Pod Save the World - Fighting fascists with Bernie Sanders

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

Ben and Tommy talk about the new right-wing government in Italy, the growing protests in Iran, Russia’s troop mobilization and sham referendums in eastern Ukraine, new British PM Liz Truss nearly tanks global markets, Jared Kushner gets a big boy award, the latest on the Mar-a-Lago documents saga, Cuba, NASA and the CIA starts a podcast. Then Ben talks with Senator Bernie Sanders about the upcoming elections in Brazil.  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 Pots Save the World on Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, I think we have to go back to not talking about the NFL. Yeah, well, we were pretty clear that it was probably just going to be one week, and I feel fine about that. And my quarterback may or may not have broken his ankle or high ankle sprain. I don't want to talk about it. Ben, you're in Singapore right now.

Looks very cool in your background. I know. I'm right back in the time zone soup here, Tommy. Man. It's actually here, like, there's a huge. I'm not here for it, but there's like a huge Formula One race coming up in Singapore. So that NBS for me. Well, I'm going to miss it, actually, because I'm here for like some conference in the run

up to it. But the weird thing is like, I'm not an F1 guy. Maybe I should be. Like, the entire city is like being prepared for like this F1 course. Like I was going running the other yesterday. I can't even remember what day it is. And like there were obstacles everywhere and like stands are set up. And I'm like, this is probably pretty cool.

I should probably actually watch this one day. There's a Netflix show that's actually pretty fun because the drivers are very competitive and they're very bitchy and they talk shit about each other and it's kind of like behind the scenes but the actual races themselves, I kind of struggle with it too.

I mean, at the end of the day, it just becomes a bunch of cars driving around but I mean, that's cool if you're into it. I mean, I should probably, and people are going to add us on this, but I'll watch the Netflix show. I'll start there. Yeah, yeah, I think it's called Drive to Survive.

Anyway, we got a lot going on today. There is a new right-wing government in Italy that we're going to talk about. That's very fun. The protest movement in Iran is growing day by day. There's a lot of news out of Russian Ukraine. And then, you know, we'll talk a little bit about how British Prime Minister Liz Truss is making a name for herself early. Jared Kushner is getting his flowers, the latest on the Mar-a-Lago document saga. So news out of Cuba, some news from NASA. And then the CIA started a podcast, Ben. And then last week, Ben, you talk to the man, the myth, the legend Senator Bernie Sanders. What'd you guys cover? It was just an awesome conversation with Bernie.

So he's been out front and warning about the dangers of Bolsonaro trying to work around the results of the upcoming Brazilian election, threatening a coup, frankly, again and again. Bernie has a resolution that he's introduced that we've talked about that not only expresses concern about this, but expresses the Senate's view that the U.S. should not recognize, provide any support to a Brazilian government if it so happens to be a coup. And interestingly, also makes the point that that should be the policy of the United States around the world. Notably, he doesn't have a single Republican signed onto this resolution, which should be pretty straightforward. Like, you don't want a country of over 200 million people to have a military coup. So we talked about that. We talked about kind of efforts

to fight authoritarianism around the world broadly. Bernie talks, I think, very powerfully at the end of the interview about why people should care about foreign policy, kind of really on brand for this show, Tommy. You know, given his obviously his very ambitious domestic agenda, he connects it very well what has to happen here to what has to happen around the world. Apparently,

we're not the only country with oligarchs and inequality, so it does require a global focus to do it. Remember then when the knock on Bernie in 2016 was like he didn't know foreign policy or care about it and focus on it? Now he's actually doing like a ton of really interesting stuff, specifically this

resolution. He does. You know, it's interesting. like he doesn't talk about it in the conventional way, you know, like he doesn't go out and beat his chest at like the three or four adversaries that get your attention for beating your chest at in Washington. But he follows events around the world and he sees, I think, the need for solidarity around the world for people fighting for democracy and social justice. So people should check out the interview. It's great on Brazil and great on how Brazil fits into this global struggle that we are right in the middle of. And actually, you know, Ben, this Brazil story ties into our first story, which is these elections in Italy.

But before we get there, Ben, question for you, what would happen if fluoride, like the COVID vaccine, was just in the water? That's a question that Malcolm Gladwell asked in his latest season of his podcast, revisionist history, actually very excellent podcasts. I think I've listened to all of them. He joins Abdul al-Sayed on America dissected here crooked

to talk about the science and the practice of public health, the ways we get it right, the ways we get it wrong, and how to fix it. So you should definitely check that out. New episodes of America dissected drop every Tuesday. You know where to find your podcast. Well, I won't tell you. Okay.

So let's start in Italy because this is a big deal. So this result was expected. Voters on Sunday elected enough parliamentary candidates from a collection of far-right political parties so that Italy now is on the cusp of having or installing the most right-wing government since Mussolini. It's not a good phrase. Not a qualifier. Yeah.

The coalition will almost certainly be led by Georgia, Maloney, from the brothers of Italy, party, which, Ben, they got 4% of the vote in 2018. They were kept out of the past two government coalitions led by Prime Minister Conti and Draghi, but on Sunday got the most votes of any party, I think a quarter of all votes. So Maloney is a 45-year-old. She would be the first woman to serve as Prime Minister of Italy. She's known, you know, she seems like a Maga Republican. She's known for trolling the left, being anti-immigrant, being anti-LGB, and kind of proudly playing footsy with the legacy of Benito Mussolini in Italy's fascist history. This right-wing coalition was able to take power because the previous government, Prime Minister Mario Draghi's coalition

unraveled. The Italian left is this fractured mess. And these right-wing parties took advantage of the situation by banding together. So now the question becomes, like, how will they govern? One member of the new coalition is someone you might be familiar with, the head of the Forza Italia party, led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He's quite literally like a Putin-stuge, a Putin buddy. He recently defended the Russian invasion of Ukraine saying that Putin just wanted to replace President Zelensky with, quote, a government made up of decent people. So that's worrisome. Maloney hasn't gone that far. She said she supports giving weapons to Ukraine, but there's concern her position could change if there's pressure from the right or, you know, energy prices keep spiking.

