Pod Save the World - Jared still sucks

Episode Date: February 6, 2020

Today’s topics include: Brexit, updates on the Coronavirus, why Trump made Venezuela a focus of his State of the Union speech, the list of countries subject to Trump’s muslim ban gets bigger, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s allies attack Jared Kushner, and Trump’s inexcusable land mine policy decision. We also complain about the Iowa caucuses and wonder aloud if they’re more democratic than politics in Hungary, so that’s depressing.

Welcome back to POTS of the World. I'm Tommy Duthor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, you're in Budapest. That's pretty cool. I'm in Budapest. I'm in Hungary. Yeah, I figured I'd, you know, instead of just talking about what's happening here, I'd actually come here and talk to some folks and actually, you know, meeting some people who are worldos out here, which is always nice to hear. Man, that's cool. Would you say that the folks in Budapest, the government officials are more committed to democracy than the Iowa Democratic Party or, or no? I'd say there's some striking similarities in the politics. of Hungary in the politics of the U.S. right now. But the Iowa caucus is giving everybody a run for its money here. I got to tell you, man, I got back from Iowa yesterday. I find myself angrier every hour that goes by at the fallout from this disaster and the amazing lack of faith. It is understandably giving people in the Democratic Party in the fairness of elections. It's just, it's just so inexcusable and so infuriating. I just can't even believe it happened. Well, there are, so first of all, I get on an 11-hour flight to come out here, and I left at like, you know, 6 or 7 p.m. Iowa time. So I was kind of psyched that I was going to be able to miss all of the freaking out and just land and find out who won.

Right. And then I landed, and it, like, I didn't understand what it happened. Yeah, yeah. It took me a while, like, just made no sense. But then, you know, what we forget is everybody around the world. is watching our primary because everybody wants Trump to lose, right? And so they're all watching the Democratic primary really closely. And we look totally ridiculous.

I know it's a secondary concern, but like the global ripples of the Iowa Democratic Party not being able to report results is yet another blow for the standing of democracy in our world. So that's a low point that we can recover from. We laugh because we cannot cry. Okay, today on the show we're going to cover the following. We're going to talk about Brexit, the coronavirus and the latest there. Some updates on Venezuela since Juan Guaido, the opposition leader down in Venezuela, was at the State of the Union last night.

The expansion of the Muslim band, lots and lots of fallout from Jared Kushner's peace plan, in quotes, and then landmine policy, because what we needed in this world is more landmines just strewn about. So, without any further ado, Ben, let's start with Brexit. So Brexit has happened at 11 p.m. on Friday, January 31st, Britain left the EU after nearly 50 years of membership. Members of the European Parliament sang Old Langsign to their British colleagues. It was sort of a sad, poignant, weird moment. The process itself took what, like four years to happen?

Clearly, judging on Boris Johnson's campaign slogan, people in success, people in the UK were just ready to stop talking about Brexit to get it over with. But that doesn't mean the process is really over. now the UK has to negotiate trade deals with the EU. They have to negotiate trade deals with the U.S. There's a million little details that they're going to be working through for a long time. It's weird that we've been talking about Brexit for so long and how potentially terrible it could be for people in the UK, for the global economy. And then it just sort of happens. And I mean, I guess, curious what you think, Ben. Like, I guess a lot of the pain, you know, in terms of financial markets or business decisions was priced into the decision and, like,

had been felt over time. Or maybe some of the, most of the pain is just, ahead of the UK with these negotiations. But the whole thing feels weirdly anticlimactic. And maybe that's just the problem with these like slow developing disasters as it's hard to adequately explain the fallout. But what do you think? Well, look, I actually think it's very much because we still don't really know what the terms are, you know, because essentially the vote to Brexit still leaves all of these questions about the future nature of the, you know, the, trading relationship between the UK and the EU to be negotiated over the course of the next year and also kind of how the movement of peoples is going to be handled. So, you know, all the things

that could cause the economic fallout, many of them are just kind of punted into this new round of negotiations about what the nature of the trading relationship is going to be. And, you know, Boris, in part to sure Brexit happens, and in part, in his view, to give himself some leverage, has made clear that, you know, in the parliament voted, that they're going to leave no matter what the outcome of those negotiations are. So the reality is we still don't really know what the terms are going to be, because until we know what the future of the UK relationship with the EU is, we don't know the fallout. And so it's somewhat delay. It's, you know, now kind of delayed in its next round of negotiations. You know, they are going to Brexit. There are terms for

how that's going to happen, but we don't know is what's going to replace essentially the UK's integration with the European Union. And so the irony of this whole thing is that while they want to get out of the EU, they're likely to be stuck in these negotiations of the EU, at least for this year and probably beyond. So Brexit is still going to be not quite as prominent, but still there. And I think some of this economic pain and financial pain, yeah, some of it may just will play out over time, but a lot of it is dependent on the outcome of the next round of negotiations about what the trade deal is between the UK and the EU. And I think markets and businesses are waiting for those negotiations to see what transpires. And I guess there's probably

