity that celebrate on this podcast. It's a funny thing.

In a just world, we wouldn't have to endure all these speeches about the brutalist cinematography. It would be like, you know, events about guys like this. Yeah, this guy, I'm talking about bona fide hero. He's like a one-man USAID, you know. I mean, just to close on that note on the Oscars, I mean, did you watch the Oscars? No. I watched every minute.

You like it? You know, I was kind of. rooting for Nora. I thought it was the best movie I saw last year. And then I was like, I don't know if you should win all the awards. It won like four, right? It was like a little over the top. Yeah.

Like he, Sean Baker won four alone. Director, editor, screenplay, fit picture. I mean, you would have thought this was like fucking Citizen Kane or something. Yeah. I mean, it's a good movie about a Russian oligarch and a, you know, and power dynamics in Brooklyn, you know. It's great, but it felt a little much. I'll check it out.

I don't think I've seen any of the Oscar movies this year. Well, clearly your daughter is not old enough for Wicked yet because I know every word to Wicked now because my daughters sing it constantly in the car. And when the Oscars opened with Ariana Grande, it was like... That's all. It was like, you know, I mean, for all the unhappiness in the world, for 10 minutes with Cynthia Revo and Ariana Grande, we were back in a happy. Life was good in your house. Yes. We tried to put on Moana the other day and see if we get Lizzie to watch.

She's not there. It's my favorite. She's, I fucking love Moana. I'm excited for one. She's just into Disney movies. I still make them watch it. They don't even want to watch anymore.

They're getting older. I'm like, can we watch Moana tonight? Like, I just, I cry in Moana. It's really good. It's good movie. I don't know what I'm talking about. She's not a good movie. We're down.

We're down with the Moana in this room. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, you're going to hear Ben's interview with Natasha Hall. She is a Syria expert at CSIS. So stick around for that. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. There's a lot of people out there. We need some therapy.

Yeah. Trump, Putin. A couple of them are running the world. Yeah, a lot of them are in charge right now. Imagine if these people just kind of like talked out their problems rather than going like CPAC and giving racist speeches. We'd be in better shape right now, that's for sure. If you think about your favorite leaders, mentors and idols, they don't have all the answers,

but they do know when to ask questions or seek support from their community. In a society that glorifies hyper-independence, it's easy to forget that we're all better off when we have a support system behind us. Therapy can be a source of support for any area of your life. life. It's time to shift the focus from doing it all to knowing that we're better when we ask for help. BetterHelp is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient, serving over 5 million people worldwide. Access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credential therapists with a wide range of specialties. Easily switch therapists anytime at no extra costs. Look, have you been thinking about

giving yourself the gift of therapy? Start this year because it's going to be a rocky four years, people. Build your support system with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash crooked World to get 10% off your first month. That's better help help.com slash crooked world. All right, we are very pleased to welcome back to Potta of the World, Natasha Hall, who's a senior fellow in the Middle East program at the center for strategic and international studies known to those in the know as CSIS.

Natasha, welcome back to Potta of the World. Thanks for having me, Ben. So we wanted to have you on because in normal times, what's happening in Syria would be a massive story. We keep getting obviously focused on whatever Trump. doing but we wanted to check it with you on a number of things particularly the situation with Israel but just to start you know we last had you on when this new government was just taking power or seizing power now you know you've got a pretty established transitional government

last week there was a national dialogue conference at which they sought to demonstrate an inclusive form of governance you've seen this kind of flurry of diplomacy with other Arab leaders this past Sunday, there was an announcement there's a committee that's going to draft a constitutional declaration. How do you assess the current moves of the government? I mean, it's obviously like early days, but what do you see that is making you optimistic and what are you seeing that is making you concerned? I mean, much like the entire Syrian war, what makes me optimistic is Syrians and what makes me pessimistic is all of the external factors that are. basically keeping down Syrians from charting their own path towards a better future.

