Pod Save the World - Massive, global problems and the idiots trying to solve them

Episode Date: August 21, 2019

Tommy and Ben talk about the ongoing controversy over Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib being barred from visiting Israel and the West Bank. The collapse of Italy’s government. How social media companies are fighting Chinese propaganda about Hong Kong. Why the Russians are hiding data about a secret nuclear explosion. The corruption of US foreign policy. A call to action for California wine lovers and an ISIS blooper reel. Then Yaqiu Wang, a China expert with Human Rights Watch, joins to talk with Tommy about the latest on the protests in Hong Kong.

Welcome back to POT Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben. It's good to see in person. Good to be here. I wish I had a little Iowa pork chop on my hand this time. Not quite the same. But we got a great show for you guys. We are going to talk about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Congresswoman Rashida DeLebe being barred from visiting Israel. And President Trump's just horrendous reaction to that. We'll talk about the collapse of Italy's government. The latest from Hong Kong, some disconcerting developments about the Russian, nuclear disaster. Afghanistan, a profile of Secretary Pompeo that was illuminating. I'll do a little section on the corruption of U.S. foreign policy. I'm excited for that part. You've got some Iran updates. And then some lighter stories at the end, including an ISIS blooper reel, something I never thought I'd talk about. It was good. Yeah. Then we'll be joined by Yacho Wong, a China researcher with Human Rights Watch. So, Pact Show. A lot going on in the world. All right. Let's start with the way Congresswoman Rashida Taleb and Ilhan Omar have been treated in this dustup about visiting Israel.

We talked about this story last week, and it's just totally changed. Last week, we were telling everyone that the Israeli government made a good decision to let them in, and we were really giving Ron Dermer, someone who you and I have personally scrapped with a bit, who is the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. some credit. Not a friend of the pod. Making the right decision. Things changed a little bit. So to catch you guys out, two U.S. members of Congress planned a trip to Israel

in the West Bank this summer. There's a question about whether Israel would bar their entry since they have the authority to block supporters of the BDS movement from visiting Israel. Initially, Israel said they would allow Congresswoman Talib and Omar into the country. But then Prime Minister Netanyahu changed his mind because Trump tweeted about it. And he said, quote, it would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep Omar and Rep Talib to visit. They hate Israel and all Jewish people.

And there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds. End quotes. So I just, Ben, I wanted to pause there for a minute before we go into the rest of this saga because I think that tweet is one of the more disgusting things Trump has said, and he's now repeated it several times. There is zero evidence that Rashida Tili, or Ilan Omar, hate Israel or all Jewish people. That is a disgusting lie. And while you and I have discussed past statements that Congressman Omar has made about Israel that we didn't agree with, and we've discussed why some opponents of the BDS movement think it's anti-Israel or anti-Semitic,

I think that when you lie and like this and have hyperbole like this in these statements, it actually makes it harder to call out real anti-Semitism in the world at a time when it's rising, particularly on the far right. And it's bad. It's harmful. Yeah. And it just shows the utter trivialization of really profoundly important issues. Like the future of Israel, like anti-Semitism. you know, it turns it into this, like Trump turns everything into some kind of dumb, sportsified version of his approach to politics. You know, I, Donald Trump, think it's good politics to be cozying up to the maximum extent to the right-wing government in Israel to try to peel off pro-Israel Jewish voters.

So I'll say anything. You know, I'll go out there and I'll say that the two Muslim women, in the U.S. Congress, hate all Jews, something that is completely insane, offensive, wrong. It trivializes the history of anti-Semitism, which includes the Holocaust. You know, it trivializes the profound questions that are at stake in the Israeli-Palestine issue, just so that, what, he can throw some red meat to the base and have another tiff with the squad. I mean, the fact that this doesn't get completely called out, rejected at a time when the problem with any Semitism is emitting from Donald Trump's own

base is truly disgusting and is a window into kind of the complete moral bankruptcy at the heart of this whole project of Trump trying to use Israel as a political weapon to beat over the heads of his political opponents in the United States. It's disgusting. Yeah. And, you know, so it gets worse. So part of the reason for this trip was official business, but part of it for Congresswoman Rashida Talib was she wanted to visit her 90-year-old grandmother in the West Bank. So after their official visit was blocked, Talib requested a visit on humanitarian grounds if she promised not to promote the BDS movement or talk about boycotts generally. So the Israeli Interior Ministry approved that proposal, but then Talib reconsidered it and said she just couldn't go through

with the visit under those conditions. So let's hear a clip from her press conference with Congresswoman Omar. I think my grandmother said it beautifully when she said, I'm her Asphur, Asphura in Arabic means her bird. And she said, I'm her dream manifested. I am her free bird. So why would I come back and be caged and bow down when my election rolls her head up high, gave her dignity for the first time? So that was obviously an incredibly emotional press conference.

Let's hear how President Trump responded during an Oval Office press event today. And then yesterday I noticed for the first time. time, to leave with the tears, all of a sudden she starts with tears, tears. And I don't buy it. I don't buy it. I don't buy it for a second, because I've seen her in a very vicious mood at campaign rallies, my campaign rallies, before she was a congresswoman. I said, who is that? And I saw a woman that was violent and vicious and out of control. And all of a sudden I see this person who's crying because she can't see a grandmother. She can see a grandmother. They gave her permission to see her grandmother, but she grantstand it and she didn't want to do it. So he's a monster. I think Ilan Omar summed up the policy implications pretty well when she said, denying a visit to duly elected members of Congress is not consistent with being an ally and denying millions of people, freedom of movement or expression or self-determination is not consistent with being a democracy. She went on to call for aid to Israel to be conditioned on stopping settlement expansions.

So, look, you know, this is an emotional issue. There's another pretty emotional clip with Peter Beynart, front of the pod, a really smart writer about these issues where he talks about how heartbreaking it is to see the occupation of close. And you have to think that denying people access to the West Bank is an effort to prevent that emotional response. Yeah. I mean, there's an American issue here and an Israeli issue, right?

First, the American issue. Rashid Talib is the American dream. I mean, if you listen to that clip, that is something that we as Americans should all be proud of, that someone could come from an immigrant background, someone could have a grandmother living in a place like the West Bank who sees her dreams realized. It is an offense to the United States of America to not let these members of Congress visit a U.S. ally that receives tens of billions of dollars from that U.S. Congress. I mean, this isn't like they're trying to go behind the iron curtain.

