Pod Save the World - Impeachmentpalooza

Episode Date: November 20, 2019

First, Tommy and Ben discuss the increasingly violent protests in Hong Kong, the impeachment hearings, Trump’s new policy on Israeli settlements, and protests and leaked documents in Iran. Then they talk China, an update on Lebanon, Bolivia becomes a 2020 issue, why Trump is pardoning war criminals, and bad news out of Korea. Then Politico’s Nahal Toosi joins to talk impeachment, Mike Pompeo, and why spies are getting bored.

Welcome back to Pots Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, you're in Nashville? That's one of my favorite cities. I am in the music city, Tommy. I'm here for one night only. Please. Beers, barbecue. What else do you have planned? Cybersecurity conference. It's basically the nerdyest thing someone can be doing in Nashville. That's awesome. I'm here for the day. And then tomorrow I'm heading out to Hong Kong. So next time I talk to you on the podcast. I'll have some interesting, you know, observations. Yeah, you're going to have a mask on your face and an umbrella. Well, I'm glad you sort of teed this up because today we're going to start by talking about those increasingly violent and ongoing protests in Hong Kong. I want to do some impressions from the impeachment hearings. Let's talk about Trump's new policy on Israeli settlements. There are some interesting protests and leaked intelligence documents coming out of Iran that we want to go through.

Weakish Chinese documents about the Uyghurs and update on Lebanon. why Trump is pardoning a bunch of war criminals, some bad news out of North and South Korea, and why Bolivia is now an issue in the 2020 primary. Climate change, an update on some of those unqualified Trump administration personnel we told you about last week. And then Politico's in the Hall 2C is going to join to talk about our favorite human being on the planet, Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. Good stuff. But just before we go in, a quick personal favor to all your world does out there.

I've been doing this five-part series on the Iowa caucuses. first one posted today, you'll hear all about the stakes of what Iowa means for candidates, how Obama did so well in 2008. And, you know, it'll take you out a little pre-Trump trip down memory lane that I think is actually kind of cathartic and enjoyable. So check it out. Been working on it for a while. I would appreciate it. Yeah, I listened to Tommy on the flight out, and it's awesome. And it really, in addition to just having good stories, I think it really sets the context for how do you win in Iowa, why winning in Iowa matters, why. Why, Iowa is first, right? So a lot of the questions that will be front and center the next two or three

months check out the pod. Yeah, an innocent time, more innocent time. All right, so let's start with Hong Kong. So these protests in Hong Kong have grown incredibly violent and really frightening. So there are reports of up to a thousand protesters occupying the campus of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. They've been there for about a week. They've been using literally bows and arrows and slingshots and fire bombs to fight off the police. As things have escalated, the police have blocked the exits. They fired tear gas and rubber bullets at them, basically trapping them on campus while demanding they surrender to these cops.

Rye police have charged a building a bunch of times, but were fought off. Protesters tried to escape where they've been blocked. The videos from inside look like a literal war zone. You had dozens of people hurt. They're injured. They're running out of supplies. Their parents have tried rescue attempts and have been literally begging for their release. There's photos of them holding signs that say things like,

Save the kids, don't kill our children. This is very dire. The protests in Hong Kong started back in June. Initially, they were about a law that would have allowed individuals arrested in Hong Kong to be extradited to China for trial, but they really ballooned into a war over the future of Hong Kong itself. The New York Times reported on Monday night that 4,491 people have been arrested since the protest started for the first time Chinese soldiers left their barracks in Hong Kong to clear debris off the street. there's Chinese troops stationed in Hong Kong who aren't supposed to leave them or interfere in political affairs, but they can be asked by local authorities to help, quote, maintain order. So notable development there.

But, you know, I think that image of these PLA guys on the streets is a reminder of how powerful and looming Beijing is. And it conjures memories of the Tiananmen Square massacre. In Washington, Mike Pompeo called for restraint by both sides. And he also noted that the Hong Kong government bears primary responsibility. But, you know, Ben, as we discussed with Kevin Rudd last week, the former prime minister of Australia, the Chinese know that Trump really just cares about getting a trade deal. So I don't think they're that worried. Ben, you know, the videos from inside this university are terrifying. I remain extremely nervous about how all this is going to play out and now a little bit nervous about the fact that you're going over there.

Yeah, well, I will stay away from those universities. I'll tell you that. I think what's happening is the way this has evolved, this has become kind of existential to both sides. So for the protesters, you know, I saw some interesting quotes in some of the stories where they were speaking about what happened to the Uyghurs or they're speaking about, you know, some of the more sort of steps China's taken and basically said things along the lines of what else we had to lose. You know, like this is our last chance to stand up for our rights. Because if we, you know, succumb to Chinese pressure, ultimately we're just going to end up, you know, living under the boot. And so what you're seeing in these young people is people acting as if like they,

everything is on the line. And on the other hand, it's kind of become somewhat existential for the Chinese government. I mean, are they going to be able to exert. control over Hong Kong. Like this one, one of the few places that is under Chinese sovereignty, but that has a different political system and has clearly a population that wants different things than what Beijing wants to do there in terms of wanting universal suffrage, you know, they need to squash this in their view or else they risk having their political model discredit it because these people who have an ability to choose, you know, appear to obviously

be choosing something that is more democratic than is the case in mainland China. And so both sides have kind of hardened here. You know, the protesters have had these five demands and many of them involve kind of the events of the protest, right? So the complete withdrawal of this extradition bill we've talked about, the release of prisoners, you know, accountability for some of the abuses from the police. But the fifth and critical one is universal suffrage, right? And the ability to select their own leaders. And that, there's no ability to kind of compromise between what Beijing's view of politics is and people who are saying they want, you know, universal suffrage and democracy. And that means that this is going to kind of grind on potentially with these flare-ups of violence.

Yeah, seriously. God, I worry for these kids. I mean, look, obviously if I were a member of the Hong Kong police, I would not be happy about having arrows shot at me or bricks launched at me or Molotov cocktails thrown at these vehicles. But I also think these kids probably worry that they're going to be charged as terrorists or, you know, and put in jail for life or put to death. So you're right. I mean, the stakes just keep ratcheting up.

Yeah, no, they think that they're, you know, they have everything to lose anyway. And so they're going down with a fight. And look, you know, one of the things, it's very difficult to unpack is a broad opinion in Hong Kong. So we know from the scale of the protests over the summer, when they're, you know, literally huge percentage of the population over a million people out in the street, clearly, like a majority of people in Hong Kong are uneasy with Beijing and its encroaching governance and didn't like this extradition bill.

