Pod Save the World - Israel’s Judicial Coup, and Samantha Power on Ukraine

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

Tommy and Ben talk about the gutting of Israel’s judicial system, and the (lack of) response from the US. They also discuss good-ish news from the elections in Spain, a US soldier who fled to North Korea, Putin’s crackdown on a far-right blogger, how Ron DeSantis and Senator Tommy Tuberville are hurting military recruiting, the UK’s fight with Apple, Saudi Arabia’s $1.1 billion soccer star, and doggie DNA passports in France. Then Ben talks to best friend of the pod Samantha Power, administrator of the US Agency for International Development about her recent visit to Ukraine, and the impacts of Russia pulling out of a vital grain initiative.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.Listen to a past Pod Save the World bonus episode on Israel, with Crooked Contributor Max Fisher.

Welcome back to Pots Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, my daughter rolled over from her belly to her back this morning. Congratulations. And you would have thought she passed the bar exam. That was the reaction. That was the reaction. Some people might say it's a greater achievement. It was impressive. I was very proud of her.

It's just the beginning of a long series of very exciting milestones. Long series of milestones and one of the first of many child colds. Sort of tearing through the house. Let's put an emphasis on many. I'm sorry to. tell you that you were just informing me that I will be sick for the next three years yeah the stomach bugs are the ones that caught me off guard because uh I didn't used to get those and suddenly when my kid went to daycare especially it was like it was like all hell broke loose in my household it was like living in florida with ronda sandas lifting uh shutting shutdowns uh it was not good oh man uh speaking and not

good we got a lot of stories of cover today ben uh we're going to start with b bd ntonyahu's effort to gut the power of israel supreme court in the u.s response or non-response as it as it were better than expected elections in Spain, the U.S. soldier who ran across the DMZ into North Korea, Putin's arrest of a far-right telegram influencer, Ron DeSantis in the military, Apple and privacy in the UK, and a bunch of other issues, including Kulian Mbapes' $1.1 billion transfer offer? Yeah. That's making even my Mets payroll look small. That's a lot of cash. And then you guys are going to hear Ben's conversation with, dare I say, a best friend of the show. I said that. I introduced her as the best friend of the pod.

See, I didn't hear that. Symptychoteco. Samantha Power, USAID administrator. Yeah, so Samantha was just in Ukraine. And so we talked about the Russian obstruction or withdrawal and obstruction of the grain initiative, which was one of the focal points for a trip. A pretty harrowing description of going to Odessa. Samantha was one of the first, maybe the first senior U.S. official to get out of Kiev and get down to Odessa, which also came under attack kind of while she was there.

We talk a bit about how she's looking at the Republican opposition to funding for Ukraine. And what's her take on that? And also like how she answers some of the criticism that Ukraine is taking up so much of U.S. bandwidth relative to other parts of the world. It's a great interview as always. I learned a lot. It's a great explainer on what's happening with the Green Initiative. It's a great window into what it's like to be in Ukraine right now. And her dog, you know, USAID administrators are just like us.

Her dog was barking in the background a bit. I think he did not like my question about withdrawing assistance from Ukraine, the Republican Party. Oh, stick around for that. Yeah, listen to the dog. We have a dog-related story at the very back of this show. Oh, and she made news. She announced a new initiative. Oh, nice.

Wait for that. Stick around for that. It is a pretty gutsy decision to go to Odessa. I think Odessa is a port city. A lot of the grain comes out of their. A lot of shipping goes in and out of Odessa. And I think the Russians thought, we're going to take Odessa. Let's not blow up the infrastructure.

And now since the grain initiative blew up, they are bombing the shit out of Odessa. And I imagine it's pretty scary. Yeah, that's exactly what Sam was saying. Is it like they kind of didn't bomb this infrastructure during the course of the grain initiative because they were a part of that, obviously. But since they've pulled out, not only is that bad for the green initiative, but it's put Odessa tragically back in the crossairs. Terrible. Terrible. Well, I'm very excited to hear, Sam, as always.

Ben, do you like advertisements? Usually. I like my carry-in with shoes. I like any number of things, yeah. I regret to inform you that you're currently listening to one, but if you want ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, you can get them by joining our friends of the pod subscription community at Kirka.com slash friends. Also, if you like books, and I know you do, and you live in L.A., come see me on July 27th at Dynasty Typewriter.

I'm having a conversation with Lydia Kiesling about her new book, Mobility, which is available to pre-order now. Ben, it turns out that Lydia grew up in a foreign service family. Her dad, foreign service officer. Very on brand. Very well, though. Resigned in protest in 2003 over the Iraq War. What a hero. I know.

So she's a badass author, wrote a great book. From a badass family. It's just a badass foreign service officer. That's great. So I'm very excited about that. Should we get to the news? Let's do it. So this week, Israeli Prime Minister, Bibi and Yahoo.

finally succeeded in ramming through the first part of what could be a three-part overhaul to Israelist judicial system. So on Monday, the coalition voted to get rid of the reasonableness standard, which is a process that allows Israeli Supreme Court to invalidate both appointments and policy decisions made by the government. Now, you might hear this, Ben, and think the Supreme Court deciding if something is reasonable or not sounds a bit subjective. I think Bibi Netanyahu would agree with you. I think some liberals would say there's room to reform the reasonable. of this standard, but to understand how it works, the courts use the reasonableness standard to look at decisions made by the government to say, was it the right people deciding, right, the transportation minister isn't making like an education policy, was it the right process, was it done in accordance

with the Israeli case law? The standard is very rarely used when it comes to these policy decisions. My guy, Amir Tibone from Aretz, not the best one I've done. We were DMing this morning. He said the most famous case where reasonableness was invoked on policy. happened in 2006 when the government adopted a policy to provide bomb shelters to schools near the border with Gaza and then decided not to implement their own policy and refused to build the bomb shelters because there wasn't enough money. So residents sued. The Supreme Court said, yeah, that's unreasonable, extremely unreasonable to leave a bunch of kids without bomb shelters in contravention of your own policy. But the reasonableness standard is more frequently used when it

comes to appointments. And that is critical because Israel doesn't have a Senate to vet appointment. like we do with nominees, the government appoints ministers, and the reasonableness standard is the only way to prevent. Unqualified people from getting those jobs. A recent example was back in January. Netanyahu tried to install a guy named Arja Derry, the leader of the right-wing ultra-orthodox Shah's party to be his interior and health minister, even though this same guy had had the same job and repeatedly committed crimes while in office and had to cut a plea agreement, saying you'd never serve in public office again if... Seems disqualifying. Yeah, so long explanation there.

Seems unreasonable. Seems unreasonable to me, too. So, Ben, the big question is what comes next? I was talking with my guy, Yair Rosenberg, at the Atlantic this morning about this. He said everyone is basically waiting to see what the Supreme Court itself does because they could invalidate the Kness move to get rid of the reasonableness standard. And then it's like, brave new world. If the change is implemented, the question becomes, do the protests continue? Is there a strike?

Does the military not show up for service? and does BB continue to push through the rest of these judicial reforms? So that's my very long-winded lay of the land, but I want to shut up and get your reaction to all of this madness. Well, look, I think this is really bad for a couple reasons. I mean, the first is, you know, as we discussed in our special episode on Israel, and as Max Fisher emphasized in that episode, Israel doesn't have a constitution like the United States as a written constitution.

So they don't have built-in checks and balances in the same way that we do. They have a single legislature that conness it, right? So not a House and a Senate, just one legislative body and a prime minister who's the leader of the coalition that has a majority in that body. And so if the prime minister can hold together his coalition and a vote, literally the only check whatsoever on the power of that coalition, which, by the way, as was pointed out in your very good interview last week, was elected with. a minority of votes, right? The Supreme Court, the courts are the only check on what that coalition can do. And so the reason, you know, withdrawing like one major brick of a check on that body is basically beginning to dismantle any check and balance on what is the most far-right

government in Israel's history, right? So if you are an Israeli who is, you know, not represented in that coalition, If you are an Arab Israeli citizen who's worried about your rights being taken away. Never mind if you're a Palestinian who's worried about the expansion of settlements that the court is sometimes blocked, you're waking up today much more concerned. Absolutely. That there's no voice for you in the system. And that as in an autocratic system, if the autocrat, in this case, Bibi and his extreme coalition,

decide to do things you don't like, you have nowhere to turn. There's no recourse here, you know? And so that's the first point. And the second point I make is you have to look at the intent of the people. people making the reforms. Oh, absolutely. These are not good government types. You're like, yeah, there's a better way of doing the reasonable standard.

