Pod Save the World - Iran and a hard place

Episode Date: June 26, 2019

Tommy and Ben talk through Trump's bizarre on again, off again war with Iran. They explain how the targeting process is supposed to work, try to divine the broader strategy, and do some self reflection about the terrible government euphemisms that mask the cost of war. Then a quick update on Saudi Arabia, Jared's rehashed Middle East Peace plan, Beto O'Rourke's "war tax", Bernie Sanders' foreign affairs article, some good news out of Turkey and then wtf is wrong with Boris Johnson? Then, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon joins talks with Tommy about Scottish Independence 

Welcome to What shows this? Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy D. Tor. I am Ben, where the hell are you? I am in Lisbon, Portugal. Excellent. At a European Conference of Progressives.

The only time I was there was with you. I think it was a NATO summit in like 2011. And it was not very fun. It was a lot of work. Yeah, we didn't really see Lisbon. It's part of the exact nature of those jobs that you get to travel to all these places you want to go to and you don't actually see them. See the inside of convention centers. You see a conference room and angry reporters.

All right, Ben, it has been a wild week. We're going to talk about Trump and Iran. We're going to talk about their continued coddling of Saudi Arabia. Jared's Middle East peace plan and the conference is happening right now in Manama and Bahrain. Some interesting new ideas in writing on foreign policy from some of the 2020 candidates, including Beto O'Rourke and Bernie Sanders, some good news out of Turkey. And then we're going to try to figure out what the hell is going on with Boris Johnson. then we got a big time guest,

the first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon. So packed show, as I am known to say. Quick housekeeping, this week's episode of This Land is the best one yet. I know I say that every week. It's because every episode is great. But if you haven't listened yet, try this one.

It's honestly amazing. Second, Wednesday and Thursday are the first Democratic debates. So we're going to have a full analysis on the Friday Pots of America Pod. but if you follow us on Facebook or YouTube, you can stream our Slack conversation about the debate and basically get all the analysis and the mediocre quips in real time. So check that out. Hey, Tommy, I do just want to mention a couple things. One is I'm a part of an effort called LC wins that launched today, which aims for gender parity in national security appointments.

So trying to make sure that as many women are appointed to these jobs as men, if not more, because we get better outcomes. And they announced today that 15 presidential campaigns, including all the major ones, on the Democratic side, announced that, they are committing to gender parity national security hiring. So this is a very good initiative to promote women in higher positions, which would make us all smarter and better. Yes. And one day I've been meeting to, I've been on a bunch of pods recently, pre-Barrar's podcast, Christiana Figuera, the UN climate envoy, who helped negotiate the Paris Accords, our friend Joe Serentziana Plowshares. So if you want to check those out, this is not

the only place that I pod. Disagree. This is the only place that anyone pods. But yes, There's great people, great shows. And the initiative you were talking about earlier, like friend of the pod, Kelly Magsman, and a bunch of other badasses we used to work with are a part of it. So check it out, follow them on Twitter, and let's do the news. All right, let's go to Iran.

So Ben, last Thursday, we're all sitting around, watching some TV before bed, and we get a horrifying news alert from the New York Times that Trump was just minutes away from launching a military strike on Iran. He later tweeted that he was, quote, cocked and loaded, which I'm not sure that's the expression he was groping for,

and prepared to hit three different Iranian insights, but was given an updated casualty estimate indicating 150 Iranians could be killed, which led him to call it off. He said it was disproportionate response to the downing of an unmanned drone. So let's just stipulate that Trump bumbled into the right decision, but I'd like to start with the process. Can you explain what it's like in the situation room meeting when Obama or any president is briefed on a potential military strike? Trump's little narrative about a last-minute casualty update is dramatic and made for TV, but it's almost undoubtedly bullshit. as far as I can tell.

Yeah, I mean, the way he described it, like it's the American president or something, and the general comes in, and he quizzes him on casualties, it's not familiar to any process I experienced in eight years in the White House. I mean, as you know, Tommy, what you do for a very serious matter, like whether or not to bomb the Islamic Republic of Iran for the first time is you have a meeting in the situation room, and everybody's sitting there on the table, the president, the head of the table, and then the president would turn to the military and ask for the options. And what they would call them are strike packages.

And so a uniform guy would have a PowerPoint slide in front of him and would be briefing the president on the various strike packages that we could hit in response to the downing of this drone. And a strike package would include both the potential targets that were hitting. The risks associated with hitting those targets, so do the Iranians have air defense systems that could pose a threat potentially to our aircraft if there's coming near to Iranian airspace, which they wouldn't necessarily have to do. It would include things like projected casualties on the Iranian side and the projected response of the Iranians. And

normally there are various options for the president. So there is usually, you know, the lightest possible option of strikes, a very significant, you know, larger option, and then something in the middle. And so either Trump is lying or they did not run anything resembling a normal process for considering bombing another country. Either one of those outcomes should be very troubling people, either that we had no process that it resembles normal for considering potentially launching a war against a very sophisticated and significant adversary in Iran or Trump having changed his mind just invented a story about why he didn't bomb this country. Again, either one of those things should be deeply worrying to people. Deeply worrying. And my money is on the ladder because the chairman of the