Where people stand on, you know, the more, you know, extreme tactics of some of the protesters, We just don't know. I think what is clear, though, is that there is in Hong Kong far more dissent and desire for democracy than you ever see expressed in mainland China. And again, that I think is why the Chinese government is so sensitive about this, because they've continually made the argument that, no, no, no, people want to live under this system. Well, here are people with the choice or who feel like they have the choice who are at least indicating a different view. We should note, I mean, at great personal risk. I mean, these people are risking everything to stand up for democracy. You couldn't think of a harder, you know, mountain to climb than fighting for democracy as a citizen of Hong Kong, which is a part of China.

So they do deserve admiration for their courage, even if you obviously hate to see violence in any direction. Yeah, agreed. All right. We have a bunch more stuff to cover. but before we go full world, though, I wanted to talk about the impeachment hearings for a minute. I have to say, Ben, I'm very proud, not at all surprised, but very proud at how impressive the various State Department and NSC staffers who have testified have been. It certainly jives as my experience on the NSC in one of the coolest parts of government, which is when you needed expertise on literally any issue, you could find it within the various parts of the government. It's a reason not to denigrate them.

I would say it's been disgraceful watching the Republican defense of Trump today on Tuesday revolve around attacking Colonel Vindman for wearing his uniform to the hearing. You know, that used to be something that didn't happen in Republican circles. I'm not used to us attacking U.S. service members in uniform. It's also notable that Mike Pence wouldn't stand up for his own staffer when Trump attacked her on Twitter. So that's pretty pathetic. You know, so I hope people are coming away. understanding just how abnormal and wrong and corrupt this policy process is.

I know I'm a partisan hack here, but I don't see how anyone could think this is going well for the president. I also enjoyed the New York Times piece about how Rudy Giuliani and Gordon Sondland running their little corrupt scheme on WhatsApp and unsecure cell phones was probably a horribly bad idea that allowed the Russians to intercept every single word. But I don't know, what's your take? What have you been watching during these hearings? Well, you know, to me the most interesting part of the hearing is the Republican lines, of questioning because they literally cannot defend the facts. They cannot make an argument on the facts. And so it's either conspiracy theory or attacking the witnesses. And every day you get a

sense of how far the Republican Party has fallen. So you take the Vindman example. I mean, the Republicans are the ones who for, you know, decades tried to wrap themselves in the flag, tried to associate themselves at the military, you know, would have been the first ones to balk at somebody not being addressed by their rank of lieutenant colonel. And now, in their complete and utter fealty to Trump, more than happy to toss all that aside and malign the guy for wearing uniform or for being asked to be called Lieutenant Colonel or Ranky is more than earned. And so there's just kind of the debasement of the party, which in its own way explains Trump's conduct, right? Because if you want to know how we got here, where a president would so thoroughly corrupt his office and our farm policy to serve his own personal interests, well, the only way we got here is because, of how these Republicans are behaving because Trump has been enabled at every turn, right? And so

in a way, the Republicans are incriminating themselves and showing like this is how we end up with, you know, this type of foreign policy. I'll also say, you know, just to get off into the foreign policy pieces a little bit, you know, this debate about corruption has been interesting because, you know, our ambassador that Trump hounded out of there was fighting corruption and trying to fight corruption. And she made the point rightly that we try to encourage other countries not to engage in politically motivated corruption cases. You know, that's what it's all about. I mean, like, literally, the people should understand that one of the biggest violations of kind of human rights and democracy around the world is when leaders, you know, use corruption as a pretext

to silence their political opponents. And so it was kind of chilling to hear her speak about what used to be what the U.S. stood for. And yet the people that were urging politically motivated corruption cases were her own superiors in the form of Donald Trump and in his own way, Pompeo, enabling Rudy and all this. So there's kind of reversal of corruption. And another last point I make, Tommy, you're absolutely right about the Foreign Service, like a national treasurer. I leaned on their expertise constantly.

So part of this is you need those people there because they know things you don't know, right? So, for instance, just one example, my entire Cuban negotiation, I leaned on literally, my negotiating partner was a Foreign Service officer, knew more about Cuba than I would ever know and that, frankly, I think anybody in the U.S. government knew, and there are people like that all over the place. But an important point to make here is I thought, you know, the Republicans thought it was gotcha to get some of these former FSOs like Bill Taylor to talk about how Obama didn't provide lethal assistance, you know, and that they had supported it. and including, you know, the ambassador who was ousted. And that actually proves the point, too, that, like, Obama didn't punish people who had different views. In other words, like, yes, we didn't provide some of these anti-tank missiles.

And, yes, some of the foreign service officers in our administration were advocating for them, including, I remember very prominently, Tori Newland, who was a foreign service officer, who was a citizen secretary of state for Europe. But you don't punish people for having dissenting views. you want to hear those views and you want to hash it out, right? And so what's so odd is that the way that the system is supposed to work, right? Strong career people voicing their views, wanting to make sure corruption is investigated, has literally been turned inside out. And the Republicans on the committee either don't know or refuse to see that they are making the case for impeachment themselves

by how they're wanting to silence people for expressing their views or wanting to support politically motivated corruption investigations or wanting to impugn the integrity of anybody who thinks that the personal interests of the president should not weigh the national interests. Yeah, and that's why these lock up chants are not at all funny. All right, let's turn to Israel for a minute. So on Monday, the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, reversed longstanding U.S. policy by declaring that Israeli settlement in the West Bank are not a violation of international law. So a little context here for folks.

A settlement is a community built or inhabited by Israelis on territory. captured by Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967. So in this case, we're talking about territory in the West Bank, which is where the Palestinians want to establish an independent state. That's why settlement construction is so controversial, because we're talking about a finite amount of land that's getting reduced and chopped up into pieces by these settlements. So for decades, Republicans and Democrats have criticized settlement construction, and in 1978, the State Department issued a legal opinion saying that settlement construction in the West Bank was inconsistent with international law. So Pompeo's announcement is quite significant. Now,

the timing of the announcement is also controversial. We've talked on the show a bunch about the two Israeli elections this year. The elections in September basically ended in a tie. And then Prime Minister B.B. Netanyahu tried and failed to form a coalition government. Now his primary opponent, Benny Gaunt, has until midnight on Wednesday to form a coalition. So Mike Pompeo is rolling this political grenade into that government formation process. And obviously, trying to help Netanyahu if there's a third election. Previously, Trump has recognized the Golan Heights as Israeli territory. He's moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. So the Palestinian side is not at all surprised by this unilateral giveaway to Israel, but they are infuriated by it and believe

it shows disregard for international law and will basically kill the two-state solution proposal. So, Ben, I'm curious what you made of this policy, the timing, and what it might mean for the likelihood that Israel remains a democracy. Well, the timing is atrocious, right? Trump's been in office for three years, and he just decided randomly to make this determination three years into, you know, nothing has changed about settlements in those three years. And so what they were illegal and we were opposed to them for three years. And now suddenly, B, B is in a fix.