So Ben, the silver lining here, I guess, is that it's much easier to get elected prime minister in Italy than to keep the job for any amount of time. I'm curious how worried you are about this results or, you know, the prospect that Italy could join, you know, some sort of far right block with Hungary, maybe this new right-wing Swedish government and play a kind of spoiler in the G7 or other international forums. I mean, it's always worrisome when fascism takes root in Italy. That's tended to be the first dominant of fall in bad situations. Like, to step back, like, why did this happen?

and what does it mean? You know, Italy has had basically two decades of pretty punishing economic malaise and chaos, you know, and so, and they suffered. Eleven governments in 20 years. Yeah, and they suffered really bad in the financial crisis, and then they didn't get as much attention as Greece. They were bigger and not in its dire straits, but, you know, they've been kind of on the wrong end of globalization and its trends for a bit now. I'm not saying that excuses. but I think we have to try to understand why this is happening in Italy. And then the other thing is, as you mentioned, that the left has come and completely falling apart and fractured there.

And the right is like, you know, it's got these mixture of populace. But then there, I was watching the rally before the election, Tommy. And Sylvia Berlusconi, you mentioned. I mean, I don't know how old that guy is. He looks like he's, yeah, he looks like he's literally embalmed. And he has all this money and media footprint. and just doesn't go away. Yeah.

And part of what's so remarkable about this turn of events is that Mario Draghi was, by all accounts, like, perhaps the best leader in Europe. Like, he's this very capable guy that was addressing the economy. He was, like, getting them out of COVID. And it's just not what people wanted. And so what does it mean? I mean, I think it's a real problem, right? Because we've kind of gone country by country as these right-wing forces have kind of tried

to ride a wave into power, and most of the time they don't make it. And what you've always worried about is them breaking through and one of that kind of big foundational countries of Europe. And Italy is obviously one of those. So it is something that will probably give momentum, motivation to other far right parties across Europe. There is this danger of, like, as you mentioned, her potentially kind of making common cause with this kind of international far right nexus that is evolving. Orban's obviously at the center of that. You got a point of America. you know, grifters and creeps who'd want to go over there and latch onto this. I do think that, as you also mentioned, though, like, as we'll get to later with Liz Truss, who's obviously not

quite as problematic, the recipe for success in government is not particularly clear. No, it is not. You know, there's serious economic problems. I worry about kind of mean-spirited anti-immigrant anti-refugee policies, but even that, her capacity to, to deliver on the kinds of things she's saying, I think are minimal. But I think it's very, very, very important in that context that the rest of Italy's political parties on the left get their shit together and unify in opposition because what you don't want is her to be running into problems and just demagoguing the left and demagoguing immigrants for the reason that she can't get all the things done that she wants, you know, which is kind of a recipe for trying to

accumulate more power. So look, you hope that she moderates a bit for. from where she's been in the past, that Italy's kind of chaotic politics is guardrail in and of itself. But, you know, yeah, a worrisome reminder that, you know, you're not out of the woods after one election in one country. This is like a gonna be a decade long effort to beat back these far right forces. Yeah, I mean, like speaking to your point, I mean, Italy is still sitting on a ton of debt that's sort of a legacy,

the financial crisis that might force her to moderate a little bit and not piss off the EU too much because she wouldn't want them to cut off aid. There's also the sad reality that, you know, immigration from northern Africa into Italy used to be a huge challenge. And basically, the Italian government has paid off the Libyan Navy to just pick people up and throw them in these ad hoc prisons. So it's not happening as often. So I think it's less of sort of a political focus, but for the worst reasons possible.

But Ben, to that nexus you were mentioning, Georgia Maloney, she will likely be the prime minister, they haven't finished the process. It'll take a little while. She went to CPAC in the United States twice. I watched Steve Bannon and that schmuck, Matt Schlapp, cheering her victory and then talking about how, you know, Bolsonaro's next and they're keeping an eye on that one. And, you know, oh, yeah, boo-hoo at the left calls us fascist. Well, you know, this is who they're in league with. But this is who they are. You know, like, I've been seeing these debates. Like, they, their origins are in, like, the Italian fascist movement. Like, they, they have, their logo is a nod to the Mussolini. era logo. Yeah, they have like, she was in like the youth league. Whenever you hear about the

youth league, you get a little concerned. I mean, and part of this is that there, it seems like that there, there's been a bit of a whitewashing of aspects of Mussolini's past. You know, he wasn't, I think the line goes, you know, well, he wasn't as bad as Hitler or, you know, he made, he made one mistake in joining up with Hitler. No, like Mussolini is a guy who came to power terrorizing his fellow citizens. He's someone who brutally invaded Ethiopia, massacred people, who collaborated fully with Hitler's policies with the holocaust, right? So I think that part of this is just, you know, you start to whitewash history and then it comes back, you know? And that's what we're seeing in a lot of places. And I think we just have to realize that this isn't like a fire drill.

Like this is happening in a lot of places, including in America. Yeah, straight up fascism. really, you know, seismic political story that's happening is we're approaching nearly two weeks of these massive protests in Iran. They started in response to the murder of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman named Masa Amini. She was arrested by the so-called morality police for not wearing a hijab to their satisfaction. I think she actually had one on. She was taken to a re-education center. She died three days later from whatever these, you know, evil goons did to her. But as so often happens when people find the courage to take to the streets in big numbers like this, the protesters' demands have evolved and grown into calls for more fundamental political change

and the end of the current political regime. On Sunday, one of the biggest teachers' unions in Iran called for a nationwide strike, so these protests could get even bigger. The security forces have been cracking down really hard. There's reports of, you know, thousands of protesters arrested, dozens killed, so them going house-deck house, rounding people up. But what's remarkable is that a lot of protesters are physically fighting back against these security forces in And a lot of analysts are saying that's really bold and new. Last week, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran's morality police. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada is going to do the same.

So, Ben, you know, it's hard not to be incredibly inspired by these protesters, especially these Iranian women who are removing their hijabs in public at a great personal risk. Just before we recorded my friend Roger Bennett from the Men in Blazers podcast, sent me a clip of the Iranian national soccer team who wore black jackets covering their national symbols during a game today, during the national anthem in solidarity with the protesters. So again, like, you have to imagine those guys. Huge deal. Yeah.

Yeah, a huge deal, very public, massively embarrassing for Reisi and the current government. In the U.S., the debate is a little more narrow. People are pushing President Biden on whether he's going to continue negotiations over getting Iran back into the Iran nuclear deal. On Sunday, Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, was on CBS. He got asked this question. He basically said, yes, like, we're trying to keep them. from getting a nuke, we can walk and chew gum at the same time and call it their human rights abuses.