Joint Chiefs, Joe Dunford is a good guy. But there's another reason why the military is not going to present you a bunch of strike packages without telling you the potential downsides is they don't want to be blamed if the president goes through with it and then says, oh, no one told me we was going to kill 150 people, right? Like, they're going to cover their own ass in these instances just as much as anybody would. Yeah, I mean, and look, we can all guess. I mean, what happened. One thing that appears obvious to me is that John Bolton has been running this ramp up to war

for about six months now without telling Trump of the actual risks of this policy. So stacking up these sanctions, designating the IRC, deploying aircraft carriers to the Gulf, making all kinds of threats. It's possible that Bolton just didn't really tell Trump the full consequence. of the strike and kind of sold them on it and then Dumford or some military figure reached out to Trump and was like, I just want to make sure you're aware of how significant a decision this would be, that this could kill 150 people, this would surely invite an Iranian response, the idea that we could bomb targets inside of Iran and not how the Iranians respond.

You know, if you think that you know nothing about how Iran operates. So it could be that the military just kind of finally punctured whatever, you know, bubble that Bolton has created around Trump and got him to come to his census just before it was too late. Yeah, I think that's right, because there were some reporting that suggested that military lawyers passed the 150 casualty number to White House lawyers, and that's how it got to Trump, which is a weird end run around the traditional process and Bolton. But regardless, I mean, apparently the room was split. It was Pompeo, the Secretary of State, and John Bolton, the National Security Advisor in favor of the strikes. The Secretary of Defense role is

flux, so who the hell knows where they landed. But there were some reports that Chairman Dunford counseled Trump against hitting Iran. But I mean, the big point is that I guess none of that mattered because the most important voice in the situation room was actually a white nationalist on Fox named Tucker Carlson. So, Ben, while this sounds ridiculous on its face, I guess, you know, public opinion influences everything a president does. So I guess we shouldn't be that surprised, but how do you feel about Tucker being the voice of reason? I mean, you know, Tucker Carlson is the only thing extending between us and World War III. I don't particularly sleep better at night. I mean, this is an insane way to go to war, Tommy. I mean, no congressional authorization. We should add

that there's no reason to go to war with the country because an unmanned drone was shot down, right? So just the presumption that obviously we would bomb the Iran's response to this. No, that's actually not how most normal people would react that John Bolton and Mike Pompeo with their Iran fixation an obsession would react. No process to consider options, no preparation of the public for what, again, could have started a major war. You know, like, we bomb these targets. The Iranians respond by hitting things in Baghdad and Afghanistan. Then we bomb more targets. And within a matter of days, you know, this thing could be spiraling into a full-on war that is engulfing multiple countries because the Iranians would likely hit back in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the Straits of Hormuz, who knows wherever.

The fact that we came this close to it without any real public debate without any congressional debate, and evidently without any normal national security process is pretty terrifying, you know? And given the posture these clans are taken towards Iran, this is going to keep coming up. And if all we're counting on between us and a war is Tucker Carlson's ability to speak to Donald Trump on the phone or via his daily white supremacist talk show, that's not exactly the checks and balances that our founders had in mind. No, no, they are not. And just stepping back, what's also disconcerting is that the strategy hasn't really changed. I mean, they're calling it this maximum pressure strategy. That basically just means crushing the Iranian economy with sanctions without a clear objective. Trump told, Chuck Todd, that nuclear weapons are his red line, that everything else is up for negotiation. He later said, well, at Camp David, let's make Iran great again. He is okay. And then this morning, he said he would obliterate parts of Iran if they responded. The White House announced that they're

going to sanction Iran's supreme leader and the foreign minister. So to summarize, Trump basically adopted Obama's position on negotiations with Iran from 2007. And then he sanctioned all the people you need to talk to. So does that make sense to you? No, I mean, look, and And I know we sound like the guys who, you know, worked on the Iran deal. But, I mean, if you want, if all you're focused on is a nuclear issue and having Iran knock at a nuclear weapon, well, the Iran deal accomplished that. And it had significant restrictions in a rollback of Iran's program through both, you know, if Trump is somehow, unfortunately, reelected through both of his terms.

So I don't know what the fuck this guy's talking about. They just woke up and realized that what you really need to deal with this nuclear issue. he had a diplomatic agreement that did that. And what he's doing by stacking up these sanctions, sanctioning every prominent Iranian he can find, is ensuring that they're going to be continued Iranian provocations in response. And Javad Zarif, the foreign minister, is the guy that you would talk to to negotiate with. If we put these sanctions on him, it's going to be obviously impossible from to talk to us. Very difficult for him to even do his job, to travel around, to go to Europe, to talk to the Europeans.