And we actually have changed our view of these settlements. Then also, like, you know, the word settlement isn't strong enough in some ways. It sounds like a bunch of, you know, kind of benign thing. some of these cases, you know, Palestinians are literally being displaced from their homes and their homes are being demolished, you know. So this is, make no mistake, like the settlements, particularly ones that cut deep in the West Bank, are displacing people upending their lives, ruining their lives, and making it a Palestinian state impossible. If the current settlement pattern continues, literally, even if you just had all the settlements that the Israelis have built today, like you could argue you couldn't have a contiguous Palestinian state, right? So that is why every U.S. administration has opposed them bipartisan. There's also like the technical matter, which is that the Trump people said that we don't find

them to be illegal on international law. That's just not true. They are illegal on international law. There's multiple UN Security Council resolutions that say they're illegal. So nothing about this makes any sense. The timing doesn't make sense. The policy shift doesn't make sense. They're wrong to say that these aren't illegal.

Like no one should ever listen to them talking about making peace again because you You can't make peace if you accept the continued growth of these settlements, right? And so I think, again, it puts an awkward microscope of how difficult challenges is going to be done. That's why at J Street, you know, we were asking, well, what are you going to do to try to reverse these trends? And would you allow U.S. assistance to facilitate the annexation of the West Bank, the bringing all of these settlements and all this territory in Israel? And Democrats are going to have to answer for that, if not during the campaign, certainly if somebody is elected president. Yeah. Ben, did you see that Bibi Netanyahu gave a speech where he said that Benigant's government will be a terror attack against the nation?

And then he said Ramallah and Tehran will party if Benigons comes to power like they do after terrorist attacks. That was a subtle, subtle speech. I didn't see that, but that doesn't say, I mean, that's, you know, we come to expect that merit of BB and it goes to show you how these people learn from, you know, BB and Trump, you know, this kind of hyperbolic, you know, dictator like rhetoric and the sky is always falling and it's all fear of the other guy. by the way, that's also absurd because, you know, as we've talked about on this podcast, like, Benny Gansz is no, like, peace nick, you know, and matters of policy. It wouldn't be different from Nanyahu, but not by that much, right? And so it just shows you that these people have nowhere else to go except kind of fear. And even this step by Trump, like, doesn't have any practical effect other than, you know,

trying to help me be politically and potentially encouraging more settlement construction, which is bad for, certainly bad for peace. And I think ultimately bad for Israel, because Israel, can't be a democracy and a Jewish state if it thinks it's going to permanently occupy and take over lands where the Palestinians are in the majority. Yep. Let's turn to Iran for a little bit. So for the past several days, there have been major protests in cities all across Iran. As we've seen, you know, repeatedly this year that the spark that started the protest was economic. In this case, it was an increase in gas prices. But the list of grievances quickly expanded into some more general rage

at the government and rage at corruption. In response, the Iranian regime essentially turned off the internet. They blocked services like WhatsApp and Instagram, and security forces cracked down hard. They arrested or reported 1,000 people while I think a dozen had been killed so far. But the number might be growing, unfortunately. So, Ben, I mean, here's a question. U.S. sanctions are a big part of why Iran is struggling economically. But, you know, if the Trump administration is basically executing a regime-chained strategy. Do you think these protests are evidence that they are, they're working, that their strategy is working?

Because you see a lot of neocon types cheering the Trump administration on. And it's notable that the White House put out a statement supporting the protesters, but I don't think they have supporting the protesters in Hong Kong, for example. No, look, I really don't. And every time we talk about this in their protests, we get shit. But like, here's the problem with this. you know, if there's some kind of, you know, collapse in Iran or, you know, these protests built, the people who are most positioned to be left standing are the worst people, you know.

So the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the people who are shutting off the internet, the people with the guns, right? They are the people that would emerge from political instability, right? You know, they even more so than some of the clerical leaders, certainly the political leadership of people like Rahani, right? So yes, the protests do reveal the public's frustration with the government with corruption, with the fact that the government spends all this money on, you know, the war in Syria and in politics in Lebanon, and not on basic services in Iran. That is an important development, and we should all support it, by the way. The Iranian regime

we'd be much better off if this became a democracy. that reflected kind of the interests of those people in the streets. I just think that the regime changed policy in this kind of maximum pressure campaign, it doesn't dislodge the bad actors. It actually makes them the ones who are left to benefit from the fact that everybody else is suffering. I'll give you one example, Tommy. There's a travel ban, right? In the Muslim ban, people can't come to the United States from Iran.

We should want there to be a growing Iranian middle class. We should want students to be coming here from Iran. And we should want those people to be a part of a movement that can change things inside of Iran. What these sanctions are doing is hollowing out the middle class. Yes, it's helping to piss off the people at the bottom. But it leads to this kind of form of periodic protest that doesn't dislodge the regime and only puts the security guys in the driver's seat. Right.

I mean, you mentioned like how we get shit on the subtext there. I assume what you're referring to is back in 2009, there was the green move. or the Green Revolution. And a lot of Republicans criticized Obama for not more forcefully coming out in support of the protesters at that time. Can you just remind listeners what happened back then and whether you, like, I guess we should have. I think we, I think we should have, by the way. So I don't think it would have made a difference though. You know, like these things, we overstayed our role a lot. I mean, our thinking at a time is there was an election in Iran, Akhmedinajad appeared to lose, but fraudulently probably they declared Ahmadinejad the winner. And so then there were these

protests in the streets that were largely kind of middle class urban, so a slightly different character than these current protests. And it was a green movement. Obama was very reticent on the advice of his team to speak out too forthrightly about this because we actually thought it could hurt the protesters, right? So our rationale wasn't that we liked the Iranian regime. It was the Iranian regime is going to try to make the protesters look like tools of the West, tools of America. And so if we hug them too tight and look like we were the ones behind this, that that could hurt them. I think in the long run, you know what? You should say what you believe as loudly as you can say it anyway.

And that's certainly a lesson I took from that. But I don't think it would have made much difference if Obama issued more forceful statements. And, you know, I mean, we have to recognize the dynamics of these countries for what they are. And what you want over time is, yes, popular dissatisfaction and people mobilizing. But you also want political conditions that can change and evolve. And I do think that the kind of zero-sum all in on sanctions and regime change policy empowers within the Iranian system the hardline actors, you know, who would be the ones that would be the last to go. One other interesting point on Iran. So the intercept got their hands on this huge cache of leaked Iranian intelligence cables.