Curious if you agree or if you think there's a way to fold what's happening on the streets, you know, in these protests into that conversation, whether you keep them separate. Like, how would you manage this? Well, I mean, first of all, it's been really remarkable and inspiring to see these protests, as you said, Tommy. I mean, like just visions of women burning their hijabs in Iran. Like, it's jaw-dropping the courage that takes. And to me, what's notable is we've seen protests in the past decade that are tied to politics,

like the Green Movement in response to the election there that was basically stolen in 2010. And then, you know, these economic protests at times. What's interesting to me about this one, obviously there were components of those protests that were frustrated with the Islamic Republic. But this is very much about like a social issue, you know. This is about the kind of creepy, be fascistic, morality, police, and subjugation of women. And to me, that's, like, almost more fundamental than just being pissed that, you know, that

the prices are too high or that the economies and the shit are, like, inflation comes and goes, yeah. Yeah, this gets to the, the core identity of the regime. And so that's why I think this is really profound. And, and look, we should also caution here as supporters of a variety of protest movements around the world. like they usually don't end with like the protesters marching into the presidential palace and the present leaving. They do sometimes as we've seen. The guys with guns have a lot of leverage.

Yeah. And in Sri Lanka that happened. But but I think in places like Iran, we had to just unfortunately remind ourselves that the guys with guns matter. But but to me it's an important time because the Supreme Leader reportedly is on like his last legs and very bit ill health. So I do think there's a hope that in the kind of coming years, and this will take years, that the common of these kinds of protests and this kind of mobilization with maybe some political change around a succession, you would hope that that leads them not into an even more dug-in hardline position, which is usually what happens in Iran, but that the cracks start to show that maybe at least there's some changes made with respect to women's rights and that that can be a pathway

to political change. And for the U.S. standpoint, I mean, look, it's not like the nuclear deal felt like it was, you know, on the doorstep of happening. So I think it's quite challenging to begin with. And this will consume, I'm sure, the attention of the Iranian government, who's made things worse by having this kind of sham election last time where they only let hardliners run. So Raezi's president. I do think Jake's right.

I mean, like, why wouldn't you want them to not get a nuclear weapon? Yeah, it seems like an ongoing concern. Yeah, this always comes back to like the idea that the Iranian nuclear deal is framed by its critics as some massive reward to Iran when in fact it's like a massive win for us and other people who don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon for a fairly marginal amount of sanctions relief. So yeah, I think they're right to continue to explore and pursue that. I do think that this is obviously going to preoccupy the attention of the Iranian government and you hope that, you know, frankly, Jake's right too. You can do both things at the same time. Like there's no reason we can't

fully support the aspiration of protesters in China light on what they're doing while at the same time trying to stop around from getting a nuclear weapon. Right, right. Speaking of adversaries with nuclear weapons and why you might not want others to get them, lots of news out of Russia and Ukraine. So we talked last week about the Russian partial mobilization, which I think in the U.S. we'd call a draft. It is starting to look a lot less partial than initial reports seem to suggest. The Russian military is, there's lots of videos of this, going into poorer ethnic regions of Russia, they're trying to round up as many young men with military experience as possible, maybe give them a couple weeks of like refresher training and then just throw

them at the front lines to prevent further territorial losses. It's not clear how quickly Russia is going to be able to mobilize a significant number of guys and whether they'll have the infrastructure or the equipment to do more than just kind of throw bodies at a line, but at a border, but they do have a lot of numbers. That said, there are lots of reports that Russian men are fleeing the country. They're getting on any available flights. They're driving over the remaining border crossings in the countries like Georgia. And, you know, we've seen, again, videos of protests and people fighting with these military recruiters talking back, which is very dangerous in Russia. It sounds like white collar workers and then politically connected people seem to be getting

exempted from the draft, I guess. The U.S. and Russia are more like than we thought, Ben. Yeah, I don't know if you saw this. The son of Putin's spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, he was dumb enough to engage in a phone conversation with some YouTube hosts, like a Russian YouTube show host who was basically prank calling him. He said, oh, no, I'm not going to serve phone drafted, so great. Very worried some to imagine Putin putting another 300,000 troops into this fight. But you can also see in sort of the week or so this has been going on why he tried to resist this move for as long as possible given the response.

I mean, it's pretty, there's an. Okay. It's not small. Yeah, this is like legit. And I mean, you have to remember that that this is unlike anything Putin has done before. You know, I mean, I think sometimes we, we create an aura of inevitability and invincibility around dictators and autocrats. But Putin is in like dangerously new waters for him. I mean, he's objectively losing a war in Ukraine, that he sold on a bunch of lies that everybody can now see your lies, even back home through their propaganda machinery. And now he's implicated people's very lives and the sustainability and survivability of whole communities in Russia. I mean, clearly they didn't have like a well-willed machine to carry out this mobilization.

And when you have like a rotten corrupt system, it's going to show when you try to do big things like this. And what it's shown thus far, as you said, is like this really gross targeting of ethnic minority populations in Dagestan or in the far east of Russia. where actually in some of these smaller rural communities, taking all the military age men could actually endanger the lives of everybody who's there because these are subsistence farming communities. All this is to say, I think you're going to see real sustained blowback to this. And the risk for Putin, kind of political instability and sporadic violence and even periodic

kind of loss of control over a community here or there in Russia is becoming a very real thing for him. I think you also see notably, we've talked about this, you know, that the neighboring states, the Central Asian governments that are usually kind of like seen as fairly, you know, Putin's ass, you know, they're distancing themselves from Putin on this. You're seeing criticism. There was a very powerful speech people should find by the former president of Mongolia, expressing solidarity with all the, you know, ethnic Mongolians and, you know, people, ethnic minorities in Russia that are being rounded up. So yeah, there may be, you know, they have all these additional, and here the cliche holds like bodies to throw at the front line. But the cost

back home to Putin, you know, is much greater. And at the end of the day, for Ukraine to actually win this war, they may have to do it. It may have to be something that happens inside of Russia that allows them to win the war as much as their own battlefield success, like Putin basically made the foundation of Putin's regime is going to have to start to crack, you know? And maybe it feels like we're watching the beginning of that. But this too, like as with Iran, this is going to play out over a long period of time. You know, this is years and not months. Yeah. And look, I hope some of these neighboring countries around Russia will let these men and women and families who are trying to escape, escape and not close off the border. I can't imagine

why we would not try to let fighters get out of there. And also, you know, this is a very small point. But it's really, it's been hard and gross to watch like a lot of like kind of American social media reactions, like kind of mocking, making fun of, laughing at getting, taking joy in seeing these Russian men getting rounded up and pulled into the draft. Like they're human beings. They don't want to fight. They don't want to die.

