Pod Save the World - Iranian elections and Justin Bieber’s state visit

Episode Date: June 23, 2021

Tommy and Ben discuss the results of the presidential election in Iran, regional elections in France and why Justin Bieber went to visit the French president, the impact of the Putin-Biden summit, Bitcoin use in El Salvador, the latest from Afghanistan and Hong Kong, and rumors about a Chinese spy. Then Tommy talks to Congresswoman Norma Torres about how to make foreign aid programs more effective in Northern Triangle countries.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/podsavetheworld. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome back to Potsaf the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. New York Times bestselling author twice over Ben Rhodes. Yeah, we've made it another week. You know, a little drop up. We hung on. Thank you, Worldose. And thanks for all the reviews, which I continue to read. And I know that some people say in the reviews, I don't normally do this, but you said you read the reviews. So I see you. I see you out there. Wow. Look at this like this loop. We're closing the loop of information here. That's great. Well, the book is fantastic.

everyone buy it, tell a friend to buy it. They should buy your memoir as well. Everyone looks for reading material in the summer. Yeah, let's go. Yeah. And unfortunately, continues to be timely. Democracy is not recovered yet. Yeah, no, no, it hasn't been. Well, we got a great show this week. So we got the results of Iran's presidential election. We'll do everything you need to know. And some stuff you probably didn't need to know about the Putin-Biden summit just kind of put a bow on that thing. El Salvador and Bitcoin. coin is on the agenda. We have elections in France, the latest out of Afghanistan and Hong Kong, and then some fascinating rumors about a top Chinese intelligence official who may or may not have

defected to the U.S. and how Israel is dealing with an unwanted house guests. Also, our guest today is Congresswoman Norma Torres. She represents California's 35th congressional district. We are going to talk a lot about her work to help nonprofit groups and other organizations working in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras to help stabilize those countries. We'll talk about the Biden administration policies and the vice president's recent trip there. So stick around for that. Ben, two quick, crooked plugs before the news. So first, subscribe to Edith.

It is our brand new scripted comedy podcast that explores the mostly true story of how Edith Wilson, first lady to President Woodrow Wilson, kind of sort of became America's first female president. Crooked Media's beloved Travis Hellwig is a co-creator and writer. The show is hilarious. It is funny. Rosamine Pike is the star. It's a great show. You will love it.

Check it out. Also, don't miss Love It or Leave It's Pride Extravaganza this week. It's going to stream on June 24th at 4 p.m. Pacific. There are hilarious guests, games, comedy sets, just like all sorts of great stuff. And the event itself is fundraising for the Transjustice Funding Project. so it's all for a good cause. Go to crooked.com slash pride to learn more. All right, Ben, Iran has a new president. I guess it's an election.

Election in air quotes here for reasons we'll explain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The 60-year-old hardline leader of Iran's judiciary, Ibrahim Reisi, is the president-elect of Iran. Turnout was low because many of the moderate or reform-minded Iranians refused to vote after all the moderate candidates were prevented from running. In fact, only seven of 600 candidates got approved through this vetting process. So not a free and fair election in any way. Racy is a bad guy. He's been accused of human rights abuses. He's on the U.S. sanctions list, which is pretty awkward if we're going to have to meet with him at some point.

According to several human rights organizations, RaiiC. was part of a four-man committee that sent approximately 5,000 political prisoners to their death back in 1988. This was more of an interesting anecdote. And I guess he's considered a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, which is why he wears a black turban, so interesting. The speculation that RISI is being groomed to replace the Supreme Leader one day, we learned a little bit more about what his election might mean for the U.S. Iranian relationship on Monday when he said that Iran will not negotiate with the U.S. over its ballistic missiles program or Iran's support for various terrorist groups in the region, although I think he was clear on those points as a candidate as well. He also said he wouldn't

meet with President Biden. He did suggest he was willing to restore ties of Saudi Arabia. So then, you know, negotiations over the U.S. and Iran potentially reentering. the Iran nuclear deal are still ongoing. You know, we're going from President Rouhani, who is this one big in 2013 and 2017. He was unequivocally more moderate than Raeci to this super hardline leadership now. What do you think this election means for like the future of Iran and for the fate of the JCPOA? Well, you know, my mother who I'm visiting my parents, you know, walked in after reading about this the other day and was like, so the Supreme Leader is still a real creep, you I mean, I thought that was a pretty like astute, broldo observation.

I mean, yeah, like we've talked about this, but basically what they did is they barred any of the more reform-minded, moderate in the Iranian context candidates from running to kind of manufacture the pathway for this hardliner guy to get in there. And it shows to me like a hardline faction and aging clerical establishment, you know, that is tightening its grip on power at a time when they are less popular than they have been. in a really long time. You know, so this is one of those cases where the authoritarian, you know, gears kick in, in part because they're clenching tighter because of their own lack of support among the public. When they open up these elections, it tends to be the case that the more reform-minded candidates win.

I think in terms of U.S. Iranian relations, it actually doesn't change much. In part, if you looked at his comments and his press conference, he basically reaffirmed the same positions they had. He said, no, I don't want to negotiate on ballistic missiles, but, you know, we will come back into the deal under the terms that we're entitled to. That, it felt to me like kind of a reiteration of what has always been their negotiating position, which is they want to go all the way back to, you know, where things were when the U.S. pulled out in terms of sanctions relief and they don't want to negotiate other things. That's not new. I thought there was some kind of overreaction to that in the D.C. political

press, a big surprise there. And we'll see. I mean, there's a government transition doesn't take place until later in the summer in August. And so to me, the one thing that could change is if the people at the table change, right? The same people on the Iranian side have been negotiating this deal for like the last eight years, you know, from the foreign ministry. And so if those people change, then I think it just gets harder because all this institutional memory that's built up is gone. So I think what it means is why. this space for the next kind of six weeks to see if they can get back into the JCPOA, the Iran deal, or something like it. If they can't, by the time of that government transition, I think gets harder, not necessarily because they're going to move to a dramatically hard line, but because it's quite possible that some of those people change and then you kind of lose whatever momentum you have. I think for Iran itself, though, I mean, you know, it does suggest, you know, more hardline direction. But bear in mind, the Supreme Leader has always been the Supreme Leader. So the

president has some marginal impact on the direction of politics in the country. But, you know, this has always been a hardline government. What Rahani did is he shifted to a more pragmatic orientation in certain aspects of foreign policy like the nuclear deal. And, you know, a somewhat different face to the world from the Iranian people. But, you know, it's not as if things got much looser inside of Iran. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, it's not like race he's going to negotiate against himself at a press conference in any, Joe Biden wouldn't do that either. So it's worth pointing out. It is weird, though, that you have these like lame duck negotiators that just keep doing this JCPOA work knowing that there's a new administration coming in. I mean,