And the fact that this stuff leaked is a big deal and super interesting in and of itself, because I don't think this has really ever happened before in a country like Iran that's so locked down. And I haven't had time to go through all of their reporting yet. But here's how the intercept describes what they found. They said, quote, it exposes Tehran's vast influence in Iraq, detailing years of painstaking work by Iranian spies to co-op the country's leaders, pay Iraqi agents working for the Americans to switch sides and infiltrate every aspect of Iraq's political, economic, and religious.

life. So, man, it's worth noting that, you know, there are these recent protests in Iraq that have focused on this Iranian influence that are apparently detailed in all of these cables. It was interesting to me because we always hear people in D.C. talk about taking some action in the Middle East to show that we are tough on Iran or invade Iraq to make sure the Mullahs in Iran, you know, get the message. But these cables seem to underscore the enormous unintended consequences of, like, invading a country or all the things we do that we think we've gained. out in our heads as part of some big chess game. Yeah, one of the greatest under-told stories in Washington foreign policy is that a lot of the

people who are constantly complaining that more needs to be done to check Iranian influence in the region and Iran's ascendant and Obama didn't do enough on this. They're the same fucking people that supported the war in Iraq that gave Iran like the biggest strategic gift that they've had since the revolution in 1979. I mean, read these, and it's not a mystery. You don't need to be a genius to understand that if you knock over a dictator, the Sunni dictator, of a Shia majority country and replace him with a government that is Shia majority next door to Iran, it stands to reason that the Iranians would figure out a way to wire that place for influence. Of course they did. You know, of course they developed these kinds of relationships with Iraqi politicians,

and with Iraqi militias, everybody could see this. And so everybody should think very carefully about whether they want to listen to advice on how to check Iranian influence from the same fucking geniuses who are responsible for the Iranian influence in the first place. Like it boggles the mind, you know? And some of these same people want to go and try to knock over the Iranian government, right? And so this, to me, reads as a good template of the legacy of the Iraq War, which is, in part, this massive Iranian influence inside of Iraq.

Yep, yep. Credit to the intercept and the Times for getting these documents and reporting them out. Yeah, no, it is amazing. Yeah, it's good. Great reporting. And also, you're right, it's a blueprint into also why over time the Iraqi people are going to get more and more fed up because nobody wants to be dominated by their neighbor either. So ultimately, this win for Iran strategically could end up blowing back on them.

Yeah. Another pretty astounding cash of leak documents that was reported out this week, out of China. We've talked a lot on the show about how the Chinese government is holding millions of Uyghur Muslims in Western China in concentration camps for, quote, re-education purposes. The New York Times got their hands on 400 pages of documents that detail this brutal crackdown. So some highlights from the piece include how China wanted to emulate parts of America's war on terror in their efforts, how Communist Party officials who were insufficiently brutal to the Uyghurs were actually demoted or punished that China might start restricting the practice of Islam in other parts of the country.

All the lies that were told to the families of those detained, like they tried to sell it to them. Like, there's some sort of free educational opportunity with meals and shit. It's like the most craven thing you've ever read in how Xi Jinping views the threats to the Communist Party in China through the prism of the collapse of the Soviet Union. So that's a question then. Another shout out to the New York Times and to some really amazing reporting. I highly recommend reading these documents or at least reading the article because the systematic repression of an entire race of people is truly chilling. Yeah. I mean, this is amazing reporting. Amazing that they got these documents, that somebody wanted these documents out.

I mean, everybody should read this for a picture into what's happening. And I think that the Soviet Union thing is a really important point because, you know, Xi Jinping, since he came to power in 2013, and we talked about this with Kevin Rudd, a different kind of Chinese leader, more aggressive, more sort of than we've seen in the past. And, you know, by all counts of people who followed him and listened to him over the years, the lesson he took from the fall of the Soviet Union is that, you know, Glasnos, the reforms, the opening that Gorbachev allowed, led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, that China under no circumstances can do that. And so there's this kind of maximum zero tolerance for any dissent or any nonconformity. And you see it in the policy of literally telling people that they have to be as kind of strict and brutal as possible and give, you know, brooch no dissent, show no compassion, no empathy.

This is that worldview manifested in this, in this part of China in Jingjiang province. And it leads to something like a million Uyghurs being in camps, right? and it could be replicated on different scales in different parts of China. And it informs some of the response to Hong Kong as well. So I think the world is going to have to reckon with and wrestle with what to do about that worldview in action here. Yeah. And think damn hard about all the terrible things that a lot of countries have done in the name of preventing terrorism because, who, yeah. No, we should, you know, I mean, this is why Guantanamo mattered.

This is why torture mattered. You know, the U.S. shouldn't be creating any pretext for other countries to say we're just doing the same thing. I think terrorism has been weaponized terribly in the last 20 years, and a lot of the responsibility for that has to come blow back on the United States. Yeah, agreed. Okay, let's do a quick update on the protests happening in Lebanon. We talked about these protests a few weeks back. So, again, similar to Iran, they started with a specific economic grievance. People were very upset about a proposed tax on WhatsApp calls.

but again, they quickly ballooned to a whole bigger group of grievances. They've been going on for about a month. Today, on Tuesday, protesters actually shut down the parliament. Earlier in October, Lebanon's prime minister Saad Hariri and his entire cabinet resigned. But I mean, protesters are worried about another partisan hack basically being installed. So they're still out on the streets calling for more technocratic government. Ben, you know, I don't have a ton of insight here. But it is just, you know, every week we prepped it.

show and the amount of instability in a lot of places should make everyone a little nervous, I think. Yeah. In Lebanon, it's particularly hard because you have these cross-cutting grievances, right, with kind of corruption and inequality. But then you have these very sectarian politics, you know, where there's kind of a Shia faction led by Hezbollah and there's Christians and Drews and this kind of tenuous balance of power in Lebanon over the last couple of decades. And so whenever the system kind of gets upended, it's hard to put it back together again. The one thing that people seem to have in common, though, is their frustration. And again, that's a common thread.

And yeah, any week on this podcast, we could talk about a mass protest movement in some other part of the world. I think people do have to get that that's where politics is headed. Politics is heading into the streets if elites continue to fail people like this. And I should add, we talked about Bolivia last week, it's gotten worse. I said the jury was out. I mean, the way in which the security forces are acting there certainly lends credence to those who are arguing this looks like a coup and that this is not about restoring democracy, but about shutting people down. And so, but that ultimately won't work either. I mean, I think people will go to the streets if they feel like governments are not responsive to them.