Like we should support that, not scold them. It's just kind of disgusting. Yeah, this really bugs me, right? Because if you are like, look, I get if you are sitting here and you're pissed at oligarchs and you're pissed at kind of, you know, Russian far right types or even like some of the Russian body politic that has supported Putin. But man, if you're like some 25 year old, like ethnic minority in the far east of Russia, like I don't think you're exactly been like fundamental to Putin's like rise to power here. And, you know, you know, you be like a keyboard Twitter Ukraine warrior and taking shots. That's not your target. Like, like, it's good to, I support people being Twitter, Ukraine warriors. But like, like, these are people, these are human beings who like just drew the wrong straw

at birth to find themselves growing up in Putin's Russia. Again, I think there are lots of Russians who were complicit in Putin's rise, including, I think some of the general public that, you know, kind of got whipped up in this nationalist frenzy. So I do think it's complicated. There are elements of Russian society that bear responsibility for where we are. But like, particularly when you get into, you know, to, you know, constricted 18-year-olds and shit.

Yeah, these remote places and these 18-year-olds, like, it's just a human tragedy of what Putin's done. Now, what you hope is that the rest of the Russian public increasingly takes it on themselves to stand up and oppose this. And once they shatter that fear factor inside of Russia, it's going to be. very hard for Putin to put that back in the box. Yeah. And this is what, again, like to plug, but another Russia is all about the podcast I did if people want to check it out because it's about a guy, Boris Nemtsov, who was not afraid of Putin.

And if there are more and more Boris Nemtsov's, that's how this war ends. Yeah, yeah, agreed. The other sort of big development that's happening concurrently is the Russians are pushing forward with these referendums in eastern Ukraine and the Dombos region. These Ukrainians and these occupied territories are literally being forced to vote at gunpoint on whether to join the Russian Federation. It's obviously a sham, but the concern becomes whether Russia, you know, pushes this process forward, declares, you know, these regions part of Russia and says, okay, well, now these are officially Russian Federation territories. So if you attack us here, we will respond as if you attacked Moscow, the implication being like a nuclear umbrella would

be extended over these regions, et cetera. Obviously, that's like nonsensical, but none of this is logical, right? So the results could also be used as a leverage in a future peace negotiation with Zelensky. The good news is that the European Union says it won't recognize these results. This is a weird thing, though, Ben, again, like I'm focusing on the media response and maybe that's not the biggest point. But I found it odd and depressing how often I see Western media coverage describe what's happening and be like, Western countries say these referenda are illegitimate, it. But Russia says, blah, blah, blah. It's like, state the obvious here. Like, this is coercion. There's no ambiguity here about what's happening. You have soldiers going house to house saying,

hey, you want to vote to join Russia? Like, what do you think is going to happen there? Tommy, I woke up at like 3.30 in the morning jet lagged. And for some reason, like, I saw, like, these headlines. Like, I think Reuters had a headline like, you know, LaHans region votes to join Russia or something. You know, don't even call to vote. The BBC was doing it, too. I'm like, what do you What are you doing? It's fucking insane. It's outrageous and irresponsible. Like we talk about both sides' media in this country.

These are people that invaded a country, like killed and depopulated those territories. We know from some of the same reporting and some of the same outlets that they're literally mass deportations and torture people in these areas. And they're going around a gunpoint and telling the vote. And then the framing of it is like, Russia holds election in Lahansk, you know, 96% vote. favor joining Russia, like Ukraine and Western countries. Like this is, do your fucking job. Like, this is not what is happening. Like North Korea. This is not real. They're breaking international law. Like, it's just, it's amazing that we're having this discussion. Like this, these are

total sham elections that they're totally illegal. This is, it's just playing into Putin's creation of an alternative narrative. And there's no reason to do that. These are fake elections. And you're right. Like, the veneer of legitimacy, you know, not like, just Putin one annexes this territory, but this is the vehicle for them to use a tactical nuclear weapon, you know, to say that any attack on these areas that they're now going to claim a part of Russia invokes their nuclear response. That is a very frightening thing. And the more we try to delegitimize the basis of that, I think, the better. Or a newly friendly sort of right-wing Italian government says, well, maybe you should consider negotiations where the starting point is

the Russians get this territory, et cetera. You know, like that's how this goes badly. No question. quietly what you're going to, you know, what you hear, I think in some of these places in Europe is like, you know, well, why can't we just let them have, you know, the Don boss and call it a day, you know. And look, the answer is like, I want peace negotiations as much as the next guy, but I stopped really pushing for this as something that should happen when I started reading about the mass graves and the massacres and the torture of civilians under occupation. I don't think Zelensky could allow for his civilians, his citizens to be, to live under that. It just, it's not feasible. Yeah, imagine asking Americans to say, like, well, we should just kind of let New England become like an internment camp for everybody who lives there and let it be repopulated by invading Canadians. And like, it's just, it's not something any nation would choose to do. Yeah.

No, no. Last sort of round of news on this topic. So Congress might soon authorize another $11.7 billion in assistance for Ukraine. That goes on top of the $53 billion that's already been approved. just, again, a staggering amount of money. On Monday, Vladimir Putin granted former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, Russian citizenship. So, congrats to all involved there.

On Monday, Ukrainian intelligence warned that Russia is planning to carry out massive cyber attacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure. And they also warned that there might be planning to attack critical infrastructure of Ukraine's allies. So again, lovely. And then this was very weird. There's a horrible shooting at a Russian school by a man wearing Nazi symbols. killed 15 people, including 11 students. It seems like this was a disturbed individual who attended this same school,

not connected to the broader geopolitical stuff that's going on, but very scary and awful. And then just before we started recording, I saw the European officials are now investigating a mysterious underwater explosion, or several of them that damaged the Nord Stream pipelines, which carry natural gas from Russia to Germany. Prime Minister of Poland says this was an act of sabotage, presumably by the Russian. So, you know, the latest data point suggesting that Europe is in for a very cold and challenging winter when it comes to natural gas and energy. Yeah, and there was like three separate explosions in different places, which doesn't feel like a freakish accident. No, doesn't have a vaccine.

Yeah. So, I mean, all these things, you know, snowed aside, it just feels like we're in a – this war is escalating, right? And this is what happens when you start a war with no discernible endpoint. But we should be – Zelensky is like, hey, we got to accelerate the response to stop this, which, look, I get that. Yeah, because the longer this war goes on, the more escalation there's going to be. I mean, Putin's not the kind of guy that is just going to take his, you know, cards and go home. So I think we should be prepared for, like, more strange and asymmetric Russian efforts, like the pipeline explosion, like cyber attacks. Like, you know, one of the dogs that has embarked in this conflict is cyber attacks in the U.S. and the West.

but, you know, I'd expect that Russia has been trying to do that. Somebody must be doing a pretty good job preventing it. But we should be in for more surprises here, unfortunately. Turning to the United Kingdom for a bit. So I think a lot of people, Ben, were wondering how the new British Prime Minister, Liz Truss, would be able to make a name for herself and, you know, sort of get out of the shadow of her predecessor, Boris Johnson. I bet they did not think that she would go with the tank the global economy approach.