I guess that's the case in any turnover, but I'm just, I'm interested to see how it goes. I mean, here's what I see, Tommy, is like, they want the U.S. to go back, like Trump, we've talked about this, added all these sanctions after he pulled out of the deal in 2018. And he took some of the things where Iran gets sanctions relief under the nuclear deal, and he re-sanctioned those entities, right, under terrorism designations and other designations, including the Iranian central bank. And the Iranian position is basically, no. Like, we want to go all the way back to the sanctions relief we were entitled to when we were in this deal. And the Biden team politically, you know, is, I think finds it difficult to provide sanctions relief to things that have

been sanctioned for other purposes, right? It's a little nerdy, but that's the bottom line. And I think Rice's election does indicate, you know, the Iranians are probably not going to move that far off that line. And ultimately, this is a big political decision for Joe Biden. How badly does he want to get back in this deal versus how concerned does he about Iran continuing its nuclear program without a deal? And it's a tough call. But I, I, I, I tend to think that better to try to get back in the deal, keep whatever sanctions. And let's be clear, there's a lot of sanctions we have on Iran for a lot of things. There are going to be a bunch of sanctions, even if there's a deal in place.

The question is, you know, how do you create a formula where you keep a bunch of those sanctions in place, but you're giving them enough sanctions relief to be true to the letter and spirit of the deal that we, after all, were the ones who violated. Yeah. This is bad radio. But what's that big cool picture behind you in the middle? This is a giant map of Paris that my mother, my mother's a big Francophile. So we have, we, it's kind of a, maps are cool things hang out. It's a very world-o thing, actually, I have to say, you know. Okay. Well, in honor of your mother, in honor of that beautiful poster, I'm going to jump to the France section. Is that cool? Let's do it. It's good transition. Yeah. Thanks. So this is, let's call this goodish news out of France because there was an election and the racist, right-wing nationalist party led by Marine Le Pen. They did poorly in these regional elections. And these regional elections are

seen as a bellwether for next year's presidential elections. So the center-right lay Republicans party got about 30% of the nation-wide vote, while Le Pen's National Rally Party only got 20%, which is worse than their performance in 2015. President Emmanuel Macron's party got third or fourth place in most regions, which is, I don't know, obviously not great. But it was also a weird election with super low turnout as France tries to reemerge from COVID. So, Ben, any deep thoughts on that result or, you know, what it might say about these right-wing populists like Le Pen? I mean, I think it's a positive result on the right-wing populist front because, look, Bacron is pretty

unpopular, which is normal for French incumbent presidents. He's got his centrist party on Marsh. And he's had trouble navigating. He's kind of managed to piss off everybody as centrists sometimes do, and that the left has been really mad at his kind of neoliberal approach to the economy and certain reforms and the right has been pissed off because he's not, you know, hard line enough. So there was going to be some backlash to him. And the healthy thing is that that did not benefit Le Pen and her party. Like, like that you would think that they'd have some opening here to make some real enroads. And instead,

what voters opted for is like a pretty conventional center right party or center left party as the alternative to Macron. So that's the good news. Right. The backlash vote, the kind of midterm election, you know, I don't like the incumbent vote, did not swing to the creepy people who are really creepy. I mean, this is like a far-right party. It has taken money from Russia that demonizes Muslims and immigrants and the rest of it. That's the good news. And I think McCrone, you know, shows you have some work to do. The presidential election is the one that really matters in France.

Did you see the picture of Macron and his wife with just. Justin Bieber and his wife that came out yesterday for no reason. I think everybody should Google that because the best thing about this is like it was presented as like a formal bi-latt. So there were like a bunch of pictures, right? And it looked like it looked like the same pictures he post if he was meeting like a foreign leader. It was so weird.

And I don't know. The French have kind of weird American pop culture taste, right? Like they, you know, is Justin Bieber still really big in France? I guess he is, right? I mean, I don't know. Peaches was a bop. But, like, you know, also, Haley Bieber just looks miserable to be there. Just doesn't want to be there at all.

And the contrast is so funny. Anyway, I cut you off in the middle of some interesting part about right-wing populism, but it just made me laugh to think about that stupid photo. People really need to look at that photo. But the, I mean, look, McCrone is a complicated character, right? But he deserves credit for he kind of beat back this populist wave and kind of held the center there. And then he has a choice to make heading into the election. you know, does he tack a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right? You know, he's been

tacking to the right, and yet the voters have moved to this other center-right party instead. It seems to me like, you know, he has to kind of expand the center out to the left as well. If, you know, the French election, the presidential election would be complicated because there's a runoff, right? So a whole bunch of candidates could run, and then two people get in the runoff. And frankly, I think, you know, the possibility that's just Macron and Le Pen again, is still, you know, quite possible. So don't write any political obituaries from yet because all the other parties could splinter and he could still get through. But we'll see. It's pretty volatile. Yeah, you look like a guy who's even better versed than normal in ranked choice voting at the

moment since there's a lot going on in New York. The New York Times also an interesting piece about how you have these sort of right-wing populist leaders in Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, who are running up against the reality that they actually suck at governing. They suck at governing. terrible job with COVID. So I don't know, some hope there. Also, quick programming note, just when we're talking about elections. There's an election in Ethiopia this week. We're watching it closely. We just didn't have results in time to talk about it. So we'll get to that next week. I hope, assuming that those results come through. So, Ben, you want to go to Biden and Putin? Because I do think, well, there's a lot to talk about and a lot to make fun of there.

So apparently they met for three hours, which is wild. So as of Tuesday, June 22nd, the world is standing, although it was touch and go for a minute after President Biden was a little bit rude to a journalist. But Biden said they talked about human rights. Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader, who was in prison, a couple of U.S. citizens who are also being held by the Russians. Radio Free Europe. They talked about Ukraine. They talked about Belarus. They talked about rules of the road around cybersecurity, including Biden, I guess, handed him a list of 16 pieces of critical infrastructure that he says should be off limits to cyber attack. And they also talked about arms control, which would be sort of like the positive side of the ledger of things they can do together.

On Sunday, Jake Sullivan, our buddy, the national security advisor, said the U.S. is preparing more sanctions against Russia over the poisoning of Alexei Navalny. So I guess Ben, now that the meeting is over, like any final thoughts on it and, you know, I guess how utterly absurd like the windup was. Well, yeah, we should do the windup separately. I mean, I think when you read the tea leaves, first of all, it was three hours and the hype had beeners me four or five, six hours. I mean, I mean, three hours covering all those issues to me suggest that they were not negotiating anything, really. They were each kind of going through their list.