some political pain to come potentially too. If Scotland decides to skex it to leave the UK as well, or there's talk of Northern Ireland joining Ireland. So there could be ways that the UK continues to shrink over time that I imagine wouldn't make leaders there particularly happy. Yeah, I mean, if Scotland follows Megxit, you know, that obviously would be the most dramatic thing that could happen. I mean, look, part of the thing, and some of this is, I think people like us, you know, get into trouble sometimes because this is true of Trump as well. Like the consequences of these decisions take time to become apparent in the real world and can take years. And so, you know, we'll know in five years what the fallout is, you know,

because we'll know within five years whether there's a huge economic hit, whether, you know, financial institutions relocate from London to Europe, whether it's a complete shit show in terms of Brits who are working in the EU or EU citizens who are living in the UK and whether they need to leave. And of course, importantly, whether Northern Ireland either has violence or wants to unify with Ireland or Scotland exits. So, you know, I do think some of us get into trouble because we're talking about all these consequences and when people don't see them happen right away, they're like, oh, everybody was just, you know, too alarmist, too hyperbolic.

When the reality is, like, these things, you know, takes five years to know what the outcome is of really big decisions, if not more. And so this is a useful reminder that it remains to be seen, whether Boris Johnson can pull this off and minimize the pain to the UK economy and, preserve the unity of the UK. If he can do that, you know, that would obviously be an achievement, but I still tend to believe that a lot of those consequences are still coming. Yeah, I do too. Ben, before we go on to more serious issues in one of the 400 group texts we're in, someone just sent around a quote from Rick Gorka, who was a Romney spokesman in 2012. Now, for those

listening, you probably already know that Mitt Romney decided to vote for impeaching Donald Trump today. It was a pretty brave move. And so this guy, Rick Orca, who was his spokesman in 2012, tweeted a statement attacking Romney for that decision. Ben, you'll remember Rick Orca because there's this infamous video of Romney on a foreign trip in 2012. And he hadn't talked to the press in days and days and days. And so two reporters in his pool started screaming at him at this Polish site when one of them yelled, what about your gaffs and another is like, do you have a message for the Palestinian people? And Rick Orca was the ones that quoted Zayorke. And Rick Orca was the ones that quoted saying, kiss my ass, this is a holy sight for the Polish people.

I was one of the best days of, like, that whole Romney trip, and we can pay tribute to Romney here in a moment, but first we can relive this. I mean, we're in the White House. Right. And, you know, it was close race, right? And if Romney had pulled off some super successful foreign trip, that would have really helped him. And so we're a little worried about this trip in a way because it's a chance for him to look

presidential. And the first thing is he lands in London. And remember, he insults London that's got to host the Olympics by saying that they're not ready and there could be, you know, crime and all this stuff. And then Boris Johnson, of all people, is the mayor of London. And he stands up at a rally in front of like tens of thousands of people. And he's yelling like, there's this guy, this guy called Mitt Romney. Basically, Romney's like thoroughly humiliated in London. Then he goes to Israel and he, I don't even remember how but he, you know, insults the Palestinians, which, you know, people used to care about, I guess.

now with Trump that does matter. And he makes a series of gaffes. And so this is like the culmination of this trip. And also, frankly, as much as I like Phil Rucker and Ashley Parker, who are the reporters, it was also a good sign of like the absurdity of the media because they're just yelling out like, what about your gaffes? What about your gaffes? It's a funny thing.

I forgot that goon, no. I forgot that goon, like walking out of them like, hey, this is a holy site for the Polish people. Kiss my ass. This is a holy site for the Polish people. Rick Gorka, one of the funniest quotes. ever made on the campaign trail. Well, anyway, we just sort of made fun of Mitt Romney for a minute there, but credit to him for taking a very brave vote. But man, I just need something to laugh about today. Yeah, it's been a hard week, so we need a lot about that. I will say that, like, it's so

unusual to see a Republican, like, just do the right thing. So it's completely shocking. And it totally points up the complete cowardice, obviously, of people like Murkowski and Collins, never mind Lindsay Graham, right? But kudos to Kudos to Mitt Romney because not only did he do it but his speech I think laid out as plainly as you can like why this whole thing is absurd

and it's obvious that Trump is guilty and should have been removed, you know, so. Yeah, yeah, it was brave. All right, let's talk about something decidedly less fun. So last week we talked with a public health expert named Dr. Abdulsaid about how dangerous the coronavirus is or is not and how Berlin it is. So we just wanted to update

folks on what has happened since that conversation. So the latest numbers I've seen are that around 25,000 people have been infected in at least 24 countries with about 500 fatalities. There are almost undoubtedly many, many more who have been infected with the virus, but just haven't reported it. The Chinese government is basically locked down the city of Wuhan where 11 million people live. Imagine that. They're also clamping down on travel to other cities in the region. There are Americans who have been evacuated out of China and then quarantined on military bases in California. There's this entire cruise ship in Japan where folks got the virus that has since been quarantined. Airlines are suspending flights to China.