Well, let's jump to Bolivia then, because, you know, as you noted last week, we talked about Ava Morales's resignation as president of Bolivia. he again is a socialist leader who came to power in 2006. And, you know, there was some debate about whether it was a popular uprising that led to his ouster because he tried to rake an election or whether there's a military coup. Protesters have been on the street since this happened. The military has been deployed. There's these videos of fighter jets buzzing the capital. I saw a report that 20 people have been killed. It's even become an issue in the 2020 Democratic primary.

Bernie Sanders came out and said this appears to be a coup. Elizabeth Warren is called for free and fair elections and called on security forces to protect demonstrators, but stop short of calling it a coup. And I'm singling out Warren here because folks on the left are trying to use this as an issue to contrast her comments with Bernie's comments. So, Ben, you know, you just sort of preempted my question, which was, you know, you felt like it was a little too early to call it a coup then, but now it seems far more like one. How do you think candidates should be talking about what happened if at all? And, you know, what do you think the latest, you know, events on the ground look like? Well, the thing that is most worrying to me about the events on the ground is the violence and is the sense of kind of retribution against the indigenous peoples of Bolivia. And Avo was obviously one of them and a champion of their causes and they made great inroads.

So it's very painful to see, you know, them suppressed again after this period when they felt like they had been kind of become full citizens again and had improved social and economic standing. That to me is most troubling. And the sense of like this isn't about getting to a democratic election that can figure out, you know, who is a rightful leader of this country. That's what this should be about, not about one side trying to dominate the other. I do think this debate, though, look, Twitter doesn't allow for much nuance. The problem here is it like, yes, like there's no question that there's no question that, the Latin American right has an ugly history of coups, of suppressing minority rights, suppressing indigenous peoples. And there's also the case that the Latin American left

has had cases of authoritarian overreach. Both of those things can be true. You know, so Ava Morales was, I think, and even Bernie acknowledged that, you know, seeking a fourth term, going against what had been the Constitution to seek that term, and the very credible allegations, that there was fraud in the election. Like that, that is troubling too, right? And so the question is what we should be for, what candidates should be for is democracy, period, you know, and for people to be able to make their own decisions. And yes, that means you shouldn't support, you know, governments that oust leaders through

force and then repress their populations. You shouldn't also be for leaders who amend constitutions and steal elections either, right? as we've seen in Venezuela and potentially in Bolivia. So it's complicated. I dealt with this a lot because I worked the Cuba account. And that was all about changing our relationship with an authoritarian government because I thought engagement was a better way to help the Cuban people and support the Cuban people and frankly also to open up space for the Cuban people to make their own decisions, not the U.S. dictating in.

So I think the home basis for Americans talking about these things are one, America shouldn't be going around there dictating who is in charge. We have a bad history of doing that in Latin America. Two, we should be for democracy and democratic institutions. And that's ultimately what's going to be best for people. They'll make their own decisions in Bolivia about who their leader should be. And if they're denied that right, yeah, there should be a consequence for that. And that's what should guide our approach here.

I also think, though, that some of the frustration on the left is that Avo gets kind of lumped in as this kind of bad character by a lot of the typical politics in Washington that ignores a lot of good he did in improving lies of poor people and indigenous peoples in Bolivia. And they're right to want to see Bernie expressing that. I think Warren is trying to thread the needle in a way that I'm sympathetic to in saying that, like, look, we have a lot of concerns here. What we really want to focus on is getting this to an election. So there are two different approaches, and I think you can make an argument for both of them. I do think it's important for people to recognize that the, the, the, the, these politics in line America as anywhere else have nuance and are complicated.

Yeah, and I'm just glad they're talking about them. Okay, let's talk about a really disturbing story, which is that last Friday, President Trump intervened in three cases where U.S. service members were accused of war crimes. One guy had been convicted of secondary murder for ordering his soldiers to open fire on three men in Afghanistan. He was pardoned. Another guy would have gone on trial for allegedly murdering a suspected Taliban bombmaker. He too was pardoned.

Trump also restored the rank of a Navy seal who was accused but acquitted of murdering an ISIS detainee. Previously, before this, Trump has pardoned another veteran who was convicted of murdering a suspected Al-Qaeda member. Most of these cases got a lot of coverage in right-wing outlets, including, you know, Pete Hegisth from Fox and Friends was a big champion of pushing this shit. A bunch of Pentagon officials reportedly try to chalk Trump out of these pardons because they are worried it undermines the military justice system. I don't know how this is being received among rank and file members of the military, but I do think it's worth noting that in a lot of these cases, members of the military either sounded the alarm about their guys in their own unit or testified against them. So it's really ugly stuff. Ben, what did you make of this decision from Trump? And what do you think the repercussions are both within the U.S. military and the message it sends abroad? It's absolutely horrifying and disgusting to see this happening.

I mean, these were just kind of allegations. Like, people were killed, you know? Yes, definitely. And sometimes it refers to the allegations, no, like, there's not even disagreement about some of the facts here, right? And, like, within the military, it's a very chilling message because if you have someone in your unit who's committing war crimes, right, what we depend upon in military justice is that person's fellow soldiers or airmen and Marines stepping forward and saying,

you can't do that in reporting it, right? Who on earth is going to report that kind of abuse now if the outcome of you reporting the abuse is you're going to be maligned by right-wing media in this country and President Trump is going to pardon the guy. And then in a particularly absurd situation, I saw one of these guys on Fox and Friends talking directly to Trump through the camera. Like talk about like our dystopian looking glass here. So I think it's very dangerous to military justice and to whether or not people will report these kinds of abuses. And the other problem with this is the U.S. has to try to lead by example. You know, we don't want other countries to commit war crimes, right?

Look, we're the country that tries to defend certain standards of conduct. What happens when our troops fall into the hands of enemy combatants? And they're killed or tortured. Like, we need to defend our own troops by setting a higher standard, just as we want to defend the rights of people around the world. And that's why we had, like, the Geneva Conventions, that's why we have international law. And so these may seem like kind of insignificant right-wing causes, but they're undermining both U.S. military justice and the international law that protects people who are in harm's way or prisoners of war. And that's not a road we want to go down. And I feel like this stuff should get more attention than time. Yeah, I do too. Really truly disturbing. Okay, a couple more things. So let's talk North Korea for a minute. So over the weekend, North Korea called Joe Biden, quote, a rabid dog who should be, quote, beaten to death with a stick.

which, look, let's just be honest, that's some good old-fashioned North Korean propaganda, and I laughed. But Trump should probably treat it a little more seriously. Instead, he quote tweeted the comments while clarifying that Biden is somewhat better than a rabbit dog, but is slow and sleepy. So Trump also suggested that the U.S. and North Korea should make that nuclear deal and maybe meet again. The North Koreans responded this time by saying, hell no, we get nothing out of these summits. It helps your politics, Trump. So that's not great. And, you know, it's a breakdown of these talks at that leader level.

