Pod Save the World - Ivanka the diplomat

Episode Date: July 10, 2019

Trump picks a Twitter fight with the British Ambassador to the US. Iran revs up its uranium enrichment. New polling about the Iran deal. High five diplomacy with the North Koreans. Updates on protest movements in Sudan and Hong Kong. Russia’s role in peddling the Seth Rich conspiracy. Introducing America’s chief diplomat, Ivanka Trump, and a 2020 foreign policy update. Then Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran joins to discuss Turkey’s slow descent into authoritarianism and the parallels around the world. 

Welcome back to Pots Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben. In the flush. Great to see you. Good to be here. Did you enjoy America's birthday? I did enjoy America's birthday. You got a little time off. You looked tan, rested, ready.

Yeah, so yeah, I got a little sun, a little reflection. Me too. Now I'm ready to dive back in here. Yeah. Hannah and I went back to Boston, and I, the summer before my junior year, maybe the most fun I've ever had in my life, I worked at this fancy hotel in Cape Cod. So we, like, spent a couple nights there, so I got to, you know, throw in their face. Yeah, that's good. remind them of the fact that they had actually fired me at the end of the summer for the things we will get into on this podcast.

It's always good to use national holidays to settle scores. I went to Hawaii, which was interesting because we used to go to staff Obama and I actually stayed at that same hotel. Which was never fun. Because something terrible would always happen. And because you had to live on East Coast Times, so you had to get up like four in the morning to be on the news cycle? Yeah, one of the guy tried to blow up a plane in Detroit when you guys were there. Yeah, that would not be a good example. of a vacation.

No, no. Yeah. Actually, being on the East Coast in the summer, like there's a distinct feeling, right? It's humid. There's bugs with like a nice day in New England. In the summer's like the greatest gift you can imagine. And it did remind me of the one trip I staffed for Obama on Martha's Vineyard when he was there and like a bunch of horrible things happened.

I think Ted Kennedy died. John Brennan did this briefing that terrified the press corps about all these national security issues. It was not relaxing for the team there with the president. Yeah, I hadn't taken a vacation with my wife that was over a week in like years. And two years in a row, and again, I want to be very clear, like, I am not the tragedy in these stories. No, no, of course. Just to get it how weird these jobs are.

The first day I went on vacation in 2013 was the day of the steering chemical weapons attack. Oh, my God. And so we land, I basically turn around on a plane and come home. Then the next year, I'm going to Martha's Vineyard to staff that trip. and the flight takes off to go to Martha's Vineyard, and the first ISIS-beheading happened while we're on that flight. I had to go tell Obama. So it's a reminder that, like, the world followed you anywhere you were in those jobs.

Now, nobody cares what I think about anything, so I can go to Hawaii. Well, here we are. But I have to say, I was really missing not getting to do a quick update on the news on this show last week. So there's so much going on. You and I thought about trying to figure it out from, like, different time zones. but then we realized we were crazy people. So today we are going to talk about Trump's ongoing fight with the United Kingdom, a Iran update, a North Korea update, Sudan, Hong Kong,

all stories we've covered before that have materially changed, a bizarre new update about Russian interference in the 2016 election, our new chief diplomat ofanka Trump, and some 2020 news from Elizabeth Warren. And then we are joined by E.J. Tamilkran, who wrote an amazing book called How to We, lose a country. The seven steps from democracy to dictatorship. She's Turkish, although I don't believe she's allowed in the country anymore because Erdogan is terrified her. Yeah, she's kind of

on every blacklist that you can be on a Turkey. She's on this podcast. She is a badass. Quick housekeeping thing. Make sure to check out our new crooked mini series reclaiming patriotism. What does patriotism mean, Ben? Who gets to call themselves a patriot? Doesn't matter. The series is hosted by Ken Harbaugh. He's a former Navy pilot who ran for Congress in Cincinnati area, I believe. Ken's going to sit down with people you've heard of like Pete Buttigieg, Tammy Duckworth, Barbara Lee. It's a cool series, thoughtful guy.

So check it out. Okay. Let's talk about our special relationship with the United Kingdom. On Monday and Tuesday, President Trump lashed out at the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, and Britain's ambassador to the U.S. Kim Derek, who I'm sure you know pretty well. I know Kim very well. I know Kim very well. Very well thought of individual.

Trump's ego was bruised after reports that diplomatic cables the ambassador wrote. had described Trump as, quote, radiating insecurity and, quote, diplomatically clumsy and in inept. Boy, did Trump prove him wrong by lashing out on Twitter, right? Yeah. Way to own him. I mean, well, first of all, I knew Kim, you know, he was David Cameron's national security advisor. Right.

So this is a senior guy. I mean, this guy is very qualified for this job. And he was ambassador at the end of the Obama administration, the beginning of this one. You know, part of what's so stupid about this controversy is everything he said is painfully obvious, right? that Trump isn't secure, that they're that they're incompetent that but because this was like a secret, you know, leaked memo, pretty obvious in anadon conclusions about Trump get blown up into some gigantic kerfuffle. I'm sure that every single ambassador thinks the same things about Trump, right? And also the way the UK works is these are people, these are like foreign service officers. These aren't like political politicians that we put there, right? I should add, by the way, Trump's own. ambassadors have like trolled the people where they're, you know, we've talked about Rich Grinnell and Germany essentially, you know, undermining Angela Merkel. So it's not as if they're sitting in a glass house here. Dude, Trump has said meaner things on the record about

Theresa May, then we're said about him in these cables. About Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London. So this is just confirmation that the world thinks, but what's useful about this is that, you know, Trump continues to insist that somehow he's respected around the world. And we see yet another data point here. Every public opinion poll says that's not the case. When we actually hear the unvarnished views of foreign leaders, we learn that's not the case. The fact that the French put out that video of Ivanka that we're going to talk about later shows you how much the French respect Trump and his family, right? So the takeaway that Americans should have here is our closest allies think that this guy is crazy, incompetent, insecure,

and that we collectively made an insane decision as Americans by putting him in the presidency. And for Trump to just have some childish meltdown and attacking Theresa May who's leaving, Kim Derek, who could probably give a shit. And a bunch of people who, frankly, are all in agreement that Trump is incompetent. Those are our closest allies.

You know, just confirms, to your point, what Kim Derek wrote in that memo. Yeah, so Trump tweeted that Derek is wacky and stupid, and he basically PNGed the guy, which means declaring an official persona non-grata enforcing them to leave the country. It's like the harshest thing you can do to a diplomat. He didn't officially do it here, but Derek can't. He won't continue in this job anyway because there's going to be a turnover,

but he couldn't continue because Trump said they'll no longer speak with him. And I'd say a couple things. One is, look, we welcomed back the Saudi ambassador who was apparently involved in the murder of Khashoggi. And we're going to PNG, Kim Derek, the ambassador for the UK, I'm the only qualified guy. The second thing is I was at the British Embassy in the transition period. I always thought it was kind of funny because here we are at the British Embassy, the epicenter of the deep state. I'm there. And there's Kelly Ann Conway. There's Trump people there.

