Pod Save the World - China’s Iran Deal

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

Tommy and Ben talk about China brokering a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Saudi Arabia’s wish list to “normalize” relations with Israel, protests of Netanyahu’s changes to Israel’s judicial system, the BBC, soccer and free speech, new reports about who sabotaged the Nord Steam gas pipeline, the president of Mexico’s bizarre press conference, the momentum behind banning TikTok, and Canada’s stance on flipping the bird. Then, Tommy interviews Welcome.US CEO Nazanin Ash about the global refugee crisis and how ordinary citizens can help. 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 Positive the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, uh, congrats on surviving the first bank run of 23. We did it. Uh, we did. And second, I guess. Yeah, I, I, I, I, maybe the third of you count some of the tech banks. Yeah. I didn't have a lot of exposure, but I will say, um, my mortgage was with the first republic. Oh, scary. Yeah. So like, you know, you see how the contagion can reach. you fairly quickly, you know. Yeah, for sure. You are, you're dialing in all the way live from the swamp today. How is, how is everything going there? How's our man, David Lamey? Yeah, now I'm here. David Lamey's in town. I'm joining him for a bunch of meetings that he's doing here. And he's giving like a talk tomorrow at Center for American Progress. People should check it out if they're in town.

I mean, it's, you know, doesn't change, Tommy. It's the same. Big renovations at the White House, I will say. Oh, interesting. They seem to be redoing. the situation room. So like West Exec, that, you know, the, not the consulting firm. The driveway. The driveway is like got like a massive construction site in the middle of it. So which by the way, it was like how it was for most of the Obama years too. And I think Trump didn't do any of those renovations.

So I think, you know, responsible Democratic presidents do renovations that make West Exxec and I so great. Wonderful. possible Republican presence down. That sounds about right. We have a great show this week, Ben. We are going to talk about this surprise Iran, Saudi Arabia diplomatic deal, reports of a Saudi proposal to normalize relations with Israel.

Bibi Netanyahu's ongoing efforts to gut Israel's judicial system. The BBC soccer and free speech, some news about who bombed the Nord Stream pipeline and an intra-GOP split on Ukraine policy that's becoming more apparent by the day. The president of Mexico is acting a little. wacky again. Then we'll do some quicker but important updates from around the world. And then Ben, after we do the news,

you guys will hear my interview with Nazanin Ash. She is the CEO of welcome. US, which is this really cool, innovative new service that is helping refugees get resettled in the US. They're trying to bypass the heinous political debates around refugees and refugee resettlement by just connecting good-hearted human beings. with people who need a place to live.

And it sounds like it's going really well. Yeah, no, I can't wait to see. I mean, usually like communities, when it actually becomes a human issue, like communities even in states that are not, you wouldn't think are welcoming. I remember Iowa, for instance, Tommy. Yeah.

Very welcoming of refugees there, you know, even as they vote for politicians who aren't, you know, it's interesting. It's always so great when you divorce the real views of the American people from political debates to be reminded of how much better they are. But I digress, Ben. that strange sound you heard over the weekend listeners where DC foreign policy establishment

heads exploding after reading reports that Iran and Saudi Arabia had agreed to restore diplomatic ties. Thanks to agreement, brokered by, wait for it, Ben, China. Is this Mike Pompeo's fever dream? Do you think he woke up like in a cold sweat? Yeah. Yeah. This will feature, I'm sure, in some of his totally irrelevant campaigns. Some speeches known to listen to. So Saudi Arabia and Iran, they have not had official diplomatic ties since 2016 after Iranian protesters attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran because the Saudis executed a very well-known Shiite cleric. Things got worse as Saudi Arabia and Iran doubled down and supported different sides in the civil war in Yemen. In Yemeni, the Saudi support of the Yemeni government that had been ousted the Iranians backed the Houthi rebels. It got real dicey in 2019 when Houthis attacked Saudi oil facilities with drones.

He knocked out half of Saudi oil output. But the Trump administration at the time said that attack was launched from Iranian territory. So this new agreement that was announced does a few things. One, it says both sides are going to reopen their embassies in the other's countries. Two, they say they're basically not going to mess with each other's territory or internal affairs. And then three, they're going to get back into previously negotiated security trade and migration agreements. So Ben, you know, I opened up the New York Times or whatever, whoever broke this. I read the story.

And my reaction was like, one, good. you know, these two ramping down tensions and aggression and all the proxy fighting, like, seems like a net very good thing. Two, I'll believe it when I see it. And then three, it was kind of interesting that China parachuted into these discussions. But, you know, these talks have been ongoing, I think, brokered by the Iraqis and the Omanis for a while. So it wasn't totally clear to me what China's angle was here. But the DC foreign policy kind of blob class, as you so durably branded them, just seemed to feel insecure. Here you're a lot. You're Here's a representative, quote, from the vice president of the Brookings Institute.

Quote, what is notable, of course, is the decision to hand the Chinese a huge public relations victory, a photo op that is intended to demonstrate China's newfound stature in the region. In that sense, it would appear to be yet another Saudi slap in the face to the Biden administration, end quote. And I just like, I paused for a second after reading that. And I just thought about how our obsession with China must sound to everyone else in the world, like Iran and Iraq fought a war in the 80s that killed.

half a million people. And our response is to be upset about this, not like welcome it. I mean, to their credit, the Biden administration did actually welcome this announcement. So, Ben, long wind up there, but like two questions. What do you make of the substance of this deal? And what do you make of the suggestion that the U.S. has to broker every treaty or else we just kind of feel sad? I mean, so first on the substance of the deal, there's been a lot of support for this happening for a long time. So even in the end of the Obama years, we were encouraging the Saudis and the Iranians to be talking to each other. And we said, by the way, at that time, hey, if you need to do it through some third party, you know, the Omanis or somebody have at it, you know, if you need kind of unofficial interlocutors.

But the idea was there's this Saudi Iranian proxy war that has been engulfing the region. And wouldn't it be better if they can at least talk to each other? pretty simple, you know, objective here. So I think that it's a big deal for them to kind of be reestablishing diplomatic relations to be doing so at this particular juncture. I think what remains to be seen, and this is the key point substantively, is will this kind of rapprochement be mirrored in what's happening in Yemen or what's happening in Lebanon, what's happening in Iraq, in the places where we've seen this proxy war, will we see these improved Saudi-Iranian relations kind of lead to, you know, hopefully a resolution of the war in Yemen, for instance?

That would be a very good thing if that happened. Or is this just like we're opening up some embassies and, you know, you know, establishing some channels, but we're still at each other's strokes and all these other places. I think it's also interesting from the perspective of like what the Abraham Accords was doing, and I know we're going to get to that, but that because, you know, the U.S. and particularly under Trump, but Biden's kind of continued this idea of like organizing the whole region around kind of anti-Iran. And this is the Saudis, I think, signaling, you know what, a big part of our

policy is that. But, you know, we're also wanting to talk to these people and we're not kind of all on board with this idea that the whole region should be organized just purely around this anti-Iran coalition. Now, the Washington freak out of this was comical. I mean, Tommy, you and I, on one of our text chains, you know, there was a great New York Times analysis. It was like, in a development that has heads spinning in capitals around the world. And I was trying to like get the image of like heads spinning in capitals. And which capitals, right? Like, you know, I mean, in Washington, you know, heads are spinning around because of like the, the exorcism that needs to take place of American foreign policy, I guess. But like, first of all, people describe the

end of the era of American dominance of the Middle East as if it was like a great era. It's gone great. You know what is it? What is it that we're nostalgic about here? I mean, we've dominated this region for the last 30 years. And what did we get? War after war after war after war. Like maybe it's not the best thing for the United States to have to be in charge of