Like, hey, here are the issues we're concerned about. From the Biden perspective, pretty long list of things that we have a serious problem with. I mean, to me, what you could sense was the cyber thing was front and center. And that, you know, clearly one of the purposes of the meeting was kind of this warning of, hey, if there continue to be these cyber attacks and ransomware attacks from within Russia at the United States, like, we are going to respond with our own offensive cyber attacks against you. I mean, pretty clearly that was a message that was delivered.

Because people should know these ransomware attacks happening from within Russia, like, these criminal networks are very tied in with Russian oligarchs and Russian security services. So the idea that Putin couldn't do something about them is pretty ridiculous. So to me, that jumped out. I think it was very good to see him, you know, lean in on Navalny, Biden lean in on that. and put down some markers and follow up and say, like, hey, we're going to do these sanctions. I think they're doing these sanctions Navalny related, not just because of his detention, but because they've been like rolling up his network.

He had described to me for my book, like, I'm not just a dissident here. I've got offices across the country. I got a lot of people working for me. Like, we're building a political movement around any corruption that could win an election someday. And, you know, Putin is basically tried to smash that organization in the run up to the summit. He kind of branded it at an extremist group. He suggested that they were foreign funded or supported, which they're not. That's bullshit. So clearly, you know, these issues around cyber and Navalny kind of rose to the level of, you know, Ukraine election interference.

There's a longer list of things that are problematic in the relationship. And I think what Biden did is he laid down a bunch of markers. Now, as Biden himself suggested, they'll see what happens over the next. six months or a year. And, you know, if Putin continues this kind of provocative, aggressive behavior, which I think is more likely than not, Biden can at least say, you know, next time we have to do sanctions or, you know, if we have to do some cyber response, hey, I warned you. I told you, if you guys kept doing this, there'd be a response. And that's it. I mean, you know, the strategic stability talks, the arms control discussions, that's a welcome thing that there's at least an interest in, you know, building on new start and discussing nuclear weapons and strategic stability, which is basically

how do these two giant military powers avoid inadvertent escalation and hopefully have further arms control? But there was very little detail. I mean, it was kind of an agree to talk about talking about things. So that's good if that leads to something. I hope it does. But other than that, you know, you take one shot at this early in your presidency. It makes sense to do it. I don't have a lot of hope that Vladimir Putin's going to change and you have to be willing to follow through if he doesn't. Yeah. We'll see what Bieber gets done at his future Putin bylaw. Maybe they can negotiate something. The press wind in was, which I was a part of, right, as an MSNBC contributor. I did more television, I think, in a few days like ever before. I mean, what did that look like to you, Tommy?

I mean, how would you have felt if you were like in the White House? I mean, they must, they knew what they were signing up for by putting a big old summit at the end of a foreign trip in a third country like Geneva, I guess, but that was intense, you know. Yeah, I'm of two minds of it, right? I mean, it did seem like, you know, these news networks flew half of their, like, newsroom to Geneva, which is an interesting choice given limited budgets. On the one hand, I was happy that everyone is talking about foreign policy because I find it interesting and, you know, we care and it's good to get people to pay attention to this stuff. On the other hand, it's kind of a bummer that it's all through this sort of like Cold War Russian boogeyman election interference lens, which is

all real and all there, but like, there's a whole bunch of stuff on that trip that we should be talking about that was just as important as a three-hour meeting, even when it comes to dealing with Russia, right? Like, the NATO summit is just as important when it comes to Biden's approach to Russia as what happened. I mean, the, look, Biden was on, what, an eight-day trip? He did a press conference in the hot sun. He just had to sit through a three-hour meeting with Vladimir Putin. Like, there's not a lot of laughs getting exchange there. And you got a little chippy and a little, you know, terse in a Q&A with a reporter who sort of misstated his position on something. It was nice of him to apologize. I think, like, politicians are human beings. It's not a

big deal when someone is kind of like a chippy jerk at a press conference. You know what I mean? It just sometimes the press makes a story about themselves in ways that makes me roll my eyes a little bit because that certainly shouldn't have been the focus of that press conference or that day. Yeah, I, you know, I mean, I understand why they did it. You know, the other alternative would have been to wait until you and Putin are at the same place, right? The climate change summit later in the year, the G20 later in the year, you kind of meet on the margins of that. I think they made, they basically decided that was too long to wait, that there's just too much shit going on with Russia. We got to sit down with this guy. That there's some value in,

sequencing it where we sit down with all our allies first, the G7 and NATO, so that we kind of look like we're coming in leader of the free world again, you know, ready to kind of represent not just our views, but the views of the United States and our allies. But you, I mean, I have to say, like there was a lot of pomp. I mean, Geneva, you know, the globe. It was like Yalta, right, with the globe between the two of them. Yeah, yeah, big globe. So, you know, I would have been frustrated, but you can't really complain when you put a big old Russia. summit at the end of a trip in Geneva. And they knew that. And I thought they took it in stride. They just owned it. I mean, it was smarter than to own it. The Biden crankiness reminded me so

much of Obama, Tommy. There was this, like this awesome, you've heard the story, I think, but like, Jen Saki and I had to prep Obama at the end of a long foreign trip where he was starting to get beat up by the press. And we're, with me, me and Jen and Gibbs are, you. kind of briefing him for the press conference, and we're briefing all these, you know, pretty cranky questions he was going to get. And it was at the end of a G20, and he started complaining to us that, and with all apologies to my former boss for, but like, the communique of the G20 wasn't getting attention. Oh, yeah. And, and, yeah, I'm sure it really sung. And he was like, you know, do people know how much work we did and that we basically wrote

this communique and that all these summits, we worked so hard? And honestly, to be fair, like that is how you kind of feel like you just worked really hard on like the NATO summit and the G7 and you try to be very clear and saying what your expectations were and then he's kind of yelling at us about this you know as if it's a total communications problem that we can't you know get better questions and what I remember thinking at the time he's tired he's been on the road for days he's got like DC political press sniping and I mean when I watched Biden and imagine Jen you know having to kind of you know get with Biden after that. It just put me back in that moment so much of like, these are human beings.

And when, you know, the press is kind of continually trying to fly spec, that question basically put words in Biden's mouth that you didn't say, they blow their stack a little bit. But I kind of like that in a way, because you see that they're human. They're not, they're not like machines and robots. Totally. They're people just working hard and trying their best. And like, you know, I thought that that was overall, that trip clearly, like, you know, they did the work and they made some progress and didn't solve every problem. And we'll see. We'll see whether they can bring the, you know, all our allies along on a China policy. We'll see they can manage a bunch of tough issues. And we'll see if Putin, you know, adjust at all based on that summit. And if he doesn't, he doesn't, you know.

Right. If he doesn't, I mean, I, look, I remember that trip. I remember us getting the shit kicked out of us. I remember, you know, like, you get on a plane, you don't sleep on the way over. You have endless boring meetings. The time zone screws you up the next couple nights. Every foreign trip I went on, I would have like two nights in like, let's say out of 10 where I just didn't sleep at all, where I just go down to the press file and be on the internet or something. Or it's like toss and turn in bed.