They love the parties, right? They shit on all these ambassadors. But Jared and Kellyan and all these people love to show up at a good European embassy party and have some fun. Politico reprinted all the spot-eds that include Trump officials with Kim Derek, which means those are the sources for him in these cables because he's citing conversations. Yes. And everybody likes, you know, they throw like the biggest parties at the British Embassy and their celebrities there.

And so these people love to go to these parties and then they crap all over Kim Derrick. The most interesting thing is that these were leaked to the Daily Mail. There's some speculation that maybe Russian intelligence intercepted them somehow. Maybe it came internally. You never know. But, I mean, Trump, I think, tweeted what he tweeted because he's a big baby. But also, I suspect it was in part to help Boris Johnson in his leadership race because they think, well, we need someone to smooth it over with Trump now.

Yeah, I mean, you know, he's done everything you can to meddle in this and to help Boris. I just add, Tommy, you remember, the British ambassador actually wrote a shitty memo about Obama in 2008. Oh, yeah. In 2008, just to remind people, because why would you remember this? The sitting ambassador in 2008 wrote the memo that Obama was kind of like, I think it was aloof and out of touch. It was that whole vein. We didn't PNG the guy. He was still the ambassador for the first year or two, I think, of the Obama administration.

like I met with them. We dealt with him. So, no, it's not normal to say, I don't like this one leaked memo and I'm going to PNG. No, we just took flak because Obama dared to move a bust of Churchill out of the Oval for a bust of Martin Luther King. Yes. Sorry, guys. Sorry about that. America first. Yeah, yeah. Another big update was the nuclear brinksmanship with Iran continues. So on Monday, Iranian officials announced that they'd enrich uranium above the 3.67 percent limit set by the Iran deal. So I'm going to, at attempt a brief overview of this, although I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but basically you can find trace elements of uranium all over the place, soil and water, whatever. It's mined every year, like tons and tons of it, but only a tiny percentage of naturally occurring uranium contains the highly radioactive isotope called U-235 that you can use for nuclear power or like a super high concentration, over 90% concentration, a bomb. So you have to enrich it or concentrate it. So that means you spin it around super fast and a centrifuge until you separate all that

all that good shit, all the dank uranium. So what the Iranians announced is a tiny step forward in terms of what it would take to create a nuclear weapon, but it's clearly designed to get the world's attention. And presumably the Iranians think this will give them some sort of leverage in a negotiation. It comes after they exceeded a different limit that was part of the deal that basically set a total amount of low and rich uranium that they could have in the country. So, Ben, you know, you were an expert in this. You helped negotiate the Iran deal.

what did you make of this latest announcement out of the Iranians and like what do you think the endgame is here? Well, I think they're definitely trying to get attention, right? Because again, the way in which that deal was structured, you have a series of inspections to get at the life cycle of uranium. The inspections include uranium mines where you get the stuff, uranium mills where you process it. Then taking out two-thirds of the centrifuges that spins it and as you said tries to create the weapons-grade potential of that. program. It called for shipping 98% of the stockpile out of the country and keeping these limitations on the stockpile. It converted the core of a heavy water reactor that could have produced plutonium so that it couldn't do that. The Iranians are not taking the most

provocative steps here. They're not saying we're reinstalling all of our advanced centrifuges. We're going to start to try to make a heavy water reactor that can produce plutonium. We're not kicking out the inspectors. But they are taking a step saying, you guys have violated the deal the United States. And our media sometimes seems to forget that in the coverage. Aran takes provocative step. Yes, Iran did take a provocative step in response to U.S. leaving the deal and violating the deal. I think what they're trying to do is say, okay, we can take a provocative step as well. We're going to take this incremental step to violate. Yes, this would violate the terms of the agreement, begin to reaccumulate some stockpile of enriched uranium, show the United States,

hey, look, we can start to move towards having enough material for a nuclear weapon again unless you're willing to come back to the negotiating table or daring us to bomb Iran, which they've seen Trump doesn't want to do, right? So the Iranians have seen two things. They've seen North Korea getting the sweetheart treatment because they already have a nuclear weapon, and they've seen that Trump doesn't really want to go through this war that John Bold wants them to have. So I think they're going to test this, and they're going to say, what are you going to give us in response?

And what will be interesting to watch is if the Europeans, and maybe even the Trump administration, says, okay, we'll float a little bit of relaxation of some of these sanctions to get back into negotiation, ironically, to try to recreate something like the Iran deal. And that's why this is so frustrating, is that Trump now says he wants to negotiate, the deal you'd negotiate is the one that existed or some variation of it. And that's where we are. It's amazing to see all these former opponents of the Iran deal come back. out in support of essentially the concept of the Iran deal. So here's one tweet, actually two tweets from APAC, quote, we cannot allow the world's leading state sponsor of terror to enrich the uranium necessary to build a nuclear weapon when previously faced with severe economic pressure. The Iranian regime negotiated limits on its nuclear program for financial relief. The burden is

on the Iranian regime to end its illicit nuclear program and accept American offers to negotiate a comprehensive agreement, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, they're calling for the Iran deal. There's no illicit program because we have a deal. that puts inspections in there that allows us to see the program. I thought my next question would trigger you. No, but these APEC people that they were against the deal

before it existed because that was the line that Netanyahu had taken. They spent tens of millions of dollars against this deal, right? What was the PAC? Emergency Committee. Yeah, well, then you throw in the Emergency Committee for the Protection of Israel,

united against a nuclear Iran, all these Gulf-funded, shadowy-funded, Sheldon Adelson funded organizations spend years lying about what's in the Iran deal, trashing the Iran deal. They get what they want. They get Trump to do exactly

what they want. We're going to pull out and we're going to sanction these guys. And what happened? They pulled out, they sanctioned these guys. Their behavior got worse. They fucking start shooting down drones and they're restarting their nuclear program which is the most predictable thing that could ever happen. What did you think

was going to happen when you pulled out of this deal that you guys spent years trashing, right? And it's because it was not on the level. It was politics. It was about stirring up their political supporters, whether they're in the U.S. or in Israel or obviously the Saudis and their minorities have their own agendas. And now here we are. And these people want to negotiate the Iran deal all over again.

APEC is suddenly, APEC said, like, let's fucking get the take here. They said, no, if you don't address all these other aspects of Iranian behavior, it's support for terrorism, it's meddling in other nations. If you don't address all those things, no deal. Now they're saying, oh no, a formula of sanctions relief in exchange for restrictions on the nuclear program is a great idea. Come on, guys. Time is a flat circle. Oh, man.

