Pod Save the World - Dunking on Erdogan with Enes Kanter

Episode Date: August 14, 2019

Police crack down as protests escalate to new heights in Hong Kong. An explosion involving a nuclear reactor in Russia kills at least a half dozen people.  Boris Johnson tries to negotiate a U.S.-U.K. trade deal ahead of Britain’s exit from the European Union. A scary report in the New York Times sheds light on what’s driving the spread of right wing extremism around the globe. And Ben Rhodes shares the story behind his recent reporting for The Atlantic on Aung San Suu Kyi. Then Enes Kanter, a professional basketball player for the Boston Celtics, joins Ben in the studio to talk about human rights and the politics of his home country, Turkey - and why President Recep Tayyip Erdogan put out a warrant for his arrest and banned him from coming home. 

Welcome back to Pots Save the World. This is Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes in studio. Ben, I'm sad that I'm not with you in studio, but I literally just came from the Iowa State Fair and went directly to a different studio here in Des Moines, so I'm a little disgusting, but I'm having a good time. Yeah, and we've flipped rolls here. Do you get a pork chop on a stick or anything like that? So I spent the last couple hours watching Mayor Pete, so he spoke, and then he did a gaggle, and like this world-to's heart is full right now because he was asked about the Golan Heights. He was asked about Kashmir. I think he was asked about how the U.S.

should be supporting protesters in Hong Kong. So it was a very foreign policy-focused gaggle for Mayor Pete at the state fair. And then I walked around and followed him, talked to him briefly, and I ate a monster pork chop on a stick on the way out. So I feel great. But we got a packed show for you. We're going to talk about the latest on the protest movement in Hong Kong. We're going to talk about this strange, massive explosion in Russia. There's a Brexit update. We are going to fill you all in on the global right-wing radicalization machine. Some Trump policy updates. Ben, I want to talk a lot about your amazing Burma piece that was in the Atlantic that everyone

should give a read to. And then you have a huge guest for the world today. Can you talk about that for a minute? Yeah, no, I sat down yesterday with Ennis Cantor, the next center for the Boston Celtics, who is, among other things, also an outspoken critic of the Erdogan. government in Turkey, which revoked his passport, detained him briefly in Europe. He tells me that story and how frightening that was to feel essentially stateless. And, you know, why it is that the Turkish government won't let the Turkish people watch even NBA playoff games if Cantor's in

them. So it was a fascinating window. Yeah, they wouldn't air the Western Conference finals in Turkey because Cantor was playing. And, you know, it's a good window into just, you know, we've talked about turkey on this, but just how far reaching these kind of authoritarian grievances can go. Yeah, seriously. Talk about strong man acting weak there, Erdogan. That's pretty pathetic. Let's people watch hoops, man. Okay, well, if you want to see lots of fun pictures and videos from Iowa, check on my Instagram at Tommy Vitor. But without further ado, let's talk foreign policy. So this protest movement that we've talked about for several weeks in Hong Kong is escalating. The protesters have again been shutting down the airport. The police are cracking down harder

and harder. I saw some reports that they actually tear gassed the subways, which is just an insane thing to do. Like, I don't know how you're supposed to get the tear gas out of the subways. And then also worrisome is that the demands on each side seem to be increasing as opposed to narrowing through some sort of negotiated process. So I don't know how these things end. I mean, as we've told you before, they started over this extradition bill that many activists feared would have sucked them into the Chinese judicial system. But now we're talking about demands for new elections, which is almost certainly a non-starter for the Chinese. The Chinese military has started conducting military exercises nearby,

which has increased speculation, concern about a potential military crackdown. And, you know, let's call for what it would be at a Tiananmen Square 2.0. So, Ben, I'm curious what you think about the trajectory of these protests generally. And then what role, if any, you think the U.S. government should be playing here to mediate? Yeah, well, I think, you know, we've reached the boiling point. And we've talked about this, but the Chinese, for some weeks now, have been kind of laying the predicate for some form of crackdown by casting the protesters as violent, provoking them sometimes with kind of thugs who pick fights into violence, beginning to use language,

suggesting that they're terrorists. And then you saw in the recent days in China state media, clearly an effort to intimidate scare the protesters. You saw in some Chinese state-run media these images of Chinese military exercises nearby. the prospect potentially of the Chinese military moving into Hong Kong, which would be, you know, really uncharted territory in a province that was supposed to have some, you know, autonomy and some self-government. And, you know, now I think the protesters are seeing this and thinking, if we succumb to this pressure, if we just go back home, you know, they're just going to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze, which is what's happened in past protest movements in Hong Kong.

And so instead of pulling back, they are escrow. because they see this is their chance. They're mobilized. They had the world's attention. Going to the airport to shut it down for two days in a row, I think, as a way of the protesters indicating we can grind the economy of this incredibly important global financial center to a halt if we choose to. And also a way to get the attention of the world because, you know, it's an airport. You've got, you know, foreigners passing through there. You've got a lot of people, myself included, have been there many times. And so we really are kind of at this inflection point, I think the U.S. should be on the side of the protesters, on the side of democracy and human rights. That should certainly be reflected in public statements by the president and the

Secretary of State, and we're not hearing those statements. I think as this escalates, if this escalates, we would be trying to get other countries to join with us in condemning any violence against these protesters, European allies, Asian allies, raising this issue at the United Nations, and kind of sending a message to the many Western companies that have headquarters at Hong Kong or regional offices in Hong Kong that do you want to be essentially a party to this kind of strangling of Hong Kong's remaining freedoms? And, you know, I'm not suggesting it would be easy. And the Chinese obviously hold a lot of cards here.

But there's a time when you're supposed to be on the right side of these issues and this is one of them. Yeah. So, I mean, one notable development, as long as we're talking about the U.S. is that Chinese authorities now seem to be blaming the United States for this protest movement. Chinese state TV singled out a specific diplomat who I'm not going to name as some sort of secret source driving the protest movement in an effort to create a color revolution in Hong Kong. Communist-run newspaper also published a photo of a guy. They fingered as the foreign commander of the protest, but he turned out to be an editor at the New York Times.