So you're a zombie. So I remember like some reporter kicked the shit out of us because we didn't get a free trade agreement locked in with the Koreans, right? So you get the hell beat out of you in the press. Then you have to sit next to that guy on a bus to the next event. You're just like staring this journalist in the face. who just trashed you and you're, you know, like the trips are not fun, you know?

And like part of it is what you're saying, right, which is like the politics of what's possible. Yes, it's very hard to bring everyone together on a communique. And maybe it feels like you're only moving incrementally, but like it's hard to move 20 of the biggest economies in the world towards a consensus. It's an easy task.

Well, that was a funny thing. Is later on that same trip, Obama called me a hotel suite to bust my balls about, like he had a bunch of newspapers out. And all the headlines are terrible. And the headlines were like, U.S. fails to get agreement with Korea on free trade. And he's like complaining by the press. I'm like, well, you didn't get a fucking agreement with the credit. Like, what do you think the headline's going to be?

You know? And that's foreign policy doesn't have that many big wins, right? It's a lot of just kind of managing stuff and trying to move it forward. Right. And so even Biden there, like, it's fair for the press to be like, well, what did you actually get done at this summit? Because there's not, like, they reestablished ambassadors. Great. That doesn't mean it wasn't worth doing. But it does mean you're going to get asked, like, well, what, you know, what's the evidence of Putin's changing? Like, so. Putin's not going to bend the knee in the meeting and then, like, crawl out to the press conference. You know, like, come on. Yeah.

My biggest critique is maybe lose the globe because it was like a total, like a Yalta kind of. Yeah. But hey, you know. But Putin was on time. So that's an achievement for them. Honestly, that surprised me. First meeting I was at with Putin. He was 40 minutes late for Obama and Bylet.

So didn't the Biden people make him show up first because they know that that's his thing. They fixed it so that they knew, you know, it's just pretty clever. Like you just can't be late because you're showing up first. That's very smart. Apparently he also didn't give Biden quite the same litany that he usually, that he gave Obama in the past. There was some speculation as to why he treated Obama with more disrespect to Biden, which, you know, he's a racist. Let's just say, yeah, like there's a bunch. I mean, actually, this is, there were a bunch of world leaders.

who didn't treat Obama with a certain amount of respect. Netanyahu comes to mind, for instance. Putin, you know. And if you look at their like, you know, their domestic politics, what a surprise that people who are racist or bigoted, you know, look at Putin with LGBT people, you know, might harbor certain prejudices. But all in all, you know, I think that, you know, we'll see the trip. It was worth trying.

It was worth trying. Well, let's turn to a shitty authoritarian leader in our own hemisphere, which is President Buchali in El Salvador. So, El Salvador voted to make Bitcoin legal tender. So that means you can pay your taxes in Bitcoin. You can list prices of goods in Bitcoin. And then, you know, I assume probably most importantly for all like the Silicon Valley Bitcoin guys looking to avoid paying taxes, exchanges in Bitcoin won't be subject to capital gains tax in El Salvador. The sort of optimistic view of things is it will make it easier for people who have moved abroad from El Salvador to send money back home. They're called remittances.

According to the World Bank, remittances to El Salvador make up nearly one-fifth of its GDP. That was in 2019. So it's a big deal. So according to the language in the law, I guess 70% of Salvadorians don't have access to traditional financial services. And there's some hope that Bitcoin can help maybe fast track that process, get them banked. They don't use their own currency. They use the dollar currently. So, I don't know, interesting stuff, Ben, but the best part of this story is that President

Buckely said he has instructed a state-owned power company to develop a plan to power Bitcoin mining operations by using renewable energy from volcanoes. So we're going to have volcano powered Bitcoin. You can't argue with that. That's cool. Here's the challenge, though. In the last year, the price of Bitcoin has been as low as $9,000 per Bitcoin and its highest $64,000 per Bitcoin. It's like on a rocket chip down right now. I think it just hit 30. So I'm not sure that it's

the best place to store your money long term. If you're just like a farmer who's got a few bucks. Bigger picture, I don't know. I'm not anti-Bitcoin Ben. I'm a little bit skeptical of like the Bitcoin evangelists who talk about it as this like sort of crucial democratizing force that gets rid of world banks, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, this seems like it could be a great way to laundering money and help Silicon Valley people get rich. But I don't know, what do you make of this? Are you excited about the volcanoes at least? I'm excited about the volcano piece of it. I mean, but look, when you've got like a increasingly authoritarian kind of almost cult of personality type guy who's like rocking the backwards hat in press conferences, getting into

crypto doing the volcano thing, maybe that throws up some red flags that that's not the right policy. You know what I mean? Like it does maybe that didn't emerge from a deeply thought. thoughtful policymaking process, right? You just described every guy that I used to hang out with in San Francisco, like people who live near me in Hack Heights. Yeah. I mean, like me. Flag on the place.

I just, I'm just going to go on the limb and say that that doesn't, it didn't feel like a well-considered thing, but this guy clearly likes to get attention and, you know, fancies himself like, I don't know, some innovator. But there's been some talk about this for a while about Bitcoin being used in this way as a reserve currency and stuff. And look, you put your finger on one thing, the volatility. I mean, the other thing is, like, look, for all the problems of the U.S. government, there's plenty. The U.S. dollar is backed by this massive institution that people can see and understand, even if they don't agree with everything the U.S. government does.

That dollar, you know, as a reserve currency around the world, is anchored in the fact that, you know, people know that the most powerful institution in the world backs it up. I think that's going to change over time because people are getting sick of what the U.S. does, including our overuse of sanctions and things. But move into Bitcoin at this stage. I mean, already the World Bank, the IMF, again, imperfect institutions, but they're kind of taking a step back. Like, can we really work with this government if this is what they're doing? It just feels premature. It doesn't mean there's not a role for crypto currencies at some point.

But, I mean, they're human beings, right, whose livelihoods are at stake here in El Salvador. Or like a cool crypto experiment doesn't feel like the right thing to do by those people. If a bunch of crypto nerd world does want to convince me otherwise, like, you know, I'm open to all ideas here. But to me, it felt like, you know, maybe this has not been thought through. Yeah, that's exactly my take. Like I'm cool with Bitcoin. I'm happy to learn more about it.