I really missed having you in studio. That was great. One more thing that will annoy you. So in the first Democratic debate, every candidate except Cory Booker said they would reenter the Iran deal as president. I have expressed my great frustration with that position on Ponce de America last week. But here's some news. we decided to ask about the Iran deal in our latest poll that we've been doing with change research of Democrats in early primary states. So the full results come out Thursday, but we're going to tease the Iran deal question here.

So just so you know that it was a fair question, here's the language. In 2015, the U.S. entered into a deal with Iran and other world powers that created restrictions on Iran's nuclear program, but relaxed financial penalties. When Donald Trump took office, he withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal and resumed the financial penalties. do you think the next president should reenter the Iran deal? 85% said yes. 4% said no. 12% didn't know or had no opinion. So in conclusion, Booker's position is bad policy and bad politics, and I just cannot

understand it. Thank you for polling that. And I, look, for the life of me, I can't understand what on earth Cory Booker was thinking. Like, what's a fair-minded, like? Well, okay, here's the fair-minded thing, which is, we're. are now out of this deal and if we were going to come back into it, we should leverage the fact that we're out of the deal to force Iran to make additional concessions, right? You deconstructed this pretty well in Potsie of America. The only thing I'd add to this is, obviously, when we're the

ones who violated the deal, like it completely blows up our credibility to say, oh, and we're only going to come back in if and when you make additional concessions, how are we going to get the Russians and the Chinese on board with that? The only reason you got the Iran deal in place is because we had a united front among our allies and Russia and China. But beyond that, the way to negotiate those additional concessions is within the framework of the Iran deal. And build on it. Why wouldn't you want to be in the deal that restricts the Iranian program while you then seek to address ballistic missiles and things like that? The thing I'd add to this, though, is the reason this is so frustrating of Corey Booker and the absence of the leadership that we would want in the next commander-in-chief.

And it's not because he took a shot at the Obama legacy. it's because he is embodying everything that is wrong with the politics of national security in the Democratic Party post 9-11. That's the same reason that people voted for the Iraq War. It's the same reason people were wishy-washy on the Iran deal. It's because they think that the only way to look tough on national security is to act like Republicans. And you know what?

That's a losing political strategy. If people want the person who's most against the Iran deal, they can vote for Donald Trump. Like, be for something else. Be for an alternative. If you're for diplomacy, be for the diplomatic agreement. If you're against a war, be for the thing that's going to prevent the war. Don't stand up there and try to pander to some elite caucus that says, the way to be commander in chief is to be tougher on Iran.

No, the way to be commander in chief is to restrict Iran from having a nuclear weapon to rally the world behind the approach to gets that done and that prevents us from having another war. And I was glad to see that the rest of the Democrats didn't fall into this dumb trap. Yeah. It was very frustrating. I don't get it. It's just let's be for what we're for as Democrats. Let's actually believe in things and stand for them.

Yeah. Like diplomacy. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk North Korea for a second because we need some diplomacy there as well. So Trump basically begged Kim Jong-un via tweet to meet him at the DMZ so they could like high-five and call that an accomplishment.

And then, of course, countless reporters took the bait. breathlessly reported on the suspense and the stagecraft of a photo op. The TikTok of the photo op. So that was just infuriating. But another big story that happened while we were on vacation was the New York Times reported that Trump might settle for a freeze of the North Korean nuclear program, not a full rollback. So that's a big, big distinction.

So basically that means you accept North Korea as a nuclear state. You say, keep the nukes you got, just don't make any more. John Bolton angrily denied that report. but when Trump and Kim were hanging out in the DMZ, Bolton was in Mongolia for meetings. And I'm not belittling Mongolia, but I'm sure that's not where he wanted to be in that moment. So, Ben, I'm curious what you made of the historic DMZ summit

in the idea that we might do a freeze-for-freeze deal, as it's been called, with North Korea. Well, first of all, I just don't know how many times, like our media is going to fall for this, right? Because, like, we've now had the Singapore summit, the Hanoi summit, the DMZ summit, And nothing is substantively different about any of this, right? There's no rule, nothing is changing.

North Korea is still building nuclear weapons. Like, they've been testing missiles. But every time this is treated as some momentous event, and I think it confirms, you know, Trump, what he understands, he doesn't understand foreign policy at all. No. He doesn't understand nuclear physics at all. He understands the American media.

And he understands that if he can create the impression that he's solving a problem, that's what most people in America are going to consume. Oh, North Korea was a big problem a couple years ago. But now he's shaking hands at the DMZ and the media is breathlessly saying how historic it is. And it just seems like the problem is solved. And that's why it's important to at least be pointing out that it's not.

And also to be pointing out there's something grotesque about this embracing of this dictator. I mean, you know, we took a risk in meeting with, say, a Raul Castro, who is nowhere near in the same league in terms of barbarity and being a murderous dictator's Kim Il-un. And we took all this grief for it. This guy, let's not forget the character of the man that he's embracing and praising lavishly, a man who runs concentration camps, a man who killed his half-brother in another country.

With VX gas. The freeze-for-freezing, I think, is the right place to start. I wish that they had started there back in Singapore, right? In other words, this is what we did, essentially, on the way to the Iran deal. We started with an inter-Migrant. that froze the Iranian program had some steps to roll it back. So I actually think that if you were designing this process from the beginning, you would start there.

And they're kind of getting back to where you would begin. The problem is the North Koreans have meanwhile banked all this legitimacy, all this international embrace. And all the enrichment activity we were talking about with Iran, they've probably been doing as fast as they possibly can this whole time. Yeah. They've just thrown their foot on the gas. And what they've also seen is they've seen Trump tear up the Iran deal.

And I really mean this. Like, why would North Korea ever give up nuclear weapons? How could you ever trust the United? If the United States won't stay in a deal with a country that is complying with the deal and doesn't have nuclear weapons, why would you ever give them up? I mean, this is the intangible thing that Trump lost, the credibility United States to keep agreements. So the most are ever going to do is say, yeah, we'll freeze some stuff for a while, get rid of those sanctions, and nothing will be material or different.

And so a freeze works if it's a part of a broader strategy to work for a rollback of that program, even if you may never get it all the way rollback. What they're doing, I think, is giving all the reward to North Korea over the last year, year and a half, and maybe now circling back around to the minimum that you could achieve. The other intangible thing that we've lost, actually, it's kind of tangible, is the trust of all of our allies, you know, the Japanese, the South Koreans. I mean, they're all a little freaked out about what we're doing here. And this is sort of, in some ways, talking about Trump in North Korea is a very unsatisfying

conversation to have every time because you feel like you're sounding the alarm and tearing your hair out and saying, hey, guys, the problem is still there. It's still getting worse. But that is never the focus of the coverage. What I want to stress here is like, I want to be for this. I want a diplomatic revolution. I mean, I did diplomacy with Cuba. I supported the diplomacy with Iran. Like, I believe in diplomacy to solve these problems. But the way in which you conduct the diplomacy matters and also the motivation matters. I don't think Trump really cares about solving this problem. I think he just saw this as a way to generate this kind of reality shows.