everything in the Middle East. So that's the first point. It's just like this, what are we longing for that we're allegedly losing? here. And by the way, Ben, that slap in the face quote I read was in the Washington Post. And it's just weird to me that even the Post seems to blame Joe Biden from distancing himself from Muhammad bin Salman because MBS butchered a Washington Post reporter. You know, it's like this weird blame the victim thing. No. And I think that, look, what's clear to me about this, too, is so why did they do this with the Chinese? I mean, obviously the Iranians are tremendously dependent on China right now. So no surprise. why Iran would want to have the Chinese at the table on this thing. I think the Saudis for, we've talked about on this podcast, they are in the autocracy camp. I don't know if the Washington Post, like, as you just point out, Washington Post should understand that better than any institution in this country, that MBS, if given the choice in democracy and autocracy,

he wants to not be on like some American team of democracies. And so at a minimum, he is going to be hedging by developing a closer relationship with China, probably by trying to buy more arms and things from China, deepen, you know, economic ties with China. I think he sees in the long run the need to have like a comprehensive hedge against Saudi dependence on the United States. That's going to happen no matter what Joe Biden does. It's not a slap in anybody's face. It's what's happening, you know? And I don't, not every story is about us, you know? Exactly. I mean, and even in the ways that this is about us, I mean, it's not like some like core U.S. interest is somehow in any way set back by the fact that the Chinese got a nice photo

out. Yeah, I want to talk about the Abraham Accord piece of this next. But, you know, one head that clearly was spinning was Bibi and Yahoo. And I saw right before the Israeli prime minister, and right before we came in here, Horitz, I know I can't say that correctly and everyone stop yelling me on Twitter, please. They reported that Bibi blamed this deal happening on, quote, weakness of the Biden administration. But this coward did it on background as a, quote, senior Israeli official to a group of reporters while he was traveling in Rome. So thanks for that. But yeah, to your point, Ben, like having ambassadors in the countries doesn't mean everything is going to be fine. Like, we have an ambassador in Russia currently. I assume the Ukrainians and the Russians

had one before the war started. I did also notice that John Kirby, our friend, former colleague, who's now as an NSC spokesman, made a similar point I did, which is like, look, you know, remains to be seen if the Iranians will honor their commitment here because this is not a regime that typically does honor its word. And John Kirby is 100% right there, but unfortunately for him, because the Trump administration pulled out of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, the United States has no credibility to push that message. Yeah, I saw some, I mean, there's so much to unpack here.

I mean, first of all, the BB point, the aside I make on this is that he used to, you know, say at the Blair House when he'd come to, for meetings Obama, Blair House is the place across the street from White House. And they'd have the meetings, and they'd always go along. And then Beebe would literally have the Israeli press over there and, like, background his own meeting and, like, trash Obama off the record and stuff. And we'd all end up hearing about it because then the reporters, you know, Israeli reporters, like, they would always tell us. Well, exactly. Israeli reporters, like, they'll respect off the record when it applies to, like, what they're right.

But they'll tell you, like, I, yeah, Nanya, who's just telling us all this stuff, you know. I remember this started having the first meeting in 2009, this happened. I remember, like, oh, okay, that's how it's going to be. Constantly, right? So put that aside. But on Kirby's point, you know, I also saw somebody. point out, and it may have been like in the kind of Israeli ecosystem, like the Netanyahu ecosystem, that, you know, the U.S. helped broker deals, like the Oslo Accords and the JCPUA

that led to, you know, didn't lead anywhere. And so that discredit the U.S. Well, no, that's because people didn't follow through on those deals. Like, like, if, like, the, the U.S. credibility was like harmed by the fact that on the JCPA, as you say, like, we, when, we, when, we, we, we, we try to construct a multi-year deal with all kinds of countries involved, some are parties to deal, but some like, you know, the Gulf countries, we were like briefing and getting them on board with it as best we could. Then when you pull out of that, well, yeah, like one of the ramifications of that is the next time there's some big regional deal, like maybe the U.S. isn't the best party to back up that deal because they know in that region that China is going to have the same leadership

in four years. And they have done. no idea what the U.S. leadership is going to be, right? That's right. So if they make a deal with the Chinese, and this isn't like an argument for autocracy, it's an argument for democracies to not be totally dysfunctional, they know that they'll keep that deal. I did see it in a good, and we love Kirby on this, but he was like, he had some quote really that was like, I stridently reject your premise, sir of like U.S. state, you know, it was like so heated, like at the, the question that like this has diminished U.S. influence. Like, I think it's okay. it's okay that we don't, you know, that things can happen in the Middle East without us being

directly responsible for it. It's a good thing. Even if there's things that you're uncomfortable with, right? It's just, there's not like a direct correlation between U.S. shaping the deal and everything working out for the best. Yeah, and just like functionally, we don't have time to be involved in everything. Yeah. So the other big story out of Saudi Arabia was the Wall Street Journal broke this story. They reported that the Saudi government has floated a deal to the U.S. about what it would take to get them to normalize relations with Israel. So the Saudis reportedly want a security guarantee from the United States, fewer restrictions on U.S. armstales to Saudi Arabia, and then help developing a civilian nuclear program.

This would build on, as you mentioned earlier, the Abraham Accords, which are those diplomatic normalization deals that Israel cut with Bahrain, Morocco, and the UAE during the Trump administration. This story posted right around the same time that the Saudi Iran deal became public, which was very interesting. So I read this one and I had a couple of thoughts here, which was one, I hope no one's considering this. I hope everyone involved thinks that giving a homicidal maniac like Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman uranium enrichment technology is maybe a bad idea long term. Two, even if that's not on the table, we probably shouldn't be giving the Saudis more weapons until the war in Yemen is over and maybe not ever. if it is. And then three, like, why would the U.S. want to hand Israeli Prime Minister B.B. Netanyahu, a huge political win right as he's gutting Israel's judicial system. So,

I don't know. This might have been just like a thing that was floated. Maybe it was dead on arrival. You never know. But it's still the case in Washington that the Abraham Accords are treated like there, this like unequivocal good thing. Insane. And the record is former mixed. I mean, you and I were talking about how there was a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing recently on the Abraham Accords, and according to some great reporting by Eli Clifton at Responsible Statecraft, all of the witnesses at the hearing worked at organizations with institutional or financial ties to the UAE or Bahrain, and I don't think any of them disclosed it. So anyway, Ben, given nuclear technology to MBS, good idea, great idea?

It's not like pretty far down my list of things to do, you know? And to work backwards from like a really good point you made about why give Nanyahu a gift. I mean, I, everybody involved, right? So, Bibi is leading this insanely extremist government comprised of a bunch of criminals, essentially, right? Literally. Literal criminals and extremists who are trying to gut the judiciary and you're talking about eradicating, you know, Palestinian villages and that's what's happening over here. And then NBS, you know, after the whole fist bump thing, basically told, you know, us to fuck off and, you know, isn't playing ball with Russia sanctions or helping out with, like, energy

prices. So what a great time to do something that is a huge political gift to these two governments. That makes no sense, first of all. Second of all, if the Abraham Accords, we hear about it as like this peace agreement, right? Never mind that there's no war that has been ended by the Abram Accords. But if the Saudis had such a sincere interest in peace and northern. normalization, why would we have to buy them off to this price tag for the deal? Like, like, at a certain point, it's not peace. If it's just like a transaction, just a broad,

autocrats where it's like, you know what, you know what we're going to give you as a part of this peace agreement? We're just going to give you like a blank check of weapons and a domestic nuclear enrichment capacity that you could then use to develop a nuclear weapons program. Like, that's not the kind of peace agreement that sounds that enticing to me, you know? And if by the way, people want to point out that there was an element of that in the Camp David Accords, which was a good thing at the time. It's not like the arms to the Egyptians over the years led to Egypt being a more democratic place. Let's put it that way, right? The point is that you need to, yes, sometimes in foreign policy, there's like real politic and there's arms sales, but like if you don't have a strategy to make peace among peoples and to kind of have a democratic component of your relations with this kind of. countries, we've seen where it can go. And so to me, like, this just points to what is this all about other than like this has become a transaction to like pay a certain price to MBS to do what he should be doing anyway because it's the right thing, which is normalizing relations with Israel.