China is starting to crack down on media coverage of the virus, which is pretty unnerving. So as Abdul mentioned last week, the coronavirus is a lot less lethal than SARS. We're talking about 2% fatality rate instead of 10% for SARS. That said, we are probably at the very beginning of the outbreak. So, Ben, I guess what I wanted to ask you is that I am a little surprised that we have seen more political or economic fallout from how quickly this disease seems to be spreading yet. There was one day when markets really cratered. But you would think that, you know, cutting off air travel to China of all places would be seen as a potentially enormously disruptive

thing to do. Yeah. I mean, I'm surprised, too, because essentially, you know, China's been on some form of lockdown. I've talked to friends in like Hong Kong who said that there's like, it's like a ghost town relative to how it normally is, you know, just the lost revenue in China from people not being able to travel there, people not being able to travel within China. And, you know, you would think would end up slowing down the Chinese economy, which, you know, should then have an impact on the global economy. So, you know, I think it's something to continue to watch. I think that, you know, the question about fatalities really does matter here too, because if you start to see fatalities in other countries, then not only do you have, obviously,

the human cost and the public health concern, but you also have, you know, probably more knock-on economic effects. And so this, too, I think, you know, we have to see whether we're out of the worst of it. And if we're out of the worst of it, then I think we avoid some of the potential economic blowback. It does just feel to me like a space to watch in the global economy generally. is China, right? Because, you know, the trade war took some toll on them and then this virus on top of it. And then, you know, there have been some rumblings of other problems in the

Chinese economy. And so if, you know, one of the things that could initiate some kind of global economic downturn would be if the Chinese economy really slows. But we have, and this could be a trigger for that. So we haven't, we haven't yet seen that come to before. But, you know, I think we're not out of the woods with this thing yet. And, you know, I continue to be concerned about the preparedness of our administration to handle it, given that they eliminated the coordinator for these types of diseases in the White House and slashed funding for preparedness. So this will continue to, I think, be a danger until there's a sense from the World Health Organization, you know, that the worst is behind us. We're not quite there yet. Yeah, agreed. Okay. So speaking

of the worst being behind us, Trump's State of the Union address was last night. I luckily was on a plane. I couldn't watch it. And frankly, after that Iowa debacle, I'm not sure I could have stomached it. But one person who did watch was a Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido. He was in the chamber. He was recognized by Trump in that moment as a legitimate president of Venezuela, although they've recognized him as a leader of Venezuela for a long time. So it's been a while since we talked about Venezuela. So we'll give you the quick backstory. Most of the international community believes that the 2018 re-election of President Nicholas Maduro was fraudulent and illegitimate. Because Juan Guaido was the president of their National Assembly at the time, Guido and his allies cited a provision

of Venezuela's constitution that they believe makes him the president or acting president in the wake of an illegitimate election. And then he declared himself the acting president. The U.S. followed suit quickly and the U.S. pushed the international community to also recognize Guido as president of Venezuela. This is, you know, this happened a while back and it has had no actual impact on getting Maduro out of power. I wonder why Trump highlighted this last night. It seemed like he wants to talk about socialism generally, sort of previewing a bunch of attacks on Bernie Sanders maybe. Trump was supposed to do a press conference with Guido today on Wednesday, but he canceled it probably because of Romney's vote to impeach him. Ben, what did you make of Guido being at the State of the Union and the bipartisan,

reception he got, the very positive bipartisan reception, I should say. Yeah, so first of all, I think, you know, this policy has been a complete failure. You know, you remember we were talking about this a lot, like when this first happened a year ago. And the signaling from Trump and Pompeo and Bolton was that Maduro was going to be gone imminently. You know, and Mike Pompeo even said, you know, claimed that there was an intelligence report that there was a plane on the tarmac ready to take Maduro away. You had General Rubio tweeting the reports from the front about, you know, how they were, you know, desertions and the National Guard. And here we are. And Maduro is entrenched. And there's been some very good reporting on this about how he feels more confident than he has in a

long time. And that's in large part because the Russians and the Chinese have moved in pretty aggressively to shore him up. And the Russians and the Chinese also very much want to get their hands on that national oral infrastructure as well. And so we're in this position where the U.S. sanctions have further hurt the Venezuelan people and there are further flows of people out of Venezuela. I think there's something like five million Venezuelans out of the country now. The humanitarian situation in the country's worse. And Guido is farther away from power today than he was when Trump recognized him. I mean, I think that's just the basic assessment. And Guido's been eager to get this kind of meeting with Trump.

