Pod Save the World - Fighting for freedom in Iran

Episode Date: October 5, 2022

Tommy and Ben discuss the latest news out of Ukraine, including the increasingly vocal criticism of the war effort from Putin’s allies and talk of nuclear weapons use. Then they cover the election results in Brazil, prisoner releases, trickle down economics get humiliated in the UK, a coup in Burkina Faso, and shorter updates from around the world. Then Tommy speaks with Yeganeh Rezaian from the Committee to Protect Journalists about the protests in Iran, her experience with Iran’s brutal morality police, and what Americans and the US government should do to support this movement.  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.

Do you need a safe space to learn how you can get your mind right? Then tune into Amani State of Mind where host Dr. Amani and Meg Scoop break down mental illness and health through pop culture news and their very own experiences managing mental health. Take a deep breath, find your calm, and get into an Amani state of mind with new episodes every Friday, wherever you get your podcast. Welcome back to POTS Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Where's your jet lag on a scale from zero to Bill Murray in Lawson Translation? So I will say, as you get older, this gets harder. And so I got back from, just to give you a little flavor of it, I got back Friday night, Sunday night.

I fell asleep on the hardwood floor of my kid's bedroom after putting them in the bed and woke up at 1230 and was up all day yesterday. Oh, that's tough. So imagine we can, yeah, it's pretty bad. That's like a 24 hour day. But today I'm fine. Today, you know, today, last night, they slept at the night. I'm fine. Well, good.

Welcome back. We got a great show to welcome. Welcome you back to welcome all the listeners back then. We're going to cover the latest news out of Ukraine, including the increasingly vocal criticisms of the war coming from within Russia, from Putin's allies. The chatter about the risk of nuclear weapons use. Very fun, light stuff there. The election results in Brazil. Prisoner releases, trickle-down economics gets humiliated in the United Kingdom.

So sad to see it. A coup in Burkina Faso, some shorter updates from around the world. And then a fantastic interview that you really do not want to miss. I just talked with a friend of the pod, Yegi Rezayan, about the ongoing protests in Iran and the brave women leading them. Listeners might know her husband, Jason Rezayan, who wrote a great book called Prisoner about his time being unlawfully, unfairly, unjustly detained by the Iranian regime for 544 days. Yegi was held for 72 days. She was born and raised in Iran. She tangled with the so-called morality police several times herself.

We talk about that. She was a journalist in Iran. We talked about the detention of journalists. So just an amazing interview. She had great advice not only for Joe Biden and for the United States and Western countries, but also just average people about what they can do. I just got to say, too, like in the, how many people? There's 7 billion people on Earth?

Yeagie's in like the top 100 list of the 7 billion, like just as quality human being. I think that's right. Just like a light into any darkness. Yeah. And by the way, just a quick summary for folks who want to know what her advice was, basically like talk about this stuff more, post on social media. especially elected officials. Yeah.

Iranians want to hear from you about what's going on in support of the protesters. Yeah, I think, you know, what's interesting when things like this happen, because I'm hearing from some Iranians, I know, is like, we are all watching this and we're all moved by it, but people don't assume that. You know what to do or say it. Or don't assume that people know you care. You know, it's important advice. Yes, that's right. Ben, a quick personal note. The first episode of my podcast, World Corrupt, is coming out this weekend.

It's about the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, how it was awarded corruptly by FIFA to a country with an abysmal human rights record and labor practices that have led to thousands of people being killed or forced to work in unsafe conditions. It's with a guy named Roger Bennett, who is the host of the Men in Blazers podcast. Maybe like the best title for a podcast. Great title. Great title. Soccer fanatic, amazing guy. It's going to come out on the podcast of the world feed. It'll also come out on the crooked news.

media feed. I think it's like, it's kind of you're in my sweet spot in a lot of ways. We love that. World corruption. Global politics overlap. I think listeners will like it a lot. I've done a lot of work on it. So please check it out. Yeah, check it out. I mean, it's a great way into both sports and politics.

And, you know, like you'll understand the world better. If you're going to watch the World Cup, you have to listen to this before so you know what's happening. We're not going to make you feel bad. We're going to give you some advice. We want you to watch the World Cup. Watch the World Cup. Watch the World Cup by all means. But understand what you're watching.

Yeah. And when you're running around outside, playing soccer with your friends, you might need some shoes. Yeah. How about that for transition? Yeah, you do. We at Cricket have a collaboration with Karyuma. We're making some great shoes.

Everyone needs shoes and a portion of the proceeds from the sale of our shoes with Karyoma. Go to vote riders, which is helping people overcome voter ID laws across country. So go to crooked.com slash kicks. Okay. Ben, let's talk about Ukraine. Because even as we were coming in here, the story's changing. News is coming fast and furious. Fast and furious today.

The Ukrainian military is making rapid progress in their effort to push Russians out of eastern Ukraine, the Russian military. We talked a few weeks ago about the shocking breakthroughs that happened in northeastern Ukraine. Now the Ukrainians are making major advances in southern Ukraine, despite the fact that those were the positions that have been reinforced by the Russian military. Ukrainian military analysts say they've been targeting the Russian supply lines in southeastern Ukraine and are close to cutting off about 25,000 Russian soldiers and forcing them to either retreat or get encircled. So that sounds very bad. For the Russians. Yeah, very bad for the Russians. This is all happening as Putin is claiming to annex territory that is being recaptured,

like as he speaks by Ukrainian forces. And the reality of the war is really breaking through within Russia. Putin admitted mistakes were made during his mobilization effort, their draft effort. He said that men who were wrongly drafted will get sent home. That came after, I think, something like 17 attacks on military recruitment centers and government buildings were reported since the mobilization. he's firing generals left and right, one of whom came under fierce criticism by Ramzan Kadyrov, who's a Putin stooge, who runs Chechnya.

Ketirov was like blasting nepotism in the Russian military, and he said the commander of the region should be stripped of his medals and sent to the front lines. So like, let's pause there, Ben. I'm just curious, what do you make of Putin giving these increasingly inflammatory speeches? It was just like big propaganda event in Red Square while seemingly allowing or maybe just not being able to prevent this like open criticism of how badly things are going. Yeah, there's so much going on here. First of all, I guess this is a plug, but like we had a couple weeks on Ilya Panamanco,

who's the defense correspondent for the Kiev Independent. That interview, he basically described exactly what's happening now. He laid it all out. He laid it all out. So go back, even if you listened to it the first time, because I could repeat what, well, I'll repeat a summary, but like he walks methodically through the case. for how Ukraine can militarily defeat Russia. And what he described is literally, like, precisely what's happening now.

He said that after the offensive in the north, the offensive in the south, will cut off Russian supply lines and circle those troops. But the reason it's useful to think about it, as, you know, if you're not a military expert, like most of us aren't, is that what he's describing is that Ukraine doesn't need to, like, literally conquer every inch of territory that Russia has, what they can. basically do is strategically encircle the remaining Russian forces and then just pulverize them. Like take rail hubs and just cut them off from each other and then use the U.S. provided artillery and their own higher morale to just eviscerate the Russian forces. And that is what's happening. So these are not just gains. They're gains with like a real military purpose, right?