And they are open about it. Yeah, these are people who are very open about the fact that they want to turn Israel into a full bore religious, ethno-nationalist state, right, in which, you know, Arab-Israeli citizens are second-class citizens, in which a two-state solution is eviscerated, and in which a hyper kind of religious agenda dominates over some of the more secular identity of Israel manifested in places like Tel Aviv. And so the intent matters here because their intent is not to reform something that could work better. Their intent is to do the same thing that like a Victor Orban has done in Hungary, which is to eat through an electoral victory, frankly, Orban won by more than they did, and then methodically dismantle any checks and balances so that they can essentially transform the nature of Israel from a democracy to an illiberal autocracy.

And, you know, that sounds alarmist. And sure, if they stopped here, it's bad and could be worse, but like, why would they stop here? Like, like, I just didn't know. They keep telling us what they're going to do. That's right. They keep telling us that they're going to ran through all this crap, you know. The reason you're not at all alarmist is because Bibi Nanyahu is usually savvy, I think, got pushed along by an even more right-wing coalition and tried to do not just this little piece of his judicial reform, but try to do the whole thing at once, which included changing how judges are chosen to get the ruling party more control over how. picking those judges. First thing that Orban did, by the way, after he took power in 20-13. Yeah, it's the playbook. Same playbook. And then the Netanyahu coalition wanted to pass a law that said a simple majority in the Knesset can overrule a Supreme Court decision. So basically

there's no point in having a Supreme Court. There's also sort of like a class element to this. If you read a lot of the reporting, the courts are more liberal. They're seen as more educated. So are some of the striking people, by the way, like Air Force pilots. And Bibi's coalition is this kind of like right-wing orthodox, kind of MAGA-like, if we're being honest, a group of people. And there's a real question of whether Netanyahu is losing control. There's this now kind of iconic image of BB sitting in the Knesset. On his one side is his defense minister. On the other is the justice minister.

And they're just screaming over him about these changes. And he's sitting there. And he literally just had a pacemaker put in during all of this. Like that didn't slow this psychopath down. So I think the thing a lot of people are wondering is what comes next, right? Does he fire? Does Netanyahu, who is facing three corruption cases? Does he fire the Attorney General?

Does he strip away some power from the Attorney General? Do these protests continue? There were 28 weeks of protests. And, you know, last night or two nights ago, Ben, there were images of these protesters getting brutalized in ways that, frankly, looked like how security forces treat Palestinians in the occupied territories daily. Yeah.

First of all, with Netanyahu, like, you have to remember that this man is, above all, usually interested in the perpetuation of his own power. and at every single turn in his career, he has always chosen the right, and I mean right in the political sense, right-word pathway to cling to power. There's nothing about Bibi Nainiao that suggests that at some moment he's going to stand up and discipline the far-right members of his coalition and take the greater interest of Israel at heart. He's cast his lot with a bunch of extremists, and we've detailed how extremists these people are repeatedly. but that's the direction he's going. And there's no reason to think.

He's been telling us who he is for a very long time. Since the 90s. Yeah, and one of the things is so frustrating to me, and I've ran about it before, so I'll just miny rant about it now is that, like if you said these things out loud, if you said 10 years ago or 15 years ago, this guy is a far right politician

who has no interest in a Palestinian state and no interest in Israeli democracy relative to his own power. It was like, oh, God, how dare you say that? How could you insult our saccharaccent? ally Israel. No, it's not about Israel the people. It's about this guy and his coalition. They're a bunch of far-right people that are interested in dismantling Israeli democracy. They tell us this over and over and over again, and we just kind of choose not to hear it or we choose to think that somehow that momentum is going to get arrested on its own. It's not. This is what's happening. They didn't care that

these people protested. Sure, it slowed it down, but didn't stop them from doing what they want to do. The other thing, you make this really important point, the images are chilling. It's like people with water hoses, you know, security forces, clearing squares without regard to kind of the safety of some of the people, beating people. Look, occupation, military occupation for decades that has gotten worse of Palestinian territories. I mean, this is, you know, a provocative statement I've seen a number people make, but I think it's true. That was always going to come into Israel. And it's a training ground for where security forces work. If this becomes, if you normalize treating other human beings that way.

And if you normalize a kind of securitization of a kind of nationalist parent of politics, that was ultimately going to migrate from the West Bank to Israel proper. And that's exactly what's happened. And as you pointed out, this is a diverse country, right? Just because it's a Jewish state, not only is it diverse in the sense that they're Arab citizens of Israel and Christian Muslim citizens of Israel, but also like the difference between, you know, a liberal somewhat second. Jew in Tel Aviv and like a settler,

ultra-Orthodox settler, is the same as the difference between someone sitting here in Hollywood and somebody in rural West Virginia who has like 20 guns, right? And so this is fundamentally an effort to alter the character of the state of Israel more than anything that I think we've seen in our lifetimes. And it's happening. And it will take probably the only thing that could stop it is if these protests continue at a scale. And if, and I know we get to this, there's some external pressure that slows the process down.

So I agree with that. And so, you know, I think the first thing we're all watching is what the Supreme Court does, but also everyone is watching what the U.S. does. I mean, not just in the U.S. and Israel, but globally. And so, you know, last week, President Biden invited B.B. Netanyahu to the U.S. They had a phone call where apparently they talked about the judicial coup. True to form Ben, Netanyahu put out this misleading. readout of this call that made it seem like Biden no longer objected to the judicial changes. So in response, the White House got pissed. They called in Tom Friedman to talk to Biden for an hour.

That's just funny when he said out of loud. To make clear the Biden... They were like playing the role of cab driver. Yeah, the world is flat. But they call in Friedman to do an interview with Biden, to clarify Biden's positions and make clear that Biden is not happy about BB ramming through these changes. They have no popular support, et cetera, et cetera. They also gave a statement to Barack reviewed at Axios to, you know, U.S.-based outlets, I think it might have been good also to talk to Haretz, you know, right in power, like a progressive. Brock's old employer. Yeah, you're right.

But like, listen, no shade of those two. But so, of course, you know, Netanyahu ignores Biden's advice to slow down and push this through the changes anyways. So the question is, how does the U.S. respond? Two former U.S. ambassadors to Israel told Nick Christoff at the New York Times that it's time for the U.S. to cut military aid to Israel. They argue that Israel's economy is strong. They don't need aid and that the U.S. doesn't get any leverage or influence over Israeli decisions about the use of force from that aid and that we are seen as enablers of the occupation.

I think all of that is unequivocally true. But the White House has signaled that we should not expect any consequences in response to this first ditching of the reasonableness standard. And Biden tends to bend over backwards to avoid public fights with Nanyahu. So it gets us to this question of leverage. I will admit then, like hand up that like I was very annoyed that there wasn't more public pressure on BV in part because I don't like him. I think he's a racist, corrupt person and a bad leader. I guess it's unknowable if more U.S. pressure would have stopped him or stopped this,

given that B.B. is kind of captive of his coalition to some extent. But I think it would have been worth trying. And I don't like the idea of the U.S. not standing up for, I don't know, democratic values or treating B.B. with kid gloves when you've got. protesters on the street for 28 weeks getting the shit kicked out of them who are holding up signs saying Biden save us. So I do think more could have been done here. But I don't know. You got a hot take? Yeah. I mean, my hot take is like let's roll back the tape and look at what happened in the couple weeks leading up to this transformative moment for Israeli democracy where a far right

ethno-nationalist coalition that is determined to eradicate any potential of Palestinian state rammed through their changes. We welcome the Israeli president, Buzia Herzog, to address a joint session of Congress in which there was kind of a, you know, the normal, you know, competition to show how much you were devoted to applaud any platitude about Israel and the U.S. being shared values, blah, blah, blah, blah. There was an invitation extended to Bibi Netanyahu to visit the White House by Joe Biden. So despite the readout to Tom Friedman, like, I think the fact that right in the middle of this debate, you know, B.B.'s invited to Washington to the Oval Office sends a much more powerful

message than, you know, like a phone call the Tom Friedman. And the U.S. Congress, including overwhelming support from the Democratic Party, passed a stupid and pointless resolution about Israel not being racist or something to kind of brush back Representative Jaiphal. No, Jaya, yeah. You know, like, which I'm not endorsing what he said, but is that really, like, they could have passed a resolution saying. that Israel should not do this. What is accomplished by passing that way?