Yeah, I want to talk about Israel for a second, but I just want to give a quick plug. A reporter named Ruth Margolite at the New Yorker wrote a long piece on February 20th about Itamar Ben-Gavir, who is the minister for national security in this new Israeli government. And, like, you and I've talked about him on the show a couple times. He famously had a photo on the wall of a terrorist, a Jewish terrorist, who shot up, you know, 29 individuals, Palestinian individuals. This story really details, like, just how extreme and crazy this guy is. One just quick graph I wanted to read you, Ben.

So on Ben-Govir's first date with his now wife, they visited the grave of Baruch Goldstein, an extremist settler who in 1994 had gunned down 29 Muslim worshippers at the cave of the patriarchs of holy site for Muslims and Jews in Hebron, and that is who until recently, that was the photograph he had up on his wall. Your first date is to the grave of a mass murderer. This guy is now the Minister of National Security. I went to the Hawkindove on the hill here. I mean, I think I went to Raseka with Hannah, yeah.

Actually, that was my first date. But that piece, Ebrija Reid, the guy was like, has been, I mean, present, like, he's like the zealig of the far right in Israel. I mean, you know, he was threatening to kill Rabin, right? Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel did the Oslo Accords, who was killed by right-wing extremists, like Ben Gavir had been threatening to kill him. Ben-Gabir ripped the little, like, thingy off his hood and how. held it up instead of I can get this, we can get, we can get, yeah. And one other one other one other

one that, because everybody should read it, but the other thing that just to give you a sense of how how ugly this gets, he, and this is something Ben Givir actually had to apologize for, but that the wedding party where they did, like, they danced with like the fake body of a Palestinian baby who'd been killed. I mean, this is what we're talking about. Yeah, I remember that too. So there, Ben Gavir was at a wedding where, when like after the ceremony, a bunch of men started dancing and they were holding aloft the groom, but also knives, assault rifles and what appear to be a Molotov cocktail that they pass from hand to hand. And then one of the guests raised a picture of a baby while another repeatedly stabbed the picture with a knife.

The baby, the photo of the baby was an actual child who had been killed when his home was fire bombed. Yeah. So this is, I mean, this is who this guy hangs out with. You know, like this is the political movement in milieu that he comes out of. And I think that another really important point in this article, Tom, is that he's not like at all shy about what he's doing. He's like, I'm trying to put on an acceptable face. Exactly. To advance my deeply extremist ideas. And like, he literally says on like the record, you know, I'm telling them what they want to hear about, you know, the rule of law, but don't think I've changed. I haven't, you know. And so that's who this guy is. Yep. So people like this being in charge of why is really

citizens have been taking to the streets in massive numbers. They are specifically now protesting Netanyahu's plan to overhaul Israel's judicial system. This weekend, there were 300,000 people demonstrating across dozens of cities in Israel, according to Barack Reviv from Axios, the 10th week of these major protests. So again, the quick and dirty on what Beebe's government is trying to do is limit the Israeli Supreme Court's power to strike down actions by the parliament and by the executive, by giving the parliament the power to override Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority vote. They also want to take away the court's ability to review Israel's basic law, which is basically their functions as their constitution.

And B.B. wants the power to choose the judges that go into the judiciary. So the right wing, you know, people like Idmar Ben-Givir, they have longstanding beef with the Supreme Court because, for example, they want to exempt ultra-Orthodox Jews from mandatory military service. The courts have said no, that's unfair. Another mortal sin of the Supreme Court, apparently Ben, was telling Netanyahu that he couldn't make a guy convicted of tax fraud, a senior minister in the government. I was talking with this great reporter named Amir Tibon from Haretz, who said the final vote on these changes could be as soon as next week. Then maybe you could see the Supreme Court actually veto it, and then you have, you know, I think sort of a

constitutional crisis. So we're going to keep an eye on this. But, you know, this would be a pretty seismic change for Israel's future. Yeah, and I think you see an awareness in the public around this. That's why there's such an outpouring of demonstrations. And you see basically everybody that, you know, comprises pieces of the Israeli establishment from former security types to law professors to prominent people signing letters. Current members of the military. Current members of the military.

But the reality is that that hasn't stopped. government. So if this government in the face of all that objection still rams this thing through, you know, you're talking about, you know, pretty uncharted territory where there's no recourse. Like nothing, what can slow down this freight train of an increasingly illiberal, pretty extreme Israeli government, you know? For sure. Two little things I saw in the news. I just want to flag. One, apparently Bibi Netanyahu's son has been sharing articles from far away websites, blaming the State Department for bankrolling these protests. So that's a very, very Putin-like move. Tried and true thing. They did that in the Obama years, too. Yeah. And then I did also just want to

call out one of the most spineless embarrassing statements I've ever seen from members of Congress on this issue, which was a joint statement from Congressman Josh Gottheimer and Congressman Jared Moskowitz, who basically said that Congress shouldn't comment on what's happening in Israel because it could somehow undermine negotiations or a peaceful resolution, like truly embarrassing stuff to come out against, coming out against gutting Israel's democracy. This is part of what used to drive me crazy about any issue related to commenting on Israeli politics and the Israeli government's policies, is that there was a whole school of argument that if we say something, Bibi will be left with no choice, but to become

an undemocratic guy if we criticize his undemocratic actions. But there's a, there's a an insanity to that argument because that has not worked. Like, like, we've tried not criticizing BB at all and he becomes less Democratic. We've tried criticizing him. He becomes less Democratic and says, I'm only doing this because the Americans made me do it. Like, this idea that we all have to just shut our mouths because if we utter any words in criticism of BB, maybe he'll do something we don't like. That makes no sense when he's already doing things that you don't like. I put this in the category of a tiny window to fix it. And it's funny that the Venn diagram, Tommy, of the people that are really worried about the U.S. losing influence in the Middle East and see this great era of the U.S. dominance of the Middle East, those are some of the exact same people that would counsel you to never speak out against anything that Bibi Nanyahu wants to do because, God forbid, you should do that.

And then he might do it, you know, and blame you for it. Yeah, of course. Ben, let's turn to the BBC sports and freedom of speech. So a little background for everybody listening. The British Broadcasting Corporation at BBC, it's the UK's National Broadcast Service. It is the largest, if not one of the largest broadcast networks in the world. It's mostly funded by fees that are set by the government and paid by the British people. One of their biggest shows is called Match of the Day.