Interesting to see the way it's used. But like, I don't know. I just hope El Salvador doesn't go all in because you wouldn't want to see a bunch of normal people get hurt by a collapse of some digital currency. By the way, because some Bitcoin hedge fund asshole decided to like mess around with the price of the currency. And so then suddenly a bunch of people in El Salvador are fucked. You know, like that that's a little worse. Right. Or the Chinese, I think, said recently that they're not going to allow the use of Bitcoin. They're going to make their own cryptocurrency. And that's tank the price. I've heard India float similar

proposals. It's just like the volatility is terrifying. Let's talk about Afghanistan for a minute because there's been a lot of reporting lately about, you know, the U.S. preparing to withdraw. And basically everything I've read about Afghanistan has been disconcerting. There's stories by the Taliban taking a lot of territory, assassinating journalists, activists. There are stories about local leaders pulling together their own like mini militias. There was a story about an elite Afghan special forces unit getting routed by the Taliban, concerns about the Afghan military's ability to maintain and run an air force without the U.S. So the latest is President Biden has invited the Afghan President Ashrafgani to the White House on Friday. He's going to be joined by Abdullah, who is the chairman of this group that's trying to get the Afghan government and the Taliban to forge a peace deal.

They're leading these talks. There was an interview, Ben, that I saw with former president Hamid Karzai, who said, the international community came here 20 years ago with this clear objective of fighting extremism and bringing stability. But extremism is at the highest point today, so they have failed. It's hard to argue with that. I also, you know, Hamid Karzai was part of the problem for a long time. So it's challenging to hear from him. Also, really concerning is the very slow pace of getting visas to individuals who helped out the U.S. government in some capacity over the years as translators, what have you.

That process is bogged down. So again, the deadline for getting these troops out of Afghanistan, the U.S. troops, is by the end of this summer. Where is your, like, level of anxiety or concern about the U.S.'s ability to meet that deadline responsibly and then just like more broadly for how these talks are going in the future of the Afghan government. I mean, everything looks about like on the spectrum of things that you thought could happen, like most of the things that have happened suggested, it's like the worst end of the spectrum, you know, that the Taliban is not really interested in anything other than trying to continue to conquer territory and terrorize their opponents.

And so I think what he has to do, for starters here, it's good to have Abdul Abdullah and President Ghani to the White House. And like a real estate conversation, like, what can we do to help here? Because, again, like, I'm not entirely sure that 2,500 U.S. troops staying would make the difference either. But is there assistance? Is there military assistance? Is there other kinds of assistance that would be useful? is there something that the rest of the world can do in conjunction with the United States or with NATO to help provide certain types of assistance? Are we missing something on the diplomatic track here?

Are there or should we be leaning on neighbors like Pakistan, for instance, who've been pretty obviously in bed with the Taliban over the years? I just think like just having a listening session here where they're just brainstorming, like what can we do to help avert the worst outcomes from happening? or mitigate against some of the things are happening. And then, yeah, to your point, like, I don't get this thing about the visas. I mean, they've got to get these people out of there who work with this. I mean, it will be a big- VETting. Vet them here.

Vet them here. Like, this would be such a stain on us if, like, thousands of people who worked with us are therefore targeted. I mean, that we just, I'm sorry, like, just get them out and do the vetting somewhere else. You know, like, it just doesn't feel tenable to me. morally to not be to not at least be giving the appearance that you're doing everything you can to get everybody out who worked with us as a minimum baseline here. Yeah, agreed. And then one other story that has a negative trajectory before we get some

hopeful stuff to the close. So the news out of Hong Kong also keeps getting worse. So Reuters broke the story that Apple Daily, which is one of the last pro-democracy independent media sources in Hong Kong is probably going to have to stop publishing. So we've talked about this a bit before Apple Daily's founder, Jimmy Lye, was arrested under Hong Kong's relatively new national security law that just basically criminalized all dissent and democracy itself. So last week, authorities then froze Apple Daily's assets and charged some of its senior executives under that same national security law. So things are just becoming untenable for them. Ben, what is the impact do you think of Apple Daily fully shutting down for Hong Kong and for the press and in the area?

I mean, I think, you know, for people to understand the context, like I, in my book, like I walk people through how Hong Kong has steadily been, kind of swallowed up by Chinese Communist Party. And one of the things I heard, this is a whole of society effort. And the media was a key focus of this. And a few years ago, you know, you saw an escalation of the Chinese Communist Party and kind of affiliated tycoons, like kind of pro-CP tycoons, just buying up the media in Hong Kong, right? And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and. to the point that the only remaining kind of island of not just pro-democracy, but just independent journalism was Apple Daily. And not only are they buying up the media, they're literally also like distributing newspapers, you know, in these giant apartment buildings for free, right? Like here's the, we're just going to mainline the propaganda to you to your door while removing any other options that you have. And oh, by the way, if people may recall, they basically abducted and kidnapped a few booksells. right? To get at the capacity to have an independent, you know, there used to be a very vibrant

kind of publishing culture in Hong Kong, a place that people could get books in Chinese that were critical of the government or at least honest about history. And so this was the last kind of piece of media real estate that hadn't been swallowed up. And so this is a big deal because it completes them trying to transition Hong Kong. You know, look, people still have access to certain social media sites and internet sites that they don't in mainland China. But like, this is, this is them beginning to make Hong Kong like any other mainland Chinese city, which if you've been to Hong Kong is just an enormous shift from even like 10 years ago. Yeah. Stick it with China here. So here's a story that fits under the headline you often see, which is big if true. So the outlet

spy talk reported on these rumors and speculation that's mostly coming out of anti-communist media outlets and anti-communist Twitter outlets, that the Chinese Vice Minister of State Security and his daughter have defected to the U.S. So a lot of the details in these various reports about this sound just off to me, Ben, like there's the claim that this defection was so secret that Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor and Tony Blinken, the Secretary of State didn't know about it before their meeting with Chinese officials back in March. The CIA didn't know about it.

There was like a DIA defense intelligence-led thing. I don't know. But I'm just going to remain sort of, you know, open-minded about this because it would be an enormous deal if China's top counterintelligence guide affected to the U.S. And like also like, yes, of course something like that would be as secret as secret gets. But if someone defects, like at some point, it's going to come out, right? Because this person is going to no longer show up at events in China. I mean, so it was an interesting report. I wasn't sure what to make of it.