I mean, one thing is it tells you everything you know here, and obviously being defensive as someone who worked for Obama, but the last time he embraced Kim Jong-un, he said Obama wanted to go to war with North Korea, and he Trump prevented the war. This time, he said Obama was desperate for a meeting. I know. Why does that get reported?

You don't have to repeat his life. Yeah, neither are true. We weren't about to go to war, nor did we ask for a meeting. Like, it's just neither of them are true. But the point is he's not interested in a problem solving. He's interested in essentially how does he politicize this relationship. Yeah. So I'm better than Obama.

I have my photo op. I get a lot of, he could have written the headlines for Chuck Todd or whomever, like, the showman on the world stage, right? That's what he wants people to consume because they know they're not going to be consuming the analysis piece. It actually says, well, the whole time he's been talking to North Greece. they've been building nuclear weapons. Yeah, it's a nightmare. Okay, another story we've been talking about a bunch is in Sudan.

So Ben and I have talked about it. You've heard from Wafamay Alamein, who's a Sudanese American organizing the diaspora in D.C. and other places. So there have been these amazing protest movements, and then they turned violent because the military just cracked down on these protesters and killed hundreds of them. So then on July 4th, the civilian and military leaders in Sudan said they'd reach a power. sharing agreement that will hopefully, hopefully, hopefully lead to a transition to democracy. Here's how it's supposed to work. They're going to form a council made up of half civilian leaders, half military leaders, and then one additional person that's named. They're going to supposed to rotate who's in charge. So the military is supposed to be in charge for the first 21

months. The civilians are supposed to be in charge for the next 18. Then after that interim period, Sudan is supposed to hold elections and the country is going to allegedly transition to full democratic civilian rule. I mean, first and foremost, Ben, like, these brave protesters deserve a ton of credit. I can't imagine a scarier place to do what they did. They put their lives on the line. That said, I'm very worried about the more detail I read about this agreement

and all the ways it could go south. I mean, a lot of these generals are notorious, like, war criminals. It sounds like the United States pushed really, really hard for a deal to come together quickly that seems to have advantage of the military in every way possible and also gave people on this council immunity for the murder of these protesters. But I don't know. I want to be hopeful, but it's tough. Yeah.

This deal feels very fraught to me. It feels a lot to me like the Sudanese military has been working off of the Egyptian military's playbook, right? In terms of how they acted like they're on the side of the protests. It's like Egypt happening in a much more condensed time frame, right? They acted like they're on the side of the protest. They removed the front man, Bashir. Then they get tired of the protests. They crack down.

They clear the square. They agree to some pretty long, lengthy timeline before they would have to turn things over. That's plenty of time for them to rig everything. Frankly, I'm skeptical that they'll ever keep this deal and turn things over. So, you know, I think they're trying to make the protests go away. And I think right now, though, they have a very strong hand. And I think the people of Sudan are just going to have to find ways to continue to mobilize. And I would like for them to have more support, not just in the United States, but potentially from within the African Union, some other African countries, although that's not that likely.

But because right now, this deal does feel to me a bit like, you know, a wolf in sheep's clothing. You're saying, yeah, we're here for democracy, but, you know, we get to stay in charge for a while and maybe we'll hand it off to you. Yeah, and we had all the tanks and guns. Another big protest movie we've been watching closely is in Hong Kong. So to catch you guys up, the legislature in Hong Kong was pushing a bill that would have allowed Hong Kong residents to be extradited to mainland China for prosecution. That understandably terrified residents who didn't want to get thrown away into the Chinese judicial system on trumped up charges and never be seen again. So there were these massive protests, like a quarter of the population massive. And Carrie Lamb, Hong Kong's chief executive, partially backed down.

She declared the extradition bill dead. But protesters wisely worry that she's dishonest and partially. words and they want her to promise essentially not to initiate the bill ever again during her term because they worried that she'll just shelve it for a while and then put it back forward. So until that happens, it looks like these protests are going to continue and the Chinese seem to be increasingly agitated by it. For example, there was an activist or a singer from Hong Kong testifying at the UN yesterday. The Chinese kept interrupting with points of order, et cetera.

So I don't know. Again, like incredibly brave protesters taken to the street, it's good to see that people are still fighting for democracy, but this one is not over yet either. No, I mean, clearly they have the upper hand right now. So you saw the chief executive Hong Kong try to say the bill's, you know, dead, but it's, you know, nobody really believes that. I think, though, what the people of Hong Kong have showed us is they've broken through kind of the fear factor, right?

And they've continued this mass mobilization. Obviously, the Chinese government strategy is going to try to wait them out and then start squeezing again. I think that part of what we're seeing in lots of different parts of the world is control is really in the hands of autocrats, right? And control can take the form of weapons in Sudan. It can take the form of surveillance technologies in China. But the one thing they can't control for is mass mobilization. People really do have a certain amount of power, right?

And we'll talk to Eché here in a moment about Turkey too, but people took back some control in those elections in Istanbul. They were, you know, Erdogan tried to demoralize them by invalidating elections as they turned out again. And I think that the lesson is mass mobilization is the only tool that can work when you're confronted with people who have lots of tools of control. Yeah. The Chinese government just can't ignore like a quarter of the population protesting. Yeah. They can't ignore that in a financial center, Hong Kong, where banks might look at this and think, like, do we want to stick around here? Or do we want to move our operation, you know, to Singapore or something?

Right. So I think the lesson for activists everywhere is there is really a strength of numbers here. And you're going to have to keep it up. But you can put some points on the board. You can get some wins here. Yeah. And it's a good lesson for all of us. Let's talk about Russia for a minute. There's a new report out from Yahoo News that details all the way as the Russian intelligence was behind this disgusting conspiracy theory around the 2016 elections about a murdered DNC staff named Seth Rich. So Seth Rich was murdered outside his apartment and what is believed to be a robbery. wrong in D.C. But the Russians very quickly circulated a fake intelligence bulletin claiming that he had been murdered by Hillary Clinton's team because he was going to blow the whistle on her or her campaign in some way. Truly ludicrous stuff, offensively craven, but a useful cover story for Russia to say, hey, this kid leaked all those documents to WikiLeaks, not us, right? We're innocent. So Russian intelligence fan the flames of this conspiracy for the years. They use their asset, Julian Assange. They use social media. And then they used useful idiots. it's on teen Trump.