So the finger-pointing is typical. It's what you see from authoritarian governments constantly. but it would be almost comically inept except for the fact that they are essentially criminalizing the job of being a diplomat and having conversations with opposition candidates and civil society. And they're also endangering journalists when they point the finger like this. It is also absurd to blame the U.S. for these protests when Trump has essentially signaled that he doesn't give a shit about the protesters. So I'm not sure that this blame game is going to work here. Yeah, you know, first of all, shouldn't be surprising. The Chinese often blame the West, blame the U.S. for everything, particularly in the U.

any internal unrest. And it reminds me of the debates we have about domestic politics where it's like the Republicans are going to call you socialist anyway, so you should speak up for what you believe. Yeah, right. The Chinese are going to blame us anyway. We should speak up for what we believe. We're not getting points here for Trump, well, not even not speaking up, but kind of saying that the Chinese have shown restraint and today saying you hopes it works out well for everybody, including China and China's only people, only entity he referenced in that statement. You know, I also think though, like we, right now we're in an authoritarian trend. We've talked about this on this podcast, but just in the last couple of weeks, you know, you've got India taking direct control over

Kashmir, you've got Russia cracking down in protest, you've got Hong Kong now being faced with the crackdown. And, you know, the U.S. is absent from all these developments and people are standing up for their freedom and their rights all over the world. And I think we also make a mistake in assuming that inevitably these authoritarian governments are going to win. I don't think in any way we should think that's inevitable. And frankly, you know, the Chinese have a lot of vulnerabilities right now. They don't look like they are in a particular position of strength with the people of Hong Kong who seem to overwhelmingly support these protests. And so, you know, I think this is a time for us to be standing up for what we believe in, just like Xi Jinping and

Narenda Modi and Vladimir Putin have made it very clear what they believe in. And I know Trump won't do it, but it's good to see a bunch of the candidates I saw Warren, Buttigieg, Beto speaking up for this. Yeah. So, Ben, I noticed this morning that the Trump administration had backpedaled and delayed some of the new tariffs that they had announced were going to go in place in September. They pushed them until, I think, mid-December, presumably because somebody woke up and realized they'd be screwing over U.S. consumers trying to buy electronics or phones or whatever during the holiday season. But generally speaking, I mean, do you think that this tariff fight, makes the what we do or say conversation about Hong Kong more or less complicated. Does it give us leverage? Like, how do you think it plays here? I actually think the honest truth from my perspective, at least, is that it kind of bizarrely emboldens China because China has been increasingly in this

hostile and adversarial position towards the United States as the trade wars escalated. A lot of nationalism in their media, a lot of anti-U.S. rhetoric in their media. and kind of a mentality that, you know, we're circling the wagons here and fuck you, Donald Trump, we're going to do what we want here. And so they may be flexing their muscles in a way in Hong Kong as part of this kind of nationalist fever that they've been whipping up in the country. So to me, one of the things that's also clear is that, you know, Trump could care less about these protests. He cares about his trade war. People don't know where that trade war is ending. you know, secondary effect of that trade war may actually be, again, it's kind of stirring the pot, this nationalist pot in China that's manifest now in Hong Kong and, you know, keep your eye on Taiwan,

you know, because we don't know where this is going. And it is, you know, that may sound somewhat alarmist, but the reality is if you look at history, you know, trade wars often lead to other kinds of conflicts, you know, that's not like a novel notion. And so we may be kind of seeing this thickening divide between China and the Western world. And, you know, Hong Kong is the place that used to be the bridge between China and the Western world. And they're, you know, literally trying to take an eraser and wipe that out before our eyes. Yeah. I do not think this story is going away anytime soon. So we will keep watching it here. Okay, let's turn to Russia for a minute because some of you might have seen this video that was on the internet of a massive explosion in northern

Russia. It's really pretty scary. You can see like the shockwave go out and sort of spread and it is wild. So these nuclear experts have examined this and they now think that the Russians were testing a nuclear powered cruise missile when something went very wrong. We've actually talked about this missile on the show before. Putin rolled it back at this preft conference back in the day where you had like some janky digital video that was like a cartoon that purported to be this thing. But NATO calls the missile the SSX-9 skyfall. And here's the concept and why it matters. So a cruise missile is different than a traditional long-range ballistic missile. A ballistic missile gets launched way up in the air.

Sometimes it goes into orbit, and then it uses gravity to fall onto its target. So it has sort of a predictable flight path. A cruise missile is basically like a rocket or a jet airplane with a warhead on it. You can guide it to its target at a low altitude, at high speed. It can maneuver and it can ultimately hit a very precise target. So all of our missile defense systems are designed to take out these ballistic missile system, the big lofty ones that go up into the sky to the extent that they work at all. we don't really know. But let's say you had a nuclear-powered cruise missile, it would have essentially

unlimited range, and it could evade any existing missile defense system there is and take out basically any target on the planet. So it would be a big deal of destabilizing technology. But it's worth noting that U.S. experts don't believe that that technology works. A bunch of them have pointed out that the U.S. tried and failed to develop this kind of tech back in the day, and it just wasn't feasible. So who knows, we're not nuclear experts. But at a minimum, it appears that the Russians haven't figured out this technology yet apparently radiation levels in a nearby city spiked and people were told to take iodine tablets to reduce the impact so that's scary so ben i guess there's two pieces of this i mean first we know at least seven people are dead so let's all hope that this isn't chernoble

two point oh and the russian government is just lying to their citizens but second it's probably reminder that we should be updating and improving our arms control treaties and not killing them off and walking away from them like trump and john bolton are right now yeah and this is the kind of weapon that you would want to be covering and your arms control agreements. And yeah, I think the takeaway I have is one, this highlights if you're systematically dismantling any arms control agreements and treaties, you know, it's fair game. You're basically given Putin carte blanche to do whatever you wants. I think this also shows that, you know, you mix nuclear power with weapons, bad things can happen, even if there's not a nuclear war. I just watched that.

Chernobyl show, and it's pretty jarring to see how close we came to an even more catastrophic disaster there. People's lives were lost in this explosion. Thus far, we have reports of several people who died from this explosion. It shows you the danger, I think, of going this route. And also the nuclear arms race that could ensue. If essentially suddenly everybody needs their own nuclear cruise missiles, then that's a whole new ballgame for the U.S. and Russia and China that should be worrying. The other thing I take from this, though, Tommy, as I was saying about China, you know, Putin's given this aura of invincibility, you know, in recent years, you know, be meddled in our election, you know, seized Crimea. But underneath the hood, things might not be as good as you think in Russia.

You know, this test failing. I saw a survey last week, Gallup did a survey that showed one out of five Russians want to leave the country, and that includes 44% of young Russians. Wow. Want to leave the country. We, of course, saw the approach. protests that we talked to Julia Yaffe about. So, you know, keep an eye on this, how, you know, luck may be running out for Putin here because, you know, there are a number of warning signs recently that not everything may be as, you know, polished as it looks on the outside here in terms of the internal dynamic in Russia. Yeah, agreed. Okay, let's do a couple of Brexit updates. So if Washington

felt a little extra Trumpy last week, it was because Boris Johnson was in town to drum up support for a U.S.-UK trade deal that he wants to have in place immediately after the U.K. leaves the EU. Britain is supposed to leave the EU by October 31st. And so, you know, Boris desperately and understandably wants something to help soften the political and economic blow. We're a big trading partner with the UK, not nearly as big as their trade relationship with the EU, but it's so pretty significant.