He was recently in Florida. And when I look at the state of the union, what bothers me so much about it is this is about domestic politics. You know, Trump thinks that, first of all, he's appealing to Venezuelan Americans in Florida and Cuban Americans in Florida who support this type of hardline policy. And so it's not hard to deduce it. It's an election year. And therefore, everything Trump is doing in this so too, much more so.

even than a normal president in a re-election year is just kind of crass domestic politics. So he has Guido up there, a guy who he's basically ignored because Trump has lost interest in this policy. He has him in the box just so he can have essentially, you know, a little bump in South Florida. And I also agree, you know, it's probably part of his general case against socialism that he's going to make. But I know why, you know, Guido's trying to present himself as having this international support. I think he's risks just looking like a stooge of the United States. You know, it's not a good look. It's not a good look to kind of be a political prop for Donald Trump, you know, who's not popular in Latin America.

You know, so I think, you've seen some rumblings of dissatisfaction with Guido complaints about corruption in the Venezuelan opposition. And again, I think Guido's going to be real careful here that he's so aligned with Trump that he looks like an extension of a U.S. regime change policy in Venezuela and not like a guy who's just trying to uphold the institutions of Venezuela. So I think this is kind of a misplay by him and Trump. And frankly, I'm really disappointed in the Democrats. It's a tough situation to be in, and we want to support the Venezuelan people's desire for human rights and democracy. I get, you know, applauding for Guaido. I think that's complicated, but I get why some people want to do that. But they haven't mounted any critique of Trump's policy.

So he's kind of gotten this pass, and there's even this kind of appearance that this is like a good, popular thing he's done when it's just made the situation worse. And so it's another example of kind of seeding the field to Trump where he gets to define, you know, issues like Iran and Venezuela, because there's not enough of a sustained criticism against what he's doing. I guess, you know, Iran, there was more pushback, and that seemed to have an impact. I'd like to see more pushback on this policy, because Trump is just piling up these sanctions on Venezuela and Cuba. The Venezuelan people and the Cuban people are suffering. Those governments are more entrenched than ever. And Russia and China are the ones benefiting because those governments are turning to Russian China for support. And so what is this

achieving? And literally nothing other than the punishment is doling out on the people of those countries. Yeah, by any measure, I think the policy has been a pretty big failure. Speaking of policies that are a big failure, last week, Trump added six countries to the Muslim ban list. So those countries are Nigeria, Myanmar, or Burma, whatever we want to call it, Eritrea, Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, in Kyrgyzstan. That brings the total number of countries on the list to 13. The specific restrictions vary by country. It's not all in one, but they include travel restrictions, restrictions on immigrant visas, restrictions to the diversity lottery. It's worth noting that, one, Nigeria is the biggest country in Africa, so you're putting massive restrictions on a country with a huge population. Two, Muslims in Myanmar or Burma

have been fleeing a genocide. So this is particularly cruel to them. Ben, you know, the administration wants us to call this a travel ban. I refuse to do that. We know what it is. It's a ban on a religion. These are restrictions on countries with big Muslim populations. So they go into place on February 22nd.

You know, I think the previous ban impacted 135 million people. So this will be way, way more. What do you think the impact continuing to add to this ban will be? Yeah, I think this, you know, we don't pay as much attention to this anymore, but it gets huge attention in these countries, obviously, and around the world. You know, practically speaking, Trump, you know, essentially is prohibiting a quarter of Africa's population from being able to apply for immigrant visas to United States. I mean, it's an astonishing scale.

I mean, Nigeria is the biggest country by far in Africa. And so just the message that sends, the exclusionary message that sends, you know, I think it will kind of permanently change the view of the United States in these countries, right? So Nigeria, a hugely important country, right? Biggest country in Africa, growing economy, like, you know, a country that has its own challenges with terrorism and Boko Haram, all kinds of U.S. interests in Africa, like are focused on Nigeria and imagine the impact this is going to have in the long term on the people from the country, never mind all these other countries.

And, you know, frankly, immigration from these countries has enriched the United States because of people, you know, come here and build a better. life, but frankly, also because, you know, oftentimes the people who are educated in the United States from these countries and settle for a time in the United States and then go back, you know, they end up being the people who are running these countries. And now those people are going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be long-term consequences for U.S. interests in addition to just the moral and credibility blow that we're taking. And I should say that, like, it's a particular tragedy, too, with Myanmar. You know, there have been some very vibrant

immigrant communities that have come here from Myanmar over the decades, persecuted populations who resettled as refugees in the United States. Some of them in Iowa, Tommy, actually, back when I used to knock doors in Iowa in the caucus. And I should add that we, this is a good example of how our example can be leveraged because we wanted a lot of other countries to take Rohingya refugees, and part of what we had to do is lead by example. So when there was a bit of an outflow, you know, several tens of thousands of boat people from Myanmar, for instance, I think in 2015, You know, we had to try to take our share of Rohingya so that we could then have some standing to go around and encourage countries like Indonesia, Malaysia to take Rohingya. And we should note at this time that the Indian Muslim ban, right, that you and I talked about in the last pod, particularly affects people, the Rohingya, because, you know, particularly restricts Muslim immigration from Bangladesh.