So Trump, whether he knows it or not, is taking steps that completely shut and lock the door on any diplomacy while claiming that to do once. And so he's stuck in this crazy position where all of his actions make diplomacy impossible and war likely. Whenever he gets to the precipice of war, he realizes, well, that won't be popular, so I don't want to do that. But he's not leaving himself with any other option. And so we're going to be stuck in this incredibly uncomfortable status. quo for the foreseeable future where, you know, every so often some triggering event risks a major war with Iran. And we have a president who tore up the deal that accomplishes what he wants to do and renders himself incapable even talking to Iranians. It's literally the definition

of insanity. Yeah. I mean, adding to the confusion is just how weird the way their media strategy has gone. I mean, first of all, the Pentagon hasn't held an on-camera press briefing in like a year. Even in the midst of this flare up with Iran, they made a statement about the possible mining of ships in the Strait of Hamuz, and they left the briefing room without taking questions. The White House is similarly buttoned up. They're not briefing reporters Sarah Sanders isn't leaving. I mean, it's just pretty self-defeating. If your goal is to make a case to the American people and the world that Iran is a malign actor and then that we need to take some action, why the hell wouldn't you brief the media and make that case? You know, what you see here is a convergence

of things that people have been worried about for a while. We've been worried that administration with no credibility will have real trouble getting any international support when they come out and make an accusation against another country. And you've seen that happen with these tankers that warrant fire. We've been worried that these guys don't provide any information to the American people so no knows what the hell is going on, and they can't build any support for their policies.

And we're living through that. And we've been worried that they have no national security process to ensure that, you know, things are debated and everybody's heard from before we take an action. And so we're actually living through the scenario that we're worried about with Iran. And unless these guys make any a case of the American people, I think it's time for Congress to step in and literally insist and may take a vote to make clear that there's no authorization for this. Frankly, if they could get a vote, which Mitch McConnell will have something to say about, but, you know, they might

have bipartisan support this because we've seen Republican. and break from the administration on something like Yemen. So I think it's a very real reason for people to raise their voices to be heard, insisting that Congress inserts itself here because the executive branch is completely out to lunch here. Yeah, I'd love to see a vote. I worry that he would still do whatever the hell he wants under the War Powers Act authorization, but it would be stronger to take a vote. The one thing that has been clear, Ben, is that the D.C. Press Corps and the blob has not learned any of the lessons of the Iraq War. I want to play a quick clip of Bernie Sanders talking about Iran on Face the Nation this Sunday that I found

instructive. He was just doing a limited strike. Oh, just a limited strike. Oh, well, I'm sorry. I just didn't know that it's okay to simply attack another country with bombs. Just a limited that's an act of warfare. Okay. So that was Mark- Yeah, that's Bernie at his desk. Like, that's where you love Bernie. Like, that was Margaret Brennan, the host to Face the Nation. She's a fantastic reporter. She covered state. She really understands and cares about these issues, which is why I actually watch that show. But there are all these national security euphemisms that get used, like limited strike and kinetic action that I think hide the broader risk of a conflict like this. Yeah. I mean, like, first of all, limited strike, Bernie's right. Like, this would kill if the

reports are to be believed 150 people. They would die violently in a bombing, a pretty significant bombing of Iranian targets. That's an act of war. That's us. going to war in another country, Iran. It also could start a much bigger war, because then the Iranians could strike back and kill people as well. And then we would feel compelled to respond. And so these euphemisms are kind of obscure the violence that is taking place, the lives that are being lost, and the very real risk that what begins as a quote-unquote limited strike morphed into a very significant war that could last a long time and engulf. other countries, given how the Iranians would respond.

Yeah. And because you and I strive to be intellectually honest, we will admit that we have trafficked in some euphemisms and some military jargon ourselves. Here's an instructive clip from a 2011 episode of The Daily Show. Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes tried to describe what the conflict is yesterday, telling reporters on board Air Force One that it is a, quote, kinetic military action. Ah, kinetic military action. Supposed to one of those wars where everyone fights standing still, like Vietnam's famed, rockem-sock him offensive.

Okay, that was John Stewart giving you some shit. Now, I assume you were talking in that way about the ongoing military effort in Libya to make what was happening on the ground fit with what was required under the War Powers Act. Is that right? Yeah, but I would say three things. One, I was completely humiliated. This guy whose television show I watched, you know, for years and years is suddenly, like taking a massive whack at me.

And what you can see there is that the picture they put up on me makes me look at I'm about 11 years old, right? Second, you and I, you know, there's a danger to this. You sit in the situation room and this jargonous turnaround, limited military strike, kinetic military action, that does kind of obscure the human consequences of this, and we do fall prey to it. And you're right. The third reason, the reason I was using that language in response to a question of whether or not we were going to war. and the lawyers were worried because we didn't have congressional authorization. We had a UN resolution and we filed a war powers report.

So here I am using the euphemism. And you know what? If you're using the euphemism, you're wrong. You're standing on solid ground. I was wrong to do that. It's wrong when reporters do it. It's wrong when we all do it. Like, it's a war.

If you're going to take a strike that kills people, you're engaged in an act of war. And that's what we should call it. And that's why it should be congressional authorized. I freely admit that I got that one wrong. And I think we all need to change where we talked about this because there's something sanitizing about limited strike, targeted strike, limited kinetic military action.

No, you're either engaged in an act of war, you're not. And Bernie was right to call bullshit on that. Yeah, agreed. And that should be true for all the columnists out there, like Brett Stevens, who say, sink their Navy. He's speaking the rainy Navy, yeah. Like, give me a fucking break.