It remains to be seen if Trump is going to do Boris a solid or if he'll try to use this negotiation as a way to get U.S. businesses access to more British markets. markets to their health care system, a bunch of frankly sacred cows for the Brits. But the good news for Boris is that Trump's national security advisor, John Bolton, was just in London. He apparently was there to reassure the UK that the U.S. supports their exit from the EU, whether or not they cut a deal with the EU. So we're apparently now on the record in support of a hard Brexit. So Ben, like, I don't get this. I guess the play here is for Bolton to give Boris Johnson more leverage in his negotiation with the EU.

over the terms of their departure, but it was an odd thing to wake up and read, given how destabilizing a hard Brexit could be for the global economy. Yeah, it's nothing in U.S. interests that is advanced by a hard Brexit. It could be destabilizing to the global economy, to Europe, to the United Kingdom itself, because you could see independence reemerge in places like Scotland and Northern Ireland. You know, I take it as another one of these things where, like, the politics, it's like we're going to own the libs here by embracing like a no deal Brexit, when in fact, to break down the pieces that you said, one, there's just no way the EU is going to say, oh, John Bolton made a nice set of

promises to Boris Johnson, so we're going to make all these concessions. The EU has kind of drawn their line that they're not going to go past. And frankly, why would they want to be doing favors for Boris Johnson, or why would they want to, you know, be responding to attempted pressure by John Bolton, who he himself and the guy he works for regularly disparage the leaders of the European Union, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, chief among them. So that's not going to work. Second, this idea of a trade deal, Donald Trump, the guy who's against free trade everywhere, is going to suddenly cook up a sweetheart free trade deal for the Brits. Like nothing about him or his team suggests even the capacity, let alone the interest to do that. It's also very complicated because

what will the British economy look like when it leaves the EU? It's so tied up with the European Union that it's not like they can leave in the next day, just have a free trade agreement with the U.S. So this would take time. It would take time to be negotiated. It would take time to see what the fall it is from Brexit. It would certainly even if it was negotiated, I'd have to get through the U.S. Congress. So the idea that there's some quick light switch that can be flipped that can make whole what the Brits are losing in Europe with a free trade deal with the U.S. is just not true. It's another lie, just like all the other lies that Boris Johnson's put forward. And Shadad, again, as you said, we can't make them hold. They're overwhelmingly much more, you know, have been oriented towards Europe in terms of their economy in terms of an export market.

So, you know, Boris is trying to find political cover for the damage that will be done through no-deal Brexit. He wants a talking point where we can say, well, we'll have this free trade deal with the Americans. But, I mean, like there's a lot more work that needs to be done before anything like that is actually real. In the meantime, there'll be awful consequences from that no-deal Brexit. Yeah, agreed. Okay, let's take a quick break and we come back. We are going to talk about the machine that is pushing far-right nationalism around the globe. All right, Ben, so the far-right nationalist movement has gone globalist seemingly. So over the weekend, Joe Becker, who is a heavy hitter, investigative reporter at the New York Times, published this amazing piece about the forces behind

resurgent nationalist movements like around the globe. And she really focused on Sweden for this piece in the neo- neo-Nazi Sweden Democrats Party. Many people might remember Trump's odd tweet from February of 2017 when he was talking about how he just couldn't believe what happened in Sweden last night. And then everyone in Sweden was like, what the fuck are you talking about? And so his source, obviously, was a Fox News segment that was excerpting a right-wing film that made up these weird claims of like no-go zones and violence in Sweden that just didn't exist.

Well, the Times found that two days after that Trump tweet, a Russian TV, crew showed up in that same neighborhood and they were offering to pay immigrant kids to make trouble in front of the cameras. They were hoping to make Trump's tweet come true. So it's part of a pattern in this report where Russian or Ukrainian entities have pumped money and web traffic to these far-eye publications in an effort to drive up fear of immigrants. It's great that the Times exposed this effort for what it is, but it's frightening that it seems to have worked. And anti-immigrant sentiment has increased along with some support for some of these far-right parties. So, Ben, I don't really know how you deal with this. I mean, hopefully the Swedes are more universally offended by Russian interference

in their elections and their affairs than Americans are and actually reject these clowns. But it was a pretty unbelievable story. Yeah, and it shows all the different connections that support the authoritarian playbook. So you've got the indigenous, relatively small group of extremists inspired by anti-immigrant and in some cases Nazi ideology that are kind of on the margins. Then they take advantage of these technologies, social media, the internet to propagate all their hate. Then the Russians come in behind that and try to give it as much life as they can. I'll talk about that in second. And then you got Donald Trump, literally the most powerful office in the world, suddenly is elevating some of the same conspiracy theories or theories about immigrants that were once on the margins

of Swedish society. And then all these things coalesce to make this movement, you know, a snowball rolling down a hill that is getting bigger, you know? And to take the different pieces, the internet one is important, and there may be a solution to this. But essentially, what's interesting, if you look at this piece, you have all these far-right forums and websites with, you know, hate speech and conspiracy theory articles. And what happens is because the articles are in Swedish, what was interesting to see in the Times analysis is most or at least a significant amount of the web traffic coming to these links, was coming from outside of Sweden.

So other people who probably don't read Swedish are clicking on these links so that Google, the algorithm will think, oh, these are the popular stories. If you Google immigrants or you Google crime, this is what comes up. We saw this. I'll give you an example of when I was in government,

when MH17, the flight that took off from the Netherlands, was shot down over Ukraine. So a plane full of civilians is shot down over Ukraine. clearly it was shot down from an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists. So either Russia or the separatists that they back shot down this plane. What the Russians did is they created a whole bunch of fake news saying the Ukrainian shot down the plane or it crashed. And they clicked on those links and made it so that if you were a Dutch internet user where the plane took off and you Google them, H-17, you're getting a bunch of garbage Russian links telling you all these theories. this is a manipulation of the algorithm, just like Russia tried to do this on Facebook and the U.S.

There should be a fix to this. Like Google, the tech companies should be able to look at whether or not someone is trying to manipulate and distort their algorithm, which is meant to respond to you and tell you the internet user, okay, you're interested in this subject. Here's the most important information for you to know about this. So whether that comes from kind of a public policy response and governments working with or regulating tech companies or the tech companies of cells taking it upon themselves to do this, I think you can deal with that piece of it. I think also just being aware of this, calling out the Russian interference,

so people who are consuming this garbage are aware of where it's coming from, or there's some patriotism behind, don't let these foreigners manipulate our politics, so that that plays into it. And frankly, we've got to change our president in the United States. We should have a president in the United States who does not want to see the spread of Nazi ideologies in Europe, but wants to see them roll back.

Yeah, that'd be good. I love that. Yeah, and this is another reason why our election is so important. And it connects to the Brexit conversation what happened. There's no coherence to these guys, these Trump guys, other than their, like, co-hateful right-wing people in other countries. In other words, they don't care about human rights in China or in Russia. They claim to care about them, you know, in Cuba, in Iran when it suits their political interests, right?