Right. And that's where the Rohingya are. So they're getting, they're getting screwed across the board here. because, you know, they've been driven out of Myanmar. They're stuck in Bangladesh. They can't go to India, which is the nearby neighbor. They can't be resettled in the U.S. The U.S. is not going around trying to get other people to take them.

So there's real humanitarian consequences here, too. Yeah, it is a humanitarian catastrophe. Okay, let's turn to Israel for a minute. And the fallout from the Trump, Jared Kushner, Middle East peace plan, if you want to call it that, it was more of a giveaway to the Israeli. So Kushner is learning the hard way that Israeli Prime Minister B.B. Netanyahu will always stab you in the back if it suits in politically. So last week we talked about the Trump plan, which would basically give the Israeli government all the territory it wants. It allowed the continued occupation of the Palestinians. It allowed for continued

settlement construction. Basically, it gave the Palestinian side scraps to maybe someday form a state if they're allowed. Hours after that plan was released, B. B. Netanyahu, the prime minister, announced that he planned to annexed Israeli settlements in the West Bank. But then he mysteriously walked it back saying the White House had asked them to wait a while. It turns out that giving Bibi almost everything he wanted was not enough for Netanyahu's far-right allies who are now accusing Jared of betraying Nanyahu. So again, all Netanyahu has agreed to do is hold off on annexing these settlements until after the election, which is on March 2nd. But here's some quotes from one of Bibi's top settler allies that show how mad they are about that.

So one is Jared took a knife and put it in Netanyahu's back. Jared misled everybody. Gentlemen don't act this way. That was my favorite. This guy also said that delaying annexation would cost Netanyahu the election, which really gives up the whole game and the whole point of this plan and the obvious reason why they're mad. So, Ben, I guess gentlemen dehumanized the Palestinian people when politically advantageous and then

cut them out in negotiations and take their land, but they don't backtrack on a promise to Bibi. Well, yeah, giving up the game. And look, you're never going to give enough to satisfy the Israeli far right on the Palestinian issue. And like what we've all known, right, is that clearly the direction of the people who've been driving the train in terms of the Israeli government is towards annexation and towards, you know, essentially wanting to make permanent the occupation.

And, you know, Jared was essentially giving them the wink, wink, go ahead. Then I think, you know, it feels like what happened is it was really embarrassing when, and within 24 hours of this peace plan coming out, NEN now announces the obvious conclusion of that peace plan, which is annexation. Maybe there's some behind the scenes, you know, outreach and panic because this is going to further humiliate Jared if that's possible. And Ned now puts us on the back burner, but everybody knows. knows what the game is here, right? The intention is clear. This is what the Israeli right wants to do, and Trump is tacitly approved it. So I don't know why anybody on either side is surprised. Jared shouldn't be surprised that these people will, you know, trash him, given the opportunity,

because what they really want to do is move as fast as possible annexation. You know, these Israelis shouldn't be surprised that Jared essentially somehow wants to have it both ways. You know, He wants to give Israel everything at once but look like this is a peace plan, right? Those things are not reconcilable. So this is part of the problem of lying, right, of saying that you're putting out a peace plan when it's anything but a peace plan. And so that when one party acts to the obvious, you know, and obviously in line with your plan, you know, you want them to walk it back. It just shows that this whole thing is kind of dishonest. I mean, this is really election will be interesting to watch the third one now.

And, you know, Nanyahu, this is existential for him, right? Because he's under and diabetes. If he loses, it may not just be the prime ministers should be losing me. You know, he may be looking at a sentence. Yeah, he might be, end up in jail. I mean, the other a lot bigger update on Jared's little plan is that it was unanimously rejected by the Arab League. And so, you know, the Arab League is a 22 member organization of countries whose populations are primarily Arabic speaking. They have a big role in any Middle East peace process discussions.

I'm sure that Jared and the gang thought that they had bought off the Arab League's support through, you know, silence on human rights issues and by assassinating officials in Iran, but no dice for them, unfortunately. The Arab League said that Trump's plan goes against UN resolutions on the Middle East peace process. It contradicts the principles of the peace process and that the organization won't engage with the U.S. about the plan or its implementation. This all happened at an Arab League meeting in Cairo last week. weekend, I believe, where the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas detailed all the ways he had been tried to be contacted by the Trump administration through the CIA, refused that conversation. And now he says he plans to outline a plan of his own soon. So it seems pretty clear that any deal in the traditional sense where one side would negotiate with the other and they'd

sort of come to an agreement is dead. The only deal that could be had here is something that's just forced upon the Palestinian people. Yeah. And the irony of that, right, is is that the, when we were in office, the line from the Israelis, the Israeli government supporters in Washington was, peace can never be imposed. It has to be negotiated through the parties. And that was in response to the UN, perhaps, taking positions, or the Obama administration taking positions. Now it's the opposite. It's the Israeli government and Trump saying, no, these are the deal that we're going to impose on you and you have to take it. The Arab League has rejected it. Europe's rejected it. You know, one interesting subplot, Tommy, that I'll give a little teaser of some of the conversations I've been having here.