They're not trying to visit some adversary. They're not trying to go to North Korea here. They're trying to visit a country that we give billions of dollars in assistance. And because, let's be blunt about it, because they're Muslim and they have certain attitudes about the Israeli-Palestinian issue, they're not allowed to go at the direction of the U.S. president. That is profoundly un-American. Rashida Talib is 100 times more American in her orientation on these issues than Donald

Trump, who is using them to silence the free speech of members of Congress? I was even more offended by the idea that you can come here and visit your grandmother, but you can't speak your mind. What a fucking paternalistic, offensive approach will give you the permission slip to come in here and see your grandmother, but we will tell you what you can and cannot say? How can every American not be offended by that? Another country's government, at the past of our president, is telling our representatives what they can and cannot say? That's the first thing. And the second thing is the Israeli side of this. And let's talk about the West Bank here. Let's talk about the fact that there is a military occupation in the West Bank that has been in

place for decades. Yes, it is a military occupation. Just saying that is somehow controversial here when that's what it is. The Palestinians who live in the West Bank, they live under military law. There are over 600,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank in East Jerusalem. That number has been going up steadily for years. There are Palestinian homes that are being destroyed. to make way for Israeli settlers. There are, according to some UN estimates, over 700 obstacles like checkpoints scattered across the West Bank to prevent the freedom of movement of peoples. The Palestinians who live in the West Bank are subjected to military law, not civilian law.

There is regularly documented instances of Israeli settlers engaging in violence against Palestinians and not being punished for that violence. This is the reality on the ground. How can anybody justify the treatment of human beings like this? They are stateless people. They don't have rights. They don't get to vote for their own government. They don't allow freedom of movement.

You may have to go through multiple checkpoints just to go visit your family. I mean, this is what's happening. And nobody wants to talk about this. There's always a distraction. So instead of talking about what actually is happening in the West Bank, oh, let's have a fight about something else. You know, let's have a fight about Ilhan Omar. Let's have a fight about some stupid peripheral controversy that we can gin up. This time it's the organization that was helping sponsor their trip.

Yeah. So, okay. You know why? Because these people don't want to debate the conditions in the West Bank. They don't want to discuss it. So they say, well, let's go and find all the interviews that anybody affiliated with this organization gave, found the worst thing that they said and make the conversation about that.

Okay, that's disgusting. The article that was on the website of that organization that had suggestions of blood libel, that's disgusting. That's anti-Semitic. absolutely. Let's talk about the West Bank as well here. Like there's always an effort to distract from the policy issue that is at stake here. Right. That's right. Yeah. I mean, so you can tell from Trump's reaction because his comms team constantly briefs the press that what he wanted out of this was another fight with the squad because he thinks that's a political winner. But let's talk about actual policy winners and losers from this fight. So in my opinion, I think a winner is the boycott divestment and sanctions or BDS movement because they just got a ton of press and people. probably have a better understanding of what's happening in the West Bank now than they did before. I think maybe, unfortunately, the Republican Party might get a win out of this because they are

desperately trying to scare older Jewish voters away from the Democratic Party in places like Pennsylvania and Miami. And they use all these disgusting controversies to do it. I also think that Islamophobes and anti-Semites globally looking to mainstream their disgusting views probably take something away from this that makes them feel better. But the clear looom. The clear, clear loser is the state of Israel because it was used as a political pawn by Donald Trump and it was forced to making a decision that even APAC criticized. That never happens. A PAC came out and criticized BB Netanyahu for blocking two U.S. members of Congress from visiting the country.

So this will also give cover to lawmakers on the left who think that maybe we should condition aid to Israel and they generally don't like Netanyahu because he continues to align himself with the Republican Party. So the issue of support for Israel used to be completely bipartisan and sort of universally accepted. And now I think that's changing every single day. Yeah. I mean, especially when people see, you know, why can't even U.S. members of Congress visit this place or speak their own minds about it? If ever you wanted somebody to point a blinking arrow in the direction of the BDS movement, I'm sure that there was more Google searches for the BDS movement in the last few days than the last few years. Because Trump doesn't care.

Yeah. He doesn't care about Israel. He doesn't give a shit about Israel except for how it impacts his own electoral fortunes. He's not thinking past the last time he has to consider this, which is the 2020 presidential election. So what he's doing, I think, is doing grave harm in the long run for Israel on security. That said, to get back to the West Bank here, you know, these people are showing their cards in the form of Netanyahu saying that, you know, essentially there's going to be no two-state solution on his watch. You've got other people in Israel calling for the annexation of the West Bank. You know, so it may be that the timelines are converging here.

Trump is giving them full cover at the same time that they're going to make their play to essentially make a Palestinian state impossible. And yet, you know, we're not necessarily having that discussion. We're having the discussion through the prism of his approach to the squad. And I think the fact that APEC felt the need to break from Trump demonstrates that they realize that this has gone way too far here, right? The mainstay of the relationship is the relationship between Israel and the Congress, and they see that essentially alienating the Democratic Party, and particularly younger Democrats who look up to people like Rashida Tulli, and Ilhan Omar, is terrible politics for them. But they've been riding the back of the tiger now for years. You tolerate Trump's kind of casual approach to these issues, his own anti-Semitism in many of his statements that mirror the things that they complained about with Ilhan Omar. And now, just now they're blowing the whistle on it. What needs to happen is people and communities across this country need to stand up against this

and say, you know, we're not going to allow ourselves to be turned into a part of Donald Trump's degradation of our politics. I hope that the Jewish community, which, you know, votes overwhelmingly democratic, shows it has the antibodies to this kind of ugliness. Well, Ben, because we should call it anti-Semitism everywhere, I should also note that President Trump in that same press event said, quote, any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty, end quote. So that is exactly the kind of anti-Semitic trope that Republicans say Elon Omar or Rashida Taleb have used. This conversation is so frustrating. And it's frustrating because let's just be very honest here, Tommy. I mean, because remember when that happened with