It's about soccer. It's hosted by a guy named Gary Leinaker, who was just like a stud pro soccer player in the 80s, who became a broadcast. He is also very progressive, very liberal. One of new British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's foundational policy pillars, I think he put out five pillars. One of them is stop the boats, meaning stop boats of migrants traveling from France to the UK. I think approximately 45,000 migrants made that incredibly dangerous journey, by the way, last year. So Sunak recently went to France. They announced he and Macron announced that the British government was going to pay the French a half a million

pounds to pay for more police, more technology, more, you know, prison structures to prevent migration to the UK. Another big Brexit win there. Gary Leiniker tweeted about this, you know, Tory party video that was released by the Home Secretary about stopping the boats. Linnaker called it beyond awful and later said it was, quote, immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 1930s. Predictably, the Tories, the conservatives, they flipped out in the BBC cave to right-wing pressure and suspended Leiniker for breaking their social media policy. That caused a bunch of other BBC commentators and pundits to walk out in solidarity. There were some Premier League players who said, now we're not

going to do interviews with the BBC because of this. And it created this huge crisis for the BBC, or a row, as David Lemmy might say, Ben. Quite a row, yeah. Yeah, quite a row. Shows couldn't air because they had no host, right? There's like no soccer coverage for a weekend. Labor party leaders trashed Rishi Sunak for this, trashed the BBC. The former BBC Director General accused the BBC of bowing to political pressure. Many people pointed out their wildly inconsistent enforcement of these social media policies. So Tim Davy, the BBC Director General, ultimately caved to this pressure. He announced that Linear will be back on the air. This was just a huge mess for the BBC. Instead of looking nonpartisan, they looked like something far worse, which is that they were bullied

by the conservative government. It also doesn't help that the current BBC chairman, his guy named Richard Sharp. He donated 400,000 pounds to the Tory party, and he helped facilitate a personal loan for Boris Johnson right before Boris recommended him for the job. So, Ben, long term, I worry that this disaster plays into the hands of the Tories, people like Boris Johnson, who want to destroy the BBC because they know fact-based reporting hurts them. Just wondering what you made of this mess and why you think these outlets always, always, always cave to right-wing pressure. I mean, in this case, first of all, you know, Langenker's statement was pretty carefully worded to, not dissimilar from rhetoric in 1930s Germany. I mean, which is, I think, an important

point to be making, you know, he wasn't like, these people are no different than Hitler, you know? Right. He's basically saying, I think, which is an important point that everybody should remember in immigration debates, including people like us, right, that when you dehumanize people in the way you talk about them, you know, that that can lead to dangerous places. That's like a lesson we should take from 1930s Germany. For sure. So I just wanted to make that point. Like they've been, you know, BBC's been a, you know, like a whipping boy for the Tories forever. In the same way that in this country, you know, how Republicans talk about like the New York Times or something, except to the umpteenth degree because of this kind of public dimension of the BBC. Um, what's interesting here is

is in the immediate term, it showed like the limits of the British appetite for culture wars because once the culture wars meant that people couldn't watch match of the day, they're like, come on the air. They're like, fuck, get Lindegro back on the air. You know, like, even if I don't like the boats and want to stop them. We found the pressure points. Yeah, I want to just, I don't want to, I actually want to watch the pregame show, which I have to say is something I admire about British identity. Is there a comparable American, like, studio host, you know, if, is it? If, I don't know, James Brown or Greg Gumbull. I was saying it ain't Tony Romo, right?

Yeah, yeah. It's pretty interesting to me that the depth of passion for Premier League is like they interrupted the match of the day lineup and literally had to do other programming. And you would have thought that the country literally came to a halt. It's like a global story. I say that with admiration. I do think, though, you put your finger on the fact that even though this is a mess and the kind of right-wing heavy-handed tactics and trying to silence. like, you know, broadcasters like Lindegro that have nothing to do with politics on their social media accounts, they kind of overplayed that hand. In the long run, I think a conversation about just

what a mess the BBC is and nobody knows what their standards are and they're embarrassed is bad for the BBC. And so ultimately good for those toys that want to hurt the BBC. So even if in the short run, like Boris Johnson's handpicked guy might have to get forced out and I still think that they're eroding the kind of domestic and global confidence in this institution, the BBC, that, you know, for arguably, has been the most important media enterprise in the world for the better part of the last, you know, 100 years. And, I mean, nerdy world kid. I used to, like, listen to the BBC World Service, you know, because you could hear some guy in Africa and like in Zimbabwe reporting on protests, you know, in the middle of night. I mean, you could learn about it. anything in the world. And now they're just, as they did with Brexit, they're just taking an axe to one of the things that people admire about them. Yeah, as we talked about on a previous episode, like this incredible tool of soft power that the UK has its disposal. They're just chipping away at it. They're taking one by one, like the things that people, like the same people

that are British exceptionalists are like destroying those things that people see as British exceptionalism. It's very peculiar, you know. Also remarkable that the internet and social media just continues to hammer away at traditional media organizations. Like early on, it was like, you know, classified ads go to Craigslist and screw up newspapers. Then it's, you know, Facebook and Twitter, you know, destroying websites when they told them to pivot to video or whatever. Now it's just like social media guidelines, like upending the BBC for a week. It's pretty consistent and remarkable. Okay, Ben, so lots of Ukraine news.

Let's start with some substantive sort of developments I just noted over the week. First, Russia started using these hypersonic missiles to attack targets in Ukraine. I think I've done it before, but they're really doubling down on them now. Last week, Russia fired six hypersonic missiles, which reportedly can go five times the speed of sound, so just unbelievably fast. That is a problem because if you're being targeted, you have far less time to get out of the way, and missile defense systems can't really intercept them, or at least not consistently. I also worry that this is just going to kick up all the arms race freakouts you hear among

defense experts in the U.S. who worry that Russia and China are outpacing us in this technology. The second big thing, though, the New York Times reported that there is new intelligence that suggests pro-Ukrain groups, but not the Ukrainian government, are the ones who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines last year. The Nord Stream pipelines, remember it's that controversial pipeline that sent natural gas from Russia to Germany. It increased Europe's reliant on natural gas.

The U.S. didn't love it, but it got developed over time. The Times reported that intelligence officials have no evidence that President Zelensky or his senior team in Ukraine were aware of or had directed this sabotage effort. But apparently, again, they were sort of like anti-Russian pro-Ukrainian splinter groups or something. The last time we talked about this issue, it was this like thinly sourced report by Seymour Hirsch, who's a legend of journalism. But it was on his substack and he claimed that Joe Biden had ordered the CIA to blow up the Nord Stream. The U.S. denied it. No one has been able to confirm this. I don't think anyone thinks it's true.

So, Ben, like, you know, if you have thoughts in hypersonic missiles, please let rip. I did think this Nord Stream stuff was interesting. Like, I, look, the New York Times has made some prominent mistakes when it comes to, like, intelligence reporting over the years. I still trust them and their process much more than Hirsch. This new explanation certainly makes more sense in the U.S. doing it or the Russians blowing up their own pipeline and then rebuilding it. but I still don't get how a totally independent group can pull off something this sophisticated. I was skeptical that the Ukrainians had the capacity to blow this up. But obviously, it happened. There's been other attacks deep into Russian territory. What did you make of this latest set of

reports? Well, I was glad that people are still reporting on this. I mean, the Seymour's story was clearly, you know, pretty thinly source, as you said. And it's an important question, right? When somebody blows up a major piece of infrastructure and a complex operation in the context of war, it's a little genuine question worth asking who blew that up. Absolutely. And when I read the story, I had the same thought you did, which is, okay, this sounds more plausible than the Seymourst thing. But I don't quite get what is this splinter group that somehow operates without the knowledge

of the Ukrainian leadership? And they have a thousand pounds of explosives and like divers that can put them underwater. And you could sense the U.S. sources in the article going out of their way to try to make clear that like Zelensky didn't order this. And you could understand why they would want to make that point because, you know, it's a pipeline that went to Germany. But at the same time, I'd also kind of be concerned if that then who did. Like if there's no, this is just some, you know, group of people. I mean, and then I'm genuinely curious, is this like anonymous, the hacking group? And, and they just happen to have a lot of good divers and some explosives around. I mean,