And it's notable to get your question is like, Putin clearly realized a few weeks ago after the northern offensive that this isn't going well. And he's basically been on an offensive to try to reverse as best you can the momentum. So the mobilization and throwing new bodies at this, the annexation to try to create facts on the ground, you know, de facto Russian control politically of this territory, this PR offensive, this kind of stupid event he did in front of the Kremlin with like some Nazis and some rock bands and stuff. Genuinely crazy people. Yeah, crazy shit. And it's really notable that since Putin has launched, you know, kind of his counteroffensive, it's just, it's like a house of cards coming down in Ukraine.

Like they can't stop the bleeding. The new troops are not getting there fast enough and they're not equipped. They have shitty morale. So that's compounding the problems he already has. And, you know, if you look at the issue in the Russian public, like one way to think about this is, what does sustain the Putin regime? You know, there's the military, there's the kind of FSB, you know, former KGB type, security services, they're the oligarchs. And then there's the kind of nationalism that he himself has stirred up as legitimacy. It's like corruption in nationalism. Yeah. And the

reality is, if you look at that, the only one that you could say today Putin can really count on is the FSB security services types, right? Because the military, well, those guys can't be very happy. They're all getting blamed for this disaster. They're getting fired. They're in units where their men are getting eviscerated. Then the oligarchs, you know, they're not losing all their money, but like life has gotten harder for them than it was before. They can't be very happy about this war. But then importantly, as you say, Putin rode the back of the tiger in empowering all these rabid, you know, Nazi propagandists.

And they're turning on the war effort because because they're more hawkish. Yeah, I used to wonder if they were like there to give him space to move to the right, but now it seems like they're just going after him. Yeah, he's lost control of the nutcases that he brought into the tent. And so this is a real problem for him, you know. I mean, to illustrate this, like an equal number of Russians have moved to Kazakhstan. I saw this.

Yeah. Max Seddon tweeted this, right, front of the FT. 200,000 Russians have been called up. 200,000 Russians are in Kazakhstan. To one country. To one country, right? And so this whole thing is getting really dicey that they cannot reverse the military picture, but they also can't reverse the political picture, right?

He can't, in trying to fire up the Russian people, the people who are most fired up about this war are pissed about it and everybody else is pissed about the mobilization. He's really isolated. And I'm not saying like, yeah, Putin's going to go tomorrow. But for the first time in this war, like, he can't escape the consequences. Yeah, it looks bad. I saw there was a major prisoner swap that happened. 215 Ukrainians were swapped for 55 Russians, some like Putin friend, 10 foreign nationals,

including two Americans who gave an interview to The Washington Post that talked about how they were tortured. It was pretty harrowing. Kadearov is saying he wants to send his teenage kids to war, like 16-year-olds. Sure, buddy, believe it when I see it. But, Ben, I mean, I think the increasing desperation for Putin is, increasing chatter about whether or not Russia might use a nuclear weapon. And so, like, why don't we quickly just talk about the range of options Putin might be considering.

This was laid out in an op-ad by a friend of the pod, Joe St. John, which is a sobering peace in the Washington Post. So, like, one option Joe talks about is Putin could just detonate a nuclear weapon over some uninhabited area, like Black Sea, just to show their serious to get the West to back down to freak everybody out. Some scientists apparently in the Manhattan Project pushed for the U.S. to do this instead of bombing Japanese cities. Another option includes like a low yield nuclear weapon, one that would like kill thousands of people, devastate a target, but be some sort of fraction of the nuclear yield or the power of the weapons dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. There's an even smaller version of that called a tactical nuclear weapon, which could be maybe one thousandth of the yield of those

World War II era nukes, but would clearly terrorize everybody. And then there are far more catastrophic options, like a massive nuclear strike on Kiev to like to capitate the government, an attack on NATO forces. The conventional wisdom, which hopefully is right, seems to be that Putin is smart enough to realize that those latter two options would lead to probably using support from India or China and then just like a massive NATO response. So hopefully they're off the table. But with that uplifting introduction, the White House is saying they're privately warning Russia about the consequences of a nuclear strike. They won't detail that publicly, but they, Jake Sullivan said repeatedly they've done it. Curious what you make of that strategy, the increased chatter.

and just general anxiety about nuclear use. You're seeing people say, like, well, maybe now there's a 10% chance of it happening, which is way too high. Yeah. So first of all, yeah, I think we're already in new territory because, you know, essentially the doctrine of the Soviet Union and Russia, you know, was the kind of ambiguous, like if the state was threatened, you know, nuclear weapons around the table to defend the existential survival of Russia.

he's already just in his declaratory statements, loosen the norm around, you know, when you consider using nuclear weapons. And obviously tying it potentially to defending annex territory. This is new. Like this is, this is, to take it seriously, this has never happened in the nuclear age where, well, it's happened, but like this is uncomfortably recent

and that it was within the last few days. You know, he's introducing nuclear weapons as part of his strategy for this war. Whether he uses him or not, it's already part of the strategy because he wants it in the heads of the Ukrainians. He wants it in the heads of NATO. And that's dangerous because, you know, obviously if he uses them, he's breaking a taboo. But like, normal is the world has spent a lot of decades trying to create. create a norm against threatening use of nuclear weapons and against nuclear weapons kind of being kind of a part of warfare, right? And so you look at other hotspots around the world, India,

Pakistan, North Korea, potentially Iran. Like, you just don't want to be in a new world where suddenly, like, the use of smaller nuclear weapons or tactical nuclear weapons is somehow like a part of the playbook. No, no. I think, unfortunately, like, you know, you have to take it somewhat seriously, like the tactical nuclear weapon thing, right, the like loading it into a rocket and firing it at an advancing Ukrainian military column. Like if, you know, if if Putin is completely cornered, it's hard to say what he'd do. And that is scary, right? That we, we have to take it seriously in that way. I think in terms of like, what do you do in response? Like, first of all, I do think that in addition to the U.S. warnings, which I get to in a second,

like you would hope, and I assume the administration is doing this, that like China, like Xi Jinping is telling Putin, don't do this, right? Yeah, you know. Like more likely to listen to that guy than to us. And so you want to make sure that diplomatically Putin is hearing from everybody, including people who are kind of closer to him or people who are friendly to him, like the Chinese, that this could be a complete game changer for Russia generally. You also hope or wonder whether or not there are people in the nuclear chain of command in Russia

who are beginning to think about like, do I really want to carry out the order? Because it's not like Putin can go fire the nuclear weapon himself. Right. I mean, it would be a death sentence for the people involved. Yeah. You know, and so like, you know, you want it in their heads too. Because it, you know, in some scenario, like him giving that order could actually hasten his demise because people would be like, this is, we're not doing this.