Al Han Omar and then the House of Democrats had a resolution condemning it, like, was the reaction going to be the same if a white male Christian had said that? Probably not since, you know, Republicans were routinely putting out photos of, you know, three prominent Democrats and accusing them of trying to buy off our politics and influence the world. So no. It doesn't make it right. What Ilhan Omar said is wrong, and she apologized for it. And frankly, I can see, we can all see, that she's been more careful in her language since then. And I think that's important because it's not, we need to learn from history and tropes about Jews having dualities or Jews being enemy within have led to horrific things. But the way Trump phrased is in some

ways even worse because he's identifying the Jews who don't vote for him as some enemy within who are not living up to their dual loyalty. I mean, this is grotesque, right? And I think we all need to recognize here that there's something off about policing the words of people because they happen to be Muslim in a way that you don't police the words of people who are not. That says something about us as a culture as it says something about Ilhan Omar. Yeah, I agree. We got to just find some consistency to how we react to these things. So speaking of consistent, So last comment about this region. So we are hard on BB Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, because we think he's corrupt,

so right-wing zealot, Trump-like, and generally just sort of a miserable prick. But that doesn't mean we're thrilled with the Palestinian Authority. Here's a good example of why. The PA recently banned members of an LGBT rights group from carrying out any political activities in the West Bank. A PA spokesman said their activities are harmful to the higher values in ideals of Palestinian society. So I wanted to call that out because that is totally. unacceptable. But I think the common thread here between our criticism of both sides is that we

tend to focus on powerful elected officials denying average people their rights for cynical, political purposes. Yeah. And the Palestinian authorities' failures are manifold here. And, you know, this is just an indication of their own particular vein of intolerance, which has included, by the way, over the years, trafficking and anti-Semitism as well. I think, though, the goal here, should be to look at the people who are affected by this conflict, who are being failed by their leaders, right? The Israeli political leadership has gone in a dark direction here the last decade. We've seen, you know, significant trend lines all moving in the wrong direction.

And the Palestinian leadership, you know, is essentially atrophy. They are not empowered to a very great deal. And insofar as they are, they kind of seek to perpetuate their own power. But to punish the Palestinian people, because we can find things wrong with their leadership, which seems to be the mentality oftentimes, I think it's just the wrong way to go. And by the way, a Palestinian American like Rashida Taleb could be a great exemplar for Palestinians as well. Another reason for her to go.

Because I would choose Rashida Taleb any day over a lot of the people who have been running the Palestinian Authority here. That's a better path for everybody involved. Yeah. And again, to be clear, as an American, not as a Palestinian, as an American of Palestinian descent, And, you know, why wouldn't you want a Palestinians to see the aspirational story that she talked about that her grandmother felt in seeing her get elected? You know, maybe they don't want them to see that kind of possibility. Deeply frustrating.

Okay. Let's talk about a right-wing government collapsing. That'll be fun. Yeah, yeah. So this morning there was some breaking news. The Italian government collapsed on Tuesday after a prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, resigned after his interior minister, basically staged an inter-party coup against him. So according to the New York Times report that we were reading quickly before he came in here, Salvini addressed parliament and just ripped into Conti, his interior minister, as the guy sat next to him for leading this coup.

Yeah, it's kind of awesome. Yeah, so a reminder that like there's no heroes here. This is a coalition government comprised of the five-star movement and the league party, which are right-wing, anti-immigrant, just pretty awful nationalists. You know, the context is that Italy has never really recovered from the financial crisis. They have massive debt, massive unemployment. It's a terrible situation. Russian money is allegedly just funneling into these parties. So it feels like things are going to get worse here, not better.

I am no expert on Italian politics, but this is kind of a mess. It's a total mess. And so what you have here, right, is you had a center-left party, the Democratic Party, good name, that governed the party under Matera Renzi at the end of the Obama administration. then you had this five-star movement come out of nowhere, which was this populist movement. It was kind of against everybody. You know, there's just kind of like F the establishment. And, you know, they kind of veered right because the anti-immigrant thing was going.

And then you have Salvini coming out of the Northern League, which, you know, he's a kind of more frightening authoritarian, anti-immigrant, anti-European Union guy. So you've got kind of a far right, a center left, and then this kind of bizarre five-star populist movement, right? And Salvini had said, the far right guy, you know, I want all the power. He literally said that, you know, I don't want to be in a coalition government. And so this guy said, well, without you, you know, we can't maintain the government. Now what happens is going to be very interesting because if Salvini somehow manages to become prime minister of Italy, the possibility of Italy, you know, trying to leave the European Union or at least kind of blow through some of the rules of being in the European Union becomes very real, right? And you will have in Salvini, I think, you know, the highest profile kind of far-right politician

running a Western European country. I wouldn't say Western because we have Donald Trump in our country. Good point. Or you could have the five-star movement making an alliance with kind of the center-left and you have a kind of vaguely dysfunctional Italian government, which is not that uncommon. And they kind of muddle through here. So this is important to watch because Salvini has shown he can get a healthy percentage of the vote, but he's not gotten a majority.

He's kind of, I think, made it up into kind of the high 30s, which is worrying enough. And so now I think we'll see this put to the test in Italy. Are they going all the way in to the far right in a guy like Salvini, anti-immigrant, anti-Europe? Or do they kind of pull back, as we've seen some other European countries do and maintain, you know, more of a status quo type approach? Yeah, one to watch, that is for sure. All right, let's talk about a more hopeful story. So we'll turn to Hong Kong. those protests are ongoing and estimated 1.7 million people or more took to the streets this weekend.

Again, that's like a quarter of the population. It is incredible. So we'll hear more about the protests and the movement and the leadership from our guests later in the show. But there was some interesting news, moves made by Facebook and Twitter that I thought were notable. So as part of this protest movement in the battle between Hong Kong and China, there's a huge propaganda war. The Chinese government has essentially total information control within China through their state-run TV and newspapers, but they're also trying to influence global opinion of the protest movement by pushing garbage out on social media. Twitter figured out that a bunch of accounts that originated in China, which is weird because Twitter is blocked in China, so they were like VPNing in or something, we're pushing out videos or content that made the protesters look violent. They called them

terrorists that literally compared them to ISIS. So fun stuff to tweet. Twitter ended up deleting 983 accounts. And interestingly, it said they would ban state-run media outlets from paying to promote their content. So, you know, the Chinese government has all these English language accounts that they are just propaganda and they were, you know, putting money behind it and now they won't be able to do that. Twitter has taken a similar step with state-run outlets out of Russia like RT and Sputlink. So Twitter also flagged what happened for Facebook. They took some action. The services are both widely used in Hong Kong. So it's probably an info op. They were running against Chinese language protesters and citizens within Hong Kong.

But I don't know, this is good from Twitter and Facebook. It's worth noting that Chinese state-run media is growing and expanding generally. Like, I think they're about to hire hundreds of people for an office in London. So this is going to be an increasingly big problem the way Russian propaganda was. But, I mean, some progress, right? Like, good for these social media companies. Yeah, look, we beat them up a lot. And so I think we have to give credit where it's due.