They don't like free trade anywhere in the world. world, but if our fellow far right guy, Boris Johnson, needs a free trade agreement, oh, suddenly we're okay with free trade. Like the one thing that seems to guarantee that these people will get along with foreign countries is if you sign on to a really ugly brand of far right politics. And that, you know, that's not a good look for the United States of America. Yeah, agreed. Yeah, we got to win our election here. We have to sort of reassert American values around the world and we need to deal with the Russian interference. But, you know, the problem you raised a minute ago about the problem of the Google or YouTube algorithms is even greater. So there's

a related story that was published out of Brazil. We've talked before about the way tech companies, in particular YouTube, have actually helped radicalize people because of the way the algorithm drives users to more and more extreme content. So this isn't just an American problem. The New York Times reported that the YouTube algorithm has been instrumental in the rise of the far right in Brazil, including President Bolsonaro. So in addition to helping these far-right parties and driving people to these discussing feeds. YouTube also spread conspiracy theories that claim the Zika virus was being spread by vaccines. And that has just been absolutely devastating to Brazil's public health efforts to fight the Zika virus. You had these

unqualified YouTube stars rise to fame and then run for office and win. So clearly the damage that's been done by YouTube's algorithm is global. And unless they fix it, we're going to be in big trouble for a long time. But Ben, what worries me is what you mentioned a minute ago is how does this get fixed? Because YouTube designed their tech to maximize watch time and thus profits. And I don't have any faith in them making a fix that reduces the amount of money they're making. At the same time, I have no faith in our government passing meaningful regulation because Republicans spent all their time crying about like made up bias to get them on these tech platforms. So it feels like we're screwed here. I mean, our answer is just win elections, I guess. Yeah. And it, and it

It's coming at them from both directions, right? Because on the one end, you have the problem of this kind of unbridled openness of the algorithm that can be manipulated so that suddenly you're sharing the worst content on the Internet the most widely. Then you also had, I noticed, Russia demanding that YouTube pull down all these videos that come from the opposition, right? So they're literally trying to rig the Internet to spread the hateful stuff. And meanwhile, to squelch the type of free speech that is actually constructive, which is democratic activist civil society seeking to have. a voice. So how this is sorted out in the coming years is incredibly important. And you would

normally want essentially democracies coming together to figure out what are the norms by which we're going to approach these tech issues? What are the regulatory approaches that we're going to take? What are the dialogues that we're going to have with these companies? Companies are either going to respond to two things, governments or their own users complaining about this, right? So I think ultimately there's going to have to be some government action here and hopefully coordinated where people are talking about how do you preserve freedom of speech while preventing it from being manipulated in this fashion. But also, you know, citizens can raise their voices. In the United States, you know, YouTube, you're often only one or two clicks away from some pretty heinous content.

Like if you go to some far right site and you're two clicks away from some neo-Nazi site, right? And I think there's just going to have to be a public policy discussion that brings in these companies that are either, that's either generated by governments, by users, or by the employees, by the way, these companies saying, I don't want to be part of this, that presses for some change here. Because otherwise, you know, the tech companies become whitting or unwitting, probably unwitting, the junior partners of this authoritarian trend we've seen. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about a couple policy updates out of the White House that, you know, would have been the biggest stories in Washington for a week back in the day, but kind of went under the radar because of the reality we live in. So

the Trump administration has ordered the State Department and USAID to freeze the rest of this year's foreign aid funding. The Times quoted some critics of the decision saying that means like two to four billion dollars in funding will be frozen through the rest of the year. This is money that should be going to peacekeeping efforts, global health programs, anti-narcotics programs. You know, good thing we're not trying to like, you know, keep the peace and cut a deal in Afghanistan or prevent the spread of the Ebola virus, you know, no priorities there. So Democrats in Congress are very unhappy since, you know, the Constitution says that they decide how this money is spent. The Trump folks, try this same move last year, but I think ultimately back down because Pompeo got pissed.

But Ben, I'm curious how big a deal you think it would be if that much money was cut off from foreign aid programs. It's a huge deal. And we get an enormous return on this investment. Part of what people have to understand is that the U.S. is putting some money into peacekeeping operations or the U.S. is putting some money into combating Ebola, that leverages an enormous amount of other international donor assistance. It can be the indispensable kind of spine of a global effort to deal with the problem.

Like when we were dealing with Ebola, because we went in with our assistance, that led, you know, European countries, even China, Canada, others to come in behind us, right? And so if suddenly you're withdrawing the U.S. funding that is kind of like the lifeblood, the oxygen for a lot of these international programs, they start to unravel, they start to fall apart. And then what you lose is, you know, you lose, if you lose a peacekeeping force, you know, a country. could descend back in a civil war. If you're not investing in public health in parts of Africa where epidemics can spread, we could be dealing with another Ebola epidemic that's spreading. So in this amount of money, like Donald Trump gave fucking a trillion dollars away to corporations and wealthy people through a tax cut to them that, by the way, it wasn't for the rest of us. My taxes went up, frankly. He can find a trillion dollars for that. He can find $800 billion

dollars for the U.S. military, and yet, you know, we're going to nickel and dime two to four billion dollars in foreign assistance. Yeah. That actually has a much bigger effect. The deficit just rose by 27 percent. He doesn't care about the deficit. You know, $2 billion is not going to make a dent in the $900 billion deficit that he's created. It's about his kind of pathological, ideological opposition to doing things that are good for people or that make the government work. and I really do, and by the way, it ignores the intent of Congress because he tried to zero out this money in the past and Congress said, no, we control the budget. So this is one of those small stories that should, you know, get people's alarm bells ringing. Yeah, there have been a couple instances like this.

The Magnitsky sanctions were another case where Trump was supposed to send a report to Congress that he just refused to do and he was required to by law. If Congress rolls over here and lets him just change the way money is being sent, I don't know what job they do anymore. So they need to stand up and fight. I mean, it is outrageous. It's important money. These are key priorities. Like, come on, guys, let's go. Yeah.

Okay, this story, like, I just can't believe that we haven't talked about this every single day for the last week. So Jake Tapper at CNN reported that Department of Homeland Security wanted to make combating domestic terrorist threats like the white supremacist attack. We saw in El Paso a key priority. But we're told by the White House that they only wanted to focus on, quote, jihadist threats. So, Ben, this should be an administration-ending story. This is up there, in my opinion, with the Bush administration's missing warning signs about al-Qaeda before 9-11.

And like we talked about last week, I mean, this isn't just a Trump problem. Like, for years, the entire Republican national security strategy has been that Democrats need to just say radical Islamic terrorism and somehow that would magically make us safer. But it turns out that their obsession with Muslims and the so-called jihadi threat made them. actively disregard and downplay the threat from white nationalists who are currently living in the United States. So basically, my head is going to explode. Yeah, no, and you've got, again, like a situation where a white nationalist just committed an act of terrorism in the United States that killed a lot of people in El Paso. That's exactly the threat that this kind of program at DHS is supposed to address. So, I mean, just imagine, try not to do this too much, but

imagine if there was news that the White House had canceled the program to deal with the threat from like ISIS and then the same number of people were killed by an ISIS terrorist in El Paso. Why are the lives of Americans only important if they're killed by a terrorist group that happens to comport with my ideological view of the world? It's crazy. It's sick. And it's a threat to our national security. And it's part of a trend, right? Trump, we heard, didn't like to hear about interference in our elections. And so there was a directive that went out, including the Secretary of Homeland Security, to just not bring it up. Trump doesn't like to hear about white nationalist terrorism because some of those people are his most fervent supporters. So a program like this is

squelched. You have a president of the United States who is actively preventing his government from protecting us. You know, right now I could make an argument that the biggest threats to American national security are white nationalist terrorism in this country, the Russian on our democracy and the rise of right-wing authoritarianism around the world. And Donald Trump is literally not only not doing anything to deal with those threats, he's on the other side. And I don't think we can mince words. It's just the extremity of the fact that the President of the United States is a danger

to American national security on the most important national security issues that we face in 2019. Yeah. I literally can't believe that that story ran and they're not congressional investigations. Democrats should be making noise about this. Yeah, they really should. Please start, guys. Okay, so we had talked a while back about how Congresswoman Rashida Talib and

Elon Omar are planning a trip to Israel in the West Bank this summer. And there was some question about whether Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu, would let them into the country because Talib and Omar support the boycott divestment and sanctions or BDS movement. And Israel has a law in the books that allows them to deny entry to BDS supporters. But in a surprisingly smart move, the Israelis decided to let Congressman Omar and Talib visit. They said it was out of respect for the U.S. Israeli alliance. It was respect for Congress generally.