day I talked to two different people about the very interesting relationship between Netanyahu and Victor Orban here, which is they've become very close over the years. And it's an interesting marriage of convenience. You know, they both share kind of a far-right politics, a nationalist politics. But what's kind of interesting about it is, you know, you can see, you know, for Israel, it's useful to have Hungary supporting them within Europe, right, to have somebody in Europe that will support the Israeli government's positions on Palestinians at times. But what's particularly peculiar about it is that here in Hungary, there's been a really aggressive campaign against George Soros for several years called the Stop Soros campaign. That's literally what it's called.

There are giant billboards kind of depict George Soros as managing this massive conspiracy against Hungary. Soros is Hungarian. And, you know, widely seen as having some anti-Semitic undertones, to put it mild. And yet, you know, B.B. is kind of embraced Or, but, you're, but, you know, B.B. is kind of embraced Or, and that's kind of given him a bit of a pass for some of the dog whistles that people hear here in Hungary, right? It does remind me of the U.S. where similarly, you know, Trump's supporters, there's plenty of anti-Semitic dog whistles, anti-George Soros conspiracies, you know, discussions of kind of worldwide elites trying to control things with bad historical echoes. Obviously that the horrific shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue was motivated by a guy who hated refugees. And yet, Trump's embrace from Netanyahu kind of gives him a pass for that behavior.

And they try to redirect the anti-Semitism discussion around criticism of Israeli policies. It's interesting to think about how Trump, Orban, Netanyahu, all have this shared kind of interest in promoting their own political interests and their own brand of nationalism. And in a way that leaves the virulent anti-Semitism underneath the surface, you know, gets less. confronted in way because there's this kind of validation for the prime minister of Israel for these two leaders Donald Trump and Victor Orban. Hearing this today, you know, was very, you know, unfortunately familiar to me as to how we've seen the politics of the Netanyahu relationship play out in America. Yeah, it's, uh, BB's making friends with all the worst people. So is Trump. And it just feels like all a piece of a bigger puzzle. Yeah, yeah. Um, a couple more quick things here,

uh, that I think are worth talking about. One, is the U.S. government is currently prosecuting a 31-year-old former CIA engineer named Joshua Shulte in what has been described as the largest disclosure of classified CIA information in the agency's history. So these were the so-called Vault 7 leaks, which came out a few years ago, and released some of the most sensitive hacking tools that the agency has to WikiLeaks. And so, you know, we don't know, we don't know about this case, but what's sort of spilling out into public as the court case Starts is apparently the FBI also found child pornography on a server. This guy managed. After he was arrested, somehow he managed to get access to a cell phone in prison. Schulte did and create a fake Twitter account that Schulte then used to accuse the government

of planting that information on his computer. I don't know. The facts here, just those details jumped out of me. But what it really made me think about as I was reading more about this case is that, you know, we're seeing more of these leaks. And the U.S. is creating these incredibly powerful cyber weapons and spying tools that are so much more susceptible to leaking and getting it to the wrong hands than any other past weapon, right? I mean, there's not a lot of risk of like an F-22 fighter jet getting emailed to some hacker in China. And I just don't know that we have even come close to appropriately grappling with the risk inherent in the creation of those tools or the need to create safeguards against it. And, you know, maybe that process is

happening and maybe it's secret and maybe this prosecution is part of it. But man, this shit just keeps happening and it's pretty fucking dangerous. Yeah. And I mean, there's several things that I think are worrying here, right? I mean, the first is there's just been a, you know, a number of pretty dramatic and damaging leaks or, you know, breaches in the intelligence community in recent years, right? I mean, Snowden gets the most attention, but there have been a number of them. I think beyond that, though, you're right, there's a bit of a hubris in it that, you know, we somehow are more advanced and we're ahead of the game here when I don't think we are. I mean, I think when it comes to these kind of cyber tools, cyber weapons, the Russians and Chinese are, you know, run even with us in the

race, if not ahead in some ways. And they're non-governmental actors who are quite skillful with this stuff. And a tiny little vulnerability can be exploited. to essentially proliferate these weapons, right, in a way that, as you point out, it was harder to proliferate nuclear weapons or certainly, you know, conventional weapons. And there's similar challenges with our companies, you know, who might be selling technologies to people who can then use that and turn them into weapons as well. Right. You know, they can sell technology that is meant for one purpose.

It might even be defensive purpose. And that can be repurposed for offensive hacking. offensive cyber warfare. So what we need is some obviously security around what we're doing in the U.S. government. But again, I also think we need a regulatory framework around how different technologies are developed, shared, utilized, protected, because it feels like the Wild West out there. You know, and it feels like this stuff is proliferating much faster than we're able to

secure it. And given how much everybody's life is online. and given how much our critical infrastructure is connected to the internet, and given that we're moving into a phase of the internet of things, right, which basically means that the internet, you know, every device in your house, you know, from your dishwasher to your refrigerator, you know, is connected to the internet. I mean, I just think there needs to be a much more robust effort to stop and take a look at this stuff.