Yeah. I mean, I think it would could, I mean, if someone defects, presumably. there's some period of time where they're like debriefing that guy, you know, and trying to figure out like where does you go. Yeah. A lot of polygraphs, I bet. Yeah. So it's certainly possible that there would be like some lag time before the world learned

about this. I mean, I think what's most interesting to me about this is one, we don't know that much about the internal workings of the Communist Party leadership. And I mean, I don't think I'm like, you know, like it's a pretty closed box, you know. And so something like this would be massive because. we could have insights into kind of personal rivalries and, you know, whatever. But two, we have a tendency to kind of these days ascribe, like, you know, that everything is going great for the Chinese. Like everything, the Chinese Communist Party is just ascendant in the world and there's no

problems there. Like, they've got all kinds of domestic problems. They've got, when you've got this kind of power player like Jishimp's made it, it alienates other people in the system. There's push back, there's corruption, there's, you know, so to me, whether this is true or not, at some point that dam is going to break and stuff like this is going to happen, particularly because the Chinese Communist Party's got much more punitive and locking people up and punishing people and showing that nobody's above the law, like we're going to go after business tycoons and, you know, former high-ranking officials. At some point, that is going to lead to a scenario where you have people defecting or trying to get out. And, you know,

I'd be fascinated, not that we'd all learn this, but the U.S. government would learn a lot from that, believe me. Yeah, yeah, fingers crossed it. It's true. Also, there were some reports that I can't confirm or not confirm from a couple of years ago that basically the CIA's covert communications methods with its intelligence sources in China got exposed and the Chinese government managed to basically roll up all of the U.S. assets that were in China, which basically just meant we have zero intelligence coming out of there. Again, I don't know if that's true or not. I think it was a New York Times. report that went pretty deep on this. So fascinating story. One will keep an eye on. Two more quick things. So Ben, you know those times when you have somebody over, like a bunch of people and like the night is clearly winding down, but some of your guests just like won't take the hint and get the hell out of your house. That is what's happening to the entire country of Israel right now. So as we've discussed previously, BB Net Yahoo, he's out. Got the boot, no longer prime minister. But he now says that he and his family won't move out of the official residence until July 10th, which is a

a month after he lost the election, or at least the loss of government formation process. So there's reports that he has been illegally shredding documents. Protesters helpfully showed up at the residence with a moving truck that said crime minister on the side, which is very nice. That's pretty good. Yeah, pretty good. Depending on your perspective, right, this is either shocking and brazen or not at all surprising, given that BB and his wife are probably being prosecuted for corruption and using his office for personal gain.

So, of course, he's squatting in that office. But, you know, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and, you know, on again, off again, Trump stooge, Nikki Haley, visited Netanyahu at the official residence after he was no longer prime minister, right? And took a photo op and called him prime minister and her tweet. So, I don't know, Ben, besides, like, filming these bizarre little videos where he brags about how much he stuck it to the United States, what the hell do you think Bibi is doing in there? And like, I don't get, why give him this much time?

Well, and there's been this kind of just. JV January 6 feel to the whole thing, you know, like he's calling this the big lie and it was like election fraud and this is stolen from him. Now he won't move out of the house. I mean, here like, okay, massively shredding documents like, you know, Argo style, right? Like just feeding, like feeding stuff in the shredder. Given the number of crimes that, you know, he's alleged to have committed and that he's currently under a dime before, like, I'd say like there's a likelihood of that. Like, like, Ragers, like, B is B. B. B having like, just ragers is he just kind of trashing the place and like partying it up with uh i bet his son is well that's

actually you know that's the possibility like the don many you know like the don junior clone over there could be having ragers um i don't steal in silverware like uh yeah you know i don't know um but like a guy who refuses to leave the prime minister's residence that is paid for by the is it's not like you know he's paying a mortgage on this place it's like yet another indication that maybe this guy, like, maybe power went to his head a little bit too much. Yeah. Maybe he shouldn't be prime minister anymore and shouldn't be prime minister again. You're a little too comfortable, pal.

It's supposed to be a democracy, right? And Nikki Haley and them all go over there and say, what a great democracy says, well, that's pretty undemocratic, like just, you know, squatting in the prime minister's residence here. That's just the worst. Yeah, no, today I saw a little video he released from earlier this week where he talked about how, you know, Lepid and Bennett said that they would give the U.S. a heads up before they bombed the Iranian nuclear program and how he would never do that.

And it was just like, what are you doing? This is your message that the U.S. sucks and they'll never tell them anything? Well, and all these, like, Republicans are kind of slobbering, you know, over, like, you know, Nikki Haley is like Steve Scalice. Like, he released him letter, you know, calling him the greatest, like, whatever. And it's like, I mean, like, what is going on here? It's just, it's so lame, you know? I mean, the guy, like, I might as well, like, come and, and, run for the Republican nomination. And I don't want to give me any ideas, but like he's more popular with the Republican Party than with Israeli voters.

That's for sure. Yes, that is for sure. Final thing. So, Ben, now that all of the New York-based and Boston-based teams have been eliminated from the NBA playoffs, have you switched over to the Euro 2020 soccer tournament? I would just say that the cool thing about these games is that I barely understand the structure for like international soccer. But it just feels like there's always.

a game on, right? Like there's these Copa America games, Champions League recently ended. Now the Euro 2020 games are on. So there's just like at odd times of the day, especially in California, at 2 p.m. There's some like badass Dutch team playing against Belgium or whatever and you get to see like the best players in the world. It's been great. So I have to say like is I have been watching it. I tend to root for like the, particularly in these early stages, like just these underdog countries that have no chance. Right. So it's like, like it's not a smart strategy to root for like north macedonia and you know scotland and you know but i will say that the dutch are fucking badass so far i have watched a couple of their games

yeah i mean like right now they they look uh they look pretty good but but yeah i i i adopt the route for the underdog strategy in soccer which is usually a losing strategy but you get you get to learn about like you know the random dudes who are like like massive national heroes in like small countries. And that's pretty cool. Yeah, it does make me excited for the World Cup. It's all making me excited for the Olympics, although I'm a little, a little worried about the COVID sitch over in Tokyo, but fingers crossed for them. Yes. But anyway, okay, we're going to take a quick break and we come back. We'll have my interview with Congresswoman Norma Torres about her work in Latin America, USA to the Northern Triangle countries,

and how the Biden administration's efforts to reduce economic institutions. and security challenges down there to reduce migration are going. So stick around for that. I am so excited to invite onto the show, Congresswoman Norma Torres, who represents California's 35th congressional district and is a key member of the House Committee that determines how international aid is spent. Thank you so much for joining the show. It's great to be with you, Tom. So Congresswoman, Vice President Harris recently returned from a trip to Guatemala and Mexico for meetings about economic development, security, and broadly trying to get at the root causes of migration from the so-called Northern

Triangle countries to the United States. So I think maybe we could just start with Guatemala first because I think it's hard for me to paint with a broad brush when you're talking about different countries, different leaders, different challenges, right? I think we short-hand too much probably. So when it comes to Guatemala, what do you think is driving immigration from Guatemala and what do you think she sought to achieve there in those conversations? I think, you know, from the Guatemalan perspective and what drives people out of the country, I mean, of all of Central American countries,

or at least the northern part of Central America, where we have been focused, you know, there's a lot of hope for Guatemala. There's a lot of opportunities there that, unfortunately, have not been taking advantage of tourism, you know, should be thriving in the region. But the problem, you know, persist, and that is impunity. There isn't a strong judicial system to support the problems of that country. Crime against women and girls, specifically, indigenous people, Afro-descendants, is on the rise, continues to be on the rise every time we think that it's at its worse. New numbers come out, you know, that prove us wrongs.