Steve Bannon, like the worst human being in the world, sent a text message to a CBS producer that said, quote, huge story. He was a Bernie guy. It was a contract kill, obviously. That is craven. He sent that from the White House when he had access to the PDB and all the intelligence in the world. Alex Joe's covered it.

Roger Stone. A lot of morons at Fox News like Sean Hannity, like gleefully ran with it. So I guess I'm not surprised that the Russians did this. But to me, the lesson is that they're in from. would not have been that useful, if not for the giddy cooperation from Trump creeps in the right-wing media full stop. Yeah, part of what was so tricky when I always try to explain to people when they say, you know, you guys should have done more to stop this Russian interference in the election,

is that what the Russians did is they found narratives that were already on right-wing media or that were ripe for right-wing media, right? And they just shot content into that ecosystem, knowing that the, you know, that the the right-wing media in the U.S. would do their work for them, right? So Fox will pick this up and run with it. Alex Jones will pick it up and run with it. That grifter, you know, Mike Sternovich, the Pizza Gate guy, will pick it up and run with it.

And all they have to do is, you know, amplify or invent a conspiracy theory, knowing that all the work will be done somewhere else. And if Barack Obama went out and said, well, this is a conspiracy theory, you know, they're not going to listen to Barack Obama. And so what the Russians found is a weakness in our own society, that they were just able to explain. exploited. The fact that you have people who would want to believe something so crazy that, you know, that Hillary Clinton's people had this poor young kid killed. And I should add, put his family through

hell, right? I mean, imagine losing a loved one and then having all of these right-wing people gleefully inventing him being a part of conspiracies, him being complicit in potential crimes. Just maligning his character. This is a human being, yeah. The 27-year-old working his ass off and not some hyper. We didn't have access all these emails to leak them. No, and we all know people. We used to be that guy. We used to be Seth Rich. We used to be the 20-something who wanted to make it in politics. It's so to me it should like you hear about these conspiracies. Sometimes we laugh at at Pizza Gate or, you know, Benghazis, this kind of catchword. But what's happened is the kind of conspiracy theorizing of the right wing media became a weapon for

Russia where, again, they didn't have to do that much work in order to have. whatever narrative they want it out there amplified by all these people who will choose to believe anything if it validates their worldview. Yeah. Speaking of people who don't have to do any work to get their message amplified, Ivanka Trump. She has become the chief spokesperson slash diplomat for the administration. So this goes back a little way. So obviously the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, just resigned. So Trump's team went on this foreign trip and they started having Avanka record these readouts of meetings, like 30 or 60 second little videos of what happened in a meeting.

And like back when Ben and I were at the NSC, you or like subject matter expert would go up to the podium and spend like 90 minutes talking about all the things that were discussing. I just love doing that. It was like cool. You get to nerd out for once. Yeah, but you get to dig deep on policy. She's not doing any of that.

So she's jumping into photo ops with world leaders. She has no subject matter expertise. And then the French released this painful, painful video of Ivanka trying to jump into a conversation at the G20 with Theresa May, Emmanuel Macron, and Christine Lagarde from the IMF. And they're just like, get out of here. You have no idea you're talking about. So it's fun to clown on her. A lot of fun was had on Twitter. But it's also an actual problem because if I'm watching the United States from afar, I'm wondering when the U.S.

transitioned to a constitutional monarchy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, first of all, I, I, a couple times recorded those videos. Oh, like, what would happen in Obama meetings? Yeah, like, yeah, I did the quick readout for the digital team, like, nobody watched them. Right. I mean, you know, so I guess, you know, maybe I don't have the star power that Ivanka has.

They look like hostage videos too. But anyway. It's a bit of a state media vibe, too. It's like, it's a good idea from the social media team, but it's like, in practice, a little weird. Yeah. Don't tell Tanya that here. I know. Well, over yours, Tony.

But, um, I think it's, we can't get over the embarrassment here. The G20 is the most important collection of countries in the world, right? The French, I'm wondering why they release us. It's kind of, you know, it's a brilliant troll. But essentially, you know, you get Christine Lagarde, like, responsible for the world economy. You know, you've got Theresa May, the Prime Minister of the U.K., obviously, on our way out, but you got Emmanuel Macron, and these are serious world leaders.

And then you have this daughter of the president. You know, we're the most powerful nation. in the history of the world at the collection of the most powerful nations in the world today and that is what's going on like that we have like the daughter of the president

like just kind of budding into conversations with these world leaders. And going into bilateral meetings with other heads of state instead of the Secretary of State for example or the national security by the state. Yeah, this is one of those times where we have to stress

this has never happened in the history of the United States of America. Like we just celebrated the 4th of July. Like never before has someone essentially had their completely unqualified kids, daughter and son-in-law, essentially responsible for our foreign policy? By the way, I used to go to these sessions, right? So you have the area where everybody can be, like staff like me could be. And then you have what's called the Leaders Lounge, where it's only Leaders. I don't even know what she's doing in there. Like, that's supposed to be just leaders. That's a reason why that conversation.

So clearly Trump is also like bending the rules, jamming his daughter and son-in-law, who by the way also have all kinds of business interests floating around these different countries, just jamming in there. So what? So she can have fantasy camp as a diplomat? Like so she can play at secretary of Madam Secretary or something? I think it's worse. I think that they're trying to set her up to get nominated to as ambassador to the UN.

That would be my exit strategy if I were her to get back to New York. I mean, just so that they can complete the House of Cards like the cycle here, where, you know, like, where the sexual predator who's president nominates the woman in his life for the U.S. Spoiler. I mean, like, I just, I don't think Americans, though. It's like the North Crea thing. Like, oh, it's part of the reality show. There's Ivanka.

And Ivanka's, like, the more pleasant face and isn't quite as infuriating as Jared. I don't think Americans understand, like, everyone else around the world. I mean, to quote Donald Trump, they're laughing at us, right? Like, this is a joke, like, that this person is budding into conversation. about the global economy of the G20? Like, what is happening here, right? And there's no, and again, it's like other countries have dealt with the corrupt son-in-law down the hall or the daughter who's the favorite, you know, a child of the dear leader,

but not the United States of America. Like, that's something that happens in countries that we think are broken and that are hopelessly corrupt, right? And how we recover from this, like how we indicate that we as a nation have learned our lesson that the affairs of the world. The world entrusted us to run it for decades. Like, we built all these institutions. We set up the G20. We set up the G7. We set up the United Nations. And yes, we share power and influence. But like now, who's ever going to trust us again when essentially all these institutions that we set up, the UN, the G20, to help the world solve problems

become essentially fantasy camp for the president's kids? Like, that's not a good look for a superpower. In fact, that's like a way to get your ticket punched out of the business of being a superpower. I don't know, man. I think Malia did a hell of a job negotiating the Iran deal. Can you imagine like Chelsea or Malia or like, you know, God bless him, Jenna Bush is like, can you imagine? No. I can't. What would we be saying if Jenna Bush was at the fucking United Nations or the G20?