The United Nations Religious, released a big investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi government. It criticized the U.S. and other countries for not pointing the finger directly at Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman despite credible evidence of his involvement. I would note that Mike Pompeo just went to the region. He did not raise the issue with the Saudi king during his visit. During an interview with Meet the Press, Trump once again just dismissed the question by noting that the Saudis buy millions of dollars in military hardware from us. So, Ben, I don't even have a question for you. I just want to repeat over and

over again that Jared and Trump have coddled these immoral leaders in Saudi Arabia because they can sell them arms and it is disgusting. It's completely gross. And first of all, we shouldn't be selling them arms, period, full stop. And I would love to see every Democrat ring for president make clear this relationship is going to change. We're not selling weapons to a country like this that, you know, murders deliberately and cold blood journalists who work for American publications in other countries and precipitates, you know, I see. saw a statistic recently that, you know, a child dies of hunger in Yemen, like an absurd, like, every 10 minutes. That's because of the Saudi-led war there. This has to end. The other thing is

if you're on report, I mean, these guys, they clearly didn't take steps to conceal what they were doing. The premeditated nature of the murder is clear on the report. The fact that this led up to the Saudi leadership is clear. And yet you see Jared, Pompeo, all these guys, powing it up, laughing, back-slapping in the Hombin-Sahman. Like, they don't even need to do that. You know, like, you know, they don't go as far as I do. They could at least have mild words of concern and make a point to not be photographed embracing this guy. It's like they've gone out of their way to stick our noses in and say they just don't care that this guy hacked to death, a reporter for the Washington Post in a third country. It's truly a defining event of the Trump era.

Yeah, truly. Speaking of our baby boy prince, Jared, Kushner. As we speak, he's hanging out at the Four Seasons Hotel in Bahrain. They're kicking off an investment summit that he sees as the first half of his Middle East peace deal. There won't be any discussion. The heart of the issues where territory and security, there are no Palestinian or Israeli reps attending. Instead, it's all this economic stuff. So he released an economic proposal that includes 179 projects that would cost 50, $50 billion over 10 years. A guy named Joel Brunold of the Alliance from Middle East peace pointed out in a tweet storm and an op-ed at the foreword that the plan itself is full of glossy photos that were once used to promote USAID programs that Trump has since cut.

So that's great clip art. He also noted that John Kerry struggled to cobble together a similar economic assistance package of $4 billion, while Jared has 10xed that, 50 billion in grants or pledges, which is just never going to happen. He notes that you'd have to change U.S. law for us to be able to legally spend some of this money and contribute to the Palestinian government directly, and that most of the ideas in this report are not new thinking. They're actually rehashed from previous plans that went nowhere. So, I don't know, Ben, like, I would love to say Hope Springs Eternal here, but Jared's big

reveal was just a bunch of old crap. But this is what this guy, this guy's been working on for like three years. Cut and paste. They have a quote-unquote peace conference. No Israelis come. No Palestinians come. There's no peace plan, and there's no $50 billion. I hate to break it to you. There's no real money behind that. None.

You know, what he does is dust off this notional idea that somehow a bunch of rich Gulf Arabs are going to pony up money that the Palestinians aren't going to take anyway because they actually would like to know what the borders their state are going to be. Like, this is so amateurs and embarrassing that I'm astonished. They went ahead with it. Like, Tommy, picture that. the meeting where Jared's in the situation room, let's say you're the NFC spokesperson, right? And, you know, Jared comes in, he's like, okay, here's the plan. How are we going to message this?

What would you even say? I would say copy and pasting and a big donation might have got you into Harvard, buddy, but it's not going to get you Middle East peace, okay? You need a new strategy here. They cut off all the aid to the Palestinians. They cut off the actually that we provide the Palestinians, and then they have a bunch of fake aid, just so Jared can hang out with a bunch of his rich Gulf Arab buddies in Bahrain. He's more likely to be jending up money for his post-White House real estate deals than he is for a freaking Palestinian state when he's sitting there in Bahrain.

It's a joke. I should note that there's some late-breaking news right as we were recording this, that Netanyahu might actually be trying to cancel the elections that had been scheduled for September. So we'll keep an eye on that, but this whole process is a mess. Okay, some quick 2020 stuff. So this week, Congressman Beto O'Rourke released a plan of Sport veteran. and includes ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, investing half of that savings and programs for veterans.

He wants to moderateize the VA healthcare system. And I thought this was the most interesting part in why I wanted to talk about it. He wants to establish a veteran's health care trust fund, and he wants to pay for it by establishing what they call a war tax that will go into effect the next time we enter a conflict. So we invade Iran. The tax starts. It pays for our veterans when they get home.

I thought this was an interesting return to past generations. that actually did increase taxes during time of war to pay for it. Passing another tax bill was not an easy feat. But I do like the idea of forcing us to take care of veterans before a shot is fired and factoring the price tag of a conflict into our decision-making on the front end. Yeah, I think that's what's so interesting about this proposal, because I remember when we came into office and, you know, you get briefed on the costs of these wars. and everybody had seen the kind of, you know, price tag,

we're spending $100 billion a year plus in Iraq. But then I remember, you know, getting this briefing that because of the extreme healthcare costs associated with the war, you know, because we have troops who tragically, well, thankfully are surviving injuries, it would have killed troops in past wars, but they're living without limbs or traumatic brain injury, that the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after we finished fighting is still going to be trillions of dollars because it is such extreme health care costs for these veterans. And all of those costs are hidden from the American people. Yeah.