And the fact that these folks have no real access to justice is what drives them north. You know, they don't see an opportunity there for them. Their small micro-businesses are failing because they have to pay out so much to corrupt government officials. Yeah. And so like stepping back a bit, so President Biden's immigration bill and some of the things that the vice president was talking about on our trip was this proposal to spend $4 billion over four years in El Salvador, Guatemala, in Honduras, you know, to decrease violence, improve corruption challenges, improve, you know, reduce poverty, improve the quality of life for people generally. Just, you know, as someone who is a real expert in this who helps sort of steer these, this money to the right places, can you help us understand what kind of programs that money actually, get spent on who runs them? How do they help? The only way these government, these programs help and reach the people that really need the help that we need to

reach is by going around the central governments. You know, time and time again, the central governments have proven no matter who is in charge, no matter who is in the administration. Yesterday's, today's leader looks very much like yesterday's leader. when it comes to corruption issues. So I think that the best way to spend taxpayers' dollars is to go directly to the source. I'm very happy that the Biden-Harris administration

has looked at the past to help inform, you know, the future and moving forward in the region. They looked at the best practices. And, you know, from what it looks like to me, they have really learned, you know, from the past. Number one, by addressing the issues, you know, of human rights, by ensuring that we prioritize working with civil society, working with nonprofit organizations that are actually on the ground

working with people about, you know, helping them to improve their conditions. That is the only way that we're going to reduce migration in the U.S., and ultimately, you know, that is our goal, right? You know, we're not just helping people because, you know, it's a decent thing to do, although for some of us, you know, that is a goal. But I think for, you know, the U.S. perspective, for homeland priorities, you know, our priorities are to reduce migration.

And it should be a priority for those governments to reduce the number of young people that are fleeing their region every single day. The young people that are coming north have proven to be, you know, their best asset. Unfortunately, they don't recognize that in the region. Yeah, I mean, look, to your point, like, I think the good news here is that, you know, improving the lives of people on the ground in a place like Guatemala will reduce, you know, migration, or at least people trying to seek asylum because they're so fearful that they need to leave their country. I do think that's good for everyone involved.

How do you grade USAID in its ability to sort of administer this kind of assistance? And do you have any recommendations for Samantha Power as she takes over as administrator? Absolutely. You know, I truly believe in USAID programs. I think that there are some improvement there. And that improvement comes in expanding the number of nonprofits that they, they work with, specifically the nonprofits that come from those regions. We need to be focused on ensuring that we are working with the people there so that they can see a future for themselves,

so that when we are helping to them recover from a hurricane, from a volcano eruption or an earthquake, that we are focusing those dollars directly in creating opportunities, job opportunities, for the people that have lost everything, there has to be skin in the game for them. They have to know that a contractor that is hired from any one of the capitals of those countries is going to come into their little town, but is going to create an opportunity for job training

and for those displaced workers to have a real shot at getting one of those jobs. otherwise they will continue to come north. You sort of alluded to this earlier. I mean, one of the challenges in foreign policy is working with flawed partners, flawed leaders, right? I mean, when I was in the White House, it was particularly challenging to deal with Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan because of corruption because he was a little off, if we're being honest. You have specifically called out the president of El Salvador for being corrupt, for being kind of a narcissist. I mean, how do you think the U.S. can or should work with or around like a flawed partner like him?

It is going to be very, very difficult for the U.S. to work with a partner like Bukle. You know, we don't have very many choices there. He is the president. He is very popular. I don't think that the people there truly understand that while, you know, he talks a good talk about creating opportunities for the people. When you really look, you know, underneath all of those words in black and white, you know, what can we point to, you know, absolutely nothing?

You know, he comes here to the U.S., pumping his chest and not, you know, necessarily addressing, you know, the driving force behind, you know, the people that are fleeing, his country. So you can have an army of trolls. You know, you can have an army of real soldiers. You can have an army of narco-traffickers. At the end of the day, none of that is going to score brownie points with the U.S.

We don't deal in those terms. We deal in addressing the humanitarian crisis, the humanitarian crisis of the region. We deal in empowering democracies, and we deal in ensuring that the rule of law is what drives these governments. And until they can display that, it's going to be very difficult to work directly with him. I mean, that is the reason why, you know, this year I cut off funding for the Salvadorian military, something that I have done for Guatemala and Honduras two years in a row.

You don't think Bitcoin is the answer to all of El Salvador's problems. If you're looking at opportunities to increase corruption, if you're looking for opportunities to launder the drug cartels funding, then I think Bitcoin is the way to go. Bitcoin is not going to help that tiny form. armor, you know, that is trying to make ends meet. They have no access to that. But there are other ways, I think, that we can work directly with these people.

Certainly, the Internet has provided, you know, a lot of opportunities. We only need to look to Africa where, you know, folks are, the poorest of the poor, are paying, you know, by using their cell phones, cell phone apps. And I think that, you know, it's smart for Vice President Kamlai Harris to be looking at all of those tools that we have at our disposal. Yeah, I was a little disappointed when I saw a bunch of, you know, Silicon Valley billionaires cheering Bucaly's announcement and embrace of Bitcoin. It's just those guys, the naive techno-evangelism just drives me crazy, but it seems to be a perennial thing. But I digress. So the backdrop of all

of this, right, is the U.S.'s role historically in the region. We have back. some terrible leaders. We have interfered in elections. We have funded military dictators. We have helped destabilize a lot of countries. We've led to help contribute it to a lot of deaths. How do you think U.S. officials can acknowledge that history while also, you know, still trying to like play this constructive role that you're describing to prod, you know, flawed leaders to improve or, or help, you know, countries help their people? It is unfortunate, 50 years of bad U.S. policy. in the region and we don't have to go back 50 years. You know, we could just go back to 2020 in the last four years of, you know,

literally looking the other way and allowing for institutions like SIS and Moxi, you know, that were created at the request of, you know, Guatemala and Honduras because they knew that they could not handle, They could not manage the issue of public corruption. And they reached out to the UN and said, you know, we're willing to accept this support because we recognize that we need to do better. Unfortunately, you know, those two institutions fell last year or two years ago. And now Csays in El Salvador, you know, has found its demise.