it raises a lot of questions to me. I mean, the idea that there are people who support Ukraine, who might have done this on their own without government help, I think is possible and plausible, but who are they? Are they Ukrainian? Are they other Europeans? Like, it's a very, it's an interesting question. And it does matter because we need to know, like, are we moving into a place where there are these kind of these subnational groups that are like a party to this conflict, which we can see, you can see can escalate in different ways. I mean, not the hypersonic thing, but the thing with the U.S. drone today over the Black Sea, yeah, having an accident, something happened with a Russian plane, the Russian jet hit propeller and they had to bring it down. Apparently the Russian jet

also dumped fuel on it and did a bunch of other, you know, dangerous tactics, so those are drones. Yeah, and exactly. And I speak to that because there's a war in Ukraine, but then there's, you know, this pipeline is going through, like, territorial waters to the north of Europe. In the Black Sea, we've got American planes and Russian planes in the air in uncomfortably close contact. The point is that there are these friction points where something could escalate. And so one of the reason why you want to know who blew this up is that, I mean, that could have gone wrong, you know, like that, that, that, that, that, or that could have led to some kind of conflict. So I think it's important to know, uh,

what's making things go blow up? Yeah, the sort of too big unexplained events are who blew up Nordstream and who, you know, placed a bomb in the car outside of Moscow that killed a woman named Maria Dugina, who is the daughter of this, like, virulent nationalist propagandist sort of, you know, like intellectual father to Putin and Putinism in his anti-Ukraine rhetoric. I think that's been in some ways linked to an outside. pro-Ukraine group and not necessarily the government too. I don't know if it's the same group. It's all just very murky. Well, and it also kind of speaks to where things could evolve,

right? So if you want to analogize this in the friendly, you know, and I think an accurate way that is friendly or sympathetic to the Ukrainians, they're basically on the receiving end of a fascistic invasion, like, not like Nazi Germany, there were resistance groups, you know, in occupied countries that undertook acts of violence and sabotage, you know. And so it's possible that, there are non-government-controlled entities that are part of the armed resistance to Russia. But it's important to track that because that could get more acute. If the war becomes a stalemate, you might start to see more of this kind of stuff where, okay, if the front line is frozen, maybe we want to make some more stuff blow up in Russia or we want to target Russians in third

countries. You could see things kind of getting hairy in this direction. Yeah, that's the escalation ladder we've been worried about. The other thing I want to bring up today, which is the Republican, the Republican Party position on Ukraine, seems to be sort of splintering more and more. And I want to just quickly sketch it out. So there's kind of like the nativeist, like dumb, dumb position epitomized by Marjorie Taylor Green who says stuff like, you know, Zelensky wants our sons and daughters to go and die for him, like she said that the CPAC, and she basically just wants to cut off money to Ukraine. There's kind of like the maximalist all-in camp, people like Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence. Pence, I think the other day was saying send them F-16,

You know, kind of do it all. I think Nikki Haley is basically there too. Ron DeSantis is carving kind of a Trumpian new path, which is he released this long statement to Tucker Carlson's show the other day where he says, supporting Ukraine is not our vital national interests. This is a territorial dispute. F-16s and long-range missiles should be off the table. Like Biden is bad. Secure our border first. China is bad. Talk about China. And then there's Trump who says, and has consistently said, the war would never happen if I was there. I'd fix it after a day if I got back into office. But Ben, here's a recent clip of Trump's comments from Sean Hannity's TV show on Fox. Here I ask him why he thinks Vladimir Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if he was president. Take a listen. Let me ask you about

Ukraine. You've said that before. Why would it not have happened if you were president? Putin understood. But you can't do it. You can't do it. Don't forget, under Bush, they take over Georgia. Under Obama, they took over Crimea. And under Biden, they're taking over everything. It looks like they're going to take over everything, the whole thing. They're going to go for the whole enchilada. They're going for everything. That's what it looks like to me. You know, that's not what you hear on the fake news, but that's what it looks like to me. And under Trump, you know what they took over? They took over nothing, Russia. First time, first president. in it did a long time.

They took, he understood it. He would have never done it. He would have never. That's without even negotiating a deal. I could have negotiated. China no longer respects the United States. Now, Ben, what's interesting about that is that was audio that Sean Hannity played on his TV show on Fox.

But it was from originally his radio show. What they edited out when they took the radio show to the TV was the following quote from Trump. At worst, I could have made a deal to take over something. There are certain areas that are Russian-speaking areas, frankly, but you could have worked a deal. So clearly Trump is saying, like, I would have handed over Crimea or the Dombas. But so stepping back, like we got those sort of positions and everyone, there's sort of an establishment Republican freak out now over the Desantis line. What is your sense of which of these is the most potent political position?

And I do think it's worth noting that, like, Trump and DeSantis are very similar here. and they have the combined support of 75% of Republican primary voters currently in the 2024 presidential primary. So first of all, I think it's notable that Ron DeSendis, like who aspires to be president of the United States, makes major foreign policy pronouncements and written statements to Tucker Carlson. I know. An exclusive for Tucker. Not even an interview, like a written statement for Tucker Carlson. So that's peculiar, but it is what it is. And look, a pretty unambiguous statement, to refer to this as a territorial dispute is, that's a huge deviation from U.S. policy, you know, where the congressional Republican majorities have been.

And that's very much the Russian line, that they're disputed territories, there are these Russian speakers in them. And the dissentist thing, he pivots quickly to China. It's kind of like, you know, this isn't really the main event. This is a territorial dispute. We must be dealing with, like, the Chinese common. his party, which DeSantis is a very good indicator of where the Republican zeitgeist is going on a whole bunch of stuff. And clearly when DeSantis is looking at this and sizing up the politics, even though I'm sure he's got a lot of hawkish establishment, you know, rhino types in his ear,

like, he still feels like, you know what? I see where the politics are going on this stuff. People want to talk about China. They're tired of hearing about this. They don't want to put more money into it. And so I think that the problem, and for the people listening to this who are kind of in these debates and thinking about national security on a regular basis, I'm here in Washington, so it's on my brain. Often you take comfort in the fact that so far all these votes have gone through Congress with all this assistance. And Mitch McConnell himself says there's no daylight between him and Biden on this. And we can always find a Mitt Romney to offer up some quote or Mike Pence wants to glare at Vladimir Putin. But the two leaders of the Republican Party, Donald Trump and Ronda Sandis, oppose supporting the Ukrainians now, and kind of downplay it. And I don't know why you would think that that wouldn't impact the next time that the Biden administration is going to have to go to Congress and ask for money. They will have to do that this calendar year. And imagine the House Republicans having to pass like a 50,

$60, $70 billion assistance package, knowing that Donald Trump and Ronda Santos oppose it. And knowing that Kevin McCarthy gets pushed around my Marjorie Taylor Green at this point. Yeah. Yeah. So I think we've been way, like, almost not alarmed enough about, like, whether or not we can even assure that we can get more money for the Ukrainians. I mean, I think at the end of the day, maybe you can procedurally have one of these votes where they don't need the majority of the Republicans or blah, blah, but at a minimum, this will be difficult. I do think in their arguments, you know, Trump's becomes all about himself and DeSantis is kind of the zeitgeisty. This is about China. Yeah. More NATO-based.