I mean, Tommy, put it this way. At the beginning of the Iraq war, when George Bush was lying about weapons of destruction and John Bolton was helping him do that, if somebody had said, okay, this war is going to cost $5 trillion. there's no way that the American people would have supported that. No chance. And what Beto's saying is, let's be honest about these costs at the beginning. And let's be honest that the part of the cost of war is taking care of veterans who fought it on the back end. And we're going to be spending trillion dollars for years because Iraq and Afghanistan.

So I think he's right to say Americans may not fight in all these wars because we put it all on our military, but they should at least be transparent when they go in that we're going to be paying the health care costs. for the people whose lives were disrupting, who were injuring and sometimes catastrophic ways by fighting these wars. I think it's a really smart way to link foreign policy, national security policy with veterans policy. Yeah, I totally agree. And that's actually a perfect transition to the next 2020 news, which was Bernie Sanders wrote a piece in foreign affairs about his sort of general foreign policy worldview that touched on what you were just saying. So I just wanted to read or summarize a couple parts that jumped out of me. First of all, on the cost issue, he notes that

according to a study by the Cost of War Project at Brown University, it will cost American taxpayers more than $4.9 trillion through the end of this fiscal year for the war on terror. And if you count the health care costs as well, it goes up to $6 trillion. So, you know, that is just an astounding amount of money. And Bernie is making the point that for too long, you could just slap national security on a priority or a program and get a blank check. He also wrote, orienting U.S. national security strategy around terrorism, essentially allowed a few thousand violent extremists to dictate the foreign policy of the most powerful nation on earth.

I think that's important and true and good to say. And then he notes, you know, if you think the war on terror has been a successor of failure, there are four times as many Sunni Islamic extremists now as there were on 9-11. So I like the piece. I like the pressure Bernie's putting on the party to think more critically about national security priorities and the tendency to offer up military solutions to all of our problems. Ben, I don't know if you had thoughts on the piece as well. No, I think, well, first of all, what's really fascinating about Bernie this time around,

we talked a little bit about this, but last time he really drove the discussion on domestic policy, right? This time in part because, you know, Warren's been out there with a lot of domestic plans, but like Bernie's actually really driving the discussion on elements of foreign policy, particularly the wars, and pushing us to reconsider our assumptions around the Forever War and helping build this consensus of, you know, legally ending the Forever War and repealing the authorization of the use of military force. And spotlighting the cost, as he did, is essential because he is absolutely right. I mean, we've essentially defined our entire national purpose in the world since 9-11

around combating at most a few tens of thousands of extremists. It's an insane prioritization, and Obama tried to get us off this and try to. tried to broaden what we were focused on, but Bernie is right to say, this has to categorically end. One of the great what is of history, too, Tommy, is, and I know it's not as simple saying, you know, we spent money in X, we could have spent on Y, but I'm going to do that. $6 trillion. Think of what that could have done on climate change. You know, if we are living in the dystopian apocalyptic reality of climate change in 25, 30 years, people are going to look back and say, at the precise moment when you could have done something, to deal with this threat, you instead chose to pour $6 trillion into Iraq and Afghanistan

and look at where they are today. It is a catastrophic failure of this country and its foreign policy. And we need to reckon with that. And I'm glad Bernie's doing it. Yeah, I agree. And it's an extensive piece. Bernie talks a lot about climate change in and of itself in the piece. So I highly recommend everyone read it. So let's wrap up with some good news and some weird news. So first, the good news. We have talked a bunch about Turkey's increasingly authoritarian prime minister, Erdogan. So he recently nullified a mayoral election in Istanbul and forced the candidates to run again basically because his party lost. That election was seen as a referendum on Erdogan and his political party because they had basically controlled the area for 25 years. He started his career as the

mayor of Istanbul. Well, they redid the election and Erdogan's party lost again. So I would say, like, chalk up a win for democracy in Turkey, Van. This is some good news. Yeah. I mean, number one, what a great humiliation of this autocrats that essentially he loses an election he invalidates it declares the need for another election and then loses again it's a sign that again the power of these authoritarian is not

infinite and unlimited and people can fight back and we're seeing that more and more and more places that's one message for the world is out there it's like you know look what's happening Hong Kong what's happening in Turkey look what happened in Spain like people could fight back. The second thing that's interesting, Tommy, is we're starting to see some real dissension

from within Erdogan's political movement. So in recent days, for instance, the predecessor as president of Turkey, a guy named Ghul, he indicated that he might be willing to join with a new political party that would challenge Erdogan. So in addition, these election results, we're seeing fractures potentially, within Erdogan's political party with past leaders of that party saying that they might have had enough and they might challenge him and start a new party. So this really could be the cracks that indicate the beginning of the end. Now, Erdogan has been a survivor. He's a wily guy. He still has a basis of support. But again, it shows don't give up, you know, persevere and look for openings