At the expert level, the talks have been broken down for a while. And North Korea has basically said to the U.S., you have till the end of the year to make a good deal with us or else. This is also coming right as the U.S. and South Korea canceled military exercises as a show of good faith. So, you know, things are getting worse, not better with these North Korea negotiations. On top of that, the Trump administration is demanding that South Korea pay the United States 400 percent more. to cover the cost of keeping U.S. forces on the peninsula, on the Korean peninsula, which is obviously not going over well within Seoul. There are reports this morning that South Korea has signed a defense agreement with the Chinese. So, Ben, like this, you could argue this is the most important thing we've talked about on the show this week, maybe this month. I can't think of anything

that would make the Chinese happier than an erosion of the U.S. alliance with South Korea. Can you help explain why it's actually in our interest to have U.S. troops stationed in South Korea and Japan and what you make of these like continuing, you know, the erosion of these talks. Yeah, I mean, I think you put your finger on the North Korea piece, the absurdity of the fact that Trump keeps making concessions and getting nothing in return. And North Korea is still building nuclear weapons. The problem keeps getting worse. And Trump is praising the guy.

I mean, how far have we come that, you know, he seems to have more in common with Kim Jong-un than Joe Biden? That seems like an obvious statement, but the fact that that's obvious should be alarming to people. But the broader context, look, we have troops in South Korea. We've had them there since the Korean War. That has facilitated, the emergence of a very vibrant, prosperous South Korea, that is a democratic country, that it's a key trading partners of ours, as well as giving us a hedge against, you know, North Korea being expansionist and, you know, potentially not only developing nuclear weapons as they have, but exerting their will over South Korea.

But beyond that, we have this network of alliances, the Japan, South Korea, these are some of our closest friends. These are countries that are part of the international order that works, that everybody benefits from. The U.S. network of alliances there has helped facilitate democratic progress, help facilitate economic growth, right? Now, what the Chinese want is they want the U.S. out of their neighborhood. And what's so striking to me is that, like, oftentimes people like to say, you know,

Trump does whatever, you know, Putin wants. Well, you look at an Asia policy and inadvertently, I don't think it's intentional, but like you couldn't ask for a more Beijing friendly policy because Trump has essentially badgered the South Koreans and demanded more money for our troops there. He's thrown tariffs at them. He's insulted them. He's cut them out of his North Korea negotiations. So he's basically said to them, you guys need to get closer to China because we're not going to be reliable. Right. And already we've seen, you know, South Korea pull out of. of intelligence sharing with Japan. Like, we want, that's important to us. That's how we learn a lot about what's going on the Korean Peninsula. So already this is hurting our interest. But over time, if the U.S. is seen as unreliable and not credible, which is what Trump has done, South Korea, Japan, all these other countries will make their own deals with

China. And what does that mean? That means the world will look more like China than it has in the past. And think of the conversations we've already had on this podcast about Hong Kong and about Jingjong. Like, that's kind of where we're headed here, you know, because the South Koreans, they can't depend on the U.S., China's right there, and China's really big, and China's going to throw its weight around. And so, you know, I don't, I get that this is not the kind of stuff that makes headline news, but this is actually the broader reordering this happening around the world. Like Emmanuel Macron gave an interview last week saying that maybe NATO is obsolete, essentially, right? you're seeing not just kind of fringe countries like, you know, around the margins.

You're seeing core U.S. allies, France, South Korea, already hedging because of Trump, right? Already suggesting that the U.S.-led alliance network that they're a part of might not work anymore. So that's what's happened in three years. Imagine what will happen to terms of Trump. Yeah, we cannot let that happen. Two more things. Another existential question here. So just a quick reminder to everyone that climate change is not looming. It's already here.

In Venice, Italy this week, there were multiple floods that hit up to six feet above normal levels. There has been hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. Historic landmarks like St. Mark's Cathedral were impacted. The city council in Venice flooded just minutes after the ruling parties rejected a climate change proposal. So that's cute. A little irony there. So there have been some mitigation steps they've been trying to put in place, but they're not done yet or they don't work. So this is going to get worse.

So really, this is just a reminder to talk to your friends about climate change and voting and get them to vote Democrat. Yeah. And once the world changes, it's not going to like change back. You know, like if, I mean, that's like if Venice floods and it's gone, like it's gone. And I think people think we can get to this problem later. And we get weather reminders every day that the problem is here. And we can't even fix it. We can just make it less bad.

Right. And so these kinds of iconic images need to get people's attention and wake them up. Yeah, agreed. Last thing. Last week, we talked about a State Department staffer named Mina Chang, who NBC found to have wildly inflated her resume. She had even apparently made up a fake magazine, Time magazine, with her face on it. This week, she resigned.

So that's good. Some accountability still exists at some levels of the State Department. But her resignation letter talked about how low employee morale is at state. So that's a bummer, too. It's also worth pointing out that as we do this impeachment hearing and we talk about quid pro quos, there's a story this week by CBS that Rana Romney McDaniel, the RNC chair, asked Trump's nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas for a $500,000 donation, right as his nomination was being considered by the Senate. This was so egregious that it honestly made me wonder if it was criminal.

Yeah. I mean, you know, like, and first of all, the first one, Mia Chang, is a pretty fascinating rabbit hole to go down and reading about it because like this woman appeared to have just kind of lied about everything, you know? So it's kind of an interesting character. But again, interesting and one of these curiosities you see on the internet, it was like interesting when like the head coach at Notre Dame inflated his resume or something. Like this woman was helping to run a bureau that deals with conflict around the world.

Yeah, not great. So not great. But I think, you know, Elizabeth Warren's idea of saying, you know, no more essentially donors as ambassadors. We pointed out that, okay, you have to deal with that in implementation somehow because there's some people who are not career foreign service people, but are very qualified to be ambassadors, right? Like a Mike McFall who gave us, you know, he may have given Obama a hundred bucks, right, in the campaign,

but it was clearly a Russia expert, and that's why he's ambassador to Russia. You want to make sure that you're not foreclosing service from people just because they're not career people. But at the same time, I think that this corruption should force a reckoning with why there are people in jobs that they're in because of the money they gave. Because Trump seems to have taken a practice that had been around for a long time under administration of both parties and just blown through any norms. Yeah, he increased it a lot. Yeah. So instead of it being like, well, you know, I'm going to pick my most skilled donors and who have an interest in the world, he's just saying, okay, a million bucks, Gordon Sondland, you get to be ambassador to the U, 500,000 gets to the Bahamas.