Axios reported that apparently Trump was unhappy with the Israeli decision and told advisors that he thinks the Israeli should have barred these American congresswomen from coming to the country. So, you know, a very America first move from our esteemed president, then. Yeah, and I mean, look, the Israelis are smart about this because they've long recognized that their administrations may come and go. So their ultimate source of support should be the U.S. Congress. And they've been very smart about this. And they tried to cultivate people in both parties and made the right decision. You know, we don't often credit this current Israeli government.

But in this, they made the right decision for allowing this trip to go forward. What it tells you is Trump sees Israel is just like an extension of his domestic political agenda, right? I mean, it just gets at how much this is not about some sincere interest in Israel. It's like, I like to cozy up to Israel because that's good for my politics with the evangelicals and maybe right-wing Jews. And meanwhile, I've got this feud with the squad. So maybe my buddies over there in Israel can do this so it gets a lot of attention and there's a fight about it. It shows that Trump is actually, you know, doesn't give a shit about Israel's security, right? Because actually Israel's security depends on having a good relationship with the U.S. Congress over the,

the long term. Trump's literally trying to undermine that, right? So if you care about Israel, you might wonder why the U.S. president is trying to convince the Israeli government to take a shot at two U.S. Congress people to suit his own kind of racist political agenda. Yeah. And by the way, I mean, if you don't like the BDS movement, invite to BDS supporters into the country and convince them they're wrong. Yeah. Right? I mean, like, give them briefings, show them security concerns. Like, do we have a conversation? But, like, barring their entry, come on, that's just completely ridiculous. Yeah.

So, Ben, last week we previewed that you were about to publish this big story in the Atlantic about Burma and what that'll happen with Aung San Suu Kyi. So I really was hoping we could dig into the piece because it's like, it's one of the best things. It's the best thing I've read about Burma in a long time. It's also just one of the best reported stories I've read about U.S. foreign policy because you don't sugarcoat the fact that things went wrong under our watch. Can you just tell us about it?

Like, I'd love to hear about the reporting itself where you went, what you did, and, like, how you undertook this process and, like, learned how to do this. And then kind of what your takeaway was on what happened to this icon, this hero of human rights, Uncle Suu Kyi. Yeah, well, you know, I, like everybody else, was hugely horrified throughout 2017. In 2017, 750,000 Rohingya Muslims were driven brutally across the border into Bangladesh. And, you know, I had worked a lot of. on Burma and thought that that was a good news story.

You know, it was a country opening up, greater respect for human rights and movement towards democracy in the country, Aung San Suu Kyi, this icon of democracy and human rights ascending to this position as state counselor. And then essentially there's this kind of mystery that I wanted to solve, which is what went wrong? Were we wrong about Aung San Suu Kyi? How could this person who used to stand for these values now be, you know, complicit through her silence at least in what's happened because she doesn't control the military.

So she's not ordered this. It's a bit complicated because the Constitution prevents civilian control the military in addition to preventing her from becoming president. But she still has a huge voice and she still has power in that country and has done nothing with her voice or that power to try to make this situation better. So, you know, I started by talking to a lot of the people who've worked with her for decades. You know, she's had a lot of support in the U.S. and Australia. I talked to a guy like Kevin Rudd.

I talked to a bunch of Brits who've been closed to her for many years. She obviously lived there to just try to get a sense of, you know, who is she? How have you known her over the years? How is she perhaps changed? Then I went to Burma and it was really, he was kind of energizing, Tommy. How many times were you on the other side of a reporter asking you questions? Yeah, I know. It's so fun asking them yourself.

Yeah, I went, you know, I took a notebook and went there for a couple weeks and I talked to a bunch of people in government, a bunch of people in Yangon, a bunch of activists. and this picture began to emerge. And the picture that it began to emerge was that Aung San Suu Kyi, yes, has always been for democracy and human rights, but has also had a fairly concerted view that she had a will to power, that part of the democratic transition is it was going to enable her to win an election and ultimately become the leader of the country, right? And what she wants to do even now is say she wants to reform the constitution that prevents her becoming president. There's a provision of the Constitution that says, if you have foreign-born children, you can't be present.

Well, it's clearly meant to keep her out of the office. She wants to get rid of that. It says that a civilian can control the military. She wants to get rid of that. So she's still kind of focused on something that, yes, is a transition to democracy. Like normally we would think, yes, of course you want a civilian to be in charge of the military. You shouldn't have someone barred from being present for that reason. But the democratic agenda she has is also her own agenda.

And so then what I did is I went back through all my meetings with her. and I met with her six or seven times. And playing back the tape in my head, you know, I could see, and I could see this at the time too, but that there are kind of two Aung San Suu Kis. You know, there's the one who talked very eloquently about human rights and democracy. And then the one who was always kind of very focused on

what was the next play that she was going to make to climb the ladder towards power, right? And you could kind of look at the two sides of this coin and see this complex person who is really both of those things. And unfortunately, for above all the Rohingya, she's kind of shown in the last year or two that when forced to choose, she's not willing to relinquish her pursuit of power because tragically, what is happening to the Rohingya in that country is not unpopular among the majority of people in that country because

there's a lot of prejudice there. So that was the basic core of the story. And then I found lots of kind of fascinating off ramps into other materials as well. Yeah. I mean, it's just such a great piece. Everybody should check it out, and I'm incredibly impressed that you were able to pull that off. I mean, were you ever worried that they wouldn't want you to visit or would be worried that you were doing all this reporting? I was very transparent with them. I went into the, you know, consulate here in L.A., and I was like, I want to come, and I'm writing a piece for the Atlantic. And they said, oh, Ben Rhodes, you know, we're so happy, you know, because they had good feelings for me because I was part of the opening there. And I kept having to tell them, guys, I'm writing about this, you know. and they weren't quite sure what to make of me

because I'm this kind of former official in their minds maybe someday I'll be an official again, right? But now I'm writing for publication. They were pretty candid. I sat down with a few government officials. And, you know, the National Security Advisor gave me some very candid quotes that I thought were revealing of their mindset.