Yeah, I agree. All right, the last thing I had then was, you know, just when you think the world couldn't be more terrible, last week we read that the Trump administration reversed a prohibition that Obama had put in place on the use of anti-personnel landmines outside of the Korean Peninsula. And like just one of those announcements that felt like a gut punch because it's so obvious that more landmines in the world is a terrible thing. There was a huge debate over landmine policy during the Obama administration. The problem, as people probably know with landmines, is that historically speaking, they are far more likely to kill innocent civilians well after the fact than enemy soldiers. When you're using a landmine, they don't discriminate between a child, livestock, a U.S. soldier, or a bad guy.

The Pentagon says it will ultimately shift the types of landmines that can self-destruct after a set period of time and maybe some safeguards. But, you know, I frankly think we all should be pretty skeptical about those claims, about them actually working and about the time frame for implementing those types of safeguards. Additionally, there's a lot of defense experts out there that say landmines generally are just not that useful on the modern battle. battlefield. In fact, they were used in 1991, I believe, in the Gulf War. And some people believe that they actually constrained the movement of U.S. troops at the time. So questionable utility. Ben, you know, can you talk a little bit about that debate from back in the Obama days and maybe also explain why there's this exception for a landmine use in Korea? Yeah. So, you know, there's this international treaty banning the use of landmines that the U.S. had never come into. And actually,

there's a woman, Jody Williams, who got the Nobel Peace Prize for that. If you want to Google an inspiring story of an activist changing the world, that's a good place to start. And because landmines, you know, in places like Colombia, Cambodia, they've just devastated people because, you know, part of what happens is, you know, a bunch of landmines are put down and then, you know, they stay there for years, decades, right? And so you've got, you know, civilians and children, you know, getting blown up, you know, long after, you know, even there's some battle taking place, right?

So this is a real danger. Samantha Power, you know, had advocated really aggressively for the United States to join this treaty. There was a big debate. And we landed in the place where we essentially banned them everywhere except Korea. Our military said that essentially kind of their war planning in Korea, you know, involves a lot of landmines. You know, there's this huge demilitarized zone and, you know, presumably like that's just kind of been part of the plan that's been on the shelf for decades, you know, relies on the deployment of landmines. But, you know, I have to think that there are other ways. You know, we have a lot of conventional weapons.

And the benefit of setting a positive example, you know, our way, you know, I think this kind of legacy issue of the Korean Peninsula being this kind of frozen conflict from, you know, the middle of the 20th century. So that was essentially why we took the partial step of coming in line with this ban on landmines everywhere except the Korean Peninsula. I think what was so, the reason was such a gut punch to me, you know, part of then And first of all, you stack up the arms control agreements they've shredded, right? You know, all the nuclear treaties with Russia, except the, you know, the New Star Treaty, which is expiring.

The Arms Trade Treaty, which was meant to restrict, you know, the trade and guns around the world. They got rid of that as a SOP to the NRA. Now landmines. But also the, there's no reason to do this. Like, I can't imagine that there was, like, randomly in the fourth year of the Trump administration, you know, a groundswell of agitation to be able to use landmines. It's like they framed it as like, you know, a broader effort to like, you know, reintroduce tactical nuclear weapons and give the military all kinds of flexibility to do things

that ultimately will probably kill more civilians than anything else, which is pretty depressing. Yeah, what are we doing here, right? And so it's this kind of weird mix of just, yeah, here's one more Obama thing that we can take out, you know? Plus, like, if they really do sincerely believe that we need to be using landmines around the world, like, that's just something that we know from history ends up killing civilians, right? So they're basically saying, you know, we want to have the more flexibility to kill civilians. You know, at the same time, by the way, because the Senate Democrats caved on the ban on low-yield nuclear weapons in the Defense Authorization Act,

They're now reports that there could be like the deployment of low yield nuclear weapons, i.e. nuclear weapons are somehow like more usable, I guess, on submarines. I mean, what are we doing here? Where is this going? You know, talk about something where the consequences might not be apparent immediately, but like, you know, this just feels like a very worrying direction. Because not only do I not want us to use it, but what kind of green lighting the Russia's and China's of the world, you know, to, hey, you know, remember all those norms that we built? Remember all those treaties? that were signed like let's all just scrap those and go you know go back to the pre-war War I days when nothing was off limits I mean it it's this kind of worrying mixture of anti-obama extremism and anti any international restriction that seems to govern a lot of their decisions but it just seemed totally random to me that they're doing this now yeah there's no adjective that you can put ahead of nuclear weapon that makes me feel better about it there is no euphemism when it comes to a fucking nuclear weapon that makes it okay.