It's not good. Yeah. Doesn't mean a lot of got done at those things. And there's no offense. She's doing great job on NBC, right? and Malia is doing great job and whatever she's going to do in life. But they have the self-awareness, by the way, to not do this. As did their parents.

Yeah. Last issue, let's do a little 20-20 news before we get to our interview. Elizabeth Warren put forward an interesting new proposal that she says will help revitalize diplomacy. The gist is she wants to double the size of the Foreign Service and open some more diplomatic posts. She wants to create a diplomatic equivalent of an ROTC program to recruit foreign service officers who are still in college. She wants double the size of the Peace Corps. She also wants it to diversify the diplomatic corps, which is overwhelmingly white and male. And then this is a thing where we could do a little Mia Culpah here, Ben, is she pledged not to give ambassadorial posts to wealthy donors or bundlers.

So Obama actually, this is one of the first press conference we did in transition. I remember being there. Hans from Bloomberg asked Obama, like, will you pledge not to name any donors to Ambassador Post? And he said, no, I don't. Because I actually think that there are well-qualified people outside of. of the Foreign Service who could be great ambassadors. That was proven to be true, right? People like Mike McFall, Dan Shapiro,

like subject matter experts who were in the Obama administration or on the campaign who went on to be ambassadors. But there were also big donors who got jobs in diplomatic posts who on paper were a hell of a lot less qualified, except for their fundraising. Now, there's some notable exceptions there, too. He's a guy named Matthew Barsen, who was ambassador to the UK,

who was, like, beloved and seen as usher. in a new era of how diplomats can interact with United Kingdom, right? It was like a smashing success. But there were some... We were some clunkers out there too. And like, look, the optics of giving a donor a big diplomatic post and the Bahamas aren't great. So credit to Warren for an important program all around, I think.

Yeah, like, first of all, the donor thing will get a lot of attention. And look, it's a principled stand that is tirely consistent with their broader message. So, you know, she's not just singling out these kinds of donors. She's not doing high dollar fundraisers. I do think it will be important for them to say there are people who might not be foreign service officers who can be ambassadors, you know, who are just experts. That said, what I love about this plan, and I think it's a great plan and shows that Elizabeth Warren's plans extend to foreign policy is that the State Department is completely broken, hollowed out because of what Trump has done. Literally. It is going to need to be an all hands on deck effort to

restore it. And what I love is we're going to have to enlist the American people, particularly young people in this work of rebuilding the State Department and showing the world the new face. And the idea that she had to have like a diplomatic ROTC to try to get people invested in diplomacy when they're younger and get them on a track into diplomacy is such a great idea. And again, the idea of growing and building out our foreign service capacity and again bringing Americans of that great idea. It shows that she's wrestling with the gravity of the challenge. It's not just going to be like get a new president and get a new secretary of state. Like we have lost thousands of years of experience from the mass exodus of people who've either resigned because of Trump or who were like summarily kicked out the door by Rex Tillerson.

And I think, you know, she's once again shown that she gets it. It's not just the policy. It's how are you going to implement the policy? And here rebuilding the State Department. I hope this is one entry and hope the other candidates have similar plans. we've given shout out to our buddy Matt Duss, who's done a great job for Bernie. There's a terrific staffer for Elizabeth Warren named Sasha Baker. You can follow her on Twitter now.

She just went live on Twitter. But smart people around Warren, too, and a very needed entry to this debate. Yeah, not only are these good ideas, but they wrote along Media Post where they framed it well. I think there's some stat in there that's like there are more people who work in military supermarkets or kitchens than there are foreign. service officers. Yeah, there are more people in military bans. Yeah, like the funding discrepancy is just insane. And when you think about the importance of investing in preventing wars, versus fighting them, like, you know, everyone seems to benefit here. Well, look, the challenges in American foreign policy, as in the American economy, are structural, right? And Warren has pointed

out, and I've learned a lot from listening to her about the structural inequities in the American economy. There is a structural problem in a foreign policy apparatus where the defense department is sitting on a trillion dollars, and the State Department is fighting for a few tens of billions of dollars. There is a structural problem when you have this massive workforce, millions of people working either in the uniformed military at the Pentagon, and we're hemorrhaging career ambassadors at State Department. And so she's trying to write that balance once again. And again, if we are concerned about the militarization of American foreign policy, that's not always the fault of the military, just like it's not the fault of the military that they had to roll tanks

through Washington, D.C. That's like the decision that presidents make and the Congress makes. And she's saying, if we really want to address this and we want to reprioritize diplomacy, we need to hire more diplomats and we need more bring more people into the process. Man, we didn't even talk about the tanks in the street. I've forgotten about that already. Let's, I mean, like a checkered and dark day. Can I just say something as a former speechwriter? One, every time Trump doesn't like vomit onto the podium or insult people. Everybody's like, well, he actually gave a unifying speech.

He gave like a paint by the number of speech that any junior speech writer in the house, no offense to junior speech or his house could write. And then everybody goes wild. Two, it's like, well, actually, it turned out not to be a divisive event. No. Like by the time he got up there, once you've had the joint chiefs forced into a political event where they're giving out RNC tickets and they're paying millions of dollars to roll tanks for a photo op through Washington, it's already divisive.

guys. Like, it doesn't matter what the fuck he says. Yeah, July 4th is so easy to not make divisive. Obama used to have a party on the South Lawn. There were tons of service members invited. They put on a concert for them. We went as staffers. Some supporters went, but it wasn't like we were closing down the mall to Hawk tickets for the RNC. It was about service and the troops. It was like. And probably none of you were aware of it. And that's because we located. But the reality is we went to that big barbecue on the South Lawn. The people invited were the military. So this idea. that Trump is, you know, I heard some people say, well, Trump gets it. You wait to pay tribute to

the military on July 4th. No, the people that got the tickets to that event were like vets and wounded warriors, right? We just didn't, you know, tattooed on our forehead and have like a bunch of generals stand next to us while some tanks rolled through the Lincoln Memorial. Yeah. God, speaking of days off, there weren't. I remember being at that event on the South Lawn had had a couple drinks. And I got an email from John Brennan who was like, so-and-so at the New York Times is about to publish a piece of intelligence about our relationship with some country that will end our access

to something critical forever. Sprinted back upstairs. John Brennan is a most subtle email. Yeah. You think his Twitter is like, that's actually how he talks. You know? Like you, sir.

Like, how dare you, sir? Like, that's actually, like people think it's like some Twitter persona that he has? No, like. There's also a lot of jersey in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like sleeps with the fishes.