You know, one, he said, look, if you guys, you know, pressure us, we'll just turn to the Chinese, you know. He was very blunt about it. You know, the Chinese want to spend a lot of money down here. And so if you guys, pile more sanctions, we'll just go in that direction. And he also said to me, he compared the Rohingya, who were in the camps and that they need to resettle back in Burma. He said, this is like the

situation you guys have in Texas where, you know, the people down in Texas, they want to build a wall, but you need some workers to come in and it has to be orderly. So he literally is using Trump's talking point on the wall to compare it to the Rohingya. And what both of those quotes illuminated to me is the external impact on a place like Burma. It's a small country, right? It's certainly a country that does not develop institutions. It's very susceptible to global trends. So you've got a big authoritarian neighbor in China that has a million Muslims in concentration camps. Well, you know, if that's the big influence in your country, you know, evicting 750,000 Muslims in an ethnic cleansing suddenly doesn't look that at a step with what's happening around you. Or you've got

a U.S. president who's literally not even said the word Burma, hasn't called Aung San Suu Kyi once, hasn't said word one about their hanga. They take the U.S. president who's literally not even said the word they take that as kind of like a free pass to do whatever they want, right? They've got Facebook there we've talked about, is fueling all these hate campaigns and is really radicalizing some of their politics against Muslims in general and Rohingya in particular. So the other fascinating thing for me is how part of what happened on San Suu Kyi,

you know, this national security advisor also said to me, look, in the 1990s it would have been easier to transition to democracy. And I was actually quite sympathetic to that. The international environment there was moving the direction of democracy. Now the international environment is moving in the direction of authoritarianism and nationalism and religious strife. And Aung San Suu Kyi is not proven able or willing to kind of buck those trends. And that I think is key to understanding what happened there. Yeah.

Well, it's a hell of a good piece. Everyone check it out. Yeah, no, it's on the Atlantic website and it'll be in their September issue. Yeah, buy it. Buy good journalism. Welcome your feedback. So let's end on one hopeful note. So this is just some data I saw.

So according to Gallup polling, Americans are now more likely to support allowing refugees from Central America into the U.S. than they were before. So 51% of Americans supported letting these refugees into the U.S. in December. Now we're at 57%. So despite the fact that we have one of the most toxic political conversations about immigration that I can remember in my lifetime, despite the fact that our president is a racist demagogue, we still have a huge swath of American people. that care about other human beings that have big hearts that want to do the right thing. And I found that to be really affirming and actually pretty shocking. Yeah, the couple hopeful things here.

One is just on refugees, one of the interesting things, if you dig in, a lot of the communities that are most positive about refugees are the ones actually have them. Right. Yeah, good point. Like, you know, a lot of the people who are against this, like they don't have anybody in their communities who look like this or come from places like this. But if you look at some of it in Iowa, Tommy, I remember there's some, there are. actually some Burmese refugees in Iowa, right? Who've done quite well. You know, there are people, you know, they're these, it's one of the great things about America.

There's all these Vietnamese out here in Los Angeles who've done great things. And so that's part of it. When Americans actually get to know people and see them as human beings, they can be quite welcoming. The other thing is, I do think to tile it together, there's something about maybe there are people who've harbored, you know, yeah, keep the refugees out. But then when they see the pictures and they see children in cages. and they see the kind of logical endpoint of that ideology, they kind of wake up and they're like,

that's not really us. And I do hope that something good can come out of this period we're in. We can see it. Citizens around the world can see where this kind of nasty authoritarian politics goes, whether it's kids in cages in the United States or what's happening in Hong Kong. And we've talked about this before, but this could be a backlash to the backlash. You know, if people are getting woken up and they're standing up and saying, you know what, actually I don't want to go that path.

We can see where that path is headed. Trump shows us where that path is headed in this country, and we're going to reject that. I think that would be an important and powerful way for the pendulum to start to swing back here. Again, that all roads lead back to where you are, which is Iowa in our election here. All roads lead back to Iowa, man. Well, I mean, just on another hopeful note, I remain, like, deeply nervous and anxious about how hard it's going to be to win this election in 2020. And, you know, after the second debate, I was a little nervous about the crop of candidates we had. It felt a little too nasty.

I was like just worried about some of the policy positions that were getting taken. But I have to tell you, a couple days on the ground in Iowa has made me feel so much better. A lot of it is spending time with just the random field organizers for the various campaigns that I've met and gotten a chance to talk to. Like at the fair, I went to a Booker House party last night. I'm going to go to Warren's office later. I'm going to do maybe Biden's office tomorrow, maybe Beto's office as well. But I mean, just like seeing the energy, like seeing a couple hundred people out on the middle of a scorching hot Tuesday to see Pete speak today, it does remind you that there's a lot of energy on the Democratic side. Like people are just desperate to beat Trump.

So where there's a will, there's a way. Now we just got to get our asses to work. So, you know, it is what it is, but it made me feel good being here. No, that's right. And democracy always looks better on the ground than it does. does on Twitter or cable TV, you know. Yes, so true. Maybe not at the Trump rallies, but generally speaking, you get out there and you realize, you know, most people are decent and, like, they're interested in things that actually matter, right?

Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. All right, man, after this, we'll come back to your interview with Ennis Cantor, NBA star, fascinating guy who's dealt with a lot of shit from Erdogan of Turkey. So that's a huge booking for you. That's, you know, the world does. Our first seven footer. Our first seven footer.

Yeah, our first seven footer. All right, we'll go to the interview after this break. Hey, welcome back to Podsea of the World. I'm Ben Rhodes, and I'm really glad to be joined by Ennis Cantor, big fan when you're on the NICs especially. Unfortunately, our roster is downgraded because you're not there anymore. The next starting center for the Boston Celtics, but also, someone has a really interesting story as it relates to a country we've talked a lot about on the podcast, Turkey. So, Ennis, I thought I'd start with your passport was taken away in 2017, rendering you kind of stateless in a way.

Why did that happen? What is the root of this feud between the president of Turkey, Tai Berthian, and you? So, well, I have a foundation. I try to do a charity work all over the world when I could travel. And I actually had a big event in Romania. It was like a 6,000 people was going to come. And then I landed in Romania. I gave my passport to this lady. And then she looked at my passport. She said, hold on a second. Yeah. She went in the bag and then 10 minutes later police came and told us, it was me and my manager, he said, your password has been canceled. And then I was like, why?

He said, we don't know, but if you want to call the Turkish embassy, you can learn. I was like, those are the ones canceled my passport. I'm not going to just call them and ask him why. And then, you know, after I canceled my passport, I actually took a video and said, because I want the whole world to know what's going on. and said, hey, I'm being held in Romania, two policemen were watching us. They were actually basketball fans today. I actually took a picture while they were watching. It was weird.

And then, well, they told us, well, you cannot get in the country. And so we had to leave the Europe and come back to America. But it was very sad because I was going to do a big charity event for the kids. And it just didn't happen. And, you know, from that day, I think it was like three, three years ago from that day, people calmly homeless. Yeah. And were you scared?