The message from that resolution, the message from that invitation to BB, and the message from the way that Buzi Herzeg, who I like a lot more than Bibi, so it's not against him, but like the collective messages, the politics in this country are no different today than they were 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago. In fact, they are ever more in the direction of whatever A PAC or pro-Bee, Netanyahu people in Washington want, which is that we unconditionally say, Israel can do whatever the fuck it wants. And the only thing that U.S. politicians are going to do is compete with one another to

hug these people no matter what they do, right? That's not what we should be doing. Oh, but at the same time, like the Barack Ravid and, you know, when I was in government, I used to call bureaucracy and read them out. He's great reporter. Yeah, he's great reporter. But like that's such an elite insular conversation, right? That is like Tom Friedman, Brock Ravid, that's like you're talking to, you know,

a very small number of people who follow this thing closely. That's not like reaching a wide audience. That's a way of kind of covering your tracks with like a certain elite conversation. What can you do? Disinvite Bebeenhani, right? Criticize this much more forthrightly. Say that we are going to be looking at our assistance relationship based on the direction of Israel's democracy. If you and I, way back in, you know, 2019, I think, were at a J Street conference asking every Democratic presidential candidate that we could get, whether they would condition assistance on things.

like annexing the West Bank. Like, this should be on the table too. Absolutely. This is the number one recipient of U.S. foreign assistance in the world, I guess Ukraine right now is more, but in terms of regular basis, we're talking on order of nearly $4 billion, if not more than that a year. We should not, we should say we're not going to give you all that assistance if you ran through the rest of these reforms. Like, why not? Like, if we're for democracy, if our entire foreign policies about democracies versus autocracies, why would we continue to subsidize a government that is going down the path of autocracy. It doesn't make any sense. And by the way, it's not like they are a poor country that is in desperate to eat at money. It's a wealthy country that we give money to

prove something. You know, like, so I think everything, you know, like we're not going to ever not, you know, not suggesting we like terminate this, you know, tomorrow. I'm saying we have all these points of leverage. People say, well, we don't really have leverage. We've never tried to use it. You don't talk about it. Well, and, you know, there is, the, their response. you hear a lot is the U.S. should not be meddling in or talking about domestic Israeli political matters. And the reason I think that is silly is because we all know what in total these changes to the Israeli judicial system would do and what they would allow, which is full annexation of the West Bank, the continued occupation, all kinds of challenges that, as Amir Tebowin said

last week, would arrive on the U.S. doorstep pretty quickly. The same, and the other thing, that's a very good point, which is that these domestic changes are going to change their foreign policy, right? For sure. The Palestinians and other things. I'd also say the people that make this argument constantly about how we should never meddle in Israel's domestic politics had no problem with Bibi Netanyahu constantly meddling in American politics, right? Literally coming here without the invitation of a U.S. president to address Congress to oppose Barack Obama's signature foreign policy at the time. And that's not the only time that B.B. Naniaz meddle in U.S. politics. Same what you believe is meddling.

Yeah, this is a bunch of bullshit, right? This is a bunch of people hiding behind norms that nobody abides by, right? And the reality is, if we are going to give $4 billion a year, like, we should be able to have a point of view. And I would say that if you truly care about Israel, you know, which I do, you know, the members of Congress who are usually defending, you know, Israel, talk about how it's so important to defend this democracy in the Middle East and all this stuff. Well, if you care about Israel and its democracy, how can you look at the mirror? Yeah. How can you look in the mirror and do nothing to defend that democracy? These people on the streets in Israel are doing a hell of a lot more to stand up for Israeli democracy

than American politicians who mouth platitudes about Israeli democracy while doing nothing, while those people are getting like water cannon, you know. So I would argue that the pro-Israel pro-Israeli democracy position would be to try to do more to help these people in Israel who are trying to stand up for democratic values because there's no reason that this, like, extremist far-right government is permanent, right? We should want that not to become the permanent character of the Israeli state, not just for our own sake, but for the sake of Israel democracy

and all the people that are in the streets trying to defend it. Absolutely. Well, I'm sure we'll be covering this repeatedly over the next few weeks. But speaking of the fate of democracy, Ben, let's turn to Spain, where they just had an election on Sunday. Many people going into this election were afraid that, Spain's center-right party would win the most seats in the election, but not win enough to form a government and that they would end up forming a coalition with the far-right nationalist Vox party. Now, Vox isn't Ezra Klein and Madaglacius. Vox is terrible. Max-Fisher, by the way, didn't he start a Vosier, by the way. Max-Fisher, by terrible anti-

We should give him shit about that. Yeah, Max, why are you anti-immigrant? Why did you found a far-right Spanish political party? I didn't know you been to Spain. You know, but Voxes like anti-immigrant, they're anti-LGBT rights, they're hostile to the EU. And like, Spain has a very scary, very recent history with right-wing fascism under Franco. So this is like, you don't want to mess around with these kind of parties. The good news is that didn't happen.

Vox actually lost seats. So now the center-right pee-pee party, which is funny to say. And the current prime minister, I know, I know, I know. And the current prime minister in the center left socialist party, they're both going to try to cut deals with smaller regional parties to cobble together 176 seats to have a majority in the legislature to run the government. So, Ben, how you feel about this outcome? The question I have is whether Vox's stumbles had to do with issues specific to Spain,

in particular the prime minister's pretty like deft handling of cattle and independence and kind of diffusing that issue, which a lot of people think led to, Vox's rise versus a broader trend and maybe struggles for these far-right parties. That's me wishcasting. No, I think the wishcasting is true to a point because, you know, what we've seen is in a lot of these countries, there's kind of like a ceiling on these particularly odious far-right parties, right? Like, so the AFD, the Nazis in Germany, like they kind of top out about 10%.

You know, Vox is kind of top in around 15. The Uber right-wing party in the Netherlands usually top star. out at 10 to 15 percent. And, you know, Marine Le Pen has gotten a little more than that, but, like, she's tried to moderate. She tried to play the same game that, you know, we've seen in Italy, but, like, that still hasn't allowed her to get over the threshold of winning an election. So I think there is something to the reality that, you know, there's a difference between kind of center-right, national sentiments and anti-immigrant politics that have allowed kind of certain right-wing leaders to come to power in parts of Europe, you know, particularly in central and eastern

Europe, a little bit more right wing. But in some of these Western European countries, there's kind of a ceiling on the far right. I think in terms of what happens next in Spain, it's such a split election, though, that there could be, there was a previous election a few years ago where it took them forever. It took a long time. Yeah. Among the uncertainty is, you know, Spain is one of the countries that has the rotating presidency of the EU right now. So you'd like to have a little bit more stability there. You know, I worry a bit about just kind of like a bit of a dysfunction and coalition forming and but like the worst case scenario was averted and that's important. Yes, absolutely. I'll take some good news where I can find it. Here's our weirdest story of the day,

I think. So last week, a U.S. soldier on a tour of the demilitarized zone or the DMZ, the area between North and South Korea, decided to leave a tour and sprint across the border and into North Korean custody. So this guy's name was Private Travis T. King. His motives aren't clear yet. We know that he's a 23-year-old private second class. He's been in the Army since 2021, serving as a cavalry scout at a base in South Korea near the DMZ. He had recently spent 47 days in a South Korean jail for beating someone up at a club in Seoul last September, I believe, and then I think he kicked the car of the cop car of the cop car that came, like broke the cop car. Yeah, he got in some real trouble. So this guy was in South Korean detention for a while. He got out on July 10th. Then he spent a week sort of under

observation at a U.S. military base. He was supposed to return to the U.S. on July 17th. where he likely would have been disciplined further or kicked out of the army. U.S. officials escorted him to the airport, but not to his gate because they didn't have tickets. And so instead of flying back to Texas, King left the airport, spent 12 hours finding his way to a tour of the DMZ and then fled to North Korea. The North Koreans haven't said anything publicly about what happened. The U.S. government says they've reached out North Korean officials via the U.N., but haven't heard back. I think people are wondering, is this a guy going through like a mental health crisis? Is this defection?

Is this someone like coordinating with North Korean intelligence and been working on this for a while? Apparently there was a van waiting for him on the North Korean side of the border, which suggests there was some degree of planning, but who knows? Maybe that van is always there. Like, what do I know? So Ben, if King defected or I guess regardless, I'm sure the North Koreans will get some limited intelligence out of him, but probably, hopefully nothing too sensitive, although the Discord leaks taught us that anything can happen.