and people in Turkey are beginning to find them. Yeah, I think Adela Gould, the former president and former prime minister, Ahmed Deva Toglu, are both committed to breaking away and starting their own political movements or political parties. Ben, do you remember that trip to Turkey in 2009? It might have been one of our first foreign trips. Two things I remember from that. One was Mike Hammer and I, who was the NSE spokesman for me, got lost in President Gould's house and somehow got escorted to some big room where they served us to breakfast coffee and stared at us like we were spies for a little while. So that was weird. And then I think Obama made a secret trip to Iraq on that trip, and the press score was ripshit pissed about it

because they didn't know in advance. Then our press charter broke, and we were on the ground for like 10 additional hours trying to get a seat. So it was not our finest hour, but I think, you know, maybe policy objectives were served. I, yeah, well, you know, Gould and Davitolo, the two guys you mentioned, are probably the two most prominent people for Erdogan's party of the last decade. So this is a big deal. Like this, this would be like if Republicans finally, you know, who decided to stand up to Trump and you had, you know, I don't know if Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell because I don't want to be that unkind to Kuhl and Davido.

But these are major players to be standing up to Erdogan. And, you know, back then you had some balance of power because within the ruling party because Gould was president, Erdogan's prime minister. He since essentially, you know, empowered the office of the presidency and put himself in it. But there's a big deal. That trip, I'll tell you, like on that trip is our first major overseas trip. And, you know, one of the things they do on these trips is because you can't see shit, because you're in a hotel or a conference room like we were complaining about before, they set up like these bazaars in the hotel. Oh, yeah. You can go and like shop for souvenirs

and rugs and stuff with a leave hotel. So I'm wandering around there. And I'm wearing my secret service pen, right? Which is this pen that if you get it, you have like bizarre. are, you know, you have access anywhere. You can, like, just flash this pin and walk past, you know, barricades and things like that. And this Turkish dude comes up to me. He's like, oh, hey, can I buy that off of you? No. And you literally started trying to buy this pen.

And I just, you know, it's new. And I'm like, oh, this guy's weird. And I said, no. And I always look back on that. I've been like, what the hell was that about? That's really weird that you remember that? Because I also remember our Secret Service agent in the press file being really freaked out because he thought someone can kind of case the joint and then leave.

It was like, you know, the press score, we're assigned like one dude with a handgun from Secret Service. Yeah. He was pretty wigged out by that whole scenario. Oh, maybe we just connected some serious dots that we connected back in 2009. The best part about that flight delay, though, was we had like three extra hours, so they took us to Haya Sophia and the Blue Mosque, and those are some of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. So, shock-go-in-up. I was on the flight to Iraq, which we landed, and there was a sandstorm, and so we couldn't.

flying helicopters in a Baghdad, so we had a motorcade to some crazy Saddam Hussein Palace, where Alyssa Mastr Monaco and I are wandering around, and we found, like, literally encased gifts that had been sent to Saddam Hussein by Yasser Arafat and MoMar Codafi. That was a great moment for a friend of the Pada, Liss Maas Mastra Monica with me. Oh, my God. Okay. Yeah, just a goon's gallery there. Yeah, totally. Some of our greatest hits.

Okay, let's end with something weird. Here's some audio of Boris Johnson, who may be the next prime minister of the United Kingdom, answering a very, very difficult question, what do you do to relax? Take a listen. What do you do to relax? What do you do to switch off? I like to paint. Oh, I make things.

I like to... What do you make? I make... I have a thing where I make models of... I mean, when I was in, like, we were mayor of London, we build a beautiful, I make buses. I make models of buses.

They're going to be in Downing Street. So what I do, no, what I do make is, I get, I get old, I don't know, wooden crates. Yeah. Right?

And then I... Do answer the question. And they have two... It's a white, it's a box that's been used to contain two wine bottles, right? Right. And it will have... Okay, cut it off.

What is he talking about? What is he talking? The thing you can't see is the interviewer just mouth agape staring at him. Why are these people so strange? I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, you know, Donald Trump and his like grifter Mar-a-Lago Hotel and gold toilets and fast-food burgers and Vladimir Putin like riding around his shirt off. and like playing hockey against a team that lets him score a bunch.

And like, Boris Johnson with his fucking cast off empty boxes that he's painting buses on. I mean, come on, man. Like, get some hobbies here. Like, build a freaking model airplane if you're going to geek out or something, right?

I mean, I don't know, Tommy, what you like to do in your free time. I mean, I like to take my kid to the beach. I don't know. Yeah.

Get a dog. Go to a soccer game. I don't, anything. sit around making buses out of freaking boxes while I'm taking my country out of the European Union in the biggest self-owned in the history of Europe. Like what is going on here? I don't know. But this is the perfect setup for our amazing guest today, the first minister of Scotland, Nicholas Sturgeon. She is talking about a referendum that would allow Scotland to leave the United Kingdom, presumably

because she is sick of dealing with bus-loving morons like Boris Johnson. So after the break, we'll hear that interview. My guest today is Nicholas Sturgeon. She's a Scottish politician serving as the fifth and current First Minister of Scotland and the leader of the Scottish National Party, the S&P. Nicholas Sturgeon, thank you so much for being here. You're very welcome. It's a pleasure. Madam First Minister, why do you think now is the time to start talking about a second independence referendum for Scotland? Well, it's a good question. And the short answer is that things in the UK and things that affects Scotland have changed so profoundly and fundamentally since we considered the question of independence in 2014. Principally, of course, the UK as a whole since then has voted to leave

the European Union and within the UK Scotland voted differently. More than 60% of people in Scotland don't want to leave the EU we want to remain. So we have a fork in the road. We require to decide what future we want as a country, do we want to exit the EU with the rest of the UK, do we want to go down a path perhaps with somebody like Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, or do we want to choose to become an independent country where we can continue to work very, very closely with other parts of the UK, but continue to make our contribution in Europe and the wider world. So it's about choice. It's about Scotland choosing our own future, not having that future decided for us. And so you would seek to become an independent country and then join the