I mean, did you think that they might actually try to take you back to Turkey? Of course. There was a scared part because I know what could happen if they could have, you know, just sent me back to Turkey. But I was just like, you know what? I have faith, you know, because I know I didn't do anything wrong. And, you know, I see all the Turkish media right after that. Oh, we are bringing Ennis.

We are about to bring in us. is Romania is about to send Ennis to Turkey or whatever. So my family was so scared. My brothers was so scared. Back then I was playing for Oklahoma City Thunder. So all my teammates were texting me. All my coaches were texting me if I'm okay or not. So of course it was a very scary moment.

But like I said, I was like, I know I didn't do anything wrong. So I was like, there's no way that Romania will send me back to Turkey. Yeah. And so, you know, they've canceled your passport. They've, you know, criticized you very strongly. they've caused problems for your family at times in Turkey. Is this because you've been an outspoken critic of Erdogan? Because you've been associated, you know,

a friendly relationship with Fetula Ghoulin, who leader of obviously a spiritual movement that Erdogan, you know, has tried to crack down on, particularly since 2016 coup attempt. Why do you think there is this grudge against you? Well, I am, first of all, I'll say this, you know, even when I talk about these issues, some of the words that are used that I never even use in my life,

I'm a basketball player. If you look at it in the end, I'm not a politician or journalist. Some of the words I talk to, I never even use that in my life before. But just because of I have a platform, you know, I play in an NBA, I'm trying to use this platform to be a voice of all those innocent people who don't have one. Well, right now, if you look at the Turkey is number one, the country in the world, I've put most journalists in a jail. Yeah.

And there are over, say, 17,000 women and over 800 babies are in jail right now. Yeah. And, you know, it just is very sad because a lot of people, are getting, you know, fight. My dad was a genetic professor. Yeah. And you got fired. My sister went to medical school for six years.

Now she cannot even find a job. Yeah. It's very sad because if I look out of my country, there is no democracy left. You know, the government is using their power to abuse human rights of abolition. And, you know, the thing is just there is no freedom. There is no freedom of speech. I mean, obviously, if, like, in America, you can criticize or you can't even make fun of the president. There is a freedom of siege.

But in Turkey, even if on social media you say something against them, then he said he's a bad guy. And his whole family is a bad guy. Put him in jail. And do you think, do you find that friends, family, people you know in Turkey, are they kind of nervous to be in touch with you because the communications might be monitored or they might become a target? Yes. Well, I mean, three years ago, the police came to my house in Turkey and they raided the whole house. My dad, my mom and my sister was in the house And they took every electronic way

Phones away, computers away Laptops away They wanted to see if I am still in contact with my family or not And if they were to see any single text message Or email or miss call They will be all in jail Because my family had to put a statement out there And said we are disown in Ennis

So the Turkish government will leave them alone But now all the stuff's going on It's just not even just travel to Turkey, I can't even communicate with him because, I mean, if I do, they'll listen to their phones and it will be a very dangerous move. So, you know, you're describing essentially, you know, government that, as you said, is imprisoning all these journalists, hundreds of thousands of people. But they're also, you know, disrupting people's families.

And I noticed that they didn't even let the Western Conference finals that you played in be broadcast on television in Turkey so that, you know, ordinary Turks who like basketball couldn't watch a game because you happen to be playing in it, and it's a country that loves basketball. Do you think that this kind of heavy-handed authoritarian approach, is there a backlash building against that? I mean, I have to imagine people get sick and tired of the government telling them, you know, you can't watch a basketball game,

or if your family has different political views, they could get in trouble. It's very sad because when the news came out, because we made a Western Conference Finals with Portland Trailblazers, and when the news came out and said, Even Ennis making through the NBA finals, we are not going to show any of his games. Or they just block my every news or every name from all over Turkey. They just don't want the kids to see my name. And that shows that how much, you know, the government was scared of an NBA player.

That's very, very sad. And I remember that morning I was going into the breakfast, and then all my friends, all my coaches were just looking at me, be like, did this really happen? So the whole country is not going to. be able to watch our game just because of one guy because of you I was like yes it's very sad but

my coach said something very smart he said do they not know that when they do things like that they give you more power yeah because I feel I mean it's very sad that people can now I mean watch my games and it's not mindful because I read all the comments and say yeah we cannot

watch NBA because of and as I was like what I what did I do I didn't do anything you know but it just said because like that shows how much scared they are and they give me power to talk about these issues even more and that shows that there is a dictatorship going on in Turkey. And, you know, we saw earlier this year, you know, elections, local elections and places like Istanbul that went against Erdogan and then he tried to essentially annul, cancel the result, then they held the elections again

and he lost again. Do you feel like the tide is turning? I mean, do you feel like some of the fear of Erdogan is breaking or at least people are willing to to stand? stand up to this more? I think so. Because I remember when the election happened first and he lost in three major cities, the mayor of the election, he wanted to redo it. And the Istanbul, especially. And then he redid it and then he lost it even a bigger cab. It was like I think over a close a million. And then after that, people became more confident. And they started talking about these issues more and more. Before that, no celebrities, no actors, no any athletes or no. movie stars, no singers was talking about this issue because they were scared. But after this

mayor of election that he lost and his party lost, people gain a lot of confidence. And now they're more comfortable talking about all these issues. And I feel like it was like an eye opener. Now people started to understand more. And they just saw that economy is going down and all that stuff. So now I loved it. And for you, as you said, you know, in a way, it makes you more powerful because if someone looks this afraid of you, then more people listen. But also just for your security, I mean, you know, you've been afraid to travel to countries like the UK where you thought that the Turkish government could try to apprehend you. The Turkish government could try to use, you know, red notices to apprehend you. That's when you give a notice to Interpol.

What is the NBA or your team or the NBA Players Union done? Like, who is essentially responsible for how trying to protect you in this situation where you're vulnerable? Well, whichever team I go to out with the first team, before even like that, me with the coaches or players, I sit down with the team security first and talk about all these issues And then I'm just, I'm so blessed to have People like NBA commissioner My coaches, my teammates, you know, all the fans

They were just so supportive of me That they gave me so much confidence To talk about these issues even more Because like I remember when I couldn't travel to You know, London with my team NBA commissioner Adam Silveroo Did an interview and said Whatever is Ennis is doing

We are behind them. He actually texting me with his personal phone to my phone and say, hey, Ennis, we are with you, we are your family, and whatever you're doing is right. Just keep doing what you're doing. We support you. And then that shows that, you know, I was like, wow, even like an NBA commissioner, that high-level guy or like my teammates or my coaches that can support me this much. It's a very confusing conversation.

I have to sit down and talk to one-on-one at least 30 minutes so they can have a better idea of what's going on, but it was an amazing, amazing experience for me, how NBA is helpful in this process. And, you know, it's interesting, you know, like you said, you're just a basketball player, you know, and yet you're in this political drama. What about your teammates? I'm curious, like, when you, you've played with some really great players, too, you know, Russell Westbrook and Dame Lillard and C.J. McCollum and, you know, I wish the Knicks had some

better guys. But, I mean, is this, do you talk about this in the locker room or do they learn about Turkish politics because this is happening in the background? A lot. I remember, so the Aguio was elected recently an example. CJ McCollums, his brother actually played in Turkey. And then his brother was watching our Western Conference Finals game and live tweet in the same time. And he said something about me. He said, oh, yeah, and it's got a good, good offensive rebound. And then Turkish people started attacking.