But that is what happened. Last week, Liz Trusses' Conservative Party, the total. is proposed increasing government borrowing to pay for massive tax cuts, mostly for the rich. I think there was a banker's bonus that will no longer be taxed. That move sent the value of the British pound plummeting and it cratered the new American stock market as well because every economist on the planet was like, hey, all the things you're doing are going to exacerbate already high inflation. I think the UK is at like 10% inflation. So this Reagan era tax policy announcement also comes as the British government is going to have to put in place subsidies

to cap the price of energy for British citizens because the energy costs are skyrocketing. And the Bank of England is jacking up interest rates to try and cool off inflation. So I don't know, Ben, how are you feeling about the new leadership? Things going well over there? You know, I saw Tommy that the IMF, like, put out a statement, like warning against what they'd done in the UK, this announcement, urging them to reconsider. it's never good if you're like a G7 country and like the IMF is preparing like a stabilization package you know or something like what a what a profound and utter failure and embarrassment

this whole thing was I mean I think if you step back from it like I will never stop connecting all this back to Brexit right when you have a political party that sold the most consequential decision that the United Kingdom has made in many, many decades on just a massive steaming pile of lies. Like, the lies, they keep trying to kind of lie and spin their way out of this. And the latest version of this is to think that this is like the United States and not the United Kingdom and we're just going to come in and be Ronald Reagan and slashed taxes. And look, I'm no economist Tommy. Like, when you're in a massive cost of living crisis, and you're already talking about massive expenditures to try to prop up your energy needs of your

citizens. Like, and your pound, your currency is already like weakening dangerously and you've left the the common market that you were a part of. Like deciding to like have a massive set of tax cuts for the rich in corporations is insane. It's not what I would recommend, you know. And it just, to me, it just speaks to the kind of bankruptcy of the Tories. that they have no answers for Brexit and that they've told lie after lie. They said that leaving the common market would allow them to have like this robust bilateral free trade agreement with

the United States. Well, that's not happening. They said they'd be able to like stand up to the EU and kind of bend them to their will. Why would a block of over 300 million people that is a massively larger economy than the UK feel like the UK has any fucking leverage over them, right? And they don't. And now they say that they're going to tax cut their way back into growth and and somehow fiscal solvency. Like, hello, British people. Like, I know you're still upset about the queen. Like, you are getting screwed here by people who are selling you a fucking giant heaping

set of lies. You made a mistake in voting for Brexit. Fine. That's done. What's done is done. But, like, at some point, can you please put some adults in charge of your country? I know we've had the same problem in the U.S. I know we're in a big, glass house here.

But I'd like you to do that, please. It is a good time for Americans to visit Long. London since the dollar will go pretty far. Next topic. So banner week for our friend Jared Kushner, Ben, who got a big-time big boy award. He got Hungary's Order of Merit medal last week, which is the fourth highest award that can be granted by the Hungarian state. The fourth highest award is so funny to me.

That's like such vintage Kushner mediocrity here. Like who gets the third? Like the goulash guy? I think the third is that like medal that Sebastian. Gorka used to wear. Oh, right. Yeah. It's just like, it's all out in the open now, right? It's like, we've got like, you know, like the blood and sore autocrat and hungry doling out the fourth. I mean, you know, I would like to see the list of the people that clocked in ahead of Jared. But like, Jared is so unselfaware that I'm sure he thought that this was like one of the high

honors of his life, you know. He thinks it's great. Just for fun. Let's hear a quick clip of the admittedly crazy, former Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro talking about Jared on a recent, I think some the far right wing channel i call jared in the in taking back trumps america the clown prince which is an obvious take off on uh yes the the the saudi crown crown prince of saudi arabia would play cuchner like like like a puppet it was just and jared's weakness was he always thought he was the puppet master when in fact he was the puppet couldn't say it better myself then yeah thank you sir uh Yeah, like, yeah, that's all been painfully obvious to all of us for a while here, guys. Nailed it, Peter.

Speaking of Trump Worldbent, a little update on the classified documents of Mar-a-Lago. The short answer, just for everyone listening, is that case closed, this is all been fake news. Here's why. If you're the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it's declassified, even by thinking about it, because you're sending it to Mar-a-Lago or to wherever you're sending it. And there doesn't have to be a process. There can be a process, but there doesn't have to be. Mental declassification.

I learned something today. Telepathic declassification. I mean, who knew, Tommy, in all those meetings that we were in, all those like ferocious investigations of compromises of classified information, you know, the idea that you could just think it is declassified is a stunning innovation. I mean, it bears pointing out here. Because sometimes, like, you see people, this is a version of, like, the media covering the sham referenda in a certain way. You'll see some people, well, maybe, you know, Trump seems to have a sweeping view of presidential power, you know.

Right, one that he made up, yeah. Yeah, as if this is like some, like, legal theory or something. When, again, we haven't done this in a very long time in this podcast. like if Barack Obama had taken like 100 boxes or 100 classified documents in box after box and then said he telepathically declassified it. I'm just thinking that the sweeping view of presidential power wouldn't apply in that instance. Look, and what he's doing here is he's admitting the crime, right? So look, at the core of this, like he committed a crime and took this stuff to Mar-a-Lago.

It's entertaining to hear him talk about it, but it doesn't change the basic facts. Right. And like back here on planet Earth, I mean, here's a clip. French president, Emmanuel Macron, doing an interview with Jake Tapper about whether Macron has been briefed on all this information that has reportedly sitting in a file or was sitting in a file in Mara Lago about Macron and him and something that Trump apparently would brag about to his buddies before stuffing these documents in his basement. Here's a clip. I read some newspaper about that, like you about the books. If you have more information, I would be delighted to share them.

But you don't know what it is. Nobody's talked to you about it. I'm not part of the FBI. I'm not one of the President Trump's lawyers. I have no information about that. I will not say it's extremely pleasant to, I mean, to see this type of information. I try to be less paranoid each day. So, I mean, I'm cool. I'm here. And I would be delighted to have more information, but it's not on my side.