Because not only does it pull down that content, but it also plants a seed of skepticism about this content in general. In other words, they're kind of blowing the whistle saying, our platform is being manipulated by state propaganda. We're pulling down what we can see. But I think any user who consumes the fact that that's happened might now look a little more skeptically at the spread of these kinds of propaganda arguments that the protesters are violent. I think Tommy, though, it also shows, like, now to be hard on the tech companies, they can do

this. Yeah. You know, what we always heard from them is, oh, it's too hard. Yeah. We can't police the algorithm. No, well, actually, if you actually put some resources into it, it's not that hard to figure out if someone's putting their thumb on the scale, right? And so my hope is that this, you know, begins a practice. And look, if this puts them at risk in certain places, well, you know what?

Like, you're making enough money everywhere else, you know. Yeah, yeah. It raises interesting questions about, you know, you mentioned the Chinese journalist. We had an interesting kind of debate because the Chinese would yank visas from American journalists regularly who were operating. China. And yet the Chinese send hundreds of journalists that are basically propagandists to Western countries like the U.S. And we debated whether or not to kick some of these people out if the Americans couldn't get their visas. We ultimately decided not to do that out of respect for freedom of the press. But it's an interesting debate. If they start restricting the ability

of real journalists to operate inside of China, why we essentially facilitate all these China state-run entities to have these huge presences in the West is something that I think people should at least look at. Did I ever tell you about the time I'd like just got in the NSC spokesman job? In some comms person from the Chinese embassy invited me to coffee. It was like a caribou coffee right at 17th there. So I went and I sat down and there were like four people at the table and then like four dudes kind of standing behind us and they came to all these DVDs and shit. I'm like, yeah, I'll definitely watch that. Here's some thumb drives. Yeah, here's a thund drive. Yeah, he's a thumb driver's DVD.

The guy, I'll show the chocolate. I bet that guy. He was always very nice. They're so nice. But, like, you know what's going on. Also, do you see the story in the Times about how the Hong Kong protesters really like Pepe the frog? And then someone had to tell them that it's like horribly racist symbol of the alt, right? And they were so sad because they're just these polite, nice people that just liked the cartoon.

Yeah. Yeah, I know. I mean, killing frogs for everybody. Yeah, just nothing is sacred. Okay. Here's a weird story. So last week, we talked about. this Russian nuclear incident that is freaked everybody out.

They're trying to create a nuclear-powered cruise missile that could target any target anywhere in the world forever. So that's a big deal. So this international arms control group called the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Organization have flagged the fact that four nuclear monitoring stations in Russia have stopped releasing the data that they monitor. So these monitoring stations are part of this global network that is used to make sure that countries aren't testing nuclear weapons because that would be a violation of

of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Should note that on Monday a nuclear expert named Jeffrey Lewis, who's very smart on Twitter, give him a follow. Updated the number of stations that are no longer releasing data to six. So it seems like more than a coincidence. Experts think they are trying to hide information about that recent accident that may have involved this new type of missile that runs on nuclear fuel. So again, like you and I were not nuclear experts.

I don't know if this is like a dangerous radioactive plume drifting over Russia that will make people sick. or maybe this data is being hidden because it could reveal some sort of military secret. Like, who knows? But that's kind of the point. Russia has a terrible history of dumping nuclear waste into the ocean,

including like entire fucking subs. They cover up disasters. And oh, by the way, in December, they're going to start operating the world's only floating nuclear power plant. So like, this is an ongoing issue. Because you don't worry about nuclear materials until you really worry about that.

Yeah, until there's a tsunami. I mean, because here's the thing. Putin announced the fact that they were creating this nuclear cruise missile to great fanfare. So I can guarantee you that if the launch worked, they'd be talking about it, right? So the fact that they're shutting stuff down and the fact that they're obfuscating about what happened is confirming that something went wrong with the test of this thing. And yeah, if you have the history of Chernobyl and you've history of like all kinds of vulnerabilities and the security of nuclear materials and questions of. about how you're disposing of it. Like, yeah, I'd be worried about this. Me too.

And, you know, if you're living in those affected areas, and you can't even trust, you know, what the government's telling you, or if you're in some place where the water could have been polluted and, you know, this is where a guy like Jeffrey Lewis is good to follow. Like, this is not Chernobyl. It's not of that scale. But, like, whenever there's contamination involving, you know, radiation, like, you generally want governments to tell the truth. Yeah, you'd be good to know.

Yeah. And the fact that we can't trust the Russian government. tell us anything, you know, and here we see how that manifests with potential nuclear materials, that is very worrying. I think the other thing that should be worrying is we talked about the arms race here, Tommy, but like a lot of these countries have been talking about the United States and Russia, okay, India, China, Pakistan, like, if everybody starts trying to build new types of nuclear weapons, the assumption that something won't go wrong. I mean, obviously the biggest thing that go wrong is a nuclear war, but the assumption that all this nuclear material is just going to be safe

and secure, part of what shocked people towards the end of the Cold War was Chernobyl or even Three Mile Island here in the United States. And, you know, the more you don't have regulation and treaties and international monitoring verification around all of this material, the more we end up with situations like this where nobody knows what the hell is going on. Yeah. And, you know, I'm going to jump ahead a little bit because something you said reminded me of an article I read this week, which is that India seems to be walking back from its no first use nuclear weapons policy, which would be pretty frightening. It means they would be willing to launch a nuclear attack first against presumably Pakistan, and no one wants that. But like there has been this

incredibly fraud situation in Kashmir for weeks. I mean, a couple of weeks ago we talked about how the Indian government basically just annexed to the disputed Kashmir region. It's one of the world's most dangerous nuclear flashpoints. And the people of Kashmir are basically in prison. I mean, the internet and telephone services are down, travels restricted. it is truly awful. And the international community has been pretty silent on it. Here's what President Trump had to say today, quote, Kashmir's a very complicated place. You have the Hindus and you have the Muslims. And I wouldn't say they get along so great. And that's what you have right now, end quote. So that's the level of sophistication with which we're approaching this crisis. Yeah, thank God we have that

type of expertise in the Oval Office at the sense of situation. I mean, the first thing is it's a reminder. what happened in Kashmir as what happened with the Uyghurs in China we've talked about is a reminder that you know we tend to think that we live in this hyper-connected age and that information can get everywhere and we have kind of knowledge about what's happening anywhere and you can communicate with people anywhere the fact that the Indian government could take a decision to militarily occupy this territory and then literally just cut it off yeah like you can't call you can't email there's a really good internet it's just fucking dark yeah like and Anything could be happening there, right?