He's like selling off American embassies, right? Which sends a message, again, about how he sees foreign policy. It's an extension of his personal interest, right? Not what our interests are in those countries, but just like, can I get something out of this aspect of our foreign policy? Can they get $500,000 out of the fact that there's a country called the Bahamas that we have an ambassador to? And meanwhile, we have embassies there full of career people. like what an insult to them? You know,

like their bosses are just being plucked down there because of the size of the check that they were to Trump. So I think the Warren proposal, which is pretty broad and goes beyond even the ambassador question, people should look at this because this question of how you rebuild, the State Department matters a lot.

And one way you could do that is by saying that we're going to have a different standard for ambassadors going forward and we're going to have more foreign service people like the people we've seen testifying serving as ambassadors. Yeah, I agree. All right, man. Well, I think that's,

That's it for us today. Go enjoy a show with the Riemann Auditorium and have some barbecue and see you next week. All right, man. Good talking to you. When we come back, my interview with Politico's Nahal Tusi. I am thrilled to be joined by Nahal Tusi, who is a close friend of the pod and a fantastic foreign affairs correspondent at Politico. Nahal, great to talk to you again. It's good to be back.

First question I have for you is there's a report this week or maybe it was late last week. I don't remember this point that the State Department's inspector. General found that Brian Hook, who is Trump's hot shot point man on Iran who sends emails to boat captains trying to bribe them into taking his boat to port, but that's a story for another day, was punishing a State Department staffer because she is Iranian. Can you talk about that report and what exactly happened? Right. So I've followed this for about two and a half years. Yes, you have. And basically, basically the first several months of the Trump administration, under Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson.

There was an exceptional amount of kind of paranoia about the bureaucracy, the civil servants, the foreign service officers. And this was coupled with conservative media doing something really unusual, which was writing articles that printed the names of government officials, career officials, some of whom had worked for decades in government, calling them Obama holdovers and insisting that they be fired. And one of the people that they pointed to was a woman of Iranian descent named Sahar Nauru Zada. And she was actually born in Connecticut. She joined government in 2005 under the George W. Bush administration and is a civil servant.

And under Obama, she was part of the team that helped put together the Iran deal. But like any civil servant, she took an oath to serve whatever administration is in charge and to implement that administration's policy. So when Trump took over, you know, she was going to follow that oath. But unfortunately, because of the conservative media and that led to a bunch of emails being circulated about her from everybody, a ton of people in the administration and people outside of, including even Newt Gingrich, who was saying, why is she, you know, why is she there? Why has she burrowed into the administration? You know, and there were even these, all these smears, like claims that, you know, she maybe was an apologist for the regime and you're on and all this stuff. And Brian Hook was her boss at the State Department. And she went to him and said, look, this stuff is wrong.

I need your help. And he basically did nothing. And anyway, a lot of different things happened. Hers wasn't the only case. But over time, the IG took a look at this and determined that basically she had been pulled out of policy planning. The division in the State Department basically sent kind of into exile, in part because of ethnic bias. because they alleged she was a quote-unquote Obama holdover. Again, she joined government in 2005.

But, you know, they finally, you know, and they said that Brian Hook was part of the problem because even if he didn't himself make some sort of racist statement or whatever, he didn't stand up for her. He went along with what other political appointees in the Trump administration wanted. And, you know, somebody said that basically it was an act of cowardice on his part. And he's furious. I mean, he completely denies all of this and says it was like, you know, he just didn't think she was a go-getter.

it was very, very messy. But, you know, I think a lot of people feel pretty happy that there was some vindication on her part. She was actually, she is actually a very highly regarded foreign policy professional. Yeah, a lot of people I know know her, and she's brilliant. And boy, the fact that she joined in the government in 2005 didn't make them all accuse her of being some bush plant that wanted to invade Iran. But, you know, I do think it's an interesting story in part because the way she was treated is disgraceful, and I'm glad it actually got run to ground. But it goes to show that the things

we're seeing right now in these impeachment hearings where career state department officials or NSC staffers are getting attacked or maligned didn't just start during this whole Ukraine mess. This stuff's been happening for a long time. Exactly. Like, you know, when I write, when I started writing these stories like three years ago or whatever about this career political divide within the Trump administration, a lot of my editors were kind of like, oh, man, how many of those stories do you want to write. And now it's like all coming together. And I've been telling them like, look, see, all this stuff. It goes back to the roots of this distrust that the Trump team had for the people who work in government for decades serving whoever's in charge. And, you know, it all goes back

to that. I was joking with some people. It's like, we're approaching the singularity, you know, but I mean, it's been really fascinating to see it all come together. And I got to tell you, there's still a lot of distrust. You still hear on, on, on, conservative websites and others like talk of Obama holdovers and that sort of thing. And it's, it's really interesting. And it's going to be interesting to see what happens with the next administration whenever that happens. Yeah, it's just exhausting. You have been on this for a long time and thank you for that.

So I just want to say, like, Mike Pompeo isn't just the Secretary of State, right? He's really, like, played this bigger hybrid role. He's like a pseudo-general. He's a Trump advisor. He's like, you know, talking about troop movements. How concerned are people around him? that he's getting caught up in this impeachment probe. I mean, all of this stuff happened on his watch.

He listened to the call. He's a petulant asshole when he's asked about it, but that doesn't change the facts. Yeah, I've been really intrigued by this and trying to follow and put together, like, what role Pompeo played, what he knew when he knew it. And what's striking is,

it's not this like black and white picture of like, oh, he was on one side or he wasn't on another. The best way I can describe it is he basically, in public defends the president or doesn't say anything that would get him into trouble. And in private, he made some moves that seemed to be aimed at protecting diplomats at trying to get the Ukraine aid release. There's very much, very different, a big difference between Pompeo and what he does in public

and what he did in private. But what really has struck me is that he seemed kind of, he was well aware of the Rudy Giuliani effort. He knew about it. He was warned about it. But he also just didn't do anything to really rein it in. And you have to wonder, like, look, if you're America's top diplomat, how do you tolerate this type of extra curricular foreign policy going on? And you don't try to put an end to it.

And then you have to say, but could he have put an end to it? Could he have said something to Rudy that would have made Rudy stop? or was he thinking to himself, I have to stay on Rudy's good side because that keeps me on the good side with President Trump. And at the end of the day, Pompeo is a political animal, right? He is thinking about his next election. He is talking about running for Senate from Kansas, maybe even a future presidential run. And he wants to have Trump in his corner. And so he cannot do something that would make Trump angry with him.