I'm cool. That's a pretty good answer. sure what else he could say there. Pretty good answer. Pretty good answer in good English there, Macron. I think this is such what that said to Travis is such an embarrassment to our country. And whatever you think of Manuel Macron, like the president of one of our closest allies shouldn't have to be sitting there wondering like what's in a box of material at fucking Mara Lago from the former president of the United States who may run for president again. And I will just say, like, I think he has every right to be briefed on what's in that information. Every right.

I hope that I know that DNI is conducting a review and all this stuff like, you know, particularly on something like that where there's been so much press reporting, they should tell them what's in there, you know, like this is like the matter of trust with allies and, you know, who we asked to do really hard things, right? And the idea that and Manuel Macron is sitting there trying to help us deal with the war in Ukraine and the European energy crisis. And he's got the leader of the Republican Party in the United States, like with a box of shit in his house, like, that's, that's, that's really, that's just like a profound betrayal of what

the United States is supposed to do in the world. Totally. Totally. Uh, here's a couple more quick things, Ben. This is a segment I'm trying out with you today called, Hey, that's cool. Let's see how it goes. Part one, apparently the Saudi live tours lobbying efforts in Washington went terribly. Remember, this was being led by former vice president, Dan Quill's son, an aging Australian golf star Greg Norman, the live crew had a little meeting up on Capitol Hill with a bunch of members of Congress. A guy named Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee, a member of Congress from Tennessee attended. And he was quoted in a slate story saying he could barely understand what Greg Norman was saying because his accent was so strong that regardless of what he was saying,

that he couldn't understand. It was all propaganda from, quote, billionaire oil guys. And finally, that the food was terrible too. So that's cool. Hey, that's cool. Yeah. To give me a little hope. Yeah, I mean, you could see the sham for what it was. I also saw the thing about Norm Coleman, Saudi mega lobbyist, is also like the fundraiser for the Republicans and has raised like almost $100 million in dark money. So the grossness of the Saudi influence campaigns continue. But I'm glad Greg Norman, the shark, who didn't land the plan here. Peak as a golfer, you know, was like 30 years ago before he started selling like hats with a shark on them. Like I'm sure, I'm glad his like live pitch went down as well as like his

his game has been the last couple decades. Me too. Part two. In a national referendum, Cubans overwhelmingly voted in favor of allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt children. So that's very cool. Yeah, they've been progress on same-sex marriage in Cuba for a while now. And this is really cool to see in Latin America.

Like strange countries making inroads on marriage equality. I was just in Taiwan, which legalized same-sex marriage recently. Cuba. So, you know. It's great. The countries is different as Taiwan and Cuba can legalize things like marriage. And we can all do this. Come on, guys.

We can all do this. And the third story you had in here is NASA slammed a refrigerator-sized space probe into an asteroid to see if they could knock the asteroid off its orbit. This was a test to see if a similar technique could one day be used to prevent a planet-killing asteroid from hitting Earth and killing us all. So I'm glad they nailed this thing, but they hit the asteroid, but it'll be much cooler if we then learn that it actually changed the orbit and the broader strategy proves to have worked, but it'll take a little time to figure that one out.

But, you know, fun to see, you know, footage of NASA just, like, blowing shit up. I feel a little misled because I thought basically you needed, like, Bruce Willis or Ben Affleck to pilot a ship with, like, a nuclear weapon to, like, nuke the asteroid. Who knew that you could just shoot a fucking refrigerator up into the sky and save planet Earth? So, like... Learn something every day. That's the case, you know. like if don't look up could have been solved with the refrigerator, you know, could have saved the ending, you know.

Saved a lot of viewers for sitting through the whole thing. Finally, Ben, the CIA has started a podcast. It's called The Langley Files. The first episode features the CIA director and friend of ours, friend of the show, Bill Burns, former State Department lifer. Here's what I'd like to say to the CIA. stay in your fucking lane. Yeah, come on.

You don't want this podcast industry smoke. So help me God, if I hear Bill Burns reading like a Tommy John ad or some shit, I am coming down to your office and I'm going to set you straight. So cut it up. Don't even, yeah, I mean, like if they're coming at me with like the Langley coffee too and the merch, like, you know, don't think that you're in coaching on the space guys. Like you've got your COVID operations over there. You've got your, you know, you get your spy networks and all your shit.

You've done your cute tweets. I don't know that you need to, you know, like this is our space. This is our little corner, okay? This might be peak podcast. The CIA starting a podcast might be like the day at all started to end. I know. We may be sitting at a bar in like five, ten years and be like, yeah, you know, when the agency launched that thing, man.

Late September, 2022. I will say I'm glad they're trying to communicate. I mean, I've always like, I think we tried to urge them to, I don't know, a little more transparency over there. It's never a bad thing, but. No, it's not. We're just going to keep an eye on this competitor, though. Yeah, it's a lot of inertia in that place.

Okay, we are going to take a quick break and we come back. You will hear Ben's interview with Senator Bernie Sanders about the upcoming elections in Brazil. So stick around for that. We are very pleased to welcome back to Pod State of the World. Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont. Thanks so much for joining us, Senator. My pleasure, Ben. So it's great to have you on and the run up to this Brazilian election, which we've been following.

And I know you've really played a leading role in following in the Senate, where President Bolsonaro has made all kinds of threats about not respecting the potential result. I wanted to just start by asking you to describe what your concerns are from what you're seeing from Bolsonaro and introduce this resolution that you pursued in the Senate to try to do something about that. Well, Brazil is the largest country in Latin America. What happens there is obviously important to the whole continent. Brazil turns out to be one of the largest democratic countries in the entire world. So at a time when we are deeply concerned about all of the attacks and threats against democracy,

it's important that we take a hard look at what's going on in Brazil, which, as you know, not so many years ago, lived under a military dictatorship. And what's going on is they have a president who is very Trump-like. I think he's learned a lot from Donald Trump. in 2018, and I can, you know, we have a whole long list of quotes. Yeah. This is, in 2018, he won the election. Before he won the election, this is what he said, quote,