And we would have no idea and that this goes on for weeks is a pretty chilling thing. And India's a democracy, you know, it's supposed to be the world's largest democracy. You know, I think that is a sign that, like, we can't take for granted that there's this kind of hyper-connectedness in the world in the hands of a Chinese government that doesn't want people to know what's happening to the Uyghurs or an Indian government that doesn't want people to see what's happening in Kashmir or, frankly, any government, for that matter, that chooses to kind of reverse engineer or cut the court on. these technologies, like this can happen. Yeah, that's a really good point. Okay, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about Afghanistan, Secretary Mike Pompeo, who apparently is one of the world's greatest Trump-ass kissers, some corruption,

and then some lighter stuff to finish. Good. Okay, there have been a lot of reports that the United States is getting closer to a deal that would essentially end the war in Afghanistan, facilitate an American troop withdrawal, something that could be really exciting. This is after months of negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban. It's hard to know what the truth is or where Trump's head is on all of this, because his opinion constantly changes depending on when, like, Lindy Graham played golf with him last.

But I do think it's safe to say that he thinks there's a political benefit from getting everyone out of Afghanistan. So there's clearly a ton of work left to do in these peace talks. I don't think there have been talks yet between the Taliban and the Afghan government, which is always a huge sticking point whenever the Obama administration was trying to push for these negotiations. But tragically, tragically, the presence of ISIS in Afghanistan

is making things just exponentially worse. Over the weekend, an ISIS suicide bomber targeted a wedding in Kabul that killed 63 people, just like the most horrific thing you could imagine. There are some Afghan analysts who are now questioning whether this new ISIS contingent

in presence in Afghanistan is potentially backed by Pakistan, in the same way that they back the Haqani network and other extremist groups. There are some American intelligence officials quoted in New York Times saying there's no evidence of that sort of work between the PACs and ISIS, but, you know, it's disconcerting. It's also notable that Afghan President Ashrafgani placed some of the blame for this horrible attack on the Taliban and said they cannot absolve themselves to blame for they provide a platform for terrorists. So I don't know, Ben, like you and I have talked many times about how we believe

it's time to get the hell out of Afghanistan. But it is not without risk. You know, there could be enormous human suffering. But, you know, of course, Trump today, like in the same bizarre press conference we keep reading your stuff from, said this weird thing where he said we could kill 10 million people in Afghanistan to end the war, but we don't want to do that. He also called Afghanistan the Harvard University of Terrorism, which I guess means that Jared Kushner is about to pay $2 million to get in.

So here we are, massive, serious problems and a bunch of... idiots trying to solve them. Yeah. I mean, that could be the theme of the episode. I mean, because part of what you have here is like, you know, three years into Trump, the volcano is beginning to erupt, right? Like, we can see the lava, like, peeking up from the top of the fucking volcano. I like this. You can see the recession coming. You can see, you know, Indian Pakistan on a nice edge in Kashmir. You can see these Hong Kong protests. The Iranians are accumulating stockpile of nuclear material, like Venezuela is collapsing. Like, almost all of the, you know, of these have some nexus to Trump, and nobody has any confidence that this moron is going to be

able to stop the lava that is rolling down the volcano, right? And this is just like where we're at, right? Bro versus the volcano? Yeah. And, you know, Lindsey Graham and all these guys are right on board for this ride. And we're all sitting there, and our houses are right in the path of this lava, right? Yeah, we're just sitting here looking at this. And then the one person who has an office that might be able to do something about this is telling us that the fucking Hindus and Muslims don't get along so you have problems in Kashmir and he could kill 10 million people in Afghanistan and that Jews who don't vote for him are betraying their loyalty to the Israeli government. Like that's what we got. That's what we got. Like let's get, it's like in the movie where the crisis is coming and like let's get everybody

together. Let's get the smartest people together. Who's the best person that we can put on this problem? And we've got a guy who's going to tell us that religion is a complicated thing. And Jared. And that Jared and Ivanka are wonderful people. They're on vacation and they work hard than anybody else he tells us. I learned that on Twitter too. Right. That's where we're at. Okay. Afghanistan. All I'm going to say about this is I continue to believe that continuing to fight a war into a fourth decade is not the thing that's going to stop the violence. Yeah. And that's kind of my bottom line here. And that frankly, ISIS probably, I mean, we can debate whether they want us there or not. but us being there hasn't been a break on them getting a toe hold.

This idea that the one solution is to just stay, we know is not the case. Yeah. Let's talk about one other guy who has a very big office who's supposed to be in charge of solving these problems. But there's a long profile in the New Yorker of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that everyone should read because it's fascinating. But it does make you question the sort of conventional wisdom that he's maybe the most competent person in the building, right? So it's just some anecdotes from this piece. And everyone should read the full piece in The New Yorker. A reminder that Pompeo was as hard on Trump during the 2016 primary as we are on Trump today. There's this anecdote in the

beginning where he's just hammering Trump while he's in the building before a stadium full of Kansas Republican caucus goers because he convinced Marco Rubio to make this big last stand in Kansas and Rubio got his ass handed to him and took third because Pompeo's not that bright. But one thing he specifically said was Marco Rubio would never order soldiers to commit a war crime and Donald Trump would. So that's pretty brutal. Former officials say that Pompeo is basically the most obsequious guy in the administration. A former American ambassador describes him as, quote, a heat-seeking missile for Trump's ass, end quote. Thank you for that image. Yeah. Yeah. It reminded me that Pompeo was honestly the most bat-shit crazy Benghazi conspiracy theorists out there.

Top of us. He called Clinton's management of Benghazi worse than Watergate, which is wild. And then he went on to lead intelligence agency, so I will never get over that. It reminds you that he is as beholden to the Koch brothers as any elected official out there, as is Mike Pence, by the way. And, you know, there's like a bunch of anecdotes. As was Trey Gowdy, by the way, his fellow traveler of Benghazi. That's a good point. Yeah. It also reminds you that Pompeo is more than happy to offer his personal opinion about national security issues, even when they're not supported by anyone in the intelligence community.

One example that's in the peace is the Iran deal. I just want to note that a top advisor to the Iranian regime today said that they regret ever getting into the Iran deal and will never seek negotiations with the U.S. Great. That worked out. Which means, yeah, right. So, like, not only did abandon the Iran deal go against all the best advice of intelligence professionals, but it may have made it harder to do any diplomacy in the future. So that's super cool. The big takeaway from the Pompeo piece is all the guy cares about his power.