Yeah. I think you're right. Like, look, stepping back, I do understand that the Trump orbit is full of awful sharks and if you want to get support from those people down the road, like these are certainly valid considerations. I do think though, like, yes, it might have been hard to tell Rudy to knock it off, given his relationship with Trump. But when you look at like Gordon Sondland, who's Trump's ambassador to the EU, he seems like a total moron. He bought his job with a million dollar donation to the inauguration. I mean, he is clearly Pompeo's subordinate. And I do, like you said earlier,

wonder how you let this clown just bang around in Ukraine policy and do these drug deals and get in the way of your career officials who are trying to, at the end of the day, execute a policy and work for you, Mike Pompeo. That's a huge question. And I am not sure I figured out the answer to that, except, you know, Gordon Sondland also appeared to have direct access to President Trump. I mean, he, you know, he was able to use curse words to describe the president to him. president's backside. I mean, it was just

through him, through the president. I mean, so like, if you're Mike Pompeo and you know this, then maybe once again you're calculating, man, I can't piss off Gordon because that might upset President Trump and President Trump likes Gordon. Again, look,

I'm not, I can't really, I don't know exactly what's going through Pompeo's head, but you know, the pattern that we've seen with him over the last three years has basically been make sure that no matter what in public, there is no daylight between me and the president. Yeah, that's right.

The other theme that's really emerged from these impeachment hearings is the question of morale at the State Department. You hear over and over again that it may be rock bottom. Is that the sense you get when you're covering the place and talking to folks over there? So I'm not convinced the morale is as bad as it was under Tillerson. I would say that was worse on a lot of levels. People at the State Department are still doing their jobs. They don't feel like they are completely sidelined. But their estimation of Pompeo has gone down pretty dramatically.

So there's a lot of people who are really upset that he won't publicly defend people like Marie Ivanovitch, people like George Kent, people like Bill Taylor. They feel like he, you know, and the whole thing is like, you know, oh, he was first in his class at West Point. Okay, well, one of the things you learn at West Point is to support your troops, right? To stand up for your guys. And he's not doing that in public. So I think there's this very much a resentment toward him for that particular thing.

But again, I don't think it's quite as bad as it was under Tillerson. Back then, it was really, really bad. Man, that does not speak well of sexy rexie. Today, Tuesday, when we're recording this, it's about 4 o'clock. Some people call him T-Rex, but I always prefer sexy rex. Yeah, I mean, you know, teach his own, I guess. So it's Tuesday at 4 o'clock Pacific time when you and I are talking. So today we heard from Kurt Volker and Tim Morrison in the impeachment probe.

We also heard from Mike Pence's current advisor, Jennifer Williams and Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, who's an NSC staffer. Was there anything from today's impeachment testimony that really jumped out at you? Yeah, it's something that I actually noticed several weeks ago when I was digging through Kurt Volker's testimony. And I was reading it. I was struck by how he talked about being in the July 10th, with Bolton and Fondland and some of the other Ukrainian officials in the White House. But he never mentioned in his testimony, hey, you know, and then Fondland brought up the investigations in the end, and Bolton got upset and shut the whole thing down, which is what Fiona Hill and

Alex Vindman and others have said about that meeting. And I was like, why didn't he mention that? And so I actually sent him a text, like, Kurt, I was confused by this. Why didn't he mention that? He never responded to me. And now, and today, you know, this was one of the things that people went after him on. Like, why did you not bring that up? Why didn't you talk about that? And he claimed that he had just basically forgotten about that. But from other people's recollections, that was pretty dramatic.

And so it's kind of a big thing to forget. I think a lot of people are questioning Volcker's testimony for that reason and for other reason. Yeah. A lot of, you know, look, I've been deposed and interviewed by the FBI a couple times myself. And there's a lot of weasel words. They train you to constantly use like, I do not recall, or to the best of my records. election, but I don't think that that's going to be the get out of jail free card that these guys

wanted to be. I think that we're going to really see that tomorrow with Gordon Sondland. Like, I cannot wait till the Gordon Sondland testimony. And he had a lot of, like, I don't quite remembers. And he's had to revise the testimony already once. And so tomorrow, I think we're going to have a serious, it's going to be like a festival for sharks, really. Like, they're just going to be circling him and trying to get at him from every. level and it'll be really interesting to see how he ends up landing because on the one hand, you know, he, he is a Trump ambassador and he wants to, you know, but he wants to have a good reputation.

It's like, does he really want to like lose everything because of President Trump? It's going to be really interesting. That's the one I'm looking forward to most. Yeah, me too. Okay. Last question for you. Everyone here, Crooked Media is obsessed with Mina Chang. Ben and I talked about it a little earlier in the show.

We also talked about it last week. She was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the, in the Bureau. of conflict and stability operations. She allegedly, according to NBC, inflated her resume in countless ways. Her nonprofit she ran, there's a thing where she had her face put on a Time magazine.

It's a question about whether she actually went to Harvard Business School or could be considered an alumna. She resigned. What do you make of this story? I think it just goes to show that there's not really proper vetting when it comes to a lot of these positions.

And I just, you know, I don't understand how diplomatic security allowed this to go through. It makes me wonder who else has not been properly vetted. If these people have proper security clearances, what sort of access to information they had. I mean, look, she's not, from what we know, a spy, right? I mean, she's just like somebody who, like an Instagram star who, like, implated her resume, right? But if you are a trained spy and you're trying to infiltrate the U.S. government, this is an amazing time, right? I mean, yeah, is that this?

And this is an example, I mean, where you have a White House and a State Department that don't properly leave that people. And this is, it's not like this was the only example. I mean, there was just so many. And then on top of that, you add impeachment. And what's that doing to the kind of, you know, hardening the partisanship in the country, showing the way that, I don't know, diplomats using telephones in the middle of a restaurant in Kia to talk to the president. I mean, if you're a spy right now, like, you just must be like, wow, this. is the time. This is the time to get in.

I wonder if they feel like it's getting too easy and they're kind of bored at work. Well, if any foreign spies listening to this and would like to talk to me about how they're bored at work now, please let me know. Now, that is a feature story of a lifetime right there. Russian spies bored because Rudy won't use secure comms. There we go. It's like an end-eared story. No, thank you for all your great reporting. Where can people find your stuff. How should they follow you on Twitter? What do you want to promote? I'm at Nahal-T-C on Twitter. That's N-A-H-A-L-T-O-O-O-S-I. And you can also find me on Facebook, and you can also

find my stuff on Politico.com. Excellent. Thank you so much for talking me today. And look forward to tomorrow. It's going to be interesting. It was great. Thanks. Pots Save the World is a product of Crooked Media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Chris Beasel. Kyle Seiglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team Elijah Cohn, Nar Malconian, and Milo Kim, who film and share these interviews on video each week.