This guy's crazy. You know, we need to remove him. And the awful contingency of what the U.S. does in response, you know, I think people should, and you saw Dave Petraeus out there, speaking for himself, by the way. I think, like, people should not assume that Petraeus is speaking for the Biden administration. But I think what he's right about, you know, he said, well, the U.S. could destroy the Russian fleet in Black Sea and kind of destroy the Russian military conventionally in Ukraine. That's true.

Like, that's the far end of what we could do. I think the thing that is likely is the U.S. would probably not respond to a limited use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine with nuclear weapons and we're in World War III. But I do think a conventional military response is quite likely. It seems quite likely. And if not that, I think U.T. a big escalation of the types of military equipment given to the Ukrainian forces and maybe less of a concern about restrictions on, say, like missiles that can hit within Russia. Yeah, yeah. I think... I don't know how you could argue for those guardrails once a nuclear weapon's been used.

We're an entirely new world, even if he uses a tactical nuclear weapon. So, you know, I wish I had like better news on this. You know, like I just think it's something that has to be taken seriously. You know, there's temptation I see sometimes like, well, this is why the Ukrainians should just like make peace. and well, if threatening nuclear weapons is your pathway to successfully annexing a part another country, then we are also in a new world in which more countries will want to obtain nuclear weapons and more countries might go to war thinking they can use their nuclear weapons to threaten countries to, you know, that's not a good outcome either.

No, no one wants to be there. You know, I think that, look, I mean, Putin is a real cornered individual right now and it's getting worse for him. and these types of threats could go up. But I think the risk for Putin people should be aware is real too, because the more he's dialing this up and it seems like nuclear war is now a rising probability 10%. You mentioned that China, the Russian military, the elements that Putin relies on, I have to think, are more likely to maybe think that this whole thing is not worth it. Yeah.

And there's no doubt the Ukrainians are going to continue to press this offensive in every way they possibly can. So who knows what this conversation will be like a week from now. There could be more territory and, you know, frankly, more humiliation for Putin as territory he just announced as being part of the Russian Federation is now completely out of his control and back under Ukrainian control. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why they're moving so fast. You know, there's a kind of urgency.

I think it's worth saying that like you alluded to this a bit in your comments, but like they don't even know. it's not only that they don't control the territory there was annexed, when they were asked what actual territory they annexed, they couldn't even answer the question, like the Russian officials, like Peskov, like the spokesperson. So this shows you that like nobody knows what is in Putin's head, you know. No, no. Okay. Well, after that uplifting segment, let's turn to Brazil, Ben, because there's a major election on Sunday. They voted in a presidential contest that has huge consequences for obviously the Brazilian people, but also, you know, the health of democracy globally and effort to combat climate change. This election pitted, there are a bunch

of candidates in this one, but the major candidates were the right-wing authoritarian president of Brazil currently, Jaya Bolsonaro. And then the former president, a leftist populist named Lula de Silva. The results are that there will be another election, unfortunately, because neither candidate got 50% of the vote. Lula got around 48.5%. Bolsonaro got about 43%. The outcome sucks for many reasons, but it was disappointing and unexpected because opinion polls showed Lula cruising to victory, maybe by double digits. Bolsonaro have been out there arguing that his support was being undercounted by pollsters. Turns out he was right. Now they have to do it all over again, turn out the voters again, and then both sides will try to win the votes of the 10 million or so

Brazilians who vote for candidates who will not be part of the runoff or people who didn't vote. So not great. Observers are also worried about Bolsonaro baselessly declared. There was voter fraud if he loses. You heard Bernie Sanders talk to Ben about that last week. You could have a very tense situation spill over into political violence, which no one wants to see. You got right-wing pundits in the U.S. pouring gas on the fire, pushing voter fraud claims already. So, you know, Ben, also with conservative candidates in Brazil did well in local elections, Bolsonaro's party gained seats in Congress. I don't want to make some like facile comparison from the U.S. and Brazil, but it is, we.

to see a polling miss and like, you know, the right wing populist party do better in these local elections, just like 2020. Curious what you made of the results, the polling miss, the thoughts ahead of the October 30th runoff, which will obviously be covering. So I think, first of all, you know, we've talked about the danger of like success, begetting success or momentum. I don't want to overstate this either. But I think it bears noting that if you look at the kind of right wing, you know, global

international. There was a lot of reference of the Italian election. Like, you know, let's go, let's keep this going. Brazil's up next. Like Bannon was saying that, right? Like first Italy, then Brazil. And you do wonder, I'm not saying it had a huge impact on voting behavior in Brazil, but it certainly did, you know, once you see like one, you know, neo-fascist get in or semi-fascist, as Joe Biden would say, you know, it does. You can believe it could happen. It does seem to put a little wind in the sales. Like the polling thing is super interesting because Lula was up kind of generally 10 points, up to 15 points in some polls. So there was like an overperformance for Bolsonaro or an underperformance for Lula. Except with Trafalgar.

They had it even. Hey, you know. Terrible political nerd joke. Fast forward to it. Yeah, get Favro on here to break it down the polls. But let's keep in mind that Lula still got like 6 million more votes. Yeah, he won. Yeah, he got more votes.

And so you have to see him as a frontrunner going forward. I think what you do worry about is that Bolsonaro having overperformed in this, you know, poll is probably feeling pretty full of himself. And this might actually increase the likelihood that if it's a closer result and, you know, for him to kind of do the play of like this was fraud and it was stolen for me. Did you see he's ramping up this program? He's already started to give low-income people basically like $115 check. He's pulling that all forward to make it happen in advance.

the elections, sort of use the power of the state to help him get supporters. No surprise. And part of what you see in the map that breaks down the results is something, again, like similar of the U.S., like rural areas, you know, places where he overperformed, let's just say, lower information voters, you know, or people who may be more ripe for, you know, the kind of appeals that he makes. So there was a lot to be concerned about, but the basic structure that, you know, Lula is likely to be the winner is still there. It's just that he may be the winner of a more polarized

country than we thought, because what you'd want to see is, as we won in 2020, like a repudiation of Bolsonaro, like a 15-point win. The closer it is, the more likely Bolsonaro is to challenge it. And the more likely it is that Brazil is dealing with some dysfunction and its politics, even if they somehow avoided the coup. I should note that Bernie's resolution that we talked about last week did pass the Senate, so that's good. But it's just means I think that like again like here even if they can dodge the bullet and Lula can win this election you know it's going to be you know some ongoing turmoil in Brazilian politics which is kind of been the norm in Brazilian politics but still not great yeah well Bernie of that resolution

and then I saw Donald Trump filmed an endorsement video of Bolsonaro from his like private jet so that's wonderful yeah glad we're helping out all around the world sticking in the region Ben So partly in the region, there were a couple interesting reports over the weekend about prisoner exchanges. One was in Iran. Iran released an Iranian-American man on furlough who had been held captive since 2015. And then in Venezuela, seven Americans who had been held for years were released in exchange for the U.S. granting clemency to two nephews of President Nicholas Maduro's wife who were in jail for narcotics convictions. And I wanted to flag this because obviously, like, great news when somebody's wrongly detained gets out of jail, you especially sort of point. given that the Yegi Resayan was on the show today. Biden and his team, I think, deserve credit for increasing their focus on these hostage issues, but also because these prisoner exchanges can be

often part of sort of confidence-building measures between adversaries that can show or mark the beginning of a larger rapprochement. The U.S. has been talking with Iran about getting into the JCPOA for a long time, a Biden and a sea official travel to Caracas back in March for meetings there. Do you read any tea leaves into either of these reports? I guess the only thing I'd say, first of all, like, there's just kind of now normalization of prison exchanges. Like, they're not as big a deal as they used to be. Yeah, so Marco Rubio got mad, but like, who cares?