He will abandon all principles if it moves him up the food chain in the future. Washington. Yeah, and, you know, there's ample evidence of this, and we've seen this happen before. Like, yeah, Mike Pompeo was like kind of a nut, you know, in the eight years we were there. Like, he wrote a minority report to the Benghazi report. I mean, like, just think about this. Trey Gowdy's committee, he thought that the report wasn't stridently anti-Hillary Clinton enough, so he wrote his own report. But just because he's this kind of like, you know, semi-well-spoken, guy with some academic credentials. The Harvard, yeah.

Yeah, it's like, and by the way, West Point, Harvard. The Harvard, not the Afghanistan Harvard. Yeah, right, Harvard Law. You know, everybody's like, well, you know, it must be a serious person. No, no. This guy's not a serious person. Like, he's like a guy with a megalomaniacal streak who got some backing from the Koch brothers, pivoted hard right, kind of freedom caucusy type guy, Benghazi conspiracy theorist,

then, like, wedges his head up Trump's butt when he becomes president, like uses his CIA role to get in front of Trump as much as he can to tell him whatever he wants he, whatever he wants to hear, so that he can then become Secretary of State and bang on his kind of anti-Iran maximum pressure drum that has only gotten our country into another crisis. The profile left out the decade of virulent, hateful anti-Muslim rhetoric that he's engaged in. So that was, I think, a slight overlook there. So I think it just goes to show you that even the so-called serious people around Trump, right? You know, like Mike Pompeo, Bill Barr.

I mean, these are people willing to check whatever last vestige of intellectual honesty they had at the door of their appointments, you know. And these are not the people who are going to save us. Nope. And it's part of a pattern of this self-dealing and corruption that is like it's not new to Washington, but it's certainly flourished under this administration. So two examples. Last week, we talked about the Trump administration potentially freezing more than $4 billion in unspent foreign aid money. Which Mike Pompeo, as Secretary of State, should be strenuously opposing.

Yes. Because that's money that he has a say on. Yeah. It powers everything he's trying to do. Yeah. So the legality this move was called into question as these funds have been appropriated by Congress. And the administration can't just universally disregard that. But the Washington Post reported that a couple of pet foreign aid projects supported by Ivanka Trump and Mike.

Pence have been spared. So Ivanka led the development of the women's global development and prosperity initiative. Pence's championed efforts to send development funds to support persecuted groups like Christians in the Middle East and Kurdish Yazidis living in Iraq. Both of these sound like good programs. But, you know, so is money to go to programs that stabilize Guatemala or El Salvador or Honduras. The point here is that foreign aid dollars, this is not like Congress pork barrel spending going to pet projects, these should be based on priority and the return on our investment. Yeah, and we've talked about the importance of foreign aid. I'll just talk about the stupidity of the Ivanka Pence piece. If you care about Christians in the Middle East, which I do,

and I met with them frequently when I was in government, well, if you're cutting off assistance for international organizations to deal with refugees, if you're cutting off assistance for international donor groups that help deal with the Christians are leaving. It doesn't really matter if you maintain the initiative. Like, they're actually cutting funds that will have a direct bearing on Mike Pence's initiative or Ivankas. If she wants to empower women and girls, and we're zeroing out funding for food security. A lot of that food security money goes to small women farmers in Africa. I know I worked on that program, right, because you try to get beyond these big farms and how do we empower small farmers and how we empower women.

So stupidly, like, they're proving their point by what they're trying to preserve. If they're saying, well, these are pet political projects because they deal with Christians in the Middle East and Ivanka's effort to get invited to the Metball by saying she had a women's initiative, like, then don't strangle to death all the bigger initiatives that help Christians in the Middle East and the same women that Ivanka's trying to help. Yeah, it drives me insane. Part two of our little corruption section here is about a creep named Elliot Broydie. So this guy is he disgraced former deputy finance chairman for the RNC.

He pleaded guilty 10 years ago to giving a million dollars in illegal gifts to state officials in New York, but he somehow still built up a ton of influence within the Trump administration. The New York Times did a big piece on all the ways he has distorted our politics lately, in particular foreign policy. So, you know, the latest iteration is there's some questions of whether he violated the foreign agent registration act. The feds are looking into whether his work with a pedophile named George Nader, who's also a big Republican donor to secure contracts from the Saudis and Emirates was on the up and up. They're looking into whether he illegally lobbied for Angola, the ways he manipulated think tanks and conservative media.

So, Ben, like, this is the worst example of the blob, something that you have been dealing with and railing against for a very long time. Yeah, I really think everybody should check this one out because it is kind of a great window into what we've been complaining about here. I've said in the past that I felt like the Emirates and the Saudis were deeply corrupting influence. The most obvious ways in which they are corrupting influence is that they spend millions of dollars on lobbying. They spend millions of dollars on think tanks, and lo and behold, those think tanks tend to support positions that they support. But also there's some more insidious corruption like the lavish speaking fees that are paid to former officials, right? And so if you are in government and you know that if you act like Ben Rhodes and you piss up all these people, like you're not going to get like, you know, that's not going to be there

for you, right? You get a podcast. But you get a fucking podcast at Cricket Media, right? But if you know that, you know, if you're kind of like paint within the margins here, there might be corporate boards open for you, there might be these lavish speaking things open to you. Well, what was 100 grand? So that's what I'm working up to here, right? So the piece details how this grifter, Elliot Broody, right, sets up through, I believe it was the

foundation for the defensive democracy, a particularly odious anti-Iran deal think tank. The Emirates cut a giant check, millions of dollars, to this guy, Elliot Broody, to use, as his own personal slush fund, to turn the foundation of defensive democracies into kind of this platform for their views against Qatar, right? Bob Gates, like our former Secretary of Defense, gets paid $100,000 to give a speech at the Foundation of Defense. Paragon of Virtue, by the way. Let me tell you something. Could anybody listening to this podcast consider that it would be worth $100,000 to hear Bob Gates say anything?