I will not accept an election result that is not my own victory. End of quote. Then more recently in 2021, he said, and I quote, there are those who think they can take me from the presidency with the market, of a pen, well, I say to everyone, I have only three possible fates, arrest, death, or victory, and tell the bastards I'll never be arrested, only God can take me from the presidency, end of quote. It doesn't sound like somebody who strongly believes in the will of the people or the democratic process. So that is what the concern is. The concern is, in a couple of months ago, I met with a wonderful group,

cross-section of people from Brazil. And they came to the office, and they expressed deep concerns about the possibility of a military coup or just the reality that Bolsonaro might not accept the election results. And what we are trying to do right now, I've introduced a sense of the Senate resolution along with Senator Kane, who's the chairman of the relevant subcommittee, which is pretty simple. And it says that if the government of Brazil stays in power because of a coup or because of illegal manipulation of the elections or refusal to accept election results, the United States will not recognize that government and cease the aid, the substantial amount of aid, including military aid, that we give to Brazil right now. So in getting into, there are different angles of this, in getting into Bolsonaro's tactics here, you know, I think he pretty famously in his 2018 election mimicked some of the Trump campaign's strategies and messaging and social media. We've seen Trump obviously have a warm relationship with him when he was in the Oval Office, but we've also seen kind of Trump people, MAGA people like Jason Miller head down to Brazil. We've seen Steve Bannon take this on. How concerned are you that there's kind of an overlap between the far right in this country in Brazil? And, you know, Bolsonaro has talked about rigged voting machines. It almost feels like, you know, he's singing off the same playbook here.

He's laying the groundwork. You know, it's no great secret, Ben. I think your view is what he's doing is what Trump did. He's laying the groundwork to say, look, and it's what Trump did. This is a fraudulent election. I won, and I will not accept the results. and by the way, I have the military behind me. This is clearly, you mentioned people like Bannon and others,

this is part of a global effort to undermine democracy all over the world, you know, whether it's France, the UK, countries, all of Europe, you're seeing the growth of extreme right-wing organizations. And to my mind, I mean, this is a very deep issue. And I think what you're seeing, and there are 100 reasons why this is happening. But one of the reasons is that globalization, while it maybe have been successful for many people, it has been a disaster for a lot of people, especially working people in rural areas who have been left behind. They're falling further and further behind.

Government is not responding to their needs. And they're saying, what does democracy do for me? What are all these stupid political parties doing for me? I want somebody up there. We can get the trains running on time who's going to help me. And I think you're seeing that movement all over the world. And to my mind, what we need are efforts to create economies that work for all, not just the feud to restore faith, that government, in fact, can work for ordinary people. Do you – and I want to come back to the resolution, but I want to pick up on something you said, because one of the interesting things that's how.

happened in Latin America the last few years is you see a lot of gains on the left. At a time when populism is largely manifested itself on the right, we've seen Boeach get elected in Chile, Petro and Colombia, pretty much the whole hemisphere moving in that direction. And Lula has obviously been at the vanguard of the Latin American left. We should note he's led by huge margins or substantial margins at least in all public opinion polling in the Brazilian election. do you feel like the Biden administration in the United States is doing enough to to kind of embrace that trend and see it as an opportunity to address things like structural inequality in Latin America? Because sometimes, you know, as someone who worked on Cuba and has the scars to prove it and wanted to pursue a different kind of relationship there, in part to have an opening with the Latin American left, you know, the U.S. tends to look at leftists with some degree of concern, you know, in Latin America. Do you see an opportunity here with potentially Lula on top of Boric and Petro and a bunch of

other leaders to have a new set of issues that shapes? I would hope so. And by the way, in fairness to the Biden administration before we talk about their relationships with progressive governments, they have, and I think in an unusual way, you know, sent the CIA and set the Secretary of Defense down to Brazil. Yeah. over the last several months to make me clear that they did not want to see a rigged election or a coup. And that's what the Biden people did, and I appreciate that.

You know, when you talk about the United States government's relationship with Latin America, you know better than I do. The very sorry past that has existed, the overthrow of people like that. Salvador Allende and numerous other invasion of Grenada, just in numerous intervention in El Salvador, the government, throw overthrow the government in Guatemala. I mean, it's a past in which we've had a Monroe Doctrine, which has said, hey, you're in our backyard

and we have the right to intervene anytime we want. Clearly that it's not the position of the Biden administration. Are they reaching out to the progress, progressive new governments and saying, look, if we're going to deal with issues like immigration, we understand people are leaving your countries, leaving the Central America, leaving Mexico, because of horrendous conditions there. Let's work together to try to improve life for people, which will be good for your country and basically stop the huge exodus into the United States. Are we doing as much as we should? Probably not. Yeah. Well, yeah, I just see an opportunity there,

to work on the agenda you talk about. But I want to come back to your resolution in Brazil. What's the status of your ability to get that done? It doesn't seem like there's a lot of Republican enthusiasm. Why do you think that is? And have you gotten anywhere in your kind of private conversations with your colleagues on the other side? Well, it is. You know, it really is.

And I say this honestly, not to be overly partisan. It is a sad state of affairs that this resolution, I think we have five or six Democrats on it. We can have more. We haven't been as aggressively going after Democrats. We wanted to get some Republicans on. To be honest with you, I don't know that we will have any Republicans. And I think the answer is not complicated. Bolsonaro is, in fact, a strong Trump ally.

And if you are a Republican in the United States Senate, why do you want to antagonize Donald Trump? Yeah. And so I think that's the bottom line for that. What we're trying to do now is see if we get this thing, quote-unquote, hotline, which means see if we can move it through the Senate and get it on to the floor for unanimous consent. Will we be successful? Stay tuned. So, and, you know, it's an interesting resolution in that, you know, it obviously expresses not just a view,

but, you know, makes recommendations about how the U.S. should respond. Let's say the most likely scenario happens, right, where you have Bolsonaro losing the election, according to vote tally's international election monitors, but then refusing to step down. What would you like to see the U.S. administration do in that context? And what is the role of Congress in that context? I think we've got to be as aggressive as we can be. I mean, obviously, it's not only cutting off all military aid and all types of aid to an illegal government, which is essentially an illegal government, but I think doing everything

we can to support the justified demands of the Brazilian people. If, in fact, that scenario takes place, and I hope very much that it won't, and it may very well not. I mean, you know, at the end of the day, Biden is the president and Trump is not the president. But I would, you know, not only for the sake of the people in Brazil, but for Latin America and for the entire world. if the world sits by and allows an illegal government to come to power in the largest country in Latin America, then we're turning up backs on democracy, and I think the future for democracy

will be very bleak indeed. Yeah. No, I mean, this is, you know, as you said, one of the largest democracies in the world and talk about a bellwether for this region. But you mentioned the whole world. I mean, one of the things was interesting to me is, you know, in this resolution, which I think serves a great purpose for for Brazil itself. But it also points to the idea that the United States would not be providing kind of military assistance to governments to come to power through

coups that overthrow democratic elections, which, you know, if we're honest, you know, we can find countries around the world where we haven't followed through in that principle. I'll be, you know, honest, in the Obama years, for instance, Thailand, you had a military coup in this awkward dance with how to manage that relationship. I mean, do you think that given the autocratic trends, just being clear and more consistent on the basic principle that if you have a coup that overthrows a democratic result, the United States is going to cut you off? Is that the kind of consistency that we should be aiming for across the board? Or do you see this more as a result-focused? Yeah. Look, I think so. You know, at the end of the day, in a world which is becoming

more and more authoritarian, more and more oligarchic from an economic perspective. It is imperative that the United States stand vigorously for democracy. What will it say to the poor people of Brazil who are voting, you know, according to the polls, very significantly for Lula, that we're going to turn our backs on you.