European Union, correct? Yeah. I mean, I still hope that the UK might not leave the European Union. I still hope that Scotland can remain within it. But if we are removed from the EU and Scotland subsequently becomes independent, then my hope is that we would play our part as members of the European Union as an independent country. I know that Theresa May's office had sort of flatly rejected the idea that it was time for another Scottish referendum. I think they sort of curtly said that they'd voted on this and it was a settled issue. Now that she's gone, I mean, do you have a sense of what Boris Johnson or whomever might come next is thinking? Or what say would they have in this approval process? Well, without getting too technical about it, in 2014, because Scotland right now is

a devolved part of the UK, our parliament has certain powers, but not powers and responsibilities over everything. And one of the areas where on the face of it, the Westminster Parliament retains powers is over the constitution. Now, that's never been tested in courts, whether that would allow the Scottish Parliament to have an independence referendum without the agreement of the UK Parliament. In 2014, though, we decided the UK government and the Scottish government to come to an agreement on that, and that's what I hope would happen in future. To answer your question, the contenders for the Tory party leadership are continuing to say we won't allow Scotland to decide whether or not it wants to be independent. Frankly, I don't think that is a democratically

sustainable position. It's entirely legitimate to oppose independence as an outcome, but there's always been an agreement in the UK that Scotland is the place where that decision should be taken. So to try to stand in the way of that democratic. choice may play well in an internal Conservative Party leadership election, but I don't think it's going to stand the test of time within the wider public. So I'm a dumb American observing Brexit from afar, and I've been mostly confused by it and sort of depressed by the mismanagement. But I feel like the one constant is that everything turns about to be more complicated than what the Leave campaign promised. There's custom rules, there's Northern Ireland, there's immigration, there's

currency, what major challenges do you think Scotland would face? And do you think the Scottish people have a better handle on those challenges than British citizens did during Brexit? Well, I'm not surprised, first of all, that you look from afar at the UK right now and find it deeply depressing. Just imagine how much more depressing it is for those of us living here. In my entire life, I've never known such a mess and for politics and governance to be in such a dreadful state. And the thing is, it relates back to your question to me about the challenges and, as some would describe it, complexities of Scotland becoming independent. There was nothing inevitable about how much of a mess this Brexit process has become. I mean, I was always opposed to Brexit, but it's become

the chaotic mess that it is for a number of reasons. In the referendum on Brexit, people were not really given the information that allowed them to judge. what Brexit actually would mean in practice, what the trade-offs would be, what the practical considerations would be as the UK started to negotiate its exit from the EU. And then ever since the referendum, we've had UK government politicians making that task even more difficult by continuing to pretend to the public that they could have their cake and also eat their cake and that there was no compromises or trade-off that the UK would have to have and Theresa May drew all sorts of very, in my view, wrongheaded red lines that made the

negotiation almost impossible before it got underway. And the point I would make is that change, constitutional change, doesn't have to be that messy. In the 2014 independence referendum, there was lots and lots of information. There was a detailed prospectus about what independence would mean in practice, what we would be seeking to negotiate, what the compromises would be. One of the propositions, which was very controversial at the time, was around how Scotland and the rest of the UK would continue to share a currency within a currency union.

So people had detailed information, and the negotiation, if that vote had gone differently, would have started from a much more informed position. So, of course, there will be complexities. There's complexities in any change, But in my view, what really is important is that people have the information. They have the detail up front instead of having the will pulled over their eyes as many of the key Brexit advocates tried to do. Yeah. Well, first, I'd argue that we still have you beat when it comes to horribly embarrassing political situations, but that's a different conversation.

I may not disagree too much on that. So the 2014 referendum felt sort of nationalists and about independence. and the need for Scotland to break away and be in charge of his own destiny. This version feels like we should do that but also join the EU and be part of this big international liberal institution. Is there any contradiction there? No, I don't think there is. Although, let me be frank, I can see why people, you know,

who are not immersed in this debate might see that superficially there appears to be. In 2014, we also wanted an independent Scotland to be part of the European Union and that is obviously a more important feature of the debate now. But really it's a reflection of the modern world. Every member state of the European Union is an independent country. I would want Scotland to be in there as an independent country. But they all recognise that given the challenges that we face in the modern world, climate change, the migration crisis,

we need to have independent countries that cooperate for the greater goods that come together to solve problems that no country can do individually. So Scottish, the movement for Scottish independence is not insular, it's not inward looking, it's not really based on the sense of nationalism that you might think of when you hear that word. It's certainly not in any sense an ethnically based movement. It's about self-government and it's about self-government in order that we can take decisions that are right for our interest domestically.