The Wall Street Journal had a great piece on sort of the history of these incidents. At least six U.S. military service members have defected to North Korea over the past several decades. Army Sergeant Charles Jenkins defected in 1965 and was used in propaganda for nearly 40 years before finally getting to Japan and returning American defectors are apparently cast as evil American soldiers in these North Korean like adjut prop films about the war. The scarier example is. I didn't. That's interesting. Isn't that interesting? Yeah.

Yeah, you become like a movie star. You become a movie star in the worst way possible. You're just like, all right, now you're evil again. They don't really get to, you know, extend yourself or learn your craft. Yeah. The scarier example is Otto Warm Beer, who is an American student, arrested in North Korea when he, I think, ripped down a political poster. He was then beaten and or denied medical care that led to brain damage and his death in 2017. So, Ben, this is a huge mess, and it doesn't sound like one that will be resolved anytime soon.

But I don't know if you have thoughts. Well, we don't know, like you said, I mean, it's hard to judge when you don't know whether this person had like a real mental health issue or whether they just had a, you know, nefarious intention to defect and potentially share information with North Korea. Either way, like, I guess the observations I'd make are, first of all, never a good bet to think that it's going to turn out better for you in North Korea. No. You know, like just like uniformly across the board, whatever this guy thought he was looking at. back home or whatever he didn't like about the U.S. or South Korea, like, he's not going to find anything better over there, you know. And so, and I don't mean that in any humorous way, like, it's tragedy for whatever informed his judgment, it's not going to turn out well. I think the other point

that, you know, we've talked to, you know, oftentimes there's, and I'll be careful here, but like there's a huge umbrella put over anybody that is detained in foreign countries as, you know, they're all hostages. But like there's differences here. You know, like we've talked about the differences between like a journalist who's detained like Evan Gerskowitz and in Russia or Jim Foley in Syria even like a journalist even trying to cover like a tough spot like that. Or Laura Ling, who was taken hostage by the North Koreans in, when was that, 2008, 2009? 2009 she gets out. Then there's like people that maybe let's just say exercise some poor judgment, right? Like the hikers, you know, that we dealt with.

Which, I'm not trying to attack them or anything, but these guys actually hiked into Iran. These guys accidentally hiked in Iran. And that, like, you know, that's a weird place to go hiking, you know, but I'm glad they got home and it was important. And it was important to try to get them home. But like, and then this is, you know, the far end of the other spectrum, which is that this person chose to do this for whatever reason. And so, you know, obviously the U.S. should be concerned about a safety.

You should be trying to get them home. But, like, I just think it's a different category than people that are taken in. other circumstances and that informs how you approach it, you know. So, like, I hope he's released on kind of humanitarian grounds. Maybe the North Koreans will come to realize that, you know, he's not the next movie star for their anti-American word flicks or whatever, but like it seems like this person needs some help. But don't do this. Like, I just remember when I was in government, you know, sometimes you would just think, like

you want to tell someone like don't take this risk or don't do this thing and think that the U.S. is automatically going to be able to bring you home, you know, because that's not always the case. Yeah, she's not the capacity. I mean, like in the case of Laura Ling, who we mentioned earlier, I mean, President Obama had to send Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton, which was a big get for Kim Jong-il at the time. Yeah, those propaganda photos are still surfacing and they're not funny, but it's like you can tell in the photos that everyone in the Clinton entourage was told wear a black suit, like you're going to a funeral and do not smile.

And none of them are smiling. Yeah, Ben, I think this, I just worried this guy's going to be held for a very long time. Yeah. It reminds me of the Bo Bark Dog case, who is, you know, he walked out. Who was also a guy with some problems. Yeah, yeah, yeah, who's helped for five years. As long as we're talking about North Korea, I did just want to shout out two stories worth reading.

The first is a Washington Post story about Yonmi Park, a North Korean defector who has become a darling of the right-wing media circuit. For example, Ben, I was trying to make sure I was pronouncing her name correctly and I YouTube it and I found her conversation at the Ein Raine Institute. So there you go. But she likes to claim. You and Paul Ryan. Yeah, me and Paul Ryan were there.

She likes to claim that evil woke people are going to turn the U.S. into North Korea, basically. And the actual... She's like, very interesting story, actually. I've read about this too. Like, there's such a splendoring of media that I sometimes are these people that are like very famous in right wing media. And I've never heard of them.

And I like discovered her and didn't realize she was like this phenomenon, you know. I didn't either. And she became famous first in South Korea where she sort of was on this reality show and told her story. But North Korean scholars have questioned a lot of her assertions and have noticed that her story has changed a lot since the audience became the United States and her right-wing influencers here versus South Korea. It kind of happened with the Chinese dissident. Yes. Yes, sure did. I'll go to that later.

Yeah. And also there was an amazing story. The BBC somehow managed to communicate with three North Koreans. living in the country over the course of several months to learn about what life has been like there since they closed the border in 2020 because of COVID. And it is just unimaginably awful. And I just think it's great reporting, one, by the BBC and worth reading to remember like the character of the guy that Trump is constantly praising on truth social or whatever. That's true. I mean, North Korea can be this kind of cartoon character, right? There's Kim Jong-un.

And then there's like, you know, crazy propaganda videos that, I mean, I've spent, you know, 30 minutes watching. Oh, me too. Newcasters, like, you know, moaning about Kim Young. Moist because Danny Russellson, but underneath that, right, there are people, millions of people living basically in hell on earth, right? Like, no freedoms, deeply impoverished, malnutrition.

Like, the most chilling stuff I've ever read about is people aren't even aware, you know, of like an alternative world or history. And the only economy was like the black market smuggling economy. And when they shut the border, that went away. and people just literally had nothing. Yeah, so keep that in mind next time you hear about, you know, Trump talking about what good buddies is with this guy. Yeah, speaking of Trump's buddies.

So you are going to talk a lot more about Russia and Ukraine in the interview with Samantha Power. But we did want to do some quick update. So the first is that Russian security services arrested this far right ultra-nationalist, former FSB intelligence officer turned telegram star, telegram commentator named Igor Gherkin. Back in 2014, Gherkin helped lead Russia's invasion of Crimea. and he worked as a commander of separatist forces in the eastern Ukraine and Donbos region. A Dutch court convicted him of facilitating

the transfer of Russian service to air missiles from Russia to Ukraine that were used to shoot down Malaysian Flight 17, so he's a very bad guy. He is one of those super nationalist right-wing bloggers that we've talked about a lot of times on the show who have been allowed to criticize the military from the right for being incompetent,

for not being harsh enough, they're like nuke him, whatever. But he appears to have lost his fucking mind after the progosian mutiny and started criticizing Putin himself in harsh ways. So Ben, this is from the Financial Times. Gherkin on his blog has called progoshin a traitor and ridiculed Putin's decision to meet with him and other Wagner commanders just days after the mutiny, suggesting it was a sign of weakness on the president's part. So quote from Gherkin, wretched whining complaints about partners for a very, very long time. The president's rhetoric does not even remotely resemble

a traditional male standard. The country will not survive another six years with his cowardly mediocrity and power. And the only useful thing he could do before the end is to ensure the transfer of power to someone truly capable and responsible. So that'll get you killed. Not a deal. It's a lot of like kind of toxic masculinity swirling around these guys like Kirk and Putin progression.

But like I think this is important. I did too. First of all, this is like an important guy, right? Like I knew about this guy back in 2014-15. I mean, he was one of the people that was kind of fin of. lamenting this Potemkin, you know, separatists in eastern Ukraine rising up. I mean, he was like a commander. He was like a real figure. He wasn't just like a guy with a blog on television. He was like Tucker Carlson. Yeah. Yeah. Tucker had a militia and like the Donboss, right? Right, exactly.

Which maybe Tucker, actually that may happen. Yeah. Maybe the next, the next is the next TV show. His new media company, right? Yeah. So this is not like just some guy with a blog. This is a guy with like a, you know, a history. But to me, the important point is that like Putin is now looking over. He's looking over his shoulder at the liberals. He's looking over his shoulder now at the right wing guys who are starting to criticize his manhood and his capacity to rule. He's looking over at, you know, progosian and Belarus. Like, this is not going well for him. There's starting to be a multiplicity of people that don't want to see Putin in charge of Russia such that he's putting all these different people in jail, you know. And post-Progion, the idea that somehow Putin, you know, was just as strong, like, no, this is,

this is a guy who's worried, right? Like, you don't throw people in jail for things on telegram unless you feel like there's a real threat emanating from that person, right? And so to me, I'd watch this space, like, of, like, is Putin's now cracking down on the far right, just like he had to crack down on liberals? And that's a guy who's getting weaker. He's basically on like an island that is shrinking, you know? And that's never a place you want to be in a totalitarian system. He's also doing this at a time when they're increasing conscription. So they raise the age of who can be drafted into the military for a mandatory one year of service from age 18 to 27 to age 18 to 30.