And he told his brother, he told CJ and CJ came to me in a locker man and said, oh, yeah, my brother was live tweeting while watching our game. game and then he got attack by, you know, just by some Turkish fans. It's just, it's just so sad because I feel bad because, like, if you go on my social media, like Twitter, I don't, I'm scared to follow my teammate. Yeah, yeah. Because my teammates told me that whenever I follow them, Turkish people send them threats. So, like, I'm scared to even follow anybody. Yeah. It's just sad because, like I said, I'm just an NBA player. I just want to play basketball and I want to represent my country, my flag, my family, the people I love, people I care about. But just because of all that stuff happened,

and it's just, people are asking me, even like my teammates, when they hear about this conversation first, are you crazy? I always get this question. Are you crazy? My family's still back in there. My brother, my sister, mom and dad. I told them, no, my mom and my dad, I understand it's just one family.

There are 1,000 families out there are getting tortured, getting killed, getting kidnapped, and getting suffering in jails. And I'm not just saying that. There are lots of reports. I'm saying that Amnesty International, Human Rights, Human Rights, Human Rights, Human Rights, Foundation. So it's just very confusing for my teammates to understand it. But I get lots of support from all over the league. I remember one time I'm playing in the NBA game.

I'm actually guarding this guy. It's a very funny story. His name is Marching Gortat, by the way. He was playing for D.C. So I'm actually guarding him in the game. During the game, he asked me, what side are you on? I'm like, what are you talking about? He said, what side are you?

And I was like, I don't understand what you're trying to say. He said, are you on president's side? Are you on other guy's side? Other guys meet Mr. Gillen. I'm like, wow, you asking me that during the game? It was like, yeah, man, I think what you're going through is crazy. And I was like, I'm on the other guy's side. We said like a form of trash talk.

It was not a trash talk. It was very weird. I remember one time one of our guys going to shoot a free throw. The ref came to me. I was like, hey, what you're doing is so important, man. Keep doing what you're doing. I'm like, whoa. I appreciate it.

I get a couple more calls, you know. Thank you so much. But it just shows that how much the NBA just support, especially the fans. I cannot take enough the fans that how much they've been as a supporter. Every time I go to a game, they just say, hey, Annes, this is your home. You know, you should become a citizen and stuff. I'm actually becoming a citizen. Yeah, I was going to ask you that.

So you're on track to become an American citizen. 2020, it's very weird because it was a very funny story again. So three years ago, I was going to become a citizen. and my friend told me, he, it's five years, but if you married an American woman, it's only three years. So I sat in an interview, right? I was like, oh, yeah, one of my friends told me that if I married with an American woman, it's only three years.

The next day, all Twitter is like, oh, yeah, I'm single. If you want to get married, I'm an American citizen. Not just the girls, guys, everybody. So they were just like, oh, yeah, hey, if you want to get married, I'm like, I'm okay. I think I'm going to wait. You wait the extra two years. I don't know if there are any world those out.

there. Well, and your brother's play too, right? The NBA prospects? Well, he was actually just signed with one of the biggest Spanish team a couple days ago. He was actually traveling yesterday. Yeah. So, you know, so maybe more cantors in pro ball. I hope so. Well, when you just look back at Turkey, I mean, are you hopeful that this is going to change in the near future in your lifetime? Do you hope to be able to return home to Turkey? And, you know, you? Well, I mean, people are, when I talk about these issues, people always think that I have problem with my country. I love my country. My problem is not with my country, now with my flag.

My problem is with the regime in Turkey. And Turkey could be the bridge of modern Islam and West. But now all that stuff going on in Turkey is impossible. And of course, you know, I miss, you know, America gave me so much. Of course, you know, the people here, you know, the whole, all the fans, my teams, they gave me so much. But of course, in the end, that is my country, and there's my people and my family still lives. Of course, one day I want to be able to go back. Am I hopeful?

Yes, I'm hopeful. And I know one day people are going to understand, the people in Turkey are going to understand what they're doing wrong and what kind of people that are doing is. And this is definitely going to turn around, but we just got to just keep believing and just talking about what's going on and pray for it. And, you know, back here, do you feel like what's happened to you in Turkey? makes you kind of more politically involved. I mean, you've met with some politicians. I mean, do you see yourself as someone who's going to play some role

in raising political awareness about these issues in the U.S. and meeting with members of Congress and other things? Well, I mean, it was so amazing to see all the senators and congresses and everybody was just shown a lot of support. I haven't met with some other people like the Clinton families and everything. They were shown a lot of support. And not just the one side of Republicans show a lot of support, the Democrats show a lot of support. It just shows that it gives me a lot of, like I said, confident just show me that I'm in a right path.

You know, because I talk about these issues to all this, you know, people, they stop me in the middle. Yeah. It's like, don't worry about it. We already already know all these issues. Yeah. What can we do for you? How can we help you? Yeah.

So it definitely means a lot to me to see all this, you know, support from all this political guys. Well, just before we end here, what about the Celtics this year? I'm so excited. Do you feel good about this team? Oh, yeah. You played on some good teams. How does this one rank against Oklahoma City, Portland? Yeah.

I haven't met the guys yet, actually. I met Camel Walker. I know how good of a good player he is. I met, you know, Gordon Hayward, well, he was my teammate. And I'm all Tuckafold, 7-7 guy. He's probably one of the most famous guy already in the whole league is 7-7. I'm 6-7, he's 7. But I'm very, very hopeful about this team.

I feel like we can really, we have a really special team that we can beat every team on every floor. Schedule just came out today. I noticed, yeah. I noticed, yeah. And then I'm a Knicks fan, you know, you're doing the Knicks home opener, man. Yes, oh, it's going to be amazing, man.

I mean, do you feel like you want to get some revenge there? Kind of. Yeah, yeah, kind of. But November 26th, I marked that day, you know, I was like, I've got to bring my A game because MSG, I know a lot of celebrities are going to be there. Yeah, yeah. And they know all my ex-teamists,

want to go out there and just, you know, destroy me so they can make fun of me. But I'm going to be ready for that game for sure. Well, you know, something tells me that the Celtics are going to do a little bit better than this year. I hope so. Even though I'm a Knicks fan, I wish you the very best on that. Well, look, it's great talking to you. We'll follow you this.

We'll keep following these issues and we'll be rooting for you out there. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thanks to Anis Cantor. Ben, I will see you soon. I'll miss Iowa, but it'll be good to be back in studio, buddy. Yeah, see it over in Iowa. All right, we'll do.

Potty the world is a product of crooked media. The show is produced by Michael Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Chris Basil. Kyle Seglan is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Malkonian, and Milo Kim, who film and share these interviews on video each week.