Again, because those institutions, you know, are rooted in a promise. that they could work independently, but that has not been the case because all three governments had interfered in those investigations as soon as they found themselves to be a part of those investigations. So, you know, I think that, you know,

to get back to your question, you know, it just becomes very difficult. But the U.S., is like any other country trying to do better, you know, by the people in the Northern Triangle region of Central America. We're certainly saving the lives of children that are being abandoned or thrown over, you know, our border fence at our southern border. We're investing millions and millions of dollars in ensuring that they are housed properly,

that they have access to health care when they are in our custody now and working very hard to reunite them with their family. So I think that the promise of better days ahead and a closer partnership and protection is there. But what the U.S. really needs right now, and I think that this was something that the vice president was trying to,

the message that she was trying to deliver in the region was, you know, give us a little bit of time to work with you. We need to do two things. Number one, we need to work on immigration reform here in the U.S. for the 11 million people that are already here. And at the same time, we are trying to reach you in the region and work directly with you to help you build up your business, to help you get that college degree, to have. help you get some support in training for a new job in the region. We stand ready to do that with them, but we need them, you know, to work directly with us in a way that is open and transparent. You know, my constituents, like every other taxpayer, you know, they want to help, but they want

to see how their money is being spent. So, you know, when the vice president was in Guatemala, I believe she said, you know, the message that kind of came out in the headlines was don't come. And some of your colleagues like AOC criticized that, said it was a disappointing message. I'm sort of like, I'm trained to hear the fuller context of that just because I sort of worked on these issues, right? Which was like, don't come because it is unsafe. You know, I believe associated with that visit, they also set up sort of an asylum information center that would help people sort of work through the process. But did that message in the way it landed? Did that bother you?

Did you think like, what tweaks, I guess, would you? you suggest they make, if any? So it bothered me in a way of how it affected or how my family, my husband and my children reacted, right? Which is, oh, my God, if they said that to you, you would not be here in the U.S. You would not be our mother. You would not have had an opportunity to be a member of Congress. So, you know, I have to explain, look, if you only listen to.

you those two, two, three words, I can totally see you why you're so upset and why you're responding this way. But you have to look at the totality of the work that she has been doing. And the bottom line is that, you know, I had an opportunity to meet with her at the White House and seek for myself and hear directly from her as to, you know, all the work that she did to get ready for the trip and what she has been doing since she returned from that trip. And that is meeting directly with former attorney generals that are here on asylum from the region, meeting with civil society groups, meeting, you know, with NGOs in the region, really targeting the people that cannot pay, you know, those millions of dollars,

like their governments have paid in lobbying firms to lobby against them. So, you know, the vice president has opened the door for, you know, people that have never had a voice before to be heard, to be listened, and for, you know, their input to be taken seriously. We've never had that before. So I think this is, it was taken out of context if you don't really listen and see the work behind those words. Yeah. So speaking of that sort of that broader works or gets me in my last question for you, which is, you know, I look at the totality of the Biden-Harris plan, at least the spending. It's like $4 billion over four years. That is by no means a small amount of money, right? But it can feel insignificant when compared to the losses from the pandemic or the losses from a catastrophic hurricane or like the potential losses from climate change over the next decade. I guess the question I have is how do you think the U.S. or people who really care, about these issues should think about what's possible when it comes to U.S. aid and how much we can

actually, you know, contribute to and improve things via that assistance. Like, how do we scope our ambition? I think we scope our ambition by working with our international partners, you know, that are already working in the region, the G-13 partners. I think that there is an opportunity there to, you know, double that money by ensuring that we focus that funding, you know, directly to the people that need that help. I think that we focus it by creating, as I stated before, job training opportunities and real jobs, you know, so people can see that they are responsible for building their bridges, building their roads, building, you know, their housing and infrastructure that they need

and that we are actually, you know, working for them to be a part of that solution, not just the U.S. alone, but working with international partners that have been also, you know, very generous in the region. But what we will not compromise is the transparency and accountability.

And that is where I think we will always butt heads with folks like Bukela. Yeah. Well, last last, last. question. So I saw that Buckele signed a like a 60-some-odd-billion-dollar year with the Chinese to invest in a bunch of infrastructure. Do you think if we just framed all of our U.S. assistance to Latin America or Central America as some sort of anti-China gambit, we could get a bunch of Republicans on board? Because it does seem like that really animates them these days. They're really excited to compete with China in many ways.

They're very excited to compete with China. They're not excited about upholding democracy or the rule of law. unfortunately. The U.S. will never be second to China. You know, are moral values, you know, what would stand time in these corrupt leaders? And, you know, I will stand by that. I came to this country because my parents didn't see a future for myself in Guatemala. You know, I was welcomed here. I had an opportunity for an education. I had an opportunity to work, I had an opportunity to have a family and I had an opportunity to be an American citizen. And here I am, you know, who would have known that that little girl would have had an opportunity to be a member of Congress?

That is the American dream that we need to fight for and that we will stand on against China any day. That's a great, great way to end it. Congressman, thank you so much for all the work you're doing. Thanks for joining the show. for folks who are not watching this on YouTube, you have a beautiful office and a beautiful district. So everyone should visit. Spend some money there.

How about that? Thank you, Tom. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. Take care. Thanks to Karnikourmet Torres for joining the show. Ben, thanks to your mom for having a very cool poster and leading us into the France section of the show.

You guys do anything cool? I mean, you know, I've got my kids with me, so I've basically been to every single corner of Central Park thus far, which is awesome. So that's been good. But I'll tell you, like, one, New York is, like, pretty normal, like, which is cool. I mean, like, people are out.

And, two, like, this mayor's race is, like, all over the place. I mean, you can't escape it here. Dude, you can't escape it. Also, like, the New York media bias is never more apparent than when there's sort of, like, a big municipal election going on. Like, you know,

like, the governor of California is getting recalled the fate of 50 million people sort of like rests in the hands of this effort. And it's like you barely hear about it. There's more fucking cicada recipe coverage than like West Coast drought coverage. It's just it's glared. So I'll say this. Like yeah, like Andrew Yang's campaign has basically gotten the same amount of coverage as like the Putin summit for reasons that like I don't quite understand. But you're right. It's like this total bias like the cicada thing. I mean how much like and like I was there last time there's cicadas like gross. I get it. I don't, I don't, we, get it. Like, there's some loud bugs and they're kind of gross, but like, like, you would think that

this is, this is not a national news story. Like, nobody who lives outside of D.C. gives a shit about this, right? So like, like, let's, like, just to center the Twitter discourse on cicadas and all the stuff, it's just like, I don't, you know, it's a good Washington Post metro story, you know? It hasn't rained in like six months in, in Southern California. It was like 105 degrees in Phoenix for 10 days in a row. Something has never happened before. climate impact is just everywhere. And it's just like not a part of the conversation. We're talking about bug recipes.

Yang, mayoral campaign, cicadas, and then climate change is like way down the list. Yeah. Yeah. Pizza rat or some other dumb shit. Well, I'm excited for you get back. I'm excited to visit New York, too. I'm going to go in a little bit. So I can't wait to be there.

But thanks everybody for tuning in. Talk to you next week. See you. See it. Pod Save the World is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by

Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seiglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Yale Freed, and Phoebe Bradford, who film and share our episodes as videos each week.