This new law also forbids men from leaving Russia on the day they were called to a conscription office. They're trying to get after the draft Dodgers. And they also made a change so that senior officers as old as 70 could be called back into service. It used to be 65. Jesus Christ. What's going on? I missed that. That piece of it.

Yeah, I mean, look, that will make more people unhappy. right like that will I mean look that that that may frankly in the very short term help them throw some more bodies at the front line so I'm sure you know it's not good for Ukraine to be dealing with this kind of larger well of conscripts coming from Russia but I think over time it erodes Putin's position because it's more people are unhappy it's more households that are losing somebody it's more of the economy that's taking hit I'm sure more people will emigrate and try to get out of Russia because of this even though they're being told they can't they'll

still find a way So, you know, again, none of this suggests a guy that is really confident in his position either militarily in Ukraine or politically in Russia. Also, it's just worth pointing out that Ukraine, the Ukrainians reportedly launched on their drone attack on Moscow and on Crimea. And the Russians are harassing U.S. drones over Syria. So on July 23rd, there's now video out of this all over Twitter, a Russian fighter jet launched flares at an American Reaper drone that I think was doing counter ISIS work. Syria region, the flares hit the propeller, damaged the thing. And I raise this because, like, you and I were in a couple of meetings back in the day when folks at the Pentagon recommended incredibly hawkish, kind of scary, intense responses when I think it was the Iranians were

messing with an American drone. I can only imagine what the conversations about actually damaging this thing are like right now. I just think, again, it speaks to like these multiple escalation risks. The Ukrainians, as we've talked about, going to continue to try to strike into Russia, continue to try to strike deep into Crimea, I'm sure they want to blow up that bridge connecting Crimea to Russia. The Russians are fucking around in Syria where we obviously have a lot of military assets, including some troops on the ground. Like there's just like the more this war goes on, instability in Russia and flashpoints in these different places, you know, are going to be increasingly coming to the forefront. For sure. So last week we talked about some of the Republican

24 candidates and their views on Ukraine. We, We didn't spend a lot of time on Ron DeSantis, but lucky for us as part of his slow rolling disaster that they're calling a campaign reset, let Ron be Ron. He's doing more interviews. So here's a clip of Jake Tapper talking with DeSantis about his claim that wokeness is harming military recruiting. The Army did this survey. I'll give you a copy of it if you want. They haven't released it, but I got my hands on a copy. And it looked at, it surveyed people, I think 16 to 28 barriers to service and beyond the ones such as don't want to die, don't want to be injured, don't want to be away from my family.

The biggest issues were the number two issue, women and racial or ethnic minorities are discriminated against in the Army. Wokeness is listed here, but it's only number nine. So that would suggest that wokeness is not as big. Well, but I think there's an issue about, like, not even one really knows what wokeness is. I mean, I've defined it, but a lot of people who rail against wokeness can't even define it. And so I think it's a sense of, you know, this is not something that's holding true to the core martial values that make the military unique. his voice is so goddamn annoying. It's just hard to react to anything with that.

You just start to hear his voice and you kind of want to punch his voice. Yeah. Yeah. Like not him himself. Like so it should be clear. Maybe both. But like the voice is just like, it sounds like the voice of a man who changes the curriculum to celebrate the work created by slavery.

You know, like this just sounds like the smarmy prick in the world. What a shocker that racism and sexism are far more of an issue. By the way, Joe Biden recently selected Admiral Lisa Franchetti to lead the U.S. Navy. If confirmed, she would be the first woman to be a service chief in the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But her nomination was immediately blocked by our favorite Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, who is mad that the U.S. military is supporting members of the military who need abortion services. But yeah, man, awokenness is your issue. I mean, this is going to drive away, I think, more potential female recruits than anything else.

Ronda Santas is talking about. Yeah, I mean, the military, like, their insistence on imposing their culture war on the military is both completely divorced from the reality of actually being in the military. Like Jake points out, like nobody's actually that worried about this there. But it's also, it is going to muck around with recruiting on all manner fronts, right? You and I've been going back and forth. On the one hand, I think there are going to be these, like, proud boys who don't want to join the military anymore because they're in that small number of people who are concerned about like woke issues.

On the other end, there are women who are like, if there's a Republican president one day, am I going to, you know, not be able to get reproductive health care? So, like, they're just, they need to back off, you know, like they are hurting the military, they're hurting military readiness. They're attacking the most respected, maybe the only respected institution in the country. Like, just cut it out. Just shut the fuck up. Tiny D.

Tiny T. You know, like, go away. Yeah. Speaking of Tommy Tuberville, here's a quick clip from his campaign.

I stand with their veterans. And I'm going to donate every dime I make when I'm in Washington, while I'm in Washington, D.C. to the veterans of the state of Alabama. Folks, they deserve it.

They deserve it a lot more than most of us. I'm mad at everybody. Me, you, everybody included. We have got to help our veterans, folks. We've got to help them. Spoiler, Ben.

There's no evidence that he has donated. a single dime of his Senate salary to charity. So thanks, Tommy. Yeah. He's mad at himself? I guess. Rightly so.

This guy, this, like, he's a cartoon character of like a kind of racist asshole. Who like, you know, and like, this guy talks about supporting troops and he's like literally preventing their promotions, which are like essential to their career advancement to military their redness to their pride and their service. Like, he has no respect and no regard for veterans. We should ask Gibbs, like, he was coach at Auburn for a long time. Yeah, he's pretty good coach. But he reminds me of the racist coach in Varsity Blues.

Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, he's clearly was coaching like a multiracial, like the, yeah, he's definitely like the figure of the racist football coach. Like, give me a break. Go back to Alabama. Absolutely sucks. A couple more shorter things. So then Apple, the company, they say plan changes to surveillance laws in Britain could

force them to withdraw security features. and ultimately make iMessage and FaceTime unavailable in the UK. So at issue is a law called the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, which Apple says requires them to notify the UK Home Office when it updates its products, including iOS software updates. Apple is concerned about an amendment that would allow the government to block implementation of security features while the Home Office are reviewing them, which Apple says gives the Home Office de facto control over security and encryption updates globally.

So here's a quote from Apple, quote, these provisions could be used to force a company like Apple that could never build a backdoor to publicly withdraw critical security features from the UK market, depriving the UK users of these protections, end quote, result in an impossible choice between complying with the Home Office mandate to secretly install vulnerabilities into new security technologies, which Apple would never do, or to forego development of those technologies altogether and sit on the sidelines as threats to user data security continue to grow, end quote. So, Ben, I just want to say to all of our listeners out there, Labor, Tori, anybody, don't let your government go down this road.

Like Obama was wrong about this. We all deserve to communicate privately. Do not let vague threats or suggestions of terrorism scare you. Like there's better ways to catch child predators and terrorists than installing a back door into fucking eye message. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And including, you know, when this fight happened in the Obama years, not only was it wrong, but, man, like Tim Cook and Apple love this fight.

Oh, then they're tough on it. They love, they have every incentive to stand up and be seen to be taking a stand for consumer privacy against the snoops in government. So you're going to lose in the court of public opinion too. And so this is just not a close call. Like, you know, the idea that they had to, you know, before I get my like automated notice of like an upgrade in the security on my iPhone, like that they're going to like brief the home office, like, give me a break.