He's always mad at something. The Florida politics will not be good on this. It is what it is. I mean, that's just projection for how he feels about himself. Very much true. Yeah. But, you know, it's good and bad, right? It's good that people are coming home and that there's not insane stuff like, you know,

we had to deal with when we helped get Jason out. But it is, you know, it does raise these questions. And I support it. And I supported it when we did the exchange in the Obama years, but of like the ongoing issue of whether people then grab Americans for leverage. That's a genuine thing to debate. I think with Venezuela, what's interesting, to read some tea leaves, I mean, in a way, when the U.S. like derecognized Maduro under Trump and recognized Juan Guaido and you had General Rubio tweeting from the Colombian border about a coup. You know, when you don't recognize a government, you don't make deals with them. And whether the Biden administration intended to or not, you know, you are kind of saying like there's, it's not diplomatic recognition formally,

but you just made an agreement with this government. You're recognizing. Realizing reality, certainly. Yeah, and what you're doing is part of what you're testing, and we did this with the Cubans in the Cuba opening that I worked on, you know, will they follow through on their commitment? And so sometimes when this is your thing about confidence building, when you just, you implement a prisoner exchange, it does actually demonstrate, okay, they can say they'll do something and then do it. And they can see that we'll say we'll do something and then we do it. And we've tried this to the Taliban too. Yeah, exactly. And that can be the beginning of incremental increased diplomatic exchanges on other issues. Like, can you take this conference building to other areas, you know, where we have concerns? And at the same time, the U.S. kind of key regional ally on its Venezuela policy has always been Colombia. The new leftist Colombian president Petro shifted their Venezuela policy and kind of re-recognized, you know, the Maduro government. And Tony Blinken was just down in Colombia. And so I have to think that there's just space to at least explore whether there's some diplomatic way to begin to address the political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.

Sure hope so. You know, it would be a long road. But if you could at least begin to try to improve the humanitarian situation and then begin to try to address political questions, you know, whether it's some kind of effort to have unity government or pathway to election, I'm not suggesting that. it's easy, but sometimes a prisoner exchange can lead to something else. Sometimes it doesn't. But like certainly more so that at any time in recent years, given the changing politics in Latin America and in Colombia, you know, this is something to watch. Yeah. Let's let's hope there's some progress there because the humanitarian situation is horrible in Venezuela. And also the Florida becoming like a right wing rabbit Ron DeSantis state honestly makes this

easier, hopefully. Right. I think Florida's gone politically. So let's stop worrying about what 200,000 right-wing Venezuelans think or will say about an obviously broken policy. I'm not saying we should like coddle Maduro, but like, is it sanctioned? Are they working? Does anyone think this is working? No. No. I mean, everything in that Trump policy has failed. Like, Maduro is more entrenched in power. China and Russia have more influence in Venezuela. There's more humanitarian suffering. And by the way, more people coming to our border. it should be noted, like what is so cynical about what people like Ron DeSantis do is they support these hardline sanctions forward policies in Cuban, Venezuela, that then fail to solve the problem and lead to mass exodus of Cubans and Venezuelans to the U.S. So the Ron DeSantis can take Venezuelans and put him on a plane of Martha's Vineyard.

So, like, he's simultaneously perversely helping his immigration politics by increasing the border crisis through the foreign policy he supports. And we should just name that because that's the, that. That's the play. They're not trying to solve Venezuela and Cuba in places like that or Central America for that matter. They're trying to make it worse so that more people come to the border so they can blame Democrats. They want the issue. Yeah. They want the issue. Let's turn to the UK, Ben, because we have a Tory party cleanup on aisle three on Monday. Al one, two, and three. And three. Yeah, maybe all the time of a month. Liz Truss in the conservative party walked back part of its shockingly stupid tax plan, the piece of it that would have cut taxes for the highest earners. taking them from 45% to 40%. This came after Trust's broader economic plan

was so badly received by literally everyone in the world that the Bank of England had to step in to prevent a financial crisis. And there was a revolt from conservative party lawmakers at their little convention thingy who worried that basically they'd get destroyed the next time they were up for election. I think there's some polls that came out

that showed labor like double-digit lead ahead. Oh, yeah. First time at a long time. More than that, yeah. So here's my question for you. As former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, watches this unfolds and plots his return. Do you think he's partying more or less than he did during the COVID lockdown? This could not be going better for him. Yeah, it could not be overstated

how catastrophic this is. Like Liz Trust almost tanked the entire global marketplace with this announcement. The pound was going below the dollar. The bank of England had to intervene to bail out the British government's plan. I mean, just a fucking catastrophe. It's also like interesting, like American tax cut policy is just as insane. Yes. It's just that America is so big. And like the dollar and our bond market is so fundamental to the global economy that you can't like have this kind of run on the dollar that.

There are some like economic nerds who wonder whether what just happened was a seminal moment. Because for decades, we've had central bank stepping in and messing with interest rates or doing quantitative easing or tightening. and it solved the problem. This time the Bank of England stepped in, and it didn't work. Yeah. And that is real scary stuff.

It's scary, but it's funny. It's like America's, we're so big that we can be more irresponsible. That's true. You can print more money, yeah. Yeah, exactly. But like, so it's nice to see this trickle-down philosophy be so thoroughly humiliated. I mean, you're right. That is a seminal moment that that happened.

I think it also is like the final wake-up call to the United Kingdom. him about what a deep hole they're in. Like they've been, you know, the distraction around Boris and all the, you know, like between Brexit and some shitty policy and not having serious people in charge, like they have a big hole to get out of. And she just illustrated that hole, like, because the hole doesn't allow them to do things like this. I think politically, to your point, like, blizz trust is probably not going to be as wild as it sounds, given that there have been, what, like four Tory prime ministers and five, and five, years and she she's probably not going to be the candidate in the next election.

Yeah, we'll say. I think they're going to dump her overboard. And they have to have an election in the next couple years, but like it doesn't seem like she's got a grip on that part of it. I also think the guy who they made Chancellor of the Exchequer, I'm forgetting his name right now, he's like a, you know, rabid, supply side economic guy. He seems like a guy who should not, like, he seems like the guy who, like, you want in your right-wing thing tank, but like you don't want to work in charge or something.

Yeah, and I think he rolled out this plan and then went to some party. like a champagne toast with a bunch of bankers. He's like the Grover Norquist of the UK. Like obviously Liz Truss says, she's prime minister, right? She's clearly good at politics on some level. She's been a survivor in the government for, for many, many years. But I listened to a bunch of local radio interviews she did last week.

Someone on Twitter compiled them. She did like all the BBC Wales, this whatever. The questions were withering, absolutely withering. And she was just on the talking points, unable to pivot. It was disastrous. Well, you make this point all time, and it can't be stressed enough. She was not elected anything, right? It's like, you know, 160,000 people.

Yeah, in this insane system, at least Boris Johnson won an election. Like, so Boris Johnson runs as the candidate for prime minister. They get a majority. Imagine being British and like, here's this lady who like wasn't elected prime minister by anybody except the Tory party membership. And suddenly she's tanking your mortgage. It would be like our president just winning CPAC. I guess that kind of happens anyway.

Yeah, but it's completely fucked over ordinary people because it's fucked with their mortgages. Because the British people don't have 30-year fixed mortgages, so it kind of floats with things. And like, so even with the U-turn she made, people are fucked, you know? And they're right. They're rolling out these energy subsidies to help people pay for higher natural gas costs thanks to the war. And yet the economic changes they put forward that jacked up interest rates made mortgages more expensive than the difference. Yeah. They made life worse for everybody.

And then she tried the whole old like Putin's price hike, hashtag, you know. Let me export some warm over rhetoric to you. She was like in all those BBC interviews, she kept trying to blame Putin for her tax policy. I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah, not good.

I did hear that the British government are about to do a two-year inquiry of their handling of COVID. So that actually seems like a pretty good idea. Like pandemic preparedness, like big look back, you know. I do wonder, you're right, like whether Boris tries to make a comeback to be the guy that stands for the next election.

You can totally see it and probably will work. Okay, let's turn into it to you. Burkina Faso, Ben, because you were This is a wild story. Tweeting up a storm about this over the weekend. So there was a second coup in the West African country of Burkina Faso in less than a year. Not good. The backstory is back in January, an army officer named Lieutenant Colonel Demiba took power

in a military coup. He wrote a wave of anger about the country's inability to deal with Islamist militants in the country. On Sunday, Demiba was officially ousted by Captain Ibrahim Terore, who will now be the president until a transitional leader is named things in the way. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah, maybe, maybe.

Things looked real scary for a couple of days over the weekend when Dimeba refused to back down. People thought there might be like an open civil war in the cities. The new coup leaders, interestingly, are denouncing the French who ruled Burkina Faso as a colony until the 60s, 1960. And they say now they want to ally with Russia instead. I saw that the head of the Wagner group, horrible mercenaries who we talk about often in the Ukraine context, praised the coup leader. So I don't know, the step back here is no one knows who this new transitional maybe wink-wink president is, but this is going to be bad news for the millions of people who just want like the violence to stop. He was like an artillery captain too. This is not like he was Joe Eisenhower.

Yeah, this was Storm and Norman Schwartz got to take in the reins. I mean, no, I mean, it's, yeah, I think it's no worthy because interestingly, terrorism has fallen off our radar to some extent, you know. because the terrorist threat has been reduced to the United States and groups like Al-Qaeda have been pretty much put out of business and ISIS is on its back foot. But in certain parts of the world, particularly in West Africa, there are roiling insurgencies and jihadist groups that have created a lot of chaos and that have become the pretext for these coups. And I think part of what is so worrying is, you know, second coup in Burkina Faso, there have been a number of coups in West Africa in recent years, which, you know, generally had been more stable. And it's for a bunch of factors. And by the way, one of the factors that, you know, we should own up to as former Obama officials is the war in Libya kind of like became this magnet for jihadists. Fighters and weapons. Then they just, it's like whackamol. They move around, you know, Nigeria and then in West Africa.

And there's the French had been in the lead in dealing with it. But to your point, like the French become the punching bag because of the colonial history. Well deserved. Yeah, well deserved except I don't necessarily, like their cast is like the hidden hand behind everything. That's true. So I think. You don't know that to be true. Yeah.

So I do think there needs to be like a more concerted policy response from, you know, the U.S. and France and other countries in the UN working with ECOWAS, which is the regional organization there, Nigeria, which is the biggest country in the region. Like there has to be an effort, like a concerted effort to try to stabilize the political circumstances to figure out the pipeline of security systems. but also to be working in a development nexus where you can. And look, the Wagner group, though, those guys are sending every warm body they have to eastern Ukraine. So I'm not sure that they're the same bet that they might have been two years ago to be the muscle, the mercenary group. Same for the Iranian regime.

You know what I mean? Like, they might be looking for backing from the Russians right about now if they can't, you know, put down these protesters. I just don't think it's going to be there. Yeah. So a knock-on effect of what the Ukrainians are doing, might actually be like a reduction in Russia's capacity to be the goons that prop up coup leaders in places like Burkina Faso. Yeah.

And then real quick, Ben, you flagged that the current president of Uganda, General Musevani and his son was tweeting stuff about announcing an invasion of Kenya. Bobby Wine, who we've had on the show, who's like incredibly inspiring singer, opposition leader, I think political prisoner is probably the best way to describe him. now, he's tweeting about what a nightmare this is. But one to watch, I guess. Yeah, I had some eccentric flags over the weekend. But this is one to watch because Musevini, right, who's been governing Uganda as a dictator for a long time. And frankly, a U.S.-friendly dictator has been elevating the son of his to higher level military positions. And so when he's like tweeting, you know, we're going to invade Kenya. We're coming to Nairobi. I'm just going to pick out what part of Kenya I'm going to live in after we conquer you.

maybe that's his idea of a joke it's not that funny but uganda again a big country like it's been central to um u.s policy uh like in a way that i think reddens poorly on the u.s commitment to democracy um yeah this is when to watch because mosefni's getting old and what the succession plan is there and you know um it's a little worrying when the guy who might be part of the succession plan is is threatening invade like a the most important country in East. Not ideal. Not ideal. A couple quicker things to close, which a warning advance all suck. North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan for the first time since 2017. That went over about as well as you'd expect. Terrified millions of people. The missile landed

2,000 miles east of Japan. It's the 23rd North Korean weapons test this year. The U.S. and Zof Korea responded by bombing some random uninhabited island in the region. I think they just had some joint exercises before that. It just, unfortunately, Ben, seems like we're going to fall into another cycle, you know, the third decade in of threats, escalations, sanctions that go nowhere while North Korean people starve while there's no progress in any sort of, you know, interpeninsula or rapprochement. So stay tuned for that, especially if the North Koreans conduct another nuclear test.

Yeah, I mean, nothing to add on the test. What I would say is that, like, North Korea bears watching. Some of this is right. There's a major geopolitical event that takes attention. away from them and they want attention, they want to test out some new missile. But also there have been these reports of the North Koreans. They're going to provide artillery to Russia. There's like a bizarre report that the North Koreans had offered like 100,000 troops to go fight in Ukraine, like in Asian media, you know, but I only raise that, not because I think they're going to send 100,000 troops to Ukraine,

but when there's a big war, like there is in Ukraine, you kind of look, where could it spread or like Iran, North Korea as these kind of Russia-friendly rogue states, like both in their own way in some form of trouble. I just, you know, if you look at the history of how wars become like world wars or bigger conflicts, it's usually when like a war starts and it's not going well for somebody and then somebody gets pulled in. Something else gets pulled in. So I just worry about the way in which North Korea is going to interact with the whole Russia situation. Yeah. It probably will not be helpful. Yeah.

I'm reading a great book about Kim Jong-un right now by Anna Feifield. She was with the FT for a while. I think covered the White House while. It's called the great successor of the secret rise and rule of Kim Jong-un. Recommend it. Ben, another awful story out of Indonesia where 125 soccer fans were killed when police fired tear gas at fans who would run onto the fields. That led to panic.

People tried to get out through these narrow exits. They were crushed. They were trampled, horrible stuff. The government says they're going to set up a commission to investigate. Another really dark one is that officials in Haiti say cholera has returned to the country. Seven people have died, but the Z has killed 10,000 people after an outbreak in 2010 that was linked to the earthquake relief efforts from the U.N. Also comes as Haiti is dealing with gang violence, fuel shortages, and just the worst conditions imaginable. So, yeah.

Terrible stories. The Indonesian one, I mean, to me, the headline of that is like they have serious policing problems. Serious, yeah. Their first response to, like, some soccer violence is to, like, tear guys. a bunch of people and basically create this dynamic that leads all this death. So if anything good can come out of this is hopefully some policing reform in Indonesia. Yeah, we'd like to see it. Last story before the interview. Thousands of people in northeastern Spain got together, went to a stadium, and they tried to construct the highest possible towers of human beings. I don't know if you've

seen these photos. These guys literally climb on top of each other. They stand on each other's shoulders. It's this like centuries old tradition in Catalonia. The winning team won over 15 grand. They built a 43 foot human tower. But I do assume that the real goal of the competition is to make running with the bull seem less stupid because I can't imagine doing this. Would you want to be the guy the 43 feet up? No. 13 people went to the hospital. I mean, what kind of planning goes into it, you know? It looks like a lot. Are the rehearsals like a like, like, the, the post had a lot. The post had longs are in this, there's a section of the tower that's called a trunk, which I don't know if that's what the Tribune Co people were going for when they renamed their institution. Yeah. Yeah, there's some

traditions that sometimes you have to rethink. Yeah, some good ones, some bad ones. But maybe it's good time. I mean, people, I love Catalonia, like some of the most wonderful people on Earth, but this is a little eccentric. There's some weird stuff, like, I'm on, I've Southern Europe on the brain because of Catalonia, but like, there's that range. race in Italy where it's like this bareback horse race. Have you seen this? It's like totally insane. Yeah.

Like there's just, and it's been going on for like a thousand years. Like there's some stuff like from the middle ages. It's probably like, you know, should have been retired a while ago. Hard-bitten traditions. Hey, like, but maybe it's fun. I mean, maybe we'd all be happier if we did human periods.

Next year we'll go. Yeah. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, you'll hear my interview with Yegi Resayan about the ongoing protests in Iran and the brave women leading them. So stick around for that. I am so excited to be joined by Yegi Rezayan.

She is a senior researcher at the Committee to Protect Journalists. She was born and raised in Iran. She worked there as a journalist for many years. And she was wrongly imprisoned by the Iranian regime for 72 days back in 2014 and now lives in Washington, D.C. Yegi, it's so great to have you on the show. I've heard you in my ears so many times because your husband, Jason, who I think listeners of this show, probably know, wrote this fantastic book, Prisoner, did a fantastic podcast called 5404. 44 days about your experience, which is wonderful to meet you. Thank you so much for having me.

It's really great to finally be on the show because I know, as you said, Jason has been on the show multiple times and work with you guys about the podcast. And I think at this point he's like a frequent guest, like a regular guest. He's on our most wanted list. He's the best. Oh, thank you. We appreciate it. Let me just open a small parent.

and say my phone name is Yegane, but everyone calls me Yegi, so feel free to continue as Yegi. But for professional reasons, my byline is Yekane and Razia. Fair enough, sorry, I was breaking into the familiar way too quickly here. That's on me. So, Yegi, we're here to talk about these protests that have been happening across Iran for weeks now. They started in response to the brutal treatment of this young woman named Masa Amini by these so-called morality police. Can you help us understand what those creeps do? And did you and your friends have run-ins with them? Sure.

Let me start by saying that, as you said, I was born and raised in Iran, and it was during former president, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that morality police shaped. And he was the one that created this group of so-called police in a sense that they may not officially be part of the army or. trained as police, especially the female ones, but they are part of the security forces in the country. And they have their own apparatus, and there are times that they work in line with the judiciary and the intelligence ministry and the main police force in the country,

but there are times that they are completely autonomous and quite powerful, to be honest. And They have different stations that, again, can sometimes be part of any police station in the country, but they own their own stations as well. And I was arrested by them multiple times. Their job, the reason they call them morality police is that they were formed to make sure Iranian women, first and foremost, adhere to the Islamic. compulsory hijab properly or correctly. And by that means they have to cover their hair and head completely so they can only show face, no hair. And for their body, they are supposed to wear a uniform which we in Iran use a French word for it called Manto. And that is supposed to be below your knees. You cannot show butt or anything. It should be like quite,

quite long if sorry pardon my language um so um yeah and by that that is supposed to be proper hijab and their claim is that um and let's be honest these are like very brutal forces they do not have any mercy and they were created to to police women but there are times that they also i have seen by my own eyes that they arrest young boys as well if they wear like a t-shirt you're wearing like too much of a short sleeve or or if men wear shorts or if they have boys have like fun haircuts they can also be arrested or if if there's like a special logo or something on their t-shirt um so those can be um problematic as well um and these people are if we can call them um i don't even want to use the term animals because animals are

are some of the nicest creatures on our planet. These people don't have any mercy. And they are very brutal. They arrest people based on their own records. They have beaten people at the time of the arrest. So usually arrests are very violent. They shove women. They lift you up from the floor

and they hit you anywhere on the way. shoving you to the police van and then they take you to their stations and their supposed claim is to guide you to follow the Islamic laws more properly or better but in a very forceful violent way. I was arrested multiple times. In fact, I remember the last time I was arrested by them, it was like a couple of weeks before Jason and I got married in 2013, and my sister and I were arrested, and then I ended up in, we ended up in one of their stations for quite a long time for like a few hours. But when you are there, your heart is beating like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,

because you don't know what's going to happen. They treat you really bad. They badmouth you from the moment they arrest you. They humiliate you, so their language is very humiliating. You can easily, if you have a little bit of resistance, you can be physically harassed, beaten. And getting back to the sense that I said some of these people are not necessarily part of the trained army. That's what in many cases causes, plus the brutality causes these deaths because they are not really trained. in terms of let's not hit her head, so bang, you know?

Right, right, right. Like an intentional carelessness. These people are not like American commanders or special task force that are trained how to like take care of their subject. So in many cases, those deaths are unintentional because of the carelessness, but also they think. They want to give a lesson by arresting one person to the rest of the society. They want to issue a message. So if we arrest this person, this young woman in front of a thousand others in the street violently, then those others will take their lesson and follow the hijab compulsory hijab guidelines more accurately and properly.

So that's what happened to the 22-year-old Mahza, who was a Kurdish woman visiting Tehran. So she was arrested in Tehran in the capital, but she was originally from Kordistan and was on a summer vacation with her parents and brother, which is like so unbelievably wrong. It's awful. She's completely clear of any wrongdoing. She was just on a summer trip. I mean, so, I mean, knowing firsthand what these morality police are like, knowing firsthand what the, you know, basestan what the, you know, besie militia members who drive around on motorbikes and just beat people indiscriminately. I'm just curious what you've made of watching these protests over the last couple of weeks,

these incredibly brave women, you know, pulling off their hijabs, waving them, burning them, chanting death to the dictator. I mean, I saw today that the BBC report that the protests are expanding, not just to other universities, been into younger demographics. Like, what has that been like for you watching that? Oh, Tommy. I wish I was there. But let me tell you.

First of all, it's heartbreaking to see the brutality and the amount of violence against civilians. Iranian people do not have access to any arm, any weapon. It's not like America that random citizens can own guns. The law forbids citizens to own any weapons. But the truth is that as much as it is very heartbreaking, it is also heartwarming to see this younger generation of high school girls are so brave. One of the girls who was killed this past week was only 16 years old. Nika Shah Karami and they are so brave. They are past our generation.

generation when we came out to the streets in 2009, I think we were still on our weaker side. We were still on our negotiable side. We were willing to give up if things got too scary. But these girls are out and they are so brave and I'm so proud of them. And I'm so proud of the boys of their generation for supporting. There was one video of university girls gathering. in the yard of the university moving their headscarves, waving them in the air, and the boys created the circle of support around them to make sure that the security forces

cannot reach the girls. So as much as watching the violence and brutality is very heartbreaking and painful. And let's be honest, unbelievable, right? You don't not expect the police forces of your own country who are supposed to be your fathers, your brothers, your uncles, beat you up like that, do that to you. It is also heartwarming to see how younger generation are fed up with the force and compulsory rules and laws that this government, this regime, is imposing on them under the pretext of religion and Islam. This is not Islam. Islam is supposed to be compassionate, the merciful. This is not any religion.

This is actually non-religant because in all religion, we believe in loving each other, fellow loving, respect, compassion. Taking care of each other, yeah. You know, you're talking about this sort of generational shift in the amount of courage that's being shown. I'm curious, do you think that some of that might stem from the fact that Iranians are seeing these reports about the Supreme Leader maybe having health issues and they think there could be a looming, you know, succession or change in leadership and there's like a moment to really do something? That can be true too, but I honestly think it's not about Supreme Leader having a health issue and people are hoping that let's grasp this moment. That's part of it. But I think this younger generation have witnessed their mothers who participated in the revolution and see how their revolution was hijacked.

And then they see us, the generation who was first born after the revolution and were always anxious and hated these rules and laws. But we were not, let's be honest, I think, strong enough to stand up for ourselves. and we were confused because the eight-year war with Iraq happened, and always were somehow entangled in nuclear negotiations. And we never found ourselves and our strength. But these girls are the ones who have witnessed us, but they are also connected to the outside world. They use social media.

they are hungry to be connected with each other, like from the north of the country to the south, but also they are 100% connected with the outside world, and they are the one who crave freedom and want to be themselves. At the same time, they have suffered everything. They have suffered the situation of their mothers. They have suffered our situation. They have suffered economic pressure.

They have suffered lack of social freedom. They are the ones to, especially girls, you know, like anything that anyone in the country is going through, it feels as if it's 100% worse for women. Because on top of all the cruelty and the violence and the dissatisfaction that a society is dealing with, these girls have to wear that hijab and they are always condemned. because of that and that is always like a stick above their head that the government can use and can beat them. So I think they are absolutely breaking all of those forced supposed norms. It's incredible. Like a combination of all of these. Yeah, it's truly incredible. I mean, I saw,

you know, the Supreme leader was out saying, oh, my heart is broken over the murder of Masa Amini. But, you know, these protests, they were planned by the United States. They were planned by the Zionist regime in Israel. He claims there's Quran burning happening. I mean, I imagine that kind of response is not going to work with these women in the streets who know better and they know why they're there. But do you think there's a subset of the population, maybe like conservative men who will believe this message? Well, the truth is that Islamic Republic still has some support in the country. What the number of those supporters are is the difficult answer.

We don't know if they are 10 million or if they are 20 million. We know they exist and they are not in majority. At this point, they are in minority. But the difference is that the regime has guns and can use force. That's what's scary. But what, Supreme Leader or any other officials of this regime comes out and says is not going to be listened by these young, powerful, smart, educated, well-connected to the outside world, younger generation, boys and girls, and especially girls. I think at this point, the regime has lost its legitimacy in terms of legitimizing their action.

And obviously, they do not have any other excuse rather than blaming foreigners and who is better than United States. I always tell Jason that, of course they're going to say U.S. is their enemy because the bigger their enemy is, the bigger they are. So they choose the biggest enemy to show how powerful they are standing against this powerful, like the most powerful country. So the enemy is always the United States, England, like two of the most, like two of the most powerful leaders of the free world. And obviously, Israel. It's like a very easy enemy to have. Yeah. So.

Yeah. Meanwhile, these young women of the streets are just, you know, kicking their ass up and down. So your team at the Committee to Protect journalists have been sounding the alarm about the arrest and the detention of. dozens of Iranian journalists. What do you think is happening there? Is this like a systematic effort to get them off the streets and prevent reporting of what's going on? Yes. Yes. It's definitely a very systematic way of silencing journalists, silencing any critical voice, and silencing any, any flow of information. Because I want to tell you this, Tommy, Iran is this country that all media is state run, okay? So most traditional journalists who write for any platform like newspapers or

magazines or they run IRIB, which is the Islamic TV and radio, if they disagree with the government or if they want to cover any of this news of protest and killing and beating, they cannot not cover it in the relevant media that they work for. So many of these journalists, as much as and as long as they were hired by those state-run media, they use their social media platforms for reporting. Interesting. So the government has a very systematic way of monitoring their social media platforms, including Twitter, which is the first and foremost way of.

way of news circulation, despite being fully filtered in the country since 2009. Also, Instagram, which until before this new wave of protest, was the only

freely accessible on social media platform in the country and the most used one. And by monitoring these social media platforms, they attack journalists.

Anyone who has a critical voice and says anything writes a report. Like one journalist was particularly arrested because he was from the smaller city in south of Tehran called Zanjohn. And since the beginning of these protests, he started using his Twitter account for publishing the names of the arrested people in his hometown. and killed ones. So anyone killed and injured during protests on nightly basis he would issue their names. Like go around the city, get in touch with the family, and publish their name. He was immediately arrested after two nights of doing that. Basic reporting.

Basic reporting. So you can see that any journalist who has been arrested up until today, we have documented 36 arrests of journalists. and one has been freed. We don't know the circumstances of that that she was released. And one family got in touch with us and asked the name of their loved ones removed from the database. Because obviously for obvious reason security issues. So 35 journalists arrested in less than three weeks. And let's be honest, this is not.

the correct number or tally of arrested journalists. This is what we can get by the total near shutdown internet. This is what we can arrest when WhatsApp doesn't work. This is what we can get with as Iran is a black hole and getting any information out of it is very difficult. I'm sure that the real tally is much higher. And this also does. doesn't shock me and the rest of my colleague at CPJ because at least since 2018 that I have been there, Iran like frequently, constantly landed in our category of most censored countries among the most censored and among the biggest jailers of journalists. So yeah it's awful. It's well it's pretty remarkable that you guys were able to get any kind of information or lists or

tally of this kind of activity. We owe this to really brave journalists who are trying to quietly be the voice of their colleagues who are behind bars. Credit to them, credit to the protesters in there. It's

amazing. So I mean, last question, you know, you're, you know, there's always a debate. I went through this in 2009 during the Green Revolution when I was with Obama about what the U.S. or Western countries can or should do to support protesters, whether like average people should be talking about it, posting about it,

knowing that the Supreme Leader is already trying to say that the U.S. is behind this thing. Like, how do you think that Joe Biden should approach this or other Western countries? Like, what can they do or say that would actually be helpful? I want to start by talking about my fellow American citizens, like ordinary Americans that we, I walk by them, let's say, in Starbucks. Sure. I want all my American friends of any background, religion or racial background, support us as a group of American, like, hyphenated Americans in diaspora.

Talk about it, as you said, posted on their social media. Let the world know what is happening. Let the world know that because when the Afghanistan situation was happening, It wasn't the news all the time. Everywhere was covering it. My American neighbor, whether they were African Americans or Latino Americans or other Americans, all knew about it. But I don't see the American people are talking about the Iran situation enough. They are not talking about how there's this country in the Middle East that the regime is suffering.

people and took them hostage and they are beating them up in the street. So that's what I really ask from my American friends, American neighbors, American colleagues. In terms of the government of the United States and other world powers or any government in general, I remember this debate we had in the streets of Tehran like dying to see a little bit more support from President Obama at the time and we were still very young and confused. We didn't, we didn't know what kind of support we needed, right? Let alone to say that you guys should have been known by like that.

But I think at this point, what is severely needed is communication's ways. People are suffocated because they do not have access to interns. If they cannot communicate with each other and if they cannot communicate with the outside world, these protests will die out. I remember in 2009, our protests and our power of assembly died as soon as they filtered Facebook. We could not hear of each other and the outside world could not hear of us. So after two weeks, protests faded away because we could not get in touch with each other. Internet is dead in the country. Cell phones do not have internet.

I have not been able to talk to friends and family for over three weeks at this point. People are having a very hard time. Like Iranians in diaspora have a hard time reaching out their loved ones inside. So imagine how a protester that has a video is trying so hard to get that video out. What I beg from any official in the U.S. government or any other government is to help. And this help should be quick. And having said that I am not a technical person. So by quick, I don't know if it takes two weeks or if it takes two years.

But the damage has already been done. What we need is communication devices, communication ways, internet, everyone inside Iran talks about Starlink. I have had friends who texted me saying, get us Starlink. They think Starlink can just jump on the roof of their house and start helping them. It's not like that. So first, they should not issue statement that are misleading because people are desperate

and they believe Elon Musk tweeting that Starlink is now active in Iran. As much as it's very sweet, it's, It's misleading. Starlink is not active in Iran. People cannot reach it. And if anyone can take the required equipment, like dishes or anything, to set it up, that would be the government, right? Right, right. Yeah.

Normally Iranians cannot take those things in a luggage back to the country. No, they cannot. So communication. That's what we need help with, first and foremost. And then policy issues, let's be honest. We have been through this debate whether the family members of the regime should be in the U.S. or not. They should not. If a normal smart, bright, intelligent, young, brave Iranian cannot get a visa from the U.S. government to come to go to Stanford or Harvard.

I do not want to see the children of this regime immigrating to Canada or Australia or United States. We are fed up with this. Every time we find out about one child of – there's this very controversial female official in Iran that is reported her son is here in United States. And that's unbelievably painful for... I can only imagine, yeah. For Iranians. So let's start with these two. That's great advice.

So talk to your friends about what's going on, post on social media. If you work in the government, Joe Biden, I know you listen to this. Get some communications equipment over to Iran, ASAP. And let's sanction these Iranian officials who are leading the crackdown and stop letting their kids enroll at Stanford. That seems like great actionable advice if you ask me. Okay, I'm glad to hear that because if you give me a green light means, hopefully at least a couple of them are doable, right? Let's hope. Let's hope. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

It's so incredible to talk to someone who, you know, has had to deal with the morality police who was on the streets in 2009, who has given so much of your own life, of your husband's time. working as a journalist, dealing with this regime, getting caught up in the cruelty that emanates from it. And so I'm just incredibly grateful to you and for giving really great advice to people. I really appreciate you and everyone on the show for giving me the platform to talk about the pain and the frustration and the plight of my people. And I hope there's a day that we can all get on a plane. and land in Tehran and any Iranian who wants to come to United States can come and the two nations are again friends happily and and freedom is as back to my people. Amen.

Democracy. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Bye bye. Thanks again to Yegi Rezaian for joining the show. Thanks to everyone in Catalonia. Sorry, you only got a 42-foot human pyramid and broke your own. arm, but here we are.

I mean, whoever broke their arm probably thinks it's worth it. Yeah. And check out World Corrupt. It's coming out on Saturday. Talk to you next week. See ya. POTSade the World is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Muse.

Saul Rubin is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Segglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth upload our episodes and videos at YouTube.com slash crooked meeting.