I mean, to be really blunt and frank. You say it's early days. It's somewhat early days. But we haven't seen any serious discussion about the sanctions that remain on Syria that were primarily for the previous regime, which no longer exists. Nothing on terrorism designations. These are things that really paralyze the country from external investment, Qatar, you know, recently said that it would increase public sector salaries, for example, by 400

percent. And then finally, it came out that apparently they're not because they're afraid of the Trump administration and U.S. sanctions. And at the same time, you're seeing these massive aid cuts really across the board from Europe and then obviously from the United States as well. And so it's, you know, there's a lot of challenges that the new government is facing, in addition to all of these geopolitical issues, which I think at the end of the day, day are going to be sort of the demise. And I think, um, and I think that those are very much connected to the fact that you haven't seen a lot of movement or really any movement on Syria policy on the U.S. side. Um, because we do see Israel, you sort of alluded to it, um, not just invading the

country and occupying certain areas, but really trying to cause turmoil tension within the country. Um, and apparently lobbying the United States to allow Russia to come back to its bases. And to really sort of, I think, keep the country weak and divided. So a lot of challenges here for the new government. The National Dialogue Conference that you were talking about, there was a lot of complaints that maybe we can get into. But there was a lot of positives, too, including, I think, actually those that were part of the Constitutional Committee, which are, you know, real serious, I think civil society heavy hitters. Yeah, I mean, let's maybe we'll come back to that at the end. but I do think we have to focus in the geopolitics because that, like you said, everything in Syria has been shaped by external actors.

And I guess could you just explain to people who may not be following this that closely, just the extent of what Israel is doing in southern Syria, as well as, you know, in addition to kind of military operations, Prime Minister Nanyahu started to describe, you know, essentially kind of a weak demilitarized. Syria that it, you know, Israel can push around at will. What is happening in southern Syria and why would you tell people that's important? Yeah. Well, I'm actually going to go back to maybe even November. So before the fall of Assad, you saw a lot of discussions from Israel, from the supporters of Israel talking about really trying to build links with the Druze community in the south of Syria, with the Kurds in the north. And a lot of this had to do with Syria or with Israel trying to create a security corridor in the south. But in the north, it had a lot to do with the weakening ties between Turkey and Israel over the Gaza situation.

So in May, you saw Erdogan, President Erdogan, suspend this $8 billion trade agreement. There's been, you know, a lot of more pro-Palestinian rhetoric in Turkey. and Israel was essentially trying to use its pre-existing ties with the Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria to try to sort of build that kind of divide, create a security corridor. That security corridor also worked for pushing against obviously Iranian influence in the country as well. Then you have the fall of Assad. And immediately within 48 hours, Israel, launches 500 attacks on Syria by some estimates eliminating, you know, 70 to 80 percent of

Syria's military, you know, sort of strategic capabilities. This is an enormous challenge for a new country as well that's trying to create security within the country that is, you know, essentially ruled by still a foreign designated terrorist organization. So who's going to replace a lot of that security capabilities for a country like Syria? no one, except for maybe Russia. And so you immediately had Russia come in and really try to reestablish ties with the new government, which is pretty astounding, given Russia's very close alliance with, you know, the Assad regime throughout all of this essentially bombarding most of Syria for the past 10 years. You know, and this was because of the challenges that the new

government faces. And then fast forward to, you know, the past few weeks, and you continue to see more attacks. So what you saw to attack just yesterday on what appears to be some kind of new government slash turkey naval patrol. But you also have, and this is, I think, the thing that you're alluding to, is essentially the invasion of Syria, past the Golan Heights, past the demilitarized zone. That was a established in 1974, and retaking essentially Mount Herman, which is a very strategic point. It's the highest point in the eastern Mediterranean area, about 9200 meters, and actually taking the upstream waters from the Wadda Dam, which is something that Syria shares with Jordan. So also affecting

Jordan's water security downstream, which I don't see any reporting on that for some reason. And then gradually moving further and further in. And so you have, you know, some, some raids going on still in the South. Netanyahu has come out and so of other members of his cabinet saying that the southern areas of Syria need to be completely demilitarized. I mean, these are three governors of a country. And so it's, you know, the actions alone were pretty astounding. And then in very recent, days, you had Israeli cabinet officials essentially, you know, reaching out to the Druze community saying, you can work in the occupied Golan Heights for $75,100 a day, which is, you know, three months of salary in Syria right now. And you also have them sort of stirring up unrest,

suggesting that, you know, the Druze community is under threat and that Israel will come to support and protect the Druze if the new government harms them. This is a situation where Israel is essentially creating a problem that doesn't exist, though. It doesn't seem like the Drews are under threat at all. And so it's, it sort of remains to be seen, you know, what's going to happen from all of this. But certainly in the initial phases, it has failed and actually united the Druus community, I think with the larger Syrian community in a lot of these protests against sort of Israeli occupation. So, I mean, you're describing, you know, essentially the invasion of a sovereign country and the seizing of its resources.