Some guru working at the home office. Ben, we talked about this last week, but the Chinese foreign minister. is still missing. We talked about a strange absence in more detail last week, including speculation that he'd had an affair with a TV personality and maybe got in trouble. But now it looks like there might be a meeting by the Chinese Communist Party sort of officials in charge of replacing him. So this seems to be getting even more ominous. The foreign minister, yeah, he's replaced now, actually. Oh, he's fully on. Okay. So just breaking news shortly for this podcast, they put Wang Yi, who was the farm minister from like, you know, for over a decade back into the Obama years,

back in his old post as farm minister. Everything about this is insane. Like, we still don't know what happened to this guy. Like, and I hope that just because he's been replaced, that like people don't like look away from this because it's this guy that had this like meteoric rise to become farm minister, he's been disappeared for over a month. They've never provided an explanation. That vacuum has been filled with all these kind of lurid rumors that he was having like an affair

with like a TV personality in the U.S. But, like, meanwhile, Chinese diplomacy, like, nobody knows who to call. Like, it's a real weakness in their system. But the only other thing I'd highlight that's different from what we discussed last week, too, is that this guy was, like, very close to Xi Jinping. He was seen as, like, a protege of Xi Jinping. He got ahead by essentially being the model of what Xi Jinping wanted, which is this kind of combination of, like, a wolf warrior and a, you know, Xi Jinping disciple. There's some great details in some of the stories about he had a job for a while as, like, the protocol guy. So, like, imagine, like, that's how he got ahead because he would plan Xi Jinping's trips,

and he'd get up in the middle of the night and do these walkthroughs of, you know, he needed to know exactly where Shishenping was going to step at this time or another. And so this inevitably, like, makes she look bad, I think, because it's totally opaque and his guy, just, like, his head rolled. So, but, you know, let's see where this guy is. Like, I'm really curious about it. Yeah, I want to fit on that, too. Last couple things.

So Saudi Arabia continues to buy its way. to sports dominance or at least try. So the latest news is Al-Halal, it's the Saudi club owned by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, a soccer team, reportedly offered a package valued at $1.1 billion to get a player named Kiliin Mbapé onto their club for just one season. One season, $1.1 billion.

So Mbapé, he's unbelievable. He's a French forward. He currently plays on the Qatari-owned Paris-St. Germain or PSG. So the way this deal works is $332 million would go to PSG. That's like the transfer fee. And then $776 million would go to Mbapé

in the form of salary and I think some sponsorship stuff. That means he would be making over $2 million a day. Mbpe would be. So MBS, you win. We give up. Yeah, I mean, you can become like a billionaire

by playing one season of soccer. And this guy is really good. But, like, you know, what's scary about this is we've said this time and again, like, MBS wants to show us, us being everybody else in the world that he can buy whatever he wants. We're all for sale. And upstate to Qataris. You know, it's like he's going to come here and be like, he'd give us $2 billion to do potty of the world in React. Now we'd probably get, you know, chop chop top while we're over there. But like, but the point is like, and even some U.S. athletes I saw like were saying like, oh, shit, this sounds good.

Like, that's what he wants. He wants. Oh, all these NBA players. Or like replying. Yeah, and like, which is fine. Like, I'm not going to hold against them. But that's the point. He wants it to be known.

Like, this is what I've always started about MBS. It's not that he wants you to not think he's just buying this stuff. No, he wants you to believe that he's going to show that everything is ultimately for sale, you know? And if he can buy the best soccer player in the world, even for just a year, a billion dollars has nothing to this guy. It's absolutely nothing. And that's kind of his message. He could start a basketball league next year, you know? and buy what the fuck he wants for that, too.

Like, that's what he wants us all to be aware of. So it's depressing. Yeah. Because that's the message. It's just like he bought professional golf. And he already bought, and he got Cristiano Ronaldo to come over, and Lionel Messi is their sort of like PR ambassador.

But yeah, you know, Giannis, a bunch of NBA players were saying, like, I look like Mbapé give me a billion dollars, right? Like, everyone just, look, I get it from a player perspective. There's, like, get paid. But, like, if I'm, you know, not that they would or should have to think about this, but them doing that is actually the point. Oh, for sure. Like the reason MBS is doing this is not just to get Mbapa,

it's to get those players saying that. Because it's like, oh, shit, like, yeah, like at the end of the day, the force of gravity is to Saudi no matter what MBS does. Yeah. Final story. So a guy named Robert Maynard, he's the mayor of this small French town, has instituted a policy where dogs that get walked on main streets have to file their DNA with a local guy.

government and have to carry a passport to prove they've complied with this law. The reason the mayor was mad about owners who didn't pick up their dog poop. And he wants the city to be able to do some DNA tracing to identify the culprit. So those who don't comply will get fined $43. A proven pooper will pay $136. The town says that they're spending, they spent $90,000 per year picking up dog poop. I don't know what's happening. It's just like pooping happening all over this town.

And my reaction to this, I guess the policy was implemented somewhere in Spain. My reaction to this is like, when did like DNA sampling and testing become that cheap and easy that you could do it for like every dog poop on the street? Yeah, it seems a little aggressive. And I didn't know that as, you know, like 23 and me to dog DNA testing. I mean, I wouldn't mind someone DNA testing whoever is taking a fucking dump on the grass in front of my house. Like, but on the sidewalk. but like, you know, seems like a little...

Little agro. Little agro. I think this guy's like a far-right politics too. A little agro for local politics. But, I mean, I share the end goal here of like not, you know, but yeah, like let the dogs be here. Maybe just start by putting out free doggy poop bags. Yeah, or like, you know, strongly worded signs or like, you know, grow some plants that dogs don't like and they won't poop there or something. There are other ways of addressing this issue that are a little less agro.

This does have some true crime podcast potential. It does. We'll narrate on that. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, you'll hear Ben's conversation with USAID Administrator, Samantha Power. Stick around for that. We are very, very pleased to welcome back to Pod Save the World, the Best Friend of the Pod, Samantha Power, the U.S. administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, among many other things. Sam, great to see you.

Great to see you, Ben. And to be the best friend, wow. Best friend, number one friend. The, yeah, indisputable, holds the belt. Well, look, we're going to talk about your trip, your recent trip to Ukraine, which was, you know, very important several days. To set that up, though, before we do, you know, we've been talking a little bit on the podcast about Russia's withdrawal from this initiative to allow the export of Ukrainian grain

and, frankly, there's subsequent attacks on infrastructure. Sure. What is the state of that? And could you describe to people like what the stakes are involved with what Russia is disrupting in terms of the export of agricultural products from Ukraine? Absolutely. And I did travel to Ukraine intentionally around the time when we had hoped the Black Sea Grain initiative would be re-opted so as to describe the positive stakes and the importance of getting grain out of Ukraine, one of the breadbaskets. of the world and particularly of the developing world. But I was there, of course, when Russia withdrew. And the stakes are very visible on the ground, and they're going to be very visible within days

globally. So flashing back before the full-scale invasion that Putin carried out in February of last year, agriculture accounted for about 20% of Ukraine's GDP. So killing the agricultural sector or seeking to is also a way of gutting Ukraine's economy and driving farmers out of business. We'll talk about alternative routes and what USAID has done to support the Ukrainians in diversifying their export channels, but there's no substitute for losing access to the Black Sea ports because those ports were exporting around 5 million metric tons of grains, to the wider world. More supply means, and the same demand means lower prices, but very specifically, you know, a huge share of Egypt, Lebanon, Somalia's grain imports came from Ukraine. And indeed,

the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which the UN, Turkey, Russian, Ukraine were party to until last week, that is something that has allowed the World Food Program and, and, and that has allowed the World Food Program actually to source 80% of its grain supply globally from Ukraine in the last year. So if you just think of like the flagship humanitarian agency that feeds the Hungries people of the world, that's WFP, 80% of their supply came last year from Ukrainian fields,

very specifically their wheat supply. So if you look at the year that the Black Sea Grant Initiative was funded, was functional, two-thirds of the wheat that left Ukraine went to developing countries. I mentioned that because Putin, it'll shock you to hear, lies and says that, oh, the Black Sea Grain Initiative only benefited rich countries.