Yeah, low-yield nuclear weapons, right? So, you know, I mean, just to think about what that's implying, oh, this isn't too bad of a nuclear weapon. Yeah, we were back in crazy Nixon in the middle of Vietnam, escalating everything without any regard to civilian casualties territory. Well, which is actually where, you know, most of the landmine outreach came from Cambodia. Because that devastated Vietnam and Cambodia, the use of landmines. But the one thing I wanted to add to this is like this whole low-yield nuclear

weapons thing, you know, we've been trying to get Indian Pakistan, which, you know, it's the preeminent nuclear flashpoint in the world, they've been, you know, considering trying to develop more, quote, unquote, usable nuclear weapons, maybe, you know, low yield. And we give away all of our, you know, capacity to say, you know, you need to come in line with international standards, at least, of other countries that have nuclear weapons here when we're developing those types of weapons, too. so this has knock on effects where we're in a weaker position to try to pressure other countries to abide by certain standards when we ourselves we don't hold ourselves to those standards. Yeah, agreed.

All right, man, well, that's all I had on the agenda. I promise to all the world does out there that we will have more foreign policy news at the front of our brains next week when it is not full of rage and fury about the fact that it's like three days later and we still don't know the full results of the Iowa caucus. and I just saw a tweet where they accidentally pushed out a bunch of Bernie vote and labeled it as Deval Patrick. So things are not getting any better. They're getting worse. Sure, that'll do well with some of the conspiracy theorists.

Yeah, really, really helping. Like, they're going to fix it. They noticed, everyone noticed it. They're correcting it. But Jesus Christ, you guys, fucked up everything. I listened. I was haunted, Tommy. And I should add, next week, I'll have more about this trip that I'm on, which is interesting.

and I still hear a couple more days, but I listened to the great on the ground in Iowa series that you did for POTS of America. And I remember, correct me if I'm wrong, but you interviewed the head of the Iowa Democratic Party. And I remember you saying to him, it stuck in my head, you know, every now and then saying from a podcast, really six, where you notice that his office was really kind of clean and it didn't seem like he was, you know, that stressed out. Yeah. For whatever reason, I noticed at the time. And so then as soon as this happened, I was like, I'm listening to that in the different light now. That guy was kind of chill, I guess. Yeah, I mean, look, you know, Troy is a really nice guy. Troy Price.

Oh, he's probably wonderful guys. No, and he's super nice. Right, but like it was very strange because we went over to their office and we kind of expected it to be bedlam to the point we were actually worried about how the audio would sound because we thought there'd be just like too much din in the background. And it just felt like there was sort of nobody there. And I don't know. Like I don't want to point the finger and be mean or anything, but it just, you know,

It just defies belief that things could have gone this badly. Well, you know, I get, to be fair to them, you know, I remember the caucus and talk about an analog event, you know, which is part of what was charming about it. I mean, I used to have to, you know, remember we have to go, you were living there, but we had to go caucus on the weekends. So I'd go to like Cedar Rapids or Des Moines and then you have this caucus. But it's very pre-digital, you know. And it may be that merging.

the kind of analog nature of the Iro caucus with the digital age, you know, in this app and this desire for raw data is just, was just impossible. You know, I mean, they just couldn't do it. I think that's a big piece of it. You know, a lot of it was, you know, math done in the rooms by individuals who trusted each other. And, you know, a lot of the turnout estimates that you hear when people talk about 2008 or 2016 are actually real estimates and not hard counts of these preference forums that they all had to fill out this year. But yeah, man, it's just a told them this. I do want to just leave people with this thought that, you know, I've been here in Hungary talking to some people, generally younger, kind of progressive types, and, you know,

been talking to other people on the world. I'm amazed at how closely they're following our primary. I mean, people are asking me questions about Elizabeth Warren and Medicare for all. Wow. They're asking me about, like, whether Bernie, you know, will hurt down about Democrats, you know, they're asking me, you know, about whether Mike Bloomberg has a shot at the nomination. I mean, man, we've got like a global set of pundits here who, you know, it's all informed by their eunerness to see Trump defeated. But this is, this whole primary is being watched in a way that I don't think there's ever been a primary process watched quite like this. I mean, in a way, they all kind of fell in love with Obama and that was great, but this is a different kind of intensity because they're just, talk about an elect, if you think the Iowa caucus voters were focused on electability, the rest of the way. of the world they could give a shit about anything other than can somebody get the nomination who can

beat Trump, you know, and that's all I get everywhere I go. Yeah, and so far, not so good. Yeah. All right, man, I know it's like 11 p.m. in Hungary, so thank you for doing the show. I'm glad your voice is back and we'll see you in studio next week. Awesome. Bye. See you guys next week. All right. See you guys next week. All right. See, buddy. Potsie the world is a product of crooked media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Chris Basil. Kyle Seiglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Malconian, and Milo Kim, who film and share these interviews on video each week.