Like, is there literally anything that Bob Gates could say that would be worth $100,000? I don't think so. And do you think that Bob Gates' comments about Qatar were worth that $100,000? No. Do you think that Elliot Broody, or for that matter the Foundation of Defense of Democracies, even cared what Bob Gates said? Bob Gates could have shown up at the fucking Foundation of Defense of Democracies and read the phone book. All they wanted to show is here is this former Secretary of Defense who's on board. He's with the program. Let me snap a picture with him, by the way. of the contract was he had to meet one on moment delibroideri, I'm sure get that picture, right? And now we will show there's bipartisan support for our anti-Katar agenda because we've got

Leon Panetta, who is also in this mix, and Bob Gates here, and that's all they care about. And that's what they're willing to pay $100,000 for, right? That should be really concerning to Americans, that this is like this corrupting influence where anybody who's rotating in and out of government, like a lot of these people do, or know, like, well, you know, if I do and say certain things, know that that payday is sitting there. And by the way, like the foundation for defensive democracies, are they fucking defending democracy in the United Arab Emirates in Saudi Arabia? Like, I'm waiting for that. Yeah, that's what happened. Like, what, what, what, what, what does that enter into the

picture? Maybe all these guys should get a podcast. So like us, they can burn the boats behind them and never be allowed back in Washington. Sorry about this. Yeah. No, no, no. My, my, my, my, my, chance at like, and you know, like, I'm just going to like get like a little self-piting here, right? Like, how is it that giving a $100,000 speech set up by a grifter like Elliot Broody at the foundation for defensive democracies is not at all disqualifying thing in American politics? And what I've said on this podcast today probably is disqualifying from like a Senate confirmed position in American politics. You were nice or she did to leave.

That's probably a deal breaker. But just think about that. I know. That's a problem. Like that is a. problem. Not that I'm sudden great guy, but just said like, this behavior is profoundly corrupt. I know. The incentives are all messed up. And I was kidding about the Rashida-Sleepe thing. Like, my point is that a bunch of Republicans would literally demagogue the fact that we

defended a U.S. member of Congress and be totally fine with their former colleagues taking $100,000 from a creepy think tank that is serving as a carve-out for a foreign government that is trying to manipulate U.S. foreign policy, which, hey, by the way, led to the President of the It states tweeting that we should blockade cutter and creating an international incident. Yeah, yeah. And I'm just going to amend that to say, complicated my Senate confirmation. Hope springs eternal, buddy. Okay, two later ones to finish.

This one has to do with the trade war, but it's very personal to me. And I believe that all of us here, you, me, all the world does. We have a duty to solve this. So the LA Times wrote a piece about how the trade war with China is just crushing California winemakers. So winemakers and distributors, they've been working hard for many years, to get access to Chinese markets. But Trump's tariffs amount to a 93% surcharge on every bottle sold in China. So that is like, you know, obviously almost doubling the price, but it's also more than

the tax on French wines and Australian wines, which have a head start anyway. So 95% of the $1.46 billion in wine exported from the U.S. is from California. U.S. wine exports to China are down a third in the first half of this year compared to like 2017. These are markets that these winemakers worked on for years. they probably will never get them back. So this article was dateline out of Heelsberg, California, which is where I got married. So I'm going to put out an ask to all the world owes

to buy and drink some California wine this weekend. It is the least you can do. I did do my part by trying to drink all of the wine in California at your rehearsal dinner. You did. Made the classic rookie era of getting too drunk at the rehearsal dinner so that I was like not quite 100% at the wedding. I did that on Thursday night.

I did that on Thursday night. I just, you know, you know, like, Trump is just, like, everything I, like, like, like, like, he seems to, like, take, take, take a mat, you know. In the state of California, the entire state is a part of this. I also have a thing about this, too, like, that there's something about Trump that you kind of wish that the guy actually did drink. Me, yes. You know, like, like, like, not now, right? Like, I mean, I'm not saying, like, take it up now, Trump, right?

That'd be a little worrying. But, like, it seems like there's a lot of misplaced energy. you know, where some people might, like, sit down at night and open a nice bottle of California Red and watch a movie. Like, he's sitting there pounding Diet Coke and watching cable television. Like, maybe, like, a good California Zin or, like, a subtle Pino, you know, like, I mean, maybe that's what's missing. I also don't get how you can wake up that angry if you're not hung over.

Like, chill out, man. I've literally never been that angry if I wasn't hung over. Yeah, like, it's a nice Sunday. Stop tweeting it, like, you know. Anthony Scaramucci or whatever. Like, go outside. Okay, final story. So we talked about the rivalry between ISIS and Al-Qaeda before to, you know, storied rivalry.

They're competing for the hars and minds of jihadis everywhere. And basically, it's a competition for who are the worst pieces of shit on the planet. So it's a propaganda fight as well as a literal fight in places like Yemen. So Al-Qaeda released a blooper reel of some outtakes from ISIS propaganda videos. These are not the funniest bloopers I've ever seen. There's no, like, you know, guy gets hit in the crotch with a football. One is just some ISIS guy, like, getting distracted by a bird when he's trying to read his, like, propaganda line.

So this wouldn't make the cut for, you know, like, Bob Sagget. It wouldn't be on America's Funniest Home Videos or, like, Tosh Pointe. But, um, I don't know. It was innovative. I had to hand it to them, like, the enemy of my enemy, I still hate in this specific instance, but, like, fuck all these guys. I mean, I would say, like, if these guys could channel their anger and repression and prejudices towards, like, attacking each other on blooper videos, rather than trying to fucking, you know,

kill civilians all the world, like, that is a more constructive use of their time. Yeah, just, like, come on, guys. Like, how about a bunch of Harlem Shake videos and we work this thing out? Yeah, I mean, and if this resonates, I mean, like, hey, memo to U.S. government, like, let's start cutting some blooper reels here, you know? Yeah. Are you listening? This actually discredits them. State Department? Okay. That's all we got for our part.

Next will be joined by Yacho Wang, a China researcher with Human Rights Watch. On the line, I have Yacho Wang. She's a China researcher at Human Rights Watch. Thank you so much for joining me. I know the time zones are impossible for my brain to comprehend, so I appreciate you doing the show. Sure. Thank you so much for having me. So, you know, I think we've all been watching the protest movement in Hong Kong for a while. protesters were back out in the streets this weekend. I saw some estimates of 1.7 or more million people out there marching, which I believe is

about a fourth of the population of Hong Kong. Would you say that this movement is still growing or has it just maintained its size? What's the state of these protests? I think it definitely, you know, it's still going on. And, I mean, they had a turnout of two million, you know, in one of the earlier protests and again, still, you know, 1.7 million. And it's still a lot of people. I think the momentum is still very strong.

Yeah, it sure looks that way from afar. So initially this was a fight over an extradition law. Now the demands seem to be growing. How would you describe the list of demands from protesters to this point? What are they looking for? I think, I mean, they're looking for the extradition law to be completely withdrawn because the chief executive said, used the word dead. But she never actually uttered saying that, you know, we're completely withdrawing

extradition bill. And they also, you know, want amsy for other protesters who have been arrested or charged. And those are, I mean, they also wanted, you know, the police violence to be investigated because people are really angry because they feel there are a lot of unnecessary and excessive use of plea force. I think those are totally reasonable demands. I think just one of the last of the five demands is, you know, they are demanding full democracy. They wanted, you know, the chief executive to be elected by popular vote. That was actually, you know, what Beijing has promised. So I would think all the five demands are very reasonable.