As it happens, actually, 20% of the grain exports went to China. And so we don't know exactly what's going on behind the scenes, but certainly very hopeful that Beijing would have an interest in seeing the initiative get resuscitated. What I had not understood or fully appreciated before traveling to Odessa for the first time, this is the first time as senior US official

has been able to get out of Q because of the security challenges. But when you're actually there and you see the centrality of the Odessa port to the life of Odessa, you also, and I should stress, we were there the day after the Russians pulled out, so the port was dead, but, you know, having it described how many jobs actually, I mean,

because, you know, there's a Ukrainian economy that's chugging along, notwithstanding the pulverization, attempted pulverization by the Russian Federation. But, you know, the number of derivative jobs, not just those of seafarers and people who are going out or, you know, those who manage the supply chain, but the share of Odessa's economy that turns on those ports working, and this I really, has really hit me just the last couple days in seeing Russia target downtown Odessa, not just the grain silos and the other port infrastructure, but downtown Odessa. Being part of this UN brokered enterprise had actually bought Odessa a year-long reprieve from missile attacks. So now the question of Ukrainian refugees, are they going to come home?

are they not, which Zelensky is counting on in advance of the school year, so that they can go back to work, so that there can be more tax revenue. So you see Putin killing, as it were, you know, multiple birds with one stone. He's, you know, really having a terrible effect on global food prices. You see the food prices up 17 percent since he pulled out of the deal. He is going to make it very hard for Ukrainian farmers, even with USAID support, to make ends meet, because the cost of exporting grain through other channels is so much greater. Again, we've diversified those channels. We are going to get the grains out, but it's much more expensive. So the profit margin for your average farmer isn't great. And then Odessa, this major town, you know, now

finds itself in the rifle sites and the missile sites and the drone sites of Russian forces for the first time in a year. And that's its own devastating stake that I think people were very focused on food prices globally, maybe a little bit on the agricultural sector and the effects on the Ukrainian economy. But the idea that you now have a new civilian hub, a cosmopolitan city.

I mean, Ben, you go there, you walk around, you know, right on the ocean, cafes, people out, art galleries, I mean, a very, very, you know, kind of hub of culture and economic and social life in Ukraine and with such great history, a UNESCO protected site now being deemed by Putin fair game to strike. And the human cost of that, you know, you can't overstay. And what were you doing on your trip? Like, tell us a little bit about like what you set out to do. I imagine you were trying to find alternative routes for some of this agricultural yield. But what was the, what was the nature of your visit?

Well, I think that there's a lot of focus rightly on what the next weapon system is that the Ukrainians need, particularly as they, you know, slog ahead in this very, very difficult counteroffensive. And, you know, what the Ukrainians say is defense and weaponry is humanitarian support. So, you know, it's obviously a huge, a hugely important part of what the United States is doing. But as we've talked about a little bit in the past, just as important is the other battlefront, which is the battle to sustain and even grow Ukraine's economy. And as the war rages on to strengthen its democracy and the checks and balances. And so I really wanted to get back there to see how some of those investments are faring, to hear from the Ukrainians directly about what their priorities are as they potentially head into another.

winter. USA provided about $400 million of support to Ukraine as Putin was weaponizing the cold and trying to take out electricity and heat and force the Ukrainian public undermine its morale and try to force it to press Zelensky to sue for peace. We swept in, swooped in there with our European and other donor colleagues and supported their efforts, you know, when the pipes were hit to repair the pipes, you know, within a day or two, to provide power stations and substations. Now we're looking at, you know, how do you protect some of that infrastructure now that we have lead time. We know what Putin's going to do in the winter. So focus on energy with enough lead time to be able to make a difference. A focus, as you rightly said, on the agricultural

sector. We USAID had already launched an initiative going on a year ago now called Agri-Ukraine, which was meant to expand Ukraine's storage capacity for its bountiful grains, provide fertilizer and seeds to the farmers, help develop these alternative routes, which involves dredging the rivers, expanding lift capacity, changing the gauges on Ukrainian trains so that they are harmonized with those in Europe, you know, even, you know, creating speedier passage at road transit points. We've gone from two days now to two hours for commercial traffic to pass with USAID and other donor support. So, you know, all of this work was important, but, you know, this is still the lifeblood of Ukraine's economy. The flag, I'm not even sure if that

many listeners know that the yellow in the Ukrainian flag that is now such a hallmark of the flags that still wave across the United States, that yellow is wheat fields and the blue is the Ukrainian sky. So I announced on the trip an additional $250 million investment to do more in each of those areas that I just mentioned. And we've already increased the grain throughput or export movement by about 4,000% via river, which is incredible. But if the Black Sea ports are now out of commission for the foreseeable future, we, I talked

to Ukrainian officials about how we capture that next million metric tons, let's say monthly. I mean, our goal collectively is to still be getting out five, five and a half million metric tons of agricultural commodities each month. And if the Black Sea ports are out of the picture now, we'll be at around three million, a little shy of 3 million, so we have a long way to go. And one more true question, because I was just concerned as your friend, because I saw you were in Odessa and I saw there were these strikes in Odessa. I mean, were any of the places that you visited targets of those strikes?

Well, as it happens, Ben, thank you for asking. No, we felt so grateful to the, you know, you know what it's like when the U.S. government kicks in, you know, and offers such incredible intelligence support and security support. forward. So we felt, you know, certainly as if we were in in very good hands. And as we were traveling to Odessa, the Russians launched, I think, something like 35 drone, drone, separate drone attacks, or 35 drones that attacked. The port area, as well as, I guess, there were some cruise missile attacks. We were able to proceed. So far, the Russians have mainly attacked in the middle of the night and it has allowed a certain kind of functionality because

they're trying to, I mean, they're certainly striking in the day in different parts of the country, but there was a view that we could proceed and proceed safely as we did. We held meetings with farmers to kind of hear what are the challenges in getting your goods to market because it has to be said, the Black Sea Grain initiative as well, like Russia's been slow walking it, not allowing ships in for inspections, you know, really reducing the throughput compared to what it was doing at its peak a couple months after it came into force. So hearing from farmers about that, about landmines, you know, how do they till their fields when there's unexploded ordinances, the Kakova Dam explosion, that destroyed a bunch of arable

land. So really hearing about those struggles, we did it in the Port Authority building. And we also met with Deputy Prime Minister Kubrakoff and the Agricultural Minister and others to talk about our next steps, about what more we could do. And then eventually, at the end of a very long day in Odessa, we got back on the train. As we were on the train heading to Kiev, more strikes occurred, including on the green infrastructure right next to where we were. And in fact, the very port authority building where we had held the meetings was badly damaged in that second set of strikes.

So it did bring home how volatile it is, how no place is safe. I mean, you're down there in the port. the sun is shining, you see the cranes and the freights and all the capacity that's there, just wanting to feed the world. And then a day later, much of that infrastructure has been severely damaged. Well, glad you're safe, but that is a harrowing picture of what Ukraine's deal with. So this is a country that is literally fighting for its survival so much at stake. We've been talking on the podcast about some of the skeptics in this country who've called them to question, continued U.S. assistance. How concerned are you about maintaining bipartisan support for the assistance that goes to Ukraine?

And how do you answer if you have to, presumably you have to go to the hill sometimes, some of these people that throw these arguments at you that we're hearing with increasing frequency, you know, on the hill, online, on the campaign trail? Yeah, I mean, I listened to your pod last week as I was coming home from Ukraine and heard some of the clips, which I had been – Sorry about that. Had not been exposed to it on the ground, thankfully, because it would have been – if I had heard them in the media there, maybe it would have been not the happiest thing for Ukrainians to be hearing on top of everything else they have to deal with. But I'd say that I should stress that USAID provides, in addition to the kind of programming that you and I have talked about in the past and talked about today, we also are the vehicle to provide direct budget support to the Ukrainian government. And that's not something we do very often around the world, but it is what is keeping the lights on for the government. It's what allows them, as I said earlier, to pay teachers, to pay health workers, to pay pensioners, first responders. I met with first responders who go into the rubble, almost like the white helmets, and rescue people who've been buried in some missile strike.