This may confuse some people, right, because they think, well, I thought Assad was part of the access of resistance. And obviously, you know, you can see why there may be trepidation about Ahmed al-Shara, the new leader of Syria and he's an Islamist. But in reality, I don't think there's anybody that believes that this new Syrian government is like preparing for war with Israel or something. What is what do you assess to be Israel's objective? I mean, you mentioned it may be that they are wary of an Islamist government. It may be that they're in a geopolitical competition with Erdogan.

But it also seems like is this a landscape? grab, like, are they just trying to kind of acquire more resources and use this kind of Drew's thing as an excuse for it? I can also see why kind of, you know, casting Syria back into like a weak, failed state might not be good for Israel security. But what is your best guess at, what the Israeli interests are that they're acting on? And what are the tools available to the Syrian government to deal with this? Mainly I've seen them kind of try to reach out to Arab states and get unity, but it's not like that has kind of affected Israel's behavior that much in other contexts. But how do you see the Israeli intention here? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a bit of

all of the above from the issues that you listed. And this is not really a new strategy either. I've been recently reading a Syrian author called El Mahout who basically jokes how much buffer does Israel need to feel safe. And he says, do they need Syria? Do they need Lebanon? Do they Bosnia, do they need Northern Europe and so on and so forth. This was a book that was published in 1987. So this isn't sort of a new sort of doctrine, I think. In addition to that, you do have this, you know, periphery doctrine that people are discussing more now from, you know, Ben-Gurion days, 1950s, where essentially Israel tries to create alliances with either non-Arab or non-Muslim communities around the Arab world to sort of, you know, have, have a stalwart alliances with,

with those that might feel under threat. So in many cases, this has not worked, but it certainly has worked to a certain extent with, you know, the Maronites in Lebanon, the Kurds and now, especially in Syria, but also, I would say unofficially with the KRG in Iraq. And so, and now they're, you know, they're trying to do it with, with the Druze community in the South. So this is not really a new strategy per se. You know, I think Israel feels very much emboldened by the past year and a half, if not more. And especially so with the Trump administration, who seems to be, you know, really giving Israel carte blanche even more than the Biden administration, which is saying a lot. And so, you know, they're taking what they can get while they get it. And I mean, I agree with you

that it seems a little bit counterintuitive. Why would you want an unstable, divided country on your flank, especially ruled by at least what you perceive to be in what have been calling a sort of a terrorist organization? We can argue about that. But, you know, I think Ashara, who's the new sort of interim president, let's say, of Syria, is well aware of these challenges.

And I think he probably hoped that he could, you know, reassure Israel. And, you know, in statements he's explicitly said he's not seeking a war with Israel. He's not seeking any kind of violence along that border. They're hoping to secure the border. And consolidate power, monopolize violence, like those kinds of things to reassure Israel that, you know, they would be safe. that clearly, you know, has not reassured Israel, though. And so we see all of these, you know, essentially land grabs. Yeah.

Well, moving around the map here, there's also the issue of the Kurds in northern and eastern Syria. In Turkey, the PKK, which has been, you know, involved in a civil conflict of the Turkish government for decades, declared a ceasefire. there's still this kind of question the Kurds seem the most reluctant to kind of come underneath the umbrella of the transitional government in Syria. What is the impact of the Turkish dynamic with Kurds inside of Turkey? And where do things currently stand with the Syrian Kurds? Yeah. So this is a very interesting but also complex dynamic that goes back decades, unfortunately. But so essentially what you had first is the PKK, which has been essentially at war with Turkey since the 1980s. The leader of that group that has been under house arrest since I think the late 90s, 98, basically calling for the PKK to lay down their arms, which is a pretty big deal.

the last time we saw any kind of rapprochement or attempt at that was 2015 between Turkey and the PKK and that fell apart. This time you actually see, I mean, the PKK is a bit divided between more extreme elements and more moderate elements. So the more moderate elements are going along with this, the more extreme elements are voicing their concerns. But Erdogan has his domestic reasons for pushing this. forward as well. You actually even see the nationalist MHP in Turkey, this party is quite anti-Kurdish,

pushing these negotiations, this agreement forward as well, which is quite surprising. And a lot of this likely stems from the fact that Erdogan can't legally at this point run for president in 28. And so he needs to garner more support from all of the other major parties in Turkey in order to make the legal case that he can indeed do that. So there's sort of those domestic reasons at play. Then you, you know, you also have the, obviously, the situation in Syria where I think in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Assad, everyone was saying, oh, Turkey's the big winner here.