Yeah. But I think Trump's argument, the idea that, well, this didn't happen while I was there is actually politically not a bad one. Even if I think we can unpack this and we have. But the short version I'd give is that, yeah, because Putin was waiting for you to pull out of NATO to roll in and take the whole enchilada to use Trump's language. If there had been a second Trump term, that's what he was banking on happening. You know, he never pulled any of the troops out of Ukraine. The war continued under Trump. They just didn't make the advance on Kiev because I think he was waiting to see if you

could win politically with Trump. And that leads to the 2024 election. Putin will be looking at that election potentially as his escape hatch. You know, the Republicans, if Trump or Desandis wins, perhaps he can meet his objectives through American politics. Yeah, I mean, there's an AP poll. that found that support for Ukraine dropped from 60% last May to 48% in February. I mean, I think over time, people are going to hear about the spending.

They're going to worry about the cost. That's understandable. But I agree with you that I do think, got to watch this. The politics are getting dicey. One more sort of meaty story before some quick things, Ben. So two stories out in Mexico I saw. A couple weeks back, we talked about the Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador, or Amlo, as he's called for short.

he was working to gut an organization that was seen as critical to ensuring Mexico has had free and fair elections over the last 30 years or so. So that was worrisome. It had some authoritarian vibes to it. This week, I saw the New York Times reported that the Mexican military spied on human rights advocates and journalists who were investigating them for killing innocent people. This kind of spying has happened in the past. Amlo promised to end this kind of surveillance by the military, but has continued during his administration. It's not clear if he knew it was happening or if he just couldn't stop it, but obviously doesn't absolve him. And then there's this.

Last week, Amlo did an event in Mexico City with our former colleague, Liz Sherwood-Randle, who is now the Homeland Security Advisor for President Biden. Liz was there to discuss the border and the fentanyl crisis. But at this event about fentanyl, Amlo says Mexico doesn't produce fentanyl, nor do they consume it, and then said, quote, why don't they, the U.S., take care of their problem of social decay, and he later claimed the problem was single-parent families and people who put relatives in old-age homes and don't visit them. For the record, the suggestion that Mexico doesn't produce fentanyl is like patently false. The Mexican army constantly puts out press releases and takes credit for seizing fentanyl pills or shutting down drug labs, et cetera, et cetera, which just gets me to my question, Ben, what the hell's going on with this guy? Yeah. I mean, I think

there's always a degree of a vein of kind of populism in Mexico, some of which is kind of like understandable. So for instance, that Mexians would always say, hey, like, our cartel problem is because of your drug demand issue and your guns that then they come up and not unfair. I always said that was like a fair version of a Mexican populist argument. This has taken that to like some other kind of weird level where it's like, you know, so it's like tapping into a vein of of anti-American politics. It's kind of always around that like these drug problems, all these problems are kind of your fault, not ours. And your culture. Yeah, your culture. And we can just kind of end up in the middle of it. But there's like an eccentricity downlow that kind of enters into it as well.

And just that he seems to give kind of almost zero fucks about, you know, who he's going to piss off in the U.S. by statements like that. I mean, and it's also interesting that he seemed to get on better with Trump, you know. And I think that part of that may be not. not necessarily political affinity, like, you know, almost on the left, whereas Trump's on the right. But sometimes, like, strong, weird strong men are just more comfortable with, like, other weird strong men being in power in other places. But it does show this is an incredibly important relationship for migration and a lot of other issues, arguably are most important bilateral relationship in the world. And this guy's, like, not that interested in being, like, a reliable partner, which, you know, that matters. The Republican Party position is like, so not that slowly shifting towards like we should declare the cartels, terrorist groups and take military action against them.

Like literally, some people are saying that in their House Republicans. I don't, I mean, you follow this closely too. I don't really know. We should dive into this fentanyl issue because I don't know the answer to it. You know, you can seize as much as you want, but like there's a demand issue in this country. There's a border issue. There's a supply issue of where it's coming from. And clearly it is something that deeply resonates in American communities because of overdoses that are happening.

I think if anything, this is one of the things that's like another warning sign of like this is an issue that the old playbook of, you know, we try to like whack a mold demand here. You ask the Mexicans to help you apprehend stuff there. And you ask the Chinese to, you know, stop doing whatever they're doing and manufacturing the stuff. Like it seems like that's not working. Yeah. No, Patrick Radden, Keith's book, Empire of Pain. makes the really interesting and important point that fentanyl appeared on the scene

sort of right around the time or shortly after the time that they made changes to the production of oxy cotton and oxycodone to make it harder to snort and then people turn to heroin, they turned to fentanyl, they turned to sort of like street drugs

because suddenly they couldn't, you know, consume oxy the way they were, really kind of grim stuff, but yeah, we should dig into that more. Which, by the way, is a bit of an omelo, it's kind of the point Amlo is making. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a couple things before the interview.

So France is moving to enshrine abortion rights in its constitution. French president Emmanuel Macron said doing so would send, quote, a universal message of solidarity to all women who today see this right violated. This won't happen for several months. He sort of announced it and they're planning to do it in the coming months. So we'll follow that as it comes. But, you know, like obviously great step forward and yet another reminder of how backwards the overturning of Roe versus Wade looks to the entire world.

Another story, Ben, TikTok apparently could be in trouble. The Washington Post reported that a former TikTok whistleblower has been telling members of Congress that the company's plan to protect user data from the Chinese government is deeply flawed and won't work. So you've got to wonder if that will add momentum to this sort of banned TikTok push that we're seeing. That one's coming down the pike one way or another. There's a lot of momentum behind it.

And it's just going to be a tough election cycle decision for the Biden people. because Congress is getting there, you know. Yeah, I think they're getting there. And I think Biden recently gave Congress or asked them to do more to manage this. Axios reported on the fact that a number of major retailers are dropping certain Thai suppliers of coconut milk because of allegations that the coconuts are being picked by monkey slave labor. This is like a really awful story. These monkeys are often stolen.

They're chained up. They're forced to work and they're beaten. So if you're out there and you like coconut milk, don't buy it from Thailand because that's apparently the only place this is happening. Monkey forced labor. What the fuck? I mean, come on. Like, I mean, the monkeys have taken enough shit from us, you know, to not have to do with our fucking coconut milk issue. Yeah, that's not that good. Yeah. So, last little thing, or one more, two more things. So sad news for former president, uh, Jaira Bolsonaro, Ben, who I saw had to turn over to the Brazilian government, the current government,

jewels, a watch, and other luxury items that had been given to him by the Saudi government. So it's very sad. Just in continuing his like complete mirroring of Trump in every minute. Soon there'll be a scandal that Bolsonaro has like classified documents in his basement in Orlando. Like this guy seems to do literally all the exact same things that Trump did. No doubt. And then lastly, last month the judge in Quebec ruled that Canadians have the God-given right to give each other the middle finger. Here's the full quote.

Flipping the proverbial bird is a God-given charter enshrined right that belongs to every red-blooded Canadian. It may not be civil. It may not be polite. It may not be gentlemanly. Nevertheless, it does not trigger criminal liability. The backstory here is a guy named Neil Epstein. Was arrested outside of his home near Montreal after giving an annoying neighbor the doublebird.

And this lame neighbor called the cops said he'd been threatened. He got arrested. The judge ruled otherwise. So, you know, a huge loss here for the civility police was my takeaway. I mean, the double bird is every person's right. A double bird really feels different, too, than the single. Yeah, it's, it's, you're really conveying something. I mean, that's like, I used to have a guy when I was a pretty young kid.

I remember there's this one guy who used to love to like, he'd hold up the finger and he'd yell all the way to California. What was that me? I don't know. We lived in New York. and I didn't, he always did this and I, I never quite, I liked it though. I was, you know, that's kind of a verbal way of the double bird. But I'm just some dudes harassing you on the street corner?

I don't know. No, it's just a good thing this guy did. But like I feel like the middle finger used to be like a little bit more of a thing now. I mean, talking about like the coarsening of society. Like giving people the bird doesn't feel like as big a deal anymore. Maybe, I guess Canada needed to establish this. I mean, they're pretty polite up there. So maybe there's bigger taboo. Yeah, no, we used to give the bird.