but cooperate with other countries on big issues that countries need to come together to cooperate on. So it's a very modern, progressive, outward-looking movement for self-government. And just as an aside, to prove the point that it's nothing to do with ethnicity, my party, which is the principal advocate of an independent Scotland, is by some considerable distance, the most pro-immigration party, in the whole of the United Kingdom. We take the view that Scotland needs to attract talent from all over the world. And if you live in Scotland, no matter where you come from,

you have a stake in making the country as good as it can be. So I think 38% of Scottish voters voted to leave the EU. Obviously, the UK voted to Brexit. Boris Johnson might be the next prime minister. He's hanging out with one of the worst human beings on the planet, Steve Bannon. I mean, how would you assess the broader political? mood, interaction in the UK.

Is this inexorably moving towards a more nationalist, less global perspective? Undoubtedly, I think Brexit is leading the UK down a path that will inevitably be more insular and less global. Now, those who advocate Brexit

will argue differently, but the practical impact of the Brexit decision will lead the UK in that way. We're also, I think, if, and who knows yet whether Boris Johnson will emerge as the winner in the Conservative leadership election, but if he does and becomes Prime Minister, we will also have, which again is perhaps similar to recent events in the United States, somebody in the most senior political office who has elevated personality above any basic or obvious basic competence to do the job or any detailed political platform or agenda

or any real well-understood values as to what they want to achieve in that job. And that is something I think is deeply worrying. But it also demonstrates, I think, as Brexit did, that Scotland and other parts of the UK are perhaps on different political paths. And we, you know, given our geography, our shared history, our family links,

will always work together, should Scotland's future be determined by that when every time we're asked to vote, we demonstrate a desire to do something different. Yeah. I noticed you quoted Abraham Lincoln, a man primarily known for wanting to preserve unions in a speech about Scottish independence. What wisdom did Lincoln's words offer in that context? Well, I think when I quoted Lincoln, I conceded that, of course, he was somebody who was trying to preserve a union. and that may suggest that he was somebody differently motivated to me. But I think for me, and I'm a great admirer of Lincoln and a great reader of Lincoln and indeed of Civil War literature,

is that it was about values. It was about making sure that the day-to-day challenges were overcome but for a bigger purpose and for keeping a country on the right path. And I think there's a lot to learn there from those values, notwithstanding at a superficial level, it looks as if what I'm seeking to achieve and what Abraham Lincoln was seeking to achieve were very different. But he did it in the cause of a great moral purpose.

And I think in these days where great moral purposes seem to be few and far between, if you listen to your president and the likes of Boris Johnson, I sometimes think all politicians would do better to really. remember why we're in politics and what it is we're seeking to achieve for the greater good. Yes, agreed. Speaking of that, President Trump, my president, spends a lot of time in Scotland. He plays a lot of golf. He likes to force the U.S. taxpayers to pay for government officials, to have rooms on his properties. What do the Scottish people make of all of President Trump's time in Scotland? Are they enthusiastic about having his presence there? And has the White House

weighed in on Scottish independence? Well, in short answer to that last question, no. I don't think it has recently. I'm sure that it may do in the future. I think the President Trump's only actually been in Scotland once since he became president. But he's got two golf courses here in Scotland. He's, of course, his mother with Scottish. There's a bit of an irony for Scottish people. I think we've waited generations to find an American president with Scottish ancestry.

And as soon as we get one, we're not entirely sure of whether we really want it. But I don't think there's a. huge enthusiasm for President Trump here or for his politics, his approach to politics, the values that he demonstrates and how he demonstrates them. There is one great feather in our cap, though, for the Scottish government. Donald Trump, before he was president, took the Scottish government to court to try to stop a wind farm development off the coast of his new golf course up in the northeast of Scotland, and we defeated him in court. It went to the very highest court in the land, and we defeated him at every single stage.

So that's something we're quite proud of. The wind development, I should say, is now open and doing lots of research into wind power. And I think some people locally refer to the wind turbines as Trump Towers, just to rub it in. Oh, nice. Well, he recently suggested that wind turbines cause cancer. So, yeah, that's about the level of sophistication he brings to this conversation. You might want to have somebody run the numbers on what Scottish independence would mean for his tax bill and then brief him on that if it's a beneficial question. So last question from me, another dumb question.

So at Westminster and in Scottish Parliament, you guys mix it up. There's some jeering. There's some cheering. How do you get yourself ready for that? And are you ever tempted to shout back or throw an eraser or, you know, take somebody out who's talking smack? I've never been tempted to throw anything across the chamber of the Scottish Parliament. I think we're slightly less adversarial in how we do our debates than the House of Commons, although only slightly.

But yeah, I mean, I do occasionally feel the urge to shout and perhaps be slightly less temperate in my language than I have to be. But so far, I've managed to avoid chucking anything across the chamber at any of my opponents. Long may that continue. Well, that's good. Hope Springs Eternal. First Minister, Nicholas Sturgeon, thank you so much for doing the show. It was an honor speaking with you, and best of luck. Thank you very much. Pleasure to talk to you.