Because, you know, these are groups, the groups that essentially took over are, like, HTS is a group that is more strongly affiliated with Turkey. than any other sort of country out there. But you also had the fear of the Kurds, sort of not all Kurds, but the Syrian Democratic forces that the United States has supported all these years in the counter ISIS fight in northeastern Syria,

really concerned about its position. But what's really interesting is that actually General Muslim of the SDF was one of the few Kurdish elements that basically said, this deal has nothing to do with us. So whatever the PKK and Turkey arranges, that has nothing to do with what we want.

And I think to a certain extent, they're still holding their cards close to their chest. They don't have a lot of cards at this point, but they're really trying to hold on to them. And I do think that they are really thinking about this alliance with Israel as well. Because it does seem, and we could talk about how Assad did this too. I said one, Anna said two, that, you know, reassuring Israel and being allied to Israel, even unofficially, does help with your survival in the Middle East.

Yeah. Well, it does feel like it's interesting that Israel is playing its cards in response to Turkey. And then that brings us all the way back to Russia. you know, Russia has made contact with this government. As you said, like Russia is potentially, even though they literally bomb these people, HTS. You know, Putin is nothing if not pragmatic. And in a super bizarre way, maybe one way to get out from under U.S. sanctions is to get close to Putin. I never thought I'd say that. But, I mean, that, you know, given this administration's affinity for Putin, maybe if Israel and Russia are okay with this government? I mean, how do you make sense of the Russian dynamic and all this? Yeah, it's just wild.

So immediately after the fall of Assad, you actually saw high-level diplomatic contact between the new president of Syria, ostensibly Shadha and Bogdanov and other very high-level Russian officials. You immediately had Russia sort of changing its tone. HTS. I mean, for a long time, it was calling anyone who opposed the regime terrorists, and then suddenly all of that changed. And that's, of course, because listeners will probably know, you know, Syria was essentially Russia's first launching point outside of its near abroad, really for, you know, I think greater global influence. And that certainly worked in the Middle East. And it worked as a launching point into Africa. as well and the Mediterranean. So Russia has this Mediterranean port in Tartus, this sort of naval base, and also an air base along the western coast. And really wanted to hold on to that. I think, you know, with the fall of Assad, you know, Assad was sort of viewed as kind of a toxic asset at that point by both Russia and Iran, which is probably why.

you saw the regime crumble so quickly because both of these, and we can talk about why on the Iran side, but for Russia, clearly they wanted to focus on Ukraine and thought, perhaps they could make some kind of deal with this new administration if Assad did fall. And we do know that there were some talks prior to Assad really falling in early December. So, you know, now you have Israel, I mean, this is just really, all of this is quite insane. So you have Israel essentially lobbying the United States to allow the new Syrian government to let Russia back to its basis. It hasn't completely left. It also hasn't, by the way, completely left northeastern Syria. It still has that presence there.

But, you know, essentially, I think for Israel, they trust Russia to kind of stabilize things. And I think in a previous administration, one of the differences you might have seen is with a Biden administration or a Harris administration, you might have seen this as a, you know, a great opportunity to get Russia out of the U.S.'s traditional sphere of influence. But with this administration, which we saw on Friday, seems to be quite closely aligned with Russia and Putin, that's clearly not a motivating factor. So we could indeed see Russia, I think, returning. That's a dizzying tour. I mean, just quickly to finish, I assume that if you're, Al-Shaara, if you're the interim government, you just got to try to maintain as much unity in the country as possible while this is happening around you, right? I mean, that's essentially the only play that I can make of.

That is the goal. And I think, you know, really trying to get the Arab countries and anyone that, that has any kind of influence on the U.S. to at the very least, you know, remove these sanctions, alleviate the sanctions, do something about the designation. Because with no aid and with these sanctions remaining in place, I just don't see how Syria holds together. And frankly, you know, that should be of a grave concern to the United States.

Because a country like that, a sanctioned country, does not bode well economically or politically for the United States. I mean, this is going to be a country that, you know, needs to resort to nefarious actors to just stay afloat. So, you know, a big strategic opportunity lost, I think. Yeah, yeah. No, I agree. Well, look, Natasha, thanks so much for, you know, walking us through all that. People should follow your work at CSIS and online.

And we'll, I'm sure, have occasion to talk to you again. But thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Thanks again, Natasha, for doing the show. Thanks for listening. Thanks for subscribing to the Pod Save the World YouTube. And we'll talk to you guys next week. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more.

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