Yeah. So you mentioned that some of these protesters have been mistreated by police. Many have been arrested. Do we know how protesters who are taken prisoner are being treated at this point? Are there any reports from inside the jails? I think over 700 people have been arrested. I think some of them about over 100 have been charged. I mean, in Hong Kong, it's not like in China.

You know, there are a lot of allegations and torture. So they're still basic rule of law. I think most of them, after they are arrested, I mean, you know, you go through a process and they get released. I think what's really concerning and people should pay more attention is how evidence are collected. For example, you know, how they are treated by the police. Because a lot of people were charged out of, you know, violence against the police. But some people would claim, you know, I was first hit by the police. So there needs to be evidence to be collected, for example, video footage.

So, I mean, the trial will not happen right now, but it were happening in two to three years. So I think attention needs to be, you know, paid attention on this issue. Yeah, I agree. So I noticed today both Twitter and Facebook announced that they've taken down accounts originating in mainland China that were posting propaganda about the protesters. Twitter also said it will ban state-run media from promoting tweets on their service after Chinese government-backed news outlets were essentially putting paid dollars behind pushing propaganda. How important or pervasive would you say Chinese propaganda is at this point?

I mean, what are people hearing about the protesters in mainland China in particular? I think, you know, these are two different issues. One is, you know, the bots on Twitter and Facebook are targeted at a non-M mainland Chinese audience because Twitter and the Facebook are blocked in China. And the other is within the mainland China. They're, lot of censorship and propaganda. You know, I still maintain Chinese social media accounts. And it's so clear to me that people have a completely different understanding of what's going on in Hong Kong because of censorship and propaganda. Yeah. One thing I think we've seen some considerable coverage of in Western media is that the Chinese have moved troops close to Hong Kong. They're doing drills.

They're very public about this. They're releasing videos. Do activists you speak with think that there's a real possibility that the Chinese military would be used in a crackdown, or is this more likely an intimidation tactic? How do people assess this move by the Chinese military? I think for now people think it's more of an intimidation because the cost of any kind of military crackdown would be huge. China was no longer in 1989. It's so much more integrated into the global economy. And there already has been caused on sanctions on China. because of the political camps in Xinjiang. I mean, if China does anything, you know, violent, if you're using the force, I mean,

that would definitely strengthen costs on China, in China's economic activities. That would be hugely costly for the Chinese government. And economic growth is such a big reason for, you know, the Communist Party's rule of China. So I don't think it's likely. Yeah, I mean, I also imagine that the history in the legacy of the Tiananmen Square massacre looms large both for for protesters, but also for the government given the sanctions and other challenges they face in the wake of that horrific crackdown. Is Tiananmen Square something that gets talked about by the protesters? Is there a concern of, you know, that level of violence

that could come in response? I think this is definitely, you know, in everybody's mind, because people understand how brutal the communist party can be because, you know, 30 years ago, those are just students sitting on a square. So there was a... absolutely no violence, it reminds people how, you know, the extent that the Communist Party is willing to go when it feels, you know, it's a grasp of power in China is threatened. So this is definitely something, you know, in people's mind, it has a psychological effect on people. Yeah. Our president, President Trump, is being helpful as always. He tweeted that, quote, if President Xi would meet directly and personally with the protesters, there would be a happy

and enlightened ending to the Hong Kong problem. I have no doubt. exclamation point, a very sophisticated read on the protests. I am kidding. What did folks in Hong Kong make of President Trump's suggestion that they should just sort of sit down and work it out? I mean, if Xi Jinping, President Xi Jinping would be willing to sit down and talk to the protests, I think they would be willing to talk, but I don't see any signs of the Chinese government is willing to talk. And they have increased their propaganda and all kinds of intimidation tactics. So I don't think it's, uh, uh, it's going to happen. I think President Trump is, you know, being too optimistic. Yeah. And also, President Trump has, you know, his tweets are not consistent

in its messaging. So it's hard to say, you know, what he's signaling or whether he's trying to signalling anything. Yeah, that is an incredibly polite understatement. Yeah. I mean, look, my, my read on the situation is that he, he seems to have gone out of his way not to signal support for the protesters or for democracy generally. I mean, do people notice that? Does it upset them? Are they looking for more support from the U.S.? Absolutely. I think people are definitely looking for more support from the U.S. government. I mean, Trump is not, you know, President Trump is not very consistent in what he say. He, I think he said, you know, she was his great friend or something like that. So I think people, but people are definitely looking for, you know, the U.S. government

support. And you can clearly see, I mean, some people are waving the American flag. Also, there are calls for the, you know, the Council General in Hong Kong to observe the protests. You know, they want to show, you know, we're doing it for a cause of values Americans share, and we're doing it peacefully. Absolutely. I mean, hopefully that diplomats are out and taking those meetings and observing and bearing witness. What's interesting about the protest movement is I think it's by design somewhat anonymous and somewhat leaderless. Has that made it difficult for there to be a negotiated solutioning? What is the endgame with a protest movement that can seem amorphous by design? I think by design, it's also grown naturally this way.

Because five years ago, there was the Embryan Revolution. Several leaders went to jail for that. So, I mean, leader is decentralized style of protests to protect people from being targeted and sent to jail. On the other hand, I think you just grow organically that way. It's been so effective because, you know, five years ago, people occupied a certain area. And it's easy to be targeted. Now they are doing it, you know, in a very ad hoc way. I mean, it's been, I mean, now they have the slogan, Be Water.

They are born, you know, it's a slogan from the movie star, Bruce Lee. Like, you know, be shapeless, have no forms. and, you know, it's just, I think it's awesome. Like, it's very innovative. It's truly inspiring and incredibly brave. And we are amazed by the people out in the streets week after week over here. You know, we talked earlier about, you know, the Chinese use of propaganda, both in the mainland and their efforts to target the West. I mean, you wrote a really moving piece about the fact that the Chinese government has pretty effectively been able to just erase the history of Tiananmen Square from the country's history.

and school books, and, you know, most university students don't know who Tankman is, who's seen as, you know, it's one of the most famous photos ever taken. I mean, could you talk a little bit about that history and that legacy of Tiananmen and what it meant to you? I think, you know, I grew up in a system that was, you know, very censored. You know, it's all encompassing censorship. It