So both from a pure perspective regarding democracy and our belief that people themselves have the right to control their own destinies, not the military, and also, you know, from an economic point of view, and that many of these, you know, governments are supported by the rich and the powerful, I think it's very imperative that the United States stand strong and make it clear that we are on the side of democracy, and we are on the side of the needs of working people who are struggling very significantly in the global economy and where things have gotten even worse as a result of the pandemic.

And one last question I wanted to ask you here, because we've talked over the years about this question of democracy, which I really respect how you've prioritized it globally, even as you have such a robust agenda here in the United States. You know, one of the things that is someone who really cares about democracy myself that is complicated when it comes to U.S. foreign policy is it sometimes becomes tethered to U.S. geopolitical interest, right? So we only talk about democracy and Venezuela and Iran.

And we looked the other way and secondly. But somehow Saudi Arabia is flourishing democratic society, right? Exactly. Because women can even drive a car now, almost. Yeah, almost. Although you can get in prison if you're a woman who criticizes things. But like one of the, the thing that is staring us in the face, though, is that most, you know, the Cuba and Iran have horrific excesses in their governmental systems. but the mega trend that is leading to accelerating democratic backsliding, particularly, you know, in

democracies themselves, is coming from the far right, right? Putin, Orban, Bolsonaro, I'd say Netanyahu. We could go on, unfortunately. What does the left have to do to create greater solidarity among movements for democracy across borders. Because you mentioned the Brazilian civil society you met with. I'm sure that they're not that dissimilar from the Hungarian civil society I met with. There are people in India who are concerned about Modi's excesses or people in the Balkans who are dealing with Russian-backed far-right movements. It doesn't feel like we are as organized and connected as the far-right is where you've got Steve Bannon flying around meeting with far-right parties in Europe and Putin financing them.

what can be done to, and what have you been working on? Because I know you have done some of this, to create greater connectivity among the progressive democratic forces that I think are on the front lines really of this fight against far right. I think that's a very important question, Ben. And I think the answer is neither I or anybody else has done anywhere near enough. I was just in London a few weeks ago. It's part of a parliamentarian set of.

of meetings and uh just turn this off uh and um i participate in a rally with striking with with union leaders uh in london who are uh you know have been on strike uh dealing with the incredible rates of inflation and high energy prices uh and an economy which is i think people don't have appreciate I didn't really bad for working people in the UK and we kind of reached out a little bit to some of our friends in France but I think your point is is well taken we need to bring progressives people who believe in democracy believes in in the rights of the working people who are very worried look I got to tell you and I'm working on a book which we'll deal with this a little bit you know oligarchy is an issue then that cannot be not in the United States

not around the world. You know, in this country, you've got three people who have more wealth than the bottom half of America. You got three Wall Street firms that have controlled $20 trillion in assets. These are not just American companies. These are global black rock, et cetera. Yeah. Huge global enterprises that have a huge impact all over the world. And these guys are getting richer. Ordinary people are struggling. And, you know, these are issues that together we have got to begin addressing. Yeah, no, I think that's right. And look, I encourage everybody to follow the Brazilian election, obviously, and to follow your resolution. Frankly, if any of our listeners want to get on the horn and urge their senators to join this resolution, we'd encourage them to do so. Appreciate you coming on. Anytime you want to come on, talk about these issues or spotlight some of these issues, I'm sure it'd be well received.

Yeah, call you back. There you go. No, I was just saying anytime you want to come back, you know, thanks for joining. I do. Look, you know, here is, as I mentioned earlier before we went on the air, and I want to say this to the viewers, you know, from a political perspective, foreign policy is not a sexy issue. Yeah. That's true. People are worrying about the price of gas, the price of housing, the wages they earn, all of

which is natural. These are the day-to-day realities that people have to deal with. What happens in Brazil is not exactly something that people are talking about every day. But you know and I know that these issues are of enormous consequence. Yeah. Yeah. And I would hope, and I want to thank you for what you're doing because there aren't a lot of people out there talking about foreign policy and a language that people can understand. So we've all got to do better.

And I think we have got to reach out to our friends all over the world. And there are many who are fighting for democracy. You know, I just today you look at the papers. and, you know, I am impressed by these young people in Russia standing up right now, out on the streets. You know, in Putin's authoritarian society to go out on the streets and get arrested, that is an act of great courage. Do you agree?

Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, and these are people taking on more risks than us. And, you know, the Putin's of the world and the Trumps of the world actually understand why this matters, even though, you know, Trump may not understand the issues. They understand that this is connected. are movements taking place on both sides of these issues, I would say there are more of us, people who believe in small D democracy than those who would keep us down. As you mentioned,

kleptocracy and oligarchy invest a lot in suppressing those movements, which is why I think it's so important to connect the conversation that you've really spearheaded in this country about equality and justice. That's a global concern, right? And it's great that we're able to have conversations like this to draw that together. Well, let's continue this discussion at another time. And thanks again for the work you're doing then. Absolutely. Thanks, Senator. Okay, take care.

Thanks again to Senator Sanders for joining the show. That guy, Ben, did he take a phone call during it? What happened there? He did, but it's like very, I just loved it. It was so on brand, like, because he was able to like take a phone call and then just come back in, kind of mid thought and absolutely crush, you know? I love it. I'd just say I always like end up conversations with Bernie feeling like a little more, like

energized and hopeful. Like there's a can-do to it. And at a time when you got like protesters and places as different as Russia and Iran, like you tell yourself like maybe we're going to get through this. But yeah, you know, Bernie has calls to take. He's got an important people. He's a busy man. He's a busy man.

Maybe he was the CIA calling to book him on the podcast. Yeah. I'm guessing not. He's like, oh, we'll cut your funding for that. All right, man. Well, safe travels. Thanks for doing this at like four in the morning or whatever it is over there. and we'll talk to you all next week.

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