Now we, like, docks people and, like, swat their houses. Well, that's, yeah. I mean, I remember, like, in school, there was always that, like, the clever move when you're in, like, fifth grade was to, like, scratch your nose in a way they gave someone the bird, you know, like one of those things. I'm glad that some judge in Canada would find that that's fine, you know. But, yeah, at this point, we're basically threatening to kill each other online every day. So it's, you know, things have gotten worse. Okay, we're going to take a quick break.

And we come back. You'll hear my interview with Nazaninash. She's the CEO of welcome. U.S. They're doing amazing stuff to welcome refugees to the United States. So stick around for that because there are ways that you can help. I'm so excited to welcome onto the show, Nazaninash, the CEO of Welcome.U.S., which is an incredible service connecting refugees with U.S. sponsors. Welcome to show. It's great to meet you. Thanks so much, Tommy. It's amazing to be here with you and this incredible community of Worldo's that you and Ben have nurtured. Thank you for having me. Well, thank you. I think these are people who are actually going to be very excited about this whole idea. So can you just start with telling us like what does Welcome.us do and just maybe

talk a little bit about the history of private citizens in the United States helping refugees get resettled? I'd be so happy to do that. I think the story is so, inspiring. So welcome.us mobilizes and empowers Americans to sponsor refugees to come to the United States and help them prepare to resettle them in their new communities and make their contributions to their new country. And, you know, as you're talking about, this practice is actually deeply rooted in our history. It's how we used to welcome refugees. And it was done by individuals and community organizations and churches all across the country. And it was a system that was only formalized as a government system in 1980. So in many ways, what is proving to be a revolutionary

breakthrough in how we address the global displacement crisis harkens back to the way we used to do things, the way our communities used to step up to help welcome newcomers. So when a four an applicant finds you, what's the process like for them? And similarly, if someone's listening and they think, okay, I'd like to host a refugee from fill in the blank country, what would they do to get involved? Right. So the easiest thing to do is go to our website, which is welcome.us. We try and keep it simple. And that's where you can find the tools you need to learn about the sponsorship process, to learn about the different sponsorship programs the Biden administration has made available and to find some of the tools and training that can help you

prepare for sponsorship. It's also where you can get connected to refugees who have registered on our platform. And these are people who are eligible for the sponsorship pathways that the Biden administration has made possible, but need to connect with the U.S. sponsor in order to come to United States. And that's an amazing story by itself. because the platform we use, it's called Welcome Connect. It was built by a Ukrainian-American refugee and a Russian-American refugee who were themselves resettled to the United States in the 1990s. They know what an incredible opportunity it is, what a vital lifeline it is,

and they were so eager to help us help Americans connect with the refugees who needed sponsors and to do it in a way that was. safe and that was protected and that equipped both sponsors and refugees to to know what they were getting into and be prepared for really successful experiences. So I know before this, you worked at the State Department, you worked at USAID, you are no stranger to the sprawling, at times infuriating, at times cruel bureaucracy that the U.S. government can be at its worst and at its best can be great. How do you guys work with all the various agencies in the U.S. government that are also working with or supporting refugees?

It seems like you've figured out how to streamline a process that can be unbelievably slow and onerous for the government. Yeah, it's such a good point, Tommy. And I do think that what we're finding here is a breakthrough solution for what governments have really struggled with and not just the United States. but, you know, governments around the world. You know, as you mentioned, I was really privileged to work at the State Department and at USAID and at the International Rescue Committee. You know, I've had the opportunity to work in what I would consider the best of our humanitarian system. And it offered a really close up view to both, you know, the, you know, the strength of those

systems, but also they're very serious limitations. We consider the global refugee crisis. This is a crisis that now affects 100 million people. If it were a country, it would be the 14th largest. You know, that number has tripled over the last three decades. And our government systems and our government bureaucracies have not been able to keep up. You know, average refugee admissions over the last three decades has remained at 70,000 a year, even as global displacement has tripled over that same time. What we're finding in tapping into the generosity and compassion of American communities is a national capacity and willingness to welcome many more. To your point, it relied on the Biden administration, you know, seizing really innovative solutions, you know, and a

What you will know from your own government experience is that a crisis can often create that opportunity for innovating. So we were stood up when Kabul fell and the U.S. evacuated 80,000 Afghan refugees who needed to be resettled on a government system that in the previous year had welcomed just 11,000. So it was a huge challenge. And we entered into a partnership with the United States government to mobilize Americans to help. And what was really extraordinary was just how many Americans responded. You know, these sponsorship programs have been available for over a year now. They've expanded steadily, first from Afghans and then to Ukrainians and now to refugees globally. and over 250,000 Americans have submitted applications to sponsor over the last year.

That's more than the U.S. government was able to resettle through its government systems in the last five years combined. Wow, that is an incredible number. So, I mean, I bet there's some people thinking that's a beautiful idea. I'd love to donate. but boy, you know, no one knows when the war in Ukraine is going to end. Like, what does that mean for me if I resettle Ukrainian refugee? How do I know how long the process is?

Like, what will this be? Like, can you just give us some examples of, I don't know, who is actually taking people in, what the experience has been, like how it's going? Yes. It's such a great question because I think your world does will be inspired to hear that it's Americans of every stripe, every type. So, you know, we have sponsors in Alaska, in Seattle, in Hawaii, in Alabama, and Missouri, in South Carolina, in Florida, right? So it's nationwide, literally every state.

We have sponsors who have young children and who have sponsored their doppelgangers, people with kids the same age. We have veterans who have stepped in because they know what these humanitarian crises look like. deeply inspired to help refugees come to safety. We have retirees who are finding that they love the sound of children running around the house again. You know, I had a retired sponsor, you know, a retiree who is sponsoring share with me that it was so incredible to see small kids playing on the playset in the backyard that his kids used to use. You know, what we often say about sponsorship is that it's an opportunity to change a life, including your own.

And that's what we're seeing from, you know, the sponsors we talk to every day all across the country. I know that for a lot of Afghans who are trying to get out of the country and go through the sort of bureaucracy of the United States put in front of them, it was incredibly frustrating process. A lot of these individuals had helped the United States military or intelligence community or state department in some way. And then we're asked to provide records of that service, which, you know, in some cases they'd had to burn because they feared the Taliban would find that information and then harm them. So it seemed like there was really this

on onerous focus on vetting of individuals who didn't have a lot of stuff to vet, right? Now, on the one hand, I think that's unfair and ridiculous, but I also know the politics of these kinds of things, because if there's one incident that is kind of lurid and something bad happens with a refugee, it can set back your entire effort because that anecdote will burn bright in people's minds and the 200,000 cases that went well will not. So what kind of things are you doing to help ensure that, you know, these, the placements are safe and everyone feels secure and, et cetera? So everyone who comes to the United States through a sponsorship pathway is still vetted and undergo security and background checks by the U.S. government.

So that doesn't change. We want refugees to be safe. We want sponsors to be safe. And the U.S. government continues to conduct those security and background checks. The way sponsorship works through Welcome. U.S. is you connect with a refugee in need of sponsorship. and then you do a government application that's reviewed and approved, and there are security and background checks on both sides because sponsors are vetted too.