But very, articulate jersey. Yes, very articulate jersey. No offense to the rest of Jersey. I mean, just there's this kind of King's English meets Jersey Bar meets CIA operative that all comes together in John Brennan. Yeah. Unique package. That sounds right. Yeah. Okay, scores were settled. I feel like, uh, clenched. I mean, what have I got to lose with APEC here, you know? They love you. And I'll say it. Like, I, you know, Corey Booker. There's time to fix this. No, yeah. Like, I'd like, find much to admire and Corey Booker. That's what's

so disappointing here, right? Is it. Exactly. He's this guy. He's so smart. He's so smart. And he's this guy who calls on Democrats to not be afraid. He's been totally unafraid in the positions he's put forward on criminal justice and other issues. And so why do you have to take the kind of path of least resistant? I'm going to try to score some points with elite opinion by being the hard ass on the Iran deal. Fight for diplomacy, my friends. Okay. When we come back, our interview with Eché, Tamil Koren, a badass Turkish journalist. Our guest today is Eché Tamokorin, a Turkish journalist and the author of a fantastic book, How to Lose a Country, The Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship, calling in from your vacation. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. So the book, How to Lose a Country, The Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship, everyone I know who has read it has come away, pretty much terrified by the parallels with what's been happening in America during the Trump administration. Can you walk us through the Erdogan playbook and how he has been strangling democracy in Turkey?

Sure. But before doing that, I should maybe emphasize that I am really set to hear this. You know, people get terrified when they read the book. Well, actually, what I aimed that instead was to, you know, comfort them, telling them that it's not happening only to them. so, you know, I'm telling you the steps so you don't have to get terrified. It's just you have to get prepared. So I hope less people are terrified and more people are ready to do the, you know, the work that's necessary.

The Erdogan's playbook, or rather the playbook of all right-been populists, both in Europe and in the United States, are seven steps, basically. It is, first, they create a movement because the party, political party, is over. They create a movement because the movement, the word itself, promises action, excitement, so to speak. And then they ask for respect, for respect to be respected and to be recognized on the conventional stage of politics. And then once they get the respect, they al-bov in themselves at the table of the country. conventional politics and then on until they seize the power they use several tricks such as you know politicizing a manufactured kind of victimhood and so on the second step is once they get at the table of the conventional politics they start

disturbing the rationale and terrorizing the political dialogue and then on you know you see all these appalling astonishing surprising shocking statements coming from right-wing populists or they're spin doctors. And all of a sudden, you know, you as a person who is capable of reasoning, basic human reasoning, you find yourself paralyzed, sort of. The third step is getting rid of the shame and immorality is the new black, might be the motto of our times, I guess. They encourage, but not only encourage that they politicize and mobilize shamelessness

among their supporters. And then, you know, shamelessness become a badge of honor among the supporters of right-being populist leader. And the third step is they dismantle the judiciary and political mechanism. And this comes, of course, after they seize the power, they play with the judiciary mechanism, they play with the institutions. And it's not only they put their own guise in important, places, but also they create this idea of superfluousness of the state institutions. So you start thinking that, oh, that state institutions that we thought of being so strong

were actually paper tigers. So we can loot them as well, the supporters think like this. And then the fifth is it's the use of political humor. We, most of us think that laughing at these right-wing populists or their supporters would make everything easier. It is as if as long as we laugh at them, they're not real danger. It's a way to calm our anxieties in the beginning,

but then it becomes a poisonous political attitude as well. And they use this. We become so busy with laughing at them, and meanwhile they do serious stuff, which is not easy to laugh at after a while. And the sixth is, design your own citizen. And in order to

do that, in order to design their own ideal citizen, they start with women. It's not coincidence that all around Europe and in United States that women are targeted by right-being populists' discourses and policies.

Somehow, for some reason, all these leaders think that reshaping the women according to their own likings is an overnight job so they start with women. And that is why all around the Western world at the moment, including Turkey and United States, women rights are under attack.

And the seventh is, design your own country, which is the last step, which I hope United States won't be witnessing, is, you know, it is they simply get rid of all those people who criticize, who are obstacles before they. ultimate power. They either get rid of them by prisoning them or terrifying them into muteness, or they make them exiles. So after that stage, I think the dictatorship is fully formed. And the thing is, these steps, some of these steps are so invisible to recognize in the beginning, and then in retrospect, you see that all these things,

happened. Yeah, that to me, I should say also, by the way, anybody who's been interested in this subject should read this book because it really breaks down the overlapping strategies of all these leaders that we've seen emerge on the right. And that, to me, part of what was so chilling in the story you tell about Turkey and how it relates other places is there's not like one Reichstag fire, right? There's not one moment when, okay, we used to be a democracy and now we're living in an autocracy. You described the kind of slow motion version of this. One of the areas I found really interesting to read about is how the media, of which we're all apart in a way, is essentially co-opted by these leaders and can't find the language to describe what's happening and is manipulated by them. In the U.S., what struck us in being in the White House is, you know, Trump comes on the scene in 2011 saying Obama wasn't born in the U.S.

The media is laughing at him, but they're putting him on every channel, you know, over and over and over again. and that's how he builds his political brand. And you have some great anecdotes in the book about people trying to shame these leaders, you know, to fact check Nigel Farage or to fact check Erdogan and missing the point that these leaders don't care. They want the media as a foil, but they also depend on the media to essentially, you know, be a tool for them to push their narratives. And I'm wondering, what is the appropriate way for journalists to describe what is happening?

Because it feels like here in the U.S., people don't get it. They're covering every tweet from Trump. They're covering the issues that he wants to be covered while also becoming the foil for his supporters to hate. What is the right way for an independent news media to deal with a Trump and Erdogan and Orban, a Farage? Well, Hannah Arendt has this amazingly, you know, famous term, banality of evil. and I reversed the term to evil of banality in the book. And one of the reasons I did that is this wrong attitude of media as well. All these banal things that Trump did or Orban did or any other right-wing populace,

all these, you know, shocking things or really wager things. If we keep on following them, if we keep on multiplying them by publicizing it, there is no way that we can beat the easy. evil of banality, evil of accumulated banality, so to speak. What American media did, it was almost identical to Turkish media 15 years ago, was to find their first obsession, so to speak, was to find a common ground, a common language, how can we understand them, how can we embrace them, all these people who supported Trump. And then once it didn't work, it turned out to be a great, you know, really severe, severe polarization between the Trump supporters and the media.