And so we do that. The Europeans do that at about $1.5 billion a month as we're down to about $1.2 billion a month. That is, I mean, they're just, you could have all the security assistance in the world. If your government can't stay afloat, if your pensioners can't pay the heating bills or, you know, have cash to feed themselves, that's going to create major, major challenges in sustaining the war, the war effort. So that direct budget support is something we will need to go back to Congress for more of. and you know it is a something that has been targeted by some of the critics of assistance as a blank check it's not a blank check there are a set of conditions that the IMF has imposed that the European Union has imposed

because Ukraine of course wants to get into the European Union and we as well in our latest tranches of assistance are talking with them about the things that they need to do in order for this assistance to keep flowing but our ultimate objective is to use our development assistance the kind of economic programming I've been describing, including for SMEs, which was Zelensky's, one of his number one topics for me in our meeting, was him saying, we need more support for SMEs. We need cheap capital, you know, for them to be able to take the risks to grow their businesses. I mean, he's talking like the president of a country that can't afford to be only at war, that has to also be thinking about its economy and its tech sector, Ben, grew six, seven percent last year. Ukraine's tech sector,

during this conflict. I mean, it's incredible. So back to your question, direct budget support, I think, is something that people, those who criticize or criticized, but I would draw your attention to something that didn't, I think, make big headlines last week, which is in the big debate over the National Defense Authorization Bill, you had some of the loudest critics of foreign assistance in Ukraine trying to actually use the NDAA process to withdraw funding. And so you had Marjorie Taylor Green from Georgia offering an amendment to strike about $300 million in Ukraine funding that had been authorized in the draft NDAA. And that failed 89 to 341, 130 Republicans in the House joining Democrats in voting against

it. Another proposal from Matt Gates would have prohibited all security assistance for Ukraine along the lines of some of the clips that you played last week, some of the recommendations by certain vocal figures, and that failed 70 to 358. And to be honest, those numbers align with what we are hearing so far, again, from Republican leadership. What I don't know and what is very hard to predict with regard to any piece of legislation is questions about what vehicle at what time and the president, President Biden hasn't yet gone to Congress with the full scope of what a supplemental assistance package will look like. And of course, with the debt ceiling deal, you know, there's a lot of hijinks, I'm sure that will occur. But in terms of broad public opinion, I would say that the bipartisanship that has been the hallmark of the United States, the strength of the United States' response to Russian aggression Ukraine, it has proven very resilient and appears to be enduring. Well, that's good news for now.

So it's good to hear that. One last question for you, which I'm more sympathetic to, which is a tough question, right? You're someone who I know cares about things beyond Ukraine, right? And I have a lot of friends in Africa and Asia, Africa in particular, who point out, why are you guys so focused on this relative to Sudan or relative to any number of issues in the Horn of Africa? I know USAID has a lot of programs there, but obviously, you know, you have to put a lot of weight, bandwidth, resources in Ukraine. What do you say to people, because I know you travel those places too, what do you say to people who make the argument, look, okay, we get it. Ukraine's important, but why are you so focused on this relative to other things? Like, how do you make a global argument to a skeptical audience that this isn't, you know, out of proportion to other challenges in the world? Well, I'd say a couple of things.

I mean, first, this kind of naked cross-border aggression, you know, actually in a pretty messed up global system is pretty rare. Yeah, yeah. When you think about it, and it's, it does tap a kind of universal sense, particularly among small countries that, you know, you need to live. safe in your skin, safe within your borders, and other countries shouldn't be invading you and try to lop off, you know, in the case of Ukraine, the entire country or large, large chunks of your country as a lot of countries have experienced in their history. And so I do think that there

is something quite singular about the form of aggression that Russia is taking. I'm not saying what I'm saying it's entirely persuasive to those who bring understandably the question that you pose, but I think it is part of the answer is that there, that this is if, if we are collectively to succeed on behalf of the principle of non-aggression and sovereignty, this is a powerful signal as well, you know, to aggressors. To be honest, Ben, your question is actually less hard for me as US aid administrator to answer in July of 2023 than I might have feared when the full scale invasion started because part of what the bipartisanship has yielded are not only significant, I mean, I should say huge supplementals that have enabled us to provide, you know, the scale

of assistance that we've been talking about in Ukraine, but those supplementals to the eternal credit of the Republican and Democratic leadership on the Hill have been written broadly to give us scope to spend a very significant share. of the quote new money on the global south. So actually some of our flagship programs like Feed the Future, which is helping farmers adjust to the ravages of climate change, getting new technologies to be able to predict the weather better or climate-resistant seeds,

we had way more money this last year because Congress gave us license to deal. Now we drew a dotted line to Putin's blockading of the ports and the loss of Ukrainian weed, exports to show that the ravages of climate change were being exacerbated by Putin. But at core, you know, we had a billion dollars in new money to work on food security in developing countries. I think it's been much harder for our European friends to answer that argument because they are spending in addition to $40 billion in Ukraine and on Ukraine

of non-security assistance along the lines of what USA does, which is much more than even the United States is doing, they're spending an additional $17 billion on Ukrainian refugees who've coming to their countries. And all of that refugee money could have been counted in the obscure budget processes as domestic spending, but actually it has been counted as development spending. And so while countries like Germany have increased the overall size of the pie, by and large for most European countries, it's been very hard to say that there hasn't been less to spend. the global south. So we, whereas we had a kind of a surge of resources to allow us to plus up, at just the time climate was going to be intensifying its effects as it is here in the United States.

Anyway, we also had an additional $5 billion in humanitarian assistance that would not otherwise have been part of our budget, but for being able to secure it through the Ukraine supplement. So between food security money and humanitarian assistance, that's an additional six, seven billion. million dollars that the US has been able to bring to bear in the global south, but it's not well understood. And that's a message that I try to send everywhere we go. It's one of the reason I try to get out as often as I can to try to draw more attention to the investments that we are making.

I mean, they could still say, you know, for a country of Ukraine size versus, you know, a country of Somalia size is it proportional. But the US is the largest humanitarian donor in just about all the most vulnerable will come from Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, et cetera. Yes. Yeah, no, it's a great answer. I mean, basically, you're not doing less. In fact, you're doing more everywhere.

That's why this next problem is a lot. But that's why it matters a lot. You know, people, a lot of the same people who got behind the House appropriations bill for this coming year are those who are telling us we need to stand up to the PRC and, you know, why aren't we out competing them and this and that? If the House bill were to stand, USAID's budget would be cut by 12 percent. And that's, and there'd be no supplementals if, if, if their worldview, in a sense, were to go forward.

So, you know, we could see very, very dramatic cuts. I may not be able to give you what I hope is a compelling answer, you know, within a couple months if we can't embrace the recognition that, you know, standing up for this international order, leading in the world, showing an alternative development model to that. practiced by the PRC, which is much more extractive and about building dependence. But all of that also turns on making actual investments and not thinking you can do it on the cheap. So Sam, I understand you also have one more announcement of a new initiative that you're pursuing. What's this about?

Well, we thought potse of the world was with its young audience and its tech-friendly audience would be a great place to share that one of the things we're trying to do much more of is private sector partnership. And we have partnered with a company called Skydeo, which is a leading U.S. drone manufacturer based right there in California. And Skydeo, with our ground team willing to support the deployment, is going to provide nine autonomous drones to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine to help it document war crimes. And basically, these drones have 4K cameras that are going to be used to take. take photo and video content to document war crimes,

including of mass graves and other sort of forensic requirements. There are about 115,000 documented instances of destroyed civilian infrastructure. Sadly, that number will be going up now with the attacks on the grain infrastructure this week. That's a classic example of intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure, but all the attacks on electricity,

and heating infrastructure is part of this. And so these drones are now going to be at the service of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine to look at occupied frontline communities and liberated territories. And I think it's just a great example of going beyond the kind of old way of doing assistance to bring new tools to bear to support people in need. That's great. I mean, marrying technology with, for example, for a moment, for, on justice. It speaks to the innovation of both Ukraine and USAID under your leadership, so we're

happy to lift that up, Sam. Thanks, Ben. Well, everybody should continue to root for you and USAID and consider careers in USAID and urge Congress to give USAID the resources they need. Your Red Sox took a series in the Mets. I'll put on the table that maybe the 300 million-plus wasted payroll of the New York Mets should go to USCID. Probably be money better spent than some of it. But it's It's great talking to you, Samantha, and we'll keep in touch and continue to follow your good work. Thank you, Ben. And thanks for just caring so much. And, you know, each week I can get my own Black Sea Green update by listening to the pop.

We'll try. We'll try. Great talking to you. You too. Thanks again to Sam for doing the show. Kulian Mbapai. Just go to, like, Real Madrid or something. You're going to end up making a billion dollars anyway over the course of your career.

For sure. endorsements and salary. So that's, this is my one answer to this. It's enough. Like, how much is enough? Messi just went to Inter Milan, an MLS team, and I forget what his salary was. He got paid a lot of money. But he earned it back in free PR by kicking the nastiest free kick that anyone in America has seen in MLS team.

And I'm sure he'll make hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. endorsements because he's at Miami, too. So it's not just salary. It's your dignity and other things. Amen to that. All right. Well, that's it for us. Talk to you guys next week. POTSave the World is a Cricket Media production.

Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor, Ben Rhodes, and Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Muse. Our associate producer is Ashley Mizzou. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick, Kyle Seaglin, Charlotte Landis, and Vesilius are our sound engineers. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, D.B. Bradford, and Milo Kim, who upload our episodes and videos to YouTube every week and check out the Potsave the World YouTube account. Thanks to Saul Rubin for production support.