So the government still plays that role, and it's a vital role. What we're finding, though, is that, you know, again, by bringing Americans into the work, by providing the opportunity for Americans to serve as sponsors, we are extending so much more than our government systems, right? It is right for government to play that role on security and background checks. But it turns out that there's a whole host of capacity to tap into when you get to the part of the process that's about welcoming newcomers and helping them resettle and rebuild their lives. That's something our communities can do. And, you know, the breakthrough innovations that the administration has introduced means, again, that we're finding the capacity and

the willingness and the commitment to welcome many more. And that's critical when we're facing the kind of refugee crises we're facing globally. These are trendlines that aren't going away, as you know well. Yeah, I mean, to your point, it does feel like every year there's another kind of acute regional refugee crisis. There's the war in Afghanistan. There are Syrian refugees. There were violence in Northern Triangle countries that led to outflows. There's Venezuela, Cuba, right? That doesn't even count the kind of looming challenge of the future where climate change leads to a bunch of climate refugees. No one country, no one nonprofit or corporation will be able to deal with all of this. What kind of global coordination do you think needs to happen to manage refugee flows

in a way that is fair and equitable and actually helps people? This is such a vital question. You know, you have. had, you know, my old boss, David Miliband on the show a couple weeks ago. And what, you know, the International Rescue Committee and all of my colleagues in the humanitarian system, you know, what we all internalized deeply is that we're in the midst of a global refugee crisis that's not going away. It's driven by protracted conflicts within states. And it's driven by, you know, a natural disaster that isn't going away. That's climate change, right?

And the interplay between the two. And that butts up against a humanitarian system, an international humanitarian system that was built for short-term conflicts between states and for short-term natural disasters. It was built for a scenario where refugees would be temporarily displaced and then be able to go home.

The facts of 107. today are that less than 3% of refugees go home. Less than 1% have the opportunity to be resettled. And as we've talked about, there's a hundred million currently displaced. And I think if you're watching the news, you're thinking that it's countries like the United States or are European allies who are being, you know, overrun by refugees and migrants who are seeking safety. seeking opportunity in their countries. But the reality is that the vast majority of these refugees are hosted in low and middle income nations. There are 10 countries with a collective GDP of 2.5% that host over half of the world's refugees.

What that means for those refugees is that they're living their lives in limbo. They can't work legally. They can't send their kids to school. send their kids to school. They often can't move freely. They're not able to express their human potential. So we do need global solutions that tap into capacity that's far more than our government systems can do alone

to create more opportunities for refugees to be able to make their contributions in their new host nations and live out their potential. To me, that's about the US government, and other wealthy nations providing more humanitarian assistance. It's also about doing more resettlement, sharing that responsibility with those low and middle income countries to take more refugees and help them rebuild their lives, right? Let's come into this with the mindset that refugees aren't going back because they're not.

And so we need a humanitarian system that recognizes that this is now a problem of generational displacement and people need permanent solutions. That means the right to work and send their kids to school in host nations. And that means, you know, wealthy nations stepping up with more aid to support host nations to do that, but also more opportunities to take more refugees and resettle them in wealthy countries. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people probably think the U.S. is shouldering a lot of the burden when we announce, you know, a cap of, say, 100,000 refugees that, by the way, we don't even come close to meeting. But if you really look at the list of countries that are taking a ton of people, it's Turkey, Pakistan, Uganda.

Jordan, you know, these are the countries. And they, again, they're struggling to provide for the needs of their own citizens. And so we need to do more to help them. But we need to ask those countries as we're doing more to help them. We need to ask them to give refugees the opportunities to really rebuild their lives there and not just live in limbo. in camps. And then we also need to shoulder more of that responsibility and give more refugees the opportunity to rebuild their lives in the U.S. and other wealthy nations. I will tell you, like this community sponsorship idea is not unique to the United States. I mean, you look at a

country like the UK, and, you know, last year, they admitted only 7,000 refugees through their government systems. But when they went to their citizens and asked them if they would be willing to sponsor Ukrainians, 150,000 people ended up hosting Ukrainians. And they just completed a poll of people who had sponsored. And almost 90% of them said they'd do it again. Wow. On to something by bringing communities into the work. It's going to give us the capacity and change the political dynamics around welcoming newcomers, right? What citizens are demonstrating is that they are far ahead of their governments and their willingness and their capacity to welcome refugees.

Yeah, it's a great reminder that the actual conversation being had by human beings and communities about refugees does not treat it like a pejorative term and are actually welcoming, unlike in our political debates. The one sort of caveat to that, I will say is a lot of people in the U.S. and a lot of people internationally, I think, have noticed how mostly white, mostly Christian refugees from Ukraine are treated as compared to black, brown refugees, many Muslim refugees from Afghanistan, Syria, Africa, other places. What do you think the U.S. or other sort of key stakeholders here can do to try to make the refugee processing equal or at least colorblind and, you know, not focus on religious?

So I think what I would want to offer in response to that is given the opportunity, Americans will sponsor people from any background race religion. And that begins with the fact that we are an America of diaspora communities. Right. So think about the opportunity for Haitians to sponsor. their friends and family through the sponsorship pathways that the U.S. government has now made available or Venezuelans or Nicaraguans. You know, the first people to sponsor Ukrainians were the Ukrainian diaspora here in the United States. So one aspect of what sponsorship makes possible is for our vibrant diaspora communities, our American diaspora communities, to participate pay in sponsoring refugees from around the world with respect to affinities that they carry.

The other thing I would say is that for sponsors from every corner of the country, you know, when we first started sponsorship programs for Afghans and for Ukrainians, because those were the first sponsorship pathways the U.S. government announced, we heard from so many sponsors who were asking whether they could sponsor refugees from, you know, countries that have been in crisis for a long time, whether they could sponsor, you know, migrants that were, you know, that were seeking safety at the U.S. border. So part of what I want to express is, like, there's a lid for every pot. And the more expansive we make these sponsorship programs, the more equitable the opportunity will be. because we are an amazing American tapestry, and our hearts are big and our capacities.

We haven't found the limits of them yet. Well, I love that. I think that's a great place to end it. The website is welcome.us. Check it out. See if you want to sponsor someone. Can people contribute financially if they can't sponsor someone? Absolutely.

So if you go to welcome. You will find ways to sponsor and you will find, you know, the training and information you need to do it well. But if sponsorship isn't right for you, you'll also find ways to donate to our welcome fund where we provide support to community organizations that are assisting sponsors. You can find ways to donate household supplies and essentials to refugees who need them. If you're a small business, you can find out how to help local organizations. in your community, you'll find so many different ways to help. I love that. I love it. And I think this audience will love it too. Nazni, thank you so much for joining the show and for all the work you're doing and keep it up

and come back, you know, next year when you guys have doubled that number. So we can brag about it. We'll be so excited to do that. Thanks so much. All right. Thank you. Thanks again to Nazanee for joining the show. Ben. So are you going to see Lamie tonight or just tomorrow? Yeah, yeah, tonight. And, you know, know, we'll probably throw on a couple drinks on this trip. I was going to say, get him good and hungover for any government meetings. Yeah, well, we'll be making the rounds. I'd like to see some of our former colleagues and friends.

But, yeah, DC's, you know, cold the same. But it's good to be here every now and then. Yeah, well, glad you're here. We'll welcome you back. Don't worry, it's raining here, too. It's kind of just nasty. So you're not missing anything. Well, it's nicer here.

It's crazy. I mean, like, you have to leave L.A. to get to better weather. What's going on? Come on. Stop raining. All right, guys. We'll talk to you next week. Potsave the World is a crooked media production. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor, Ben Rhodes, and Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Muse.

Our associate producer is Ashley Mazua. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick, Kyle Seaglin, Charlotte Landis, and Vesilius are our sound engineers. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, D.B. Bradford, and Milo Kim, who upload our episodes and videos to YouTube every week. and check out the Potsave the World YouTube account. Thanks to Saul Rubin for production support.