And New York Times was especially, you know, vocal about that. And then it became this, you know, almost a war of discourses between New York Times or, you know, other media that is against Trump and Trump supporters. I think we shouldn't be forgetting that once people believe, I'm not saying convinced, once people wanted to believe in something, and in our case, unfortunately, it's Trump, it's not easy to refute their beliefs, because beliefs cannot be refuted. And this is what American media and part of the European media is trying to do. And then when it doesn't work, they start mocking these people. they start making fun of them, and then it gets really sarcastic, and it becomes really, at some point, it becomes ugly as well.

I think what we have to do is to take it seriously, to start with, and then follow the, you know, classical rules of journalism. Follow the money. That's one of the, I think, most important rules of journalism. So instead of focusing on what Trump does or how funny he looks, how absurd. absurd he is and so on and so forth. I think we as journalists should focus on the real powers that have put Trump there. There is one thing I see lacking in American media and in European media, which was also lacking in Turkey at the time. There are many journalists, many opinion makers, many politicians as well. They're trying to criticize Mr. Trump without.

criticizing the system itself they behave as if if only we can get rid of Trump everything will be back to normal or everything will be perfect again I think we have passed a time and Trump is not a reason of the political insanity we are all living or or his ill but actually he's the consequence of what we have been going through since 1980s so not only we have to criticize or analyze what happened to the world since 1980s that created this right-wing populist leaders, but also journalism has to go through a very serious self-criticism about its role in democracy, about its role in social equality, about its role for telling the truth.

So I think what we have to do is two things at the same time. take seriously what's happening around us, no more jokes about it, and second, take seriously the fact that we have to criticize ourselves and the system itself that created Trump and his ilk. We've been following on this podcast, especially the elections in Turkey, right, where it feels like there's some life in opposition in the sense that you have these elections, Erdogan tries to invalidate them, They rerun the elections. He loses again. Obviously, we see this potential fracture in the party with Gould and Davatolo potentially breaking off.

Are we seeing the beginning of potential rejection of Erdogan? Or is this just another minor inconvenience for him as he consolidates what you would call his dictatorship and, while accounts, looks like a dictatorship? Well, I'm like after 17 years of Mr. I don't, it's not easy, not, you know, to be precocious when you're happy. I am really happy that there is this almost in your face kind of win for opposition in Istanbul. And Istanbul mayoral elections was more than itself. I'm like, it was a change in political climate. And that change was so solid that you could touch it with your hands.

And it was so funny, actually. Well, disgusting and funny, to see that on the night of the elections, almost five minutes after the official results were announced and that the opposition's win was, you know, definite. I was watching the TV, all these political commentators, TV commentators, who have been devoted supporters of Erdogan turning into this new discourse, like almost novice, rebels. So when you see men for all seasons change their discourse on TV only in five minutes, you know that there is a change in the political climate. It's not only a little win in mayoral elections. So there is a change and people are trying to tell, I guess, that they are fed up

with Mr. Erdogan. And they have all the right to say so. I mean like imagine Trump for 17 years, and multiply his political skills with 100. That's what we have been through. It was so difficult to explain this to Europeans or Americans 10 years ago, but now since they're having similar experience, it would resonate with them better, I guess, than it did 10 years ago. So now, you know, one of the things, well, it's a crack in the wall of dictatorship, that's for sure. But one of my observations during the night of the election and after the night of the election

has been that actually Turkey has a new normal now. Mr. Ekram Imammolu, who is now the new mayor of Istanbul, but also he's becoming a natural rival to Mr. Erdogan, is a religious person. He's not reluctant to show that he is religious. This was kind of unthinkable before Mr. Erdogan invaded the political stage in Turkey. So I think Mr. Erdogan has set a new normal for Turkish politics. No more pure secularism in Turkish politics. And this is what I thought when Ekram Imam alu was talking about God

and, you know, praying and religion and so on. But on the other hand, he did. he persuaded this attitude or policy, so to speak, political tactic, which was radical love. You know, after such deep polarization of the country for such a long time, I think people miss the feeling of being normal or simply turning back to our normal insanity. So it's giving people a break, so to speak, his discourse, his policies, his way of speaking, is giving people a break from all the terrorizing political climate that Mr. Erdogan created. People tend to think that authoritarianism is only about politics,

but then it gets into the capillary wrestles of life, so speak, and it gets into your daily life, into your very personal relationships. It terrorizes them as well. and a certain new moral or immorality is established among the people. I think people in Turkey are tired of that. They're exhausted, literally, of being subjected to evil, vulgarity and banality constantly. So in that sense, yes, there is a change, and I am expecting a lot from this change. And in terms of this new party, I don't think many people are believing in that,

because those are the people, you know, the new founders of the new party, are the people who themselves say that we have been silent all along, even though we saw that democracy was in crisis and human rights were violated. So I don't think they would be taken seriously, at least by the streets, by those people who are looking for a new political option. So I sort of mentioned at the top that some people are depressed by the state of democracy in the U.S., but let's see if we can leave them on a hopeful note. What do you see in Europe, in the U.S., that gives you cause for hope?

And what tools do you think people need to use to actually push back against creeping authoritarianism from Trump or from anybody else? Well, personally, I'm not a big fan of the word hope. I would rather go for the word determination. And, you know, sometimes there is no hope, but you cannot take away determination from humankind. And I see the determination both in the United States and Europe. And I am very excited, actually, for the coming years.

And everybody should be, Americans included. Because for the first time in decades, they are awake, and they are remembering that they are political subjects, not political. objects and that understanding of themselves as political objects have been imposed on them since 1980s and now they are waking up and they are realizing they have to make decisions and they have to take action and as they take action they start understanding all this time we thought that understanding is not is not you know in direct contact with action but understanding without action is impossible. Therefore, I think people of Europe and people of United States

are now finally understanding not only the gravity of the situation, but also their own capabilities. And that is so exciting to me. And if we really want to talk about hope, I am hopeful about young women because they are reacting as the canaries in a mind and they are reacting very strong. I was proud as a woman and as a human being when I saw that the first immediate reaction came from American women on the day first. Day one, they were out on the streets. I think one should be more than hopeful by looking at the strength, determination, and resilience of those women.

The book is How to Lose a Country, the Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship, Thank you so much for joining the show and taking time out of your vacation. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks a lot. Thank you for having me. That's it for POTSave the World. Thanks for tuning in.

Oh, rate us in the store. Rate us and review us. Give us those five stars. Tell your friends about the show. No one's listening at this point. I just want to be clear about one thing. I read the reviews sometimes. Oh, dear.

Yeah, which is, you know, I probably shouldn't. Like, I stopped reading my Twitter mentions well ago, but the reviews are very helpful. And some of you echo, like there's a polarization around profanity. Some people love it. Some people don't. Look, I hear about that. You're like my mother-in-law,

my sister-in-law, you know. So write the good reviews because, like, we want to read them. Or roast us. Or roast us. And I'll actually read it. And I'll, you know, I'll think about it too.

Talk to you next week.