Pod Save the World - Hope from Brazil

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

Ben and Tommy cover the ongoing debate about whether the US should be having talks with Russia about the war in Ukraine, and how Republican control of Congress might impact US military support, rare candor from a Russian oligarch, disgraced Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu is back, a racist lawmaker is condemned in France, the climate change summit in Egypt and more. Then Ben is joined by Brazilian politician Tabata Amaral to discuss Bolsonaro's defeat, what it means for Brazil's future, and how to protect democracy globally.  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. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, today's election day. Is it? Is it really? Yeah, and obviously the big news is that Tom Cotton has decided not to run for president. I mean, it's hard to say no to a groundswell of popular demand that you run. I know. I know. He had a movement for change across this country that is brokenhearted. Tens of people were calling on Tom Cotton to run. Tens is more than Mike Pompeo has.

Right, right, right. I saw him tweeting really. solicitous things at BB Denyahu. Yeah, yeah. We can always come on that. Yeah. So it's a weird day. We are recording at 1.45 on Pacific time on Tuesday. We don't have the results in yet, but we have all the anecdotal bad news that money can

buy thanks to Twitter and John Rawson's blog and everybody else. So, you know, this episode will turn to a pumpkin to some extent, but I think the international issues will endure. They will. They will. They will. The country will endure as someone who's been through tough midterms before. Like I can offer you that middle-aged perspective. I will also say, just getting ahead of ourselves a bit, our interview today is with Tabita Amaral, who's an amazing legislator in Brazil. She's 28 years old, but she's just got elected her second term. And she's kind of a rock star.

and she gave an answer on how to win elections that we all need to listen to tomorrow. So just skip to that if you want some hope and some solutions. I like that. I like that very much. We are also going to cover the ongoing debate about diplomacy with Russia over the war in Ukraine and what the midterms could mean for United States efforts to fund the war effort. I'll talk a little bit about some rare candor from a Russian oligarch. disgraced former Israeli Prime Minister BVian Yahoo is sadly back.

We kind of preview this one last week, Ben. He's no longer the former guy. That got me. There was some awful incident of racism in Parliament in France. The climate change summit in Egypt is happening as we speak and then some shorter updates. And then Ben, I woke up this morning to the news that the disgraced former head of FIFA, the body that governs international soccer, said letting Qatar host this year's tournament. He said there was a mistake, which, you know, solid a decade late there, some real, some real cynical. Is that because he's been listening to World Corrupt?

That's what I'm wondering. It's a podcast I've been doing with Roger Bennett. It's literally in your feed right now. It's very fun. Episodes are like 35 minutes. You'll enjoy it. Give it a shot. Also, I noticed as well that you have a big Taiwan piece out today.

I do. I've got a piece in the December issue of the Atlantic actually in the magazine. They still print magazines. Does that feel any different? It's nicer. Yeah, it's more substantial, right? Yeah. Like it's something to frame. It's a hard copy, right? And but basically as we can talk a little bit about this, but I went to Taiwan. I interviewed President Tsai. I interviewed the foreign minister, Joseph Wu. But, but even, or equally important, I should say, a bunch of younger people, you know, the kind of people I think that, you know, we've tried to have on this show, including Emily Wu. Yeah, Ghost Island media, right? We've had on this show, yeah, from Ghost Island Media. to just get at this question of like, how did, what is going on in Taiwan?

How did they build this very resilient democracy and how are they dealing with this threat of potential invasion from China? How are they making themselves more resilient? I didn't love the title they threw on my article, I'm just going to say, which is Taiwan prepares to be invaded. It's rude. You don't get to choose that. You don't get to choose the title.

And I remember when I used to call reporters and yell at them about some title, they'd always say, oh, my address is so I didn't choose the title, guys. actually, if you want a primer on just kind of what's going on there. But the most important piece of this, there are kind of two pieces that I was really interested in. One is, I don't think Americans know the story of Taiwan. Basically, this is a country that was, you know, governed as an autocracy throughout the Cold War from a party that was founded to govern China, not Taiwan. And Chiang Kai Shack, after losing the Chinese Civil War, came to Taiwan, 1949, governs under martial law for decades. You're not the best guy.

Not, yeah, not killed tens of thousands of people. And there's a great democratic success story in Taiwan that I think people need to know, which is that they overthrew an autocracy. They've had, you know, different political parties govern. They've, under the current administration, legalized same-sex marriage. It's a progressive government there. They're doing really innovative things to combat disinformation from China. I met some really interesting young people doing that. So that's an important story because they kind of cut against the global trend.

on democracy backsliding. And it's part of why Taiwan matters so much because it is a thriving democracy. But then there is this question of how are they dealing with the threat of Chinese invasion. I asked President Sai about some of these debates around what are they learning from the Ukraine war. And I will tell you that Tommy that when I went there, I was actually surprised at how profound an effect the war in Ukraine had on the Taiwanese. Yeah, it actually was more than I It was weighing heavily. It was weighing heavy. Every single person I talked to, you could tell, had been thinking about this. Yeah, it makes sense. They'd always known that there was this threat of a Chinese invasion or military intervention, but Ukraine made it really real for them. And it was

interesting, not the military exercises after the Pelosi visit that we talked about in the show. Ukraine kind of weighed heavier because, you know, they're looking at real time at a big country invading a smaller neighbor to try to take it over. And the world's response. And so we go through the questions of how do they deal with that? And do they shift their defense priorities, for instance, to buying the kind of small arms that Ukraine has used to repel a larger invader? Or, well, arming themselves like that provoked China. How do they break out of their diplomatic isolation without provoking China? Can they engage in any kind of diplomacy with China when China insists that the terms of that diplomacy are you have to accept that you're part of our country,

right? And so, you know, there's no right answer to these questions either. You know, like you're just trying to find this balance. So I hope people pick it up and check it out. Definitely. I was listening to interview with the U.S. ambassador to China, Nick Burns recently. And that's obviously a big job in a normal year. But it's a particularly big job in the COVID era when you literally can't get in

and out of the country. Like there's no visiting delegations. She Jinping is barely leaving. Right. So like he's the guy. And he said that it wasn't just the like shelling and, you know, the sort of overt acting out firing missiles and stuff after the Pelosi visit, that really has been a problem. It said the Chinese cut off all contact.

Like all eight different channels of contact were just silence. And I don't know that they've come back. No, that's right. So there's a lot of things that, again, I learned in writing this piece, you know, that the Pelosi, the exercises they did around the Pelosi visit, for instance, mimicked a blockade. Yeah. And Taiwan imports all of its energy. And so they're suddenly having to think about, like, well, what happens? if we're in that scenario and maybe they haven't invaded us, but like, how do we maintain

electricity, right? How do we keep, you know, communications going if they're cut off? Like, how do people need to prepare in their homes? And I met young people, again, would be familiar to us or like human rights activists who on the weekends are getting kind of training and emergency response, you know. And so it's a very unique circumstance. And one that I think, you know, this is going to be a bigger and bigger question for America going forward. What kind of arms are you providing them? What kind of diplomatic sport? Biden, as we've

talked about, has said he would come to their defense. This is going to be a big issue in the next couple of years. Yeah, for sure. Well, let's talk about Ukraine because that continues to be a big issue. So, you know, the military update is very similar. The Russians continue to target civilian infrastructure like we've talked about with these missile strikes to the point where the mayor of Kiev is warning that residents might need to survive the winter without electricity, water, or heat. So, like, that's how dire things are getting in the biggest city in the capital city. Western countries, the U.S., Germany, for example, are sending more and more advanced missile defense systems to try to prevent that shelling from happening. But obviously, you can't undo the damage.

And then the flip side is Russia is reportedly buying even more advanced ballistic missiles from Iran or at least preparing to. So things are continuing to escalate. Ben, I think it was last week. It could have been 100 years ago. I don't remember at this point. We talked about the sort of strangely vicious controversy. Over this letter from progressives, yeah, in the House pushing for more diplomacy. The good news on that front is that Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security advisor,

has reportedly been holding talks with a foreign policy advisor to Vladimir Putin. So that's good news. I don't know about you. I've also kind of always assumed or at least hoped that Bill Burns, CIA director, has a channel with his counterpart in Russia or someone in Russia. Like Bill was the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, I think, during the Bush administration. Yeah, he knows a lot about Russia. Yeah.

So, you know, the other update on this is, do you see on yesterday, on Monday, President Zelensky outlined his conditions for talks, which include restoration of Ukraine's territorial integrity, compensation from Russia for material losses caused by the war, punishment of war criminals and respect for the UN charter. The territorial integrity bit basically means give us back everything you've taken since 2014. So Crimea. Pretty maximalists, yeah, yeah, yeah. But understandable.

But, Ben, so, you know, obviously, as listeners know, No, Ukraine's military success has been enabled by U.S. arms shipments. Those could be in jeopardy if Republicans take control of Congress. Here's an example of why. Under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine. Our country comes first. So that was Marjorie Taylor Green again. I think Ben, there's often an assumption that with foreign policy, like, the adults come together.

They manage these issues in a bipartisan way. I don't know about that here. Like, I feel like she's kind of running the show with McCarthy more than you would like to think. Yeah, I think that we shouldn't underestimate the potency of that message to the Republican base that doesn't really give a shit about, you know, people in other country. No. I don't want to, not everybody in the Republican base, but the Marjorie Taylor Green, part of the party. Well, just to add to your point, Wall Street Journal at a poll, like the percentage of Republicans polled who said that the U.S. is doing too much for Ukraine. train went from 6% in March to 48% this month.

Yeah. And so this will be a building thing. And you already saw McCarthy, who doesn't really have any views of his own, he responds to what's happening in his own party. You know, he's the one who went out and said, you know, we scrutinized funding more. What does this mean in practice? I think, first of all, I mentioned this on previous podcast, but like I would be trying to get funding in that lame duck session, assuming the Democrats was the House.

but also like I would be thus far for instance there's not a mechanism to review that funding like there's a special inspector general for funding to Iraq and Afghanistan. I think there should be right because one way that you kind of take the air out of the balloon of people who are critics is to say no look we will scrutinize this funding make sure there's no waste and so I think Democrats should get ahead of this a little bit as someone who supports continued funding to Ukraine to show that, you know, we're, you know, we're being careful with taxpayer money. So that's, that's one set of issues here. I think the diplomacy piece to this that came out, first of all, it did kind of make the brouhaha over that letter seem kind of even stranger.

Yeah. Because very dumb. What was that all about, guys? Progressives, come on. I don't get it. I don't know why we have to have a circular firing squad over here when we've got Marjorie Taylor Green over here, right? But to the story that came out about Jake Sullivan, a couple thoughts in that.

One is it's interesting that Jake Sullivan, as national security advisors, the one engaged in this diplomacy. And one of the people they reported him as meeting with was Patrachev, who's kind of his counterpart in the Russian system and a very powerful person. That's not unusual to me. Sometimes the Russians like to deal directly with the White House, you know, the power center to power center. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like this is, you know, the Kremlin is not a place that has an interagency process, if you, will, right? It was run by the Kremlin. So I think it makes sense that there's a White House line in as much as I also think that it'd be great if Bill Burns has contacts. Tony Blinken,

obviously, if he can as well, because you just want to keep these lines open. Again, not to negotiate about Ukrainian territory over their heads, but there's a lot to talk about. There's nuclear de-escalation on the nuclear issue. There's kind of emergency hotline contingency planning you want to set up. There's the grain, the food shortage. we want to get unstuck. There's a lot of issues that we have to cover. And then on the negotiations themselves and Zelensky's positions, look, I mean, if you're Zelensky, you're going to start with really maximum. Of course. I don't think anybody anticipates something now. What would that even be? And not just territory. Like, you know, like you want to, I don't think Russia is going to pay reparations

for everything. But like, hey, start there because, you know, you're going to need some ground to give up in a negotiation, right? So take the most maximalist position here. But people just have to remember even in the event of a Ukrainian victory, right? Let's say they do run the table and they take back all this territory. Nobody thinks they're marching all the way to Moscow and ousting the government at the end of World War II. No. There is going to be a Russia next to Ukraine forever, right? And there's going to be a Putin or if Putin goes, it's probably not going to immediately be like Alexei Navalny running a multi-part democracy.

So there's going to have to be a negotiation here. And we shouldn't be fighting with each other about that. That makes no sense. We should just be thinking about the smartest way to do it. Yeah, it'll probably be an angry Putin for a little while. The other remarkable story that kind of went under the radar was a Russian oligarch, who we've talked about before, Yegivni Progosen, said on Monday that Russia had, in fact, interfered in the U.S. elections and would do so again.

He fittingly disclosed this on the Russian version of Facebook, saying, quote, we have interfered in U.S. elections, we are interfering and we will continue to interfere, carefully, accurately, surgically, and in our own way, as we know how to do, end quote. So this is a guy who ran all the bot farms you heard about in 2016. He also runs the Wagner Group, the mercenaries for hire who are fighting in Ukraine. And again, with the Wagner Group, for years per goes in, would deny its existence. He would sue journalists that reported on his connections to the Wagner group. Now he's talking about it publicly. He's literally like going to prisons. And there's videos of him recruiting prisoners to join his little militia. So I don't know what led to this candor bend.

I'm not sure if you got some therapy or something. But tough week for everybody that denied that Russian interference ever happened in 2016. Well, that's, yeah. I mean, like, this isn't just like some random guy saying this. This is the guy who would have run it, right? The Wagner Group did the influence operations, well, they were part of it at least. And certainly the troll farms. So this is Pergozen owning it, coming out and saying it. And look, this was always the case that there's a connection between the war in Ukraine and their intervention in domestic politics. That was my experience at the end of the Obama administration. Once that war started in 2014, 2015, that's when they started dialing up their disinformation campaigns, not just in the

U.S., but in Europe. I think they see Ukraine as like a domestic Russian issue. And we don't see it that way, but that's how they see it because they truly believe Putin and Gassik-Porgosin that this should be part of Russia. And so when we start, providing training to the Ukrainians and sanctioning them over Ukraine, they think, okay, you're in our domestic politics now. We're coming into yours. There was a really good, long, very long article in the Sunday Times Magazine. Did you see this by Jim Rudenberg? You know, I read part of it. I mean, the bottom line is, I couldn't get my brain back to the Mueller probe. You know, the molar thing was really damaging in a way how that played out

because Trump was so successful in kind of creating this illusion that the Russia thing was a hoax and was or at least it was overhyped. No, this all happened. They interfered in our election. They had context with Trump. There's no doubt. Paul Manafort was basically like a Russian asset, you know, and we just kind of swept that under the rug because it wasn't Mueller time and the where the Krasnstein brothers didn't get to see.

There was no indictment. Yeah, there were no indictment. That didn't mean that this shit didn't happen. happen. And it doesn't mean that the Russians aren't continuing to interfere in our politics. It's just, so we have to, you know, the debate got so dumbed down on it. All those people that'd like to sit in the cheap sheets and take shots of people for talking about Russiagate, you're wrong. You're wrong. The guy who did it just admitted it, right? And what's so frustrating to remember, you know, the Helsinki summit, right, when Trump was like, oh, he told me he didn't do it. I believe him.

Like, that should be humiliating, disqualifying end of story. But like, we live in this upside down political world, no one will seem to notice. And the bottom line is, look, we know, for instance, at that summit that, you know, Trump was meeting with Putin alone without a translator at times. And it's not beyond the realm of possibility that what they were talking about was NATO and Ukraine. And Putin at least making his case for why you should pull out of NATO or why you should not care about Ukraine. There is a connection here between these things. It's not a conspiracy theory. you're like Putin, that's what he wanted. He wanted the U.S. out of NATO and he wanted the U.S.

to basically cut off the Ukrainians. And, you know, like, let me turn this into a vassal state. And so there's a very direct connection between the vein of the Republican Party that Marjorie Taylor Green gave word to that Tucker Carlson represents every night that is kind of either Putin adjacent, if not outwardly pro-Pudin. And what Putin's trying to do here. Or at least isolationist, right, too. Yeah.

And I think like any support for Ukraine has become a proxy for like somehow being anti-Pudence. Trump because of impeachment. It's like the dumbest thing on the planet. And that's the thing that people always need to understand is that Donald Trump didn't need to be a Manchurian candidate serving Vladimir Putin. If he was an isolationist who just didn't give a shit about Europe, that served Putin's interest enough. Absolutely. Speaking of governments, I'd like to interfere in our politics, Ben, Bibi Netanyahu. He's back. So he still has to form a governing coalition, but in the recent election, the Lycud Party won 32 seats straight up. And then, and BB's broader coalition won 64 seats, which is more than enough to form a government.

So he should be able to do this. Netanyahu clawed his way back into power despite multiple corruption scandals, an actual corruption trial that's ongoing. And he did so by forging coalitions with some genuinely scary far-right extremists. We talked briefly last week about Ittimar bin Kabir, a lawmaker. It's been called the David Duke of Israel, pulled a gun on a Palestinian protester, or security forces to shoot them. This was very recently.

He wanted to deport critics, Arab critics in particular. He had a photo on his wall of a man who massacred 29 Palestinians in a terrorist attack. That detail jumped out to me. It's shocking. It's shocking. I had a poster of like John Stark. I'm like, right. How about like a musician?

Yeah, he was also been so extreme that they wouldn't let him in the military. But now this guy, Ben Gavir, is likely to be named the Minister of Internal Security. And like, that's just one example of this coalition now. So the election itself, there were some rule changes that helped lead to this outcome. But it was also just the abject failure of the anti-NetN Yahoo side to join forces and work together in the face of like a fascist. And so now the U.S. has to figure out how to deal with this new government. And I don't know about you, but I'm not thrilled about the idea of sending a bunch of taxpayer dollars to a corrupt racist prime minister or a homeland security secretary. who literally supports terrorists and photos of them on his wall.

Yeah. No, I mean, it's not going to go down easy when you hear the inevitable talking points about how there's no daylight between us and Israel on anything. And, you know, when we're talking about a government that has this guy in charge of the police, you know, I mean, this is a problem. And over the next couple of years, if you think that there's not going to be flare-ups in the West Bank or in Gaza and really potential brutal human rights violations, that's their plan. Like, that's their policy.

This guy is, you know, it's a pro-annexation government. It's a government that literally this guy has argued for immunity for IDF and Israeli police who fire on Palestinians, right? So this is going to come up. You know, people want it to go away. They want to avoid the problem. They don't want to get involved in the Israeli-Palestinian issues. again, but we don't necessarily get to choose. So the first thing is we should be prepared for

real issues in Jerusalem and the West Bank and never mind Gaza. But also, this is where I get like the PTSD, Tommy. Me too. We're thinking about a potential Republican House and maybe Senate and Bibi Netanyahu. All those things are coming back at the same time, right? And so you could also have a Netanyahu in the run up to a 2024 election, once again, putting his thumb on the scale, trying to get involved in U.S. politics, trying to support Republicans. And as you said last time, if the Democratic plan is to throw your arms around Bibi and say, oh, it was Obama's fault that he didn't get along with Bibi. We know how to deal with this guy.

No, that you have not learned anything about who Bibi Netanyahu is. It was not Barack Obama's fault that Bibi Netanyahu is basically a Republican. We talked about this. There was a story in The New York Times, I think, probably triggered both of us about, like, contrasting the Biden Netanyahu and Obama-Nettingya relationship. And what drives me crazy about these analysis pieces is they still kind of like treat Netanyahu like some neutral arbiter who's doing his best

or was honest along the way. Like, no, he wants Trump back. Spare me this bullshit about how like BB could trust Biden's heart is in the right place or for Israel. No, he's a corrupt right-wing jackass who loves Donald Trump, who's never committed to a peace process. He wants to annex the West Bank. He wants the U.S. to bomb Iran on his behalf, and he wants to not get told what to do while receiving billions in military aid. And, like, if you don't pause to at least just, like, think through the policy again

when a guy like Ben Gavere becomes a Homeland Security Secretary, when do you? I don't get it. Is there anything that could lead to a reassessment of things like conditioning military assistance? Like, if they start to annex the West Bank, you know, do you even think about that? Is there anything, anything that this government could do that would draw a rebuke, a real rebuke from the United States? And to your point about the media, like they cover BB like they cover the Republicans as if the last decade hasn't happened. You know, this is somebody who has not been pushed to the right by, you know, Barack Obama being impolite to him once or something.

This is just who he is. This is his politics. He's not even a religious guy. He's just like, wants power. Yeah, and he's got a right-wing worldview, and therefore he's willing to jump into bed with people like this. And so I just think this is something, you know, as with the domestic politics here, like this is going to be a bumpy road the next couple years. Real bumpy. Okay, real quick warning here.

The next, this next story is awful. So we've talked about right-wing parties are real theme today, Ben. We've talked about France before. Usually it's Marine Le Pen, who is heinous. But today we're talking about a member for a political party. Here's the backstory. So a 31-year-old black lawmaker named Carlos Martins Bilongo was addressing the French National Assembly about migrants stranded at sea.

During his speech, a far-right French lawmaker named Greg Ward de Fornauss from Marine Le Pen's National Rally Party literally shouted, go back to Africa. DeFournoss, the guy who shouted later said he was talking about sending migrant boats back to Africa, not directing this comment at his black colleague. He apparently thought that made it sound better. I do not. Regardless, like this guy was booed. The assembly session was suspended.

DeFornos himself was suspended from Parliament for 15 working days. Marine Le Pen, of course, defended him. You know, Macron's party, Ombarge, the more moderate party in charge, condemned the racism. But, like, my fear men is all the things we're talking about today, we'll get the climate change in a minute. These far right voices are clearly emboldened in a lot of places. And as we've seen in the U.S. and as we've seen the story in France, immigration becomes the vehicle for vocalizing what is, at essence, just pure racism. You know? And I think like when people see people like this shout stuff or just like go public with their racism like that, it tends to build on itself.

And it just makes me very nervous. Yeah. Well, also, like as you said, you know, because I was really, you know, this caught my attention to. you know, Marine Le Pen totally backed this guy up. Totally back to him. And she probably thinks it's a political winner, right, for this guy to be seen as being victimized and, you know, suspended. And that speaks of that kind of grotesque emergence of this far right over the years in France and other places in Europe. But it's not going away, you know,

and we had to figure out ways to deal with it. And I think what's really challenging and Tabata kind of gets, So you're hearing the interview. She talks about the evangelicals were Bolsonaro's base. And the part of what we did in this, she said in the second round, where Lula won is like,

we tried to start dialogue with these people, right? I'm not saying you should start dialogue with this racist asshole. But you need to figure out a way to start a dialogue with some of those voters. You know, at some point, there has to be a way to reach people who are turning in this direction

by communicating to them, why that's not the political answer to their fucking grievances. And it's not appealing when it's under the cover of such overt racism from people like this. I totally get that. This guy should have been condemned. He should have been suspended. One million percent. What he did is grotesque. By the way, it flies in the face of how the French like to talk about themselves because telling a black French lawmaker to go back to Africa. In France, it's supposed to be colorblind. Everybody's French, right? But like, you have to find ways to crack the facade that is being built around these voters who are turning

in this direction and have conversations with these people. Yeah. And also, I mean, I don't know. Look, maybe there's a good outcome from this, which is that Marine Le Pen and her party, they've been trying to do with a lot of these far right wingers do what Ben Gavir did in Israel, which is like shave off the edges, renounce some of the most abhorrent former views, try to pass as just, you know, a lesser, less racist or less overtly racist version. of whatever they used to be.

Maybe this, you know, gets the scales off everybody's eyes and sees these people who they really are and always have been. Yeah. You should like totally call it out. This is who they are. You should be making that moral argument. And then you should also be to be more specific about what I was getting at, I'm not just saying like, oh, let's go and go to a diner in southern France. You know, I guess that's a bistro there.

Sure. But the point is that some of the voters that they're winning, like immigration is being blamed for everything. thing when that's not the problem. Like some of the economic problems, you know, like are not because there's like some boat crossing the Mediterranean here. No. And, you know, you got to get out there and do the work of winning back enough of those voters so that these creeps aren't creeping into power like they have been.

Yeah. I mean, look, you know, another happening now and coming soon driver of migration is climate change. So, you know, biggest story in the world this week, biggest story every week is still climate change. The COP 27 UN climate summit is happening as we speak where else but in Egypt, the perfect place. Because of the dictator CC's deep and abiding desire to fight climate change. He cares deeply. Apparently there's a shortage of food and water and many of the 40,000 delegates are comparing it to the fire festival. It's not the important part, obviously. But a draft report that came out of the U.S. government associated with the summit called the National Climate Assessment paints a very dire

picture for us in the U.S. The U.S. has warmed 68% faster than the Earth as a whole. We obviously passed this big aggressive climate bill earlier in the year, but still aren't on track to get to net zero by 2050. And despite the outsized contribution, the U.S. has made to global warming itself. The U.S. was not among the group of developed nations that offered direct aid to help fix losses and damage from climate change for developing countries. So the Europeans were leading the charge there. Obviously, that kind of commitment would be demagogued to death by Republican. here by Marine Le Pen over there. But Ben, anything like jump out of you at this summit, I saw that John Kerry is trying

to work on a plan to allow developing countries to earn climate credits by reducing emissions, sell them to businesses, use that to fund renewables. It's not totally sure how it works, but it seems like he's getting creative. The thing that jumped out to me in the early days of the summit, which is obviously ongoing, was at every one of these cops, the decibel level of developing countries and island nations demanding more support for climate mitigation grows. I was in Glasgow and I did, I was in a session with the island nations and they're like, it's happening now.

Like, part of the problem is in the past, it's like someday in the future there could be these climate effects and these island nations are like, our coastlines are disappearing. We need to move our people. That costs a lot of money. We don't have a lot of money. You rich guys created this problem. You need to help us now. And I think the headlines, to me thus far is, John,

John Kerry absolutely has been tenacious in trying to take on issues like methane and how do you reduce deforestation, getting at the core emissions issues, where there is some progress being made and the U.S. kicking in a huge amount of money in the Inflation Reduction Act is going to help. I love why you always choke on the name of that. Let's just be honest. It's the midterms. It would be honest. It wasn't really about that. I know. But anyway.

No, John Manchin being a genius. Yeah, a genius to stop that name on. But you're right. It's going to be hard to get government assistance for this. But I think the U.S. government, and Kerry's talked about this, is going to have to get a little more creative in marshalling funding for mitigation. You just talked about migration, too. There's going to be enormous needs to prevent, if you don't want hundreds and hundreds of millions of climate refugees coming into the U.S. and Europe, destabilizing our politics even more, like, you better raise a lot of money and get it out.

fast. And the U.S. has to therefore be working with philanthropy. The government can work with philanthropies, with businesses, with the financial sector, to marshal resources. The U.S. government can do that, even if we can't get a Republican Congress to pass a lot of money to provide to developing countries to mitigate climate, there are other innovative things that can be done. We need to be rushing funds out the door to mitigate the effects of climate change or else they're going to hit us in areas like migration. The challenge with every issue like this is that the Democratic Party is always on the side of the correct, in my opinion, but long-term solution to the problem.

Yeah. Whereas the Republican side is like push the boats back into the water or drill for oil. Drill for more oil. Or more police not defund. You know what I mean? It's like you can't like it takes a long time to rethink policing, climate change, mitigation, et cetera. And it's just going to be brutally hard.

But I agree with you. I mean, I do think like, you know, some like a slightly jingoistic sounding message, maybe that will move people. I don't know what to do, but it's going to take some real work here. It's going to take real work. I mean, and just Tabita in the interview, too, like we talked about the Amazon. And she was saying something I didn't fully realize, which is in addition to Bolsonaro, just kind of gutting these policies to prevent deforestation, it's incredibly violent there now.

Oh, God, yeah, yeah. Like, and so part of the journalist who got murdered recently. Yeah, like, in order to fight deforestation, you need to somehow, like, fight these, like, violent traffickers and gangs that are, like, doing the logging. It just shows you how complex this issue. is, but I think it's going to take solutions where to reduce emissions, you have like replicable things like clean energy that can be scaled up fast. And again, like other ways to get funding from outside of government to deal with this mitigation. For sure. The other thing this is highlighting

the fact that the cop is in Egypt is their human rights record, how bad it is. Specifically, there's a political prisoner named Ala Abd al-Al-Al-Al-Fata, who's been on a 200-day hunger strike. He's vowed to stop drinking water when the summit's. starts. He's a dual Egyptian British citizen. And like people are obviously like lobbying the Rishi Sunak, the new prime minister of the UK to help get him out. And man, I saw a video this morning of Rishi Sunak just like bolting through some auditorium with said journalist trying to ask him for comment on the case and just refusing to fucking acknowledge the guy's existence. Like the most pathetic thing I've ever seen. Are you shocked at the hedge fund guy that runs the UK?

Deer in headlights. Look, this is a country with tens of of thousands of political prisoners. I just hope that the Biden administration uses all of these senior people going over there to press them on individual cases like this one and the bigger question of why they have like a brutal dictatorship that receives, again, billions of dollars in aid from the U.S. Israel and Egypt, the two biggest recipients of U.S. assistance have featured in this podcast. So they should be pressing this issue. I think as much as I support everybody being part of climate solution, right? So Egypt is going to have to be part of the climate solution. There's something kind of cynical about, like this cop is in Egypt, the next one's in the UAE.

Absurd. Like, OPEC country. Yeah, what are we doing? They're kind of hacking the kind of global goodwill around climate summits to launder their reputations. And that's a bit unappetizing as well. Yeah, like Qatar is trying to say that they're buying carbon offsets to make the World Cup green. Okay. Yeah.

Sure you are. Yeah. It's like, you know, you get the private jet ride and you like buy the carbon offset. Yeah. Yeah. A decade of infrastructure build out from an oil like a petro state. Yeah. I'm sure it'll be a carbon neutral.

Yeah. We should say, by the way, just put a pin in it after we recover for a midterm hangovers. Biden's got some big summits coming up. You leave Thursday, right? Yeah, because you've got a cop and we've got, but also, you know, he's going to be with Xi and Putin at the G20. So there's going to be a hot pot say of the world next week. Man, that will be, that's some high-stakes stuff.

Yeah. It's hard to, I mean, listen, we got our asses kicked in the midterm, and then we went overseas and accomplished a whole bunch of stuff in the lame duck. So, like, you can sprint out of an ass kicking in a midterm. It just takes a little work. Like, we did the new start treaty, got a bunch of things done. Don't ask, don't tell? Don't tell. Don't us until. Don't us, tell repeal? Yeah. Corrus? Yeah. Who could forget, chorus. Yeah, the U.S. Korea Free Trade Agreement? Yeah, who can forget that one. I also got my ass chewed out by a really grumpy Barack Obama on that trip because the press coverage was so bad because all the press

was like Obama chastened, reduced, diminished by, I mean, this is the famous thing, famous among about five of us, where he chewed us all out at the G20 press governance prep. Yeah. Because he was getting bad headlines and it's like me and Saki and Gibbs and you're there. It's like, sorry, if you get your ass kicked in the midterms, it's kind of what happens. It's like, why does this story say Obama fails to get free trade agreement completed? It's like, well, we failed to get the free trade agreement completed. Yeah.

Yeah, and we did just get our escape. Yeah, we got smoked. Okay, a couple more short updates before we get Ben's interview. So former Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan, was shot in the leg at a rally last week. He survived. Pakistan politics. Fucking, I mean. Wild right now.

But he said they removed three bullets from his leg. Yeah. Yeah. And it was super murky, right? Because, you know, he obviously said that the government did this. The guy said he did it because for religious reasons, but it was just the whole thing looked, you know, It's just very unstable there. And Imran Khan's popularity is proving to be very durable.

Yes, yes it is. Protests in Iran are still ongoing, if not picking up. And President Biden raised a couple eyebrows when he said last week, quote, don't worry, we're going to free Iran. They're going to free themselves pretty soon. This was during a campaign speech. I think he was in San Diego. He was out here in California, right? But, you know, some complicated history there of the U.S.

toppling governments in Iran. So that, you know. Or raise. And also just like raising expectations. Yeah. You know, like we all want to see a free Iran. We all would love to see like a, you know, multi-party elections and respect for women's rights across the board. But the capacity the U.S. to impose that, you know, is quite limited.

Yeah. And I think he was probably just showing solidarity with protesters because I don't know if you notice it's been. I mean, there is a vibrant Iranian and Armenian community in Los Angeles in particular. Yeah. Yeah. You see a lot of protesters like, you know, people in the streets. I've seen protests all over the city. Me too. Every political event, like when we went to see AOC and Irvine, there were free Iran signs yesterday at the Katie Porter

GOTV staging site. There was a free Iran car. So like people are out and I'm sure like it was a call and response kind of thing, but you know, whatever. And then North Korea continues to just launch tons of missiles, including what appeared to be a new sort of intercontinental ballistic missile. Those are the ones that can go really far. So not a lot of good news today, Ben. Yeah It's kind of rough out there, huh? Kind of rough out there That's why we had this kind of Brazil interview

Because that's like a bright spot But even there there's like Crazy people doing roadblocks And you know What's good out there? Jets beat the bills You know How did you?

Yeah, you guys look like pretty good Knicks one last night Like if any like sports is going pretty well Yeah you got a great defense We got everything but a quarterback You know Yeah well yeah Yeah

Favre just texted These exits are brutal. All right. Well, White Lotus episode two. Who I haven't watched here. Very good. Very good. Spoiler.

Okay, cool. All right, we're going to take a quick break. Yeah, yeah. We come back. You'll hear Ben being much more hopeful talking about Brazil, a country where the good guy just wanted a good election. So stick around for that. We are so pleased to be joined by Tabita Amaral, who's, I think you've been on Missing America, another one of my podcast, but it's great to have you on Pazade the World. Tabita.

Tabita is a Brazilian politician. She's been an education activist. She is currently a federal deputy for the Brazilian Socialist Party representing the state of Sao Paulo. Tabata, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, Ben. It's an honor to be here with you one more time. And a very important hectic moment for my country and yours. So I hope this can be a good conversation.

That's right. Well, let's start there. So Lula recently won a very close, election there. You supported his campaign, even though you're not traditionally totally aligned with all of his politics. I just want to start with the election itself. There were a lot of fears and concerns that outgoing President Bolsonaro might reject the results. He himself said he might reject the results. It seems like the transition is moving forward, though. What is your update on just what is happening in Brazil? Are you confident that?

there will be a peaceful transition of power to Lula, or are you concerned about efforts from Bolsonaro and his supporters to disrupt the transition of power? Yes, it was a very close election. What was very scary to me, when we speak about Bolsonaro, we are talking about a president that denied the buying of vaccines for a month and a half, who, According to many scientists is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths who could be avoided during the pandemic, we are talking about a president that is pro-deforestation who put our country in a very, in a position that made me ashamed when we talk about the international scenario.

We are talking about a president who is responsible for basic education walking back for the first time in our recent history. We worked our scores in math and Portuguese during his mandate. We saw hunger increasing. We are talking about someone who promised during the campaign that if he was elected, he would interfere in the judiciary. He would make the Supreme Court bigger so he could have more appointees than he should. So in summary, you are talking about someone who promised to follow Chavez steps, what he wanted to do with the judiciary, is exactly what Chavez did in Venezuela. We are talking about someone who made my country suffer a lot,

and yet he got almost half of the valid votes, which is extremely scary to me and speaks about how divided my country is. It's also important to say, though, that there was a lot of corruption in his mandate and that he created something called the secret budget, which basically gave his supporters access to hundreds of millions of reaise per year to do campaign. So it's not only about ideology. Bolsonaro managed to use public money to fund his campaign, to fund his efforts. So those two comments about the election. And even though we were successful in creating a very broad coalition, I think this is the broadest coalition Brazil has ever seen in our history.

We are speaking about from the left to the center right, all the Democrats were there together. So it was really hard. And what scares me is that our country is divided. did everything we could and the election was still very close. I'm proud of the broad coalition. We were able to build. I'm glad the hardest part has passed.

But I am concerned with the moment of my country. I am concerned when I see so many people on roadblocks as they are now asking for military intervention. I am scared when I see that Bolsonaro was able to elect. very extremist people to the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. And I'm scared to think that even though he was for sure the worst president, we have had in 30 years, he got almost half of the votes. So I don't know if I am clear, but I'm glad we won't.

But I am so concerned and I am so on the alert and trying to learn with everything that happened. and try to understand how we will be able to reunite and rebuild this country that I'm not allowing myself to rest. Well, that makes sense, and it sounds very familiar because we've dealt with the exact same situation in the United States. I'm going to play you one clip from one of President Trump supporters here in the United States about the Brazilian election. We were watching the Brazil election.

our cyber guys were watching and they took, that we know of was 5.1 million votes and through the machines. When I say pure machines, there's no paper. It's just a tap, boom, boom, boom, boom. So whatever that tells you, whatever programs inside, here's who won. So I'll explain that, Tabeta. That is a guy named Mike Lindell, who made a fortune-selling pill. in this country. And he was one of the big supporters of President Trump's efforts to overturn

the election here. The question I want to ask you about that clip is you hear him talking about conspiracy theories of votes being stolen from President Bolsonaro. We've seen President Trump endorse Bolsonaro. We've seen Trump advisors go down and meet with Bolsonaro. What is your view of this connection between Trump and Bolsonaro? Are you aware of these Americans who are spreading these conspiracy theories? Is that a problem down there? Or is it just part of the strange reality that we're living with in American and Brazilian politics? Well, there we go. I do think it's important to laugh when we have the opportunity. And I want to give back another conspiracy theory that involves Lady Gaga. I don't know if you know that. Did you hear about it? I saw this. I saw some picture of Bolsonaro talking to somebody that they said was at the Hague, but it was actually Lady Gaga. Yeah. So there is this huge conspiracy theory going on on social media in Brazil that Lady Gaga is a judge and that she intervened in the Brazilian election.

And I say that because, well, I don't have the answers. Maybe you can help me here. but I think we are somehow broken as a society. It is funny and I try to laugh to laugh of it. Otherwise we go crazy with all that is happening. But for some reason, there is this thing going on the whole globe and I have some explanations maybe that make it easier for some people to believe that Lady Gaga will intervene in the Brazilian election. than just to accept that their candidate lost an election.

And I don't know how to explain. I think it has to do with identity. It's a letter of, and there are so many books about it. And I have read them all. Yashamunk and Levitsky. But one book that took to me was Sandel's The Tyranny of Merity, because I think somehow he gives away to us. There are a lot of people, both in the US and in Brazil,

and maybe in that sense they can relate, that feel they don't have a place anymore in society that are doing worse than their parents did and who are receiving social media every single day statements about their failure. And things like, as we have a phrase in Brazil, that goes like, if you didn't get it, you didn't try hard enough.

And we know it's not true. There was the pandemic. There is a change, a technological change in the way the economy works. And all those people suddenly, they feel like they don't belong anymore. Nobody understands them. And everyone is telling them that's their fault, that they're not succeeding. So I do have this feeling that both Bolsonaro and Trump share this thing that they go to those people and they tell that they are worthy, that they

should be heard, that they have value, and that it's the system's fault that they are not doing well. It's the immigration, it's the communist, the goals are many. But I have this feeling that today's election day was matter so much to us in Brazil. Everyone is commenting about it. And what happens in Brazil is being watched by Americans because we share this problem more than anything else. A whole part of society who feels that they are being left behind, that they don't belong anymore, and then come these populists in the extreme right and give them an identity, give them something to fight for. We are making fun of those people who are right now in Brazil blocking the streets because sometimes they do things that are sort of stupid. But this is an organic movement and there are people who chose not to go to work but to fight for something.

And I just say that because, well, clearly I don't have all the answers, but I have this feeling that maybe we can help each other more like in a global statement. We have to do something about it. We have to do something about all the people who are being left behind by the technological revolution, all these people who feel they don't belong anymore, all the impacts of social media. And then we have to talk about fake news and all of that. But I'll give back to you. Yeah, no. Well, I think you gave us a really good answer and a lot to think about.

I want to ask you about education, actually, because it's something that doesn't get, I think, talked about enough as a part of the answer to what's happening. You, when I met you, I met you, I think, for the first time back in 2017, maybe, before you were elected, I think. And you were an education activist, and I know you focused on education in government. And I also know that President Bolsonaro spent a lot of time trying to change the education system to push his own agenda. to push, you know, some evangelical Christian viewpoints in the education system or to push kind of an anti-LGB agenda. Now that you have a new administration, hopefully, that comes into power under Lula, how is education a part of the answer here? I mean, it seems like, you know, people believing crazy things like Lady Gaga intervening in the election,

that there's some connection between education and economic opportunity, but also education and a healthier society. What are the kind of changes that you would want to see on one of your key issues, education under Lula? As I said before, there is this evaluation that happens in Brazil every two years since 2005. And this is the first time since 2005 when we started to have to get this scores. When Brazil goes worse, had gone before. Just to say that under Bolsonaro's government, we walked back. But we worked our scores in math, in Portuguese, dropout rates increased a lot. And it's important to say that because in Brazil, an economist called Paes de Barros has showed that an student that doesn't finish

high school in Brazil leaves three to four years less, has more chances of joining criminalities, gangs of having a disease and so on. So if we don't act fast, we are talking about a whole generation that will have a much more unhappy life than they should, much less opportunities. And we have many challenges to face. Bolsonaro has cut a lot the investment in education. Many of the programs that were laid by different governments were destroyed when we talk about technical education, a more holistic view to our schools and so on. But also there is this cultural war that Bolsonaro thought that had a consequence that would take us more time to deal with. So there is this, and I think that happens in the US as well.

this whole movement to impede teachers of talking about racism, LGBT phobia, gender issues. So we are in a moment in which teachers are very scared to talk about those things. Because if they raise an issue related to human rights, a parent or someone who hire them might just come and say, okay, you can no longer teach you here because you are a communist, because you have issues. So just to say that, yes, I work very hard to make sure that the resources and the investment are at least to the level they were before, Bolsonaro. I worked very hard for technical education, which is very important to me, to make sure that we look at mental health at schools in my state of San Paulo. out of 10 students, seven have some symptoms of anxiety, depression, so on. So there are many things I'm hoping I can work with to make sure that low-income students

they have an income so they can stay school and so on. But I'm not sure how we'll make sure to go back to that stage in which no one is against teachers talking about human rights. and teachers telling us that we should respect diversity, we should embrace diversity. So that would take a little bit longer because, yes, we have defeated Bolsonaro. But again, there is a huge part of the population who seems to align to that view. Yeah, no, it sounds very, again, very familiar to hear. Another issue that people around the world have watched very carefully is the deforestation

and the Amazon, which is one of the most important parts. of fighting climate change, making sure that you don't lose, you know, the Amazon in particular, but forests around the world. What can be done to stop that deforestation? Are you optimistic that with Lula's election, the rapid deforestation of the Amazon will stop, that illegal logging will stop? How should people around the world look at the Amazon issue going forward under Lula? Well, I was just participating in an act here in Congress, in which I said that it might take longer to us to rebuild what was destroyed than it took them to destroy everything. We are talking about many institutes that were created in Brazil. It's a network of protection of the forest who was just destroyed.

We are talking about civil servants who are. persecuted by doing their work, all the cuts in budgets that happened, the forestation rates that increased a lot, but we are also talking about a region when we talk about the Amazon that became very violent. In Brazil as a whole, we saw the home side rates go down, but in the Amazon, the opposite happened. The circulation of firearms increased a lot. We recently saw the dead. of Don and Bruno, I'm sure you followed who were killed by those criminals. So yes, I am optimistic that this new government, we understand how crucial the environment is, including to our economic development.

There are many projects that I have presented myself, who I'm looking forward to fight for. But I think it won't be so easy because there is this expression in Brazil that goes like a place of no rule of law. And that's what the Amazon has become when we talk about even international networks of narcot traffic. There are a lot of people who are making profit out of everything that Bolsonaro did during his term. And things have become even more messed up and mixture. When we talk about criminality, deforestation, all the hate against indigenous people. So yes, I'm confident of the fight. We'll be there to fight this fight.

But it won't be as easy. One thing that makes me so sure that by the end will be successful is that, again, I think people are starting to understand in Brazil that we only profit by protecting our forests. We are in a position in the world stage in which we will be more developed. We will be more just if we invest in our environment. It just won't be easy. And again, as a young representative, I'm still 28 years old. I'm also very confident that this new generation will have a different look on the climate agenda, for instance.

One of the projects that I care about the most is make sure that different municipalities in Brazil have adaptation plans for climate change. And I have this feeling that whenever I'm talking to a younger audience, I don't have to explain much. So I also feel that this will help us looking forward. So much of this conversation sounds familiar, right? In that the U.S. has dealt with an autocratic president who maintained an alarming amount of support. We have the same culture wars happening in our schools. We have the same climate change deniers that we're dealing with. And we have an election today. This will come out tomorrow. We'll know the results. likely it'll it'll be you know the Democrats are probably going to lose some some ground in our Congress. I just want to step back, though. What did you learn in your election about how to build that big coalition from the center right to the left? There are lessons?

Because I think we have to learn from each other. What works? What are we fighting against? It's a big part of what we try to do on this podcast. And so what are what are the lessons you learned about what worked in building a coalition that wasn't as big as you'd like? You know, the election was closer than I think anybody would have liked, but you were able to win. How do you build a coalition that includes people who disagree about things, but that agree about democracy? No easy job. One thing that was important, both in the national election, but also in a smaller level at my re-election, was to talk about the concrete stuff. And I have this general feeling that partisan politics has become very intellectual and very elitized. I don't know if I can say that. but yeah elitist yeah i have this feeling that uh the more moderate center left center right politicians and partisans we have many in brazil different to the u.s uh they have started talking about things that might be viral on social media but who which don't really connect to what happened to people and i have an example from my election um in brazil uh all the center was destroyed We saw in Congress an election of people who are much more to the right or more to the left.

Those who are center left, center, center, right didn't have much chance. And I was able to increase my number of votes in that scenario. And I would say that one of the biggest reason was because during my mandate and my campaign, I was talking about very concrete stuff. So one of the biggest fights I had in Congress was to make sure that public schools had pads. So poor girls wouldn't have to miss classes when they were in their period. I thought so teachers would be vaccinated earlier so we could open schools. I fought for basic income programs.

And I have this feeling that this was important in my election. And I chose to ignore social media. I have been canceled on social media many times in one week. I was in the streets every single day during my mandate. And I was the only moderate to have such a big vote. And for me, moderation is a good word, even though it's not in a good moment here in Brazil. And when we talk about the national elections, there was a huge effort in terms of moderating and opening the dialogue.

Brazil is changing. We have an increase in the number of people who are evangelicals, and those people have things to say. They want to be apart as well. And I have this feeling that the left was ignoring that. And you would hear all types of prejudiced, such as, oh, I'm very scared that evangelicals will be the majority of my country. And I'm like, why are you scared? Like, go and talk to these people. Like having Catholics as the majority didn't scare anyone before.

And I'm Catholic myself. And I saw a real effort by President Lula and his coalition to open a dialogue with the evangelicals. Then there is a lot of criticism on how PT, the Workers Party, conducted economic policies. I'm one of the critics myself. And I saw many dialogues with people who have different economic views. and what are the common ground? Is there anything we can agree on? So this was not easy,

and this effort was much bigger between the first and the second round. And I think this was a mistake. I think this big conversation should have happened before. But it's hard. It's hard for atheists who have a good conversation with evangelicals. It's hard for people who have very left views on the economy, have a good conversation with liberals. I think Bolsonaro somehow made it possible

because he represented such a big threat to our country. But I think that's the way like a lot of different people have to sit together and say, okay, is there anything we can agree on? And one example is that President Luda wrote a letter to the evangelical community saying, okay, this is what my government will look like. And that's what we can agree on.

Well, look, Tavada, I think that's really, really good advice and really well said. And really appreciate you joining us at such an important time for both of our countries. You're doing great work, and I think there's a lot that people can learn from you. I hope President Lula continues to listen to you. You represent generational change there and the kind of politics of getting things done. So thank you so much for joining us and look forward to keeping in touch. Thank you so much. Best of luck today. And I also, I have this dream for my country that I extend to yours that our Congress at some point look like our population.

With more blacks, more women, more young people, because I think this is an important part of the solution. So again, I'm always here. Thank you so much. It was an honor. And best of luck. I'm cheering for you. Thanks again to tap it up for joining the show. I don't know. I got, let's just start counting these dumb votes. I mean, I mentioned this to you guys earlier, but the good thing about being on the West Coast is you know a little earlier, you know, you start drinking, you can go to bed a little earlier than, you know. I don't know how people exist on East Coast time.

For any live event, for sports. Well, it's because we're getting old, right? So it's like, oh, it's so nice I can. But even like Monday Night Football, like, oh, I can't stay out that late. I don't want to watch this. I don't want to watch it. Are you guys live streaming here or something? We're doing like 15 minutes and then we're out of here.

Yeah, yeah. It's going to take a while, I think. It's a different vibe than 2018 to last winter. I'm going to say that. Well said. Okay, well, we'll talk to you guys next week. Probably have some more information about these elections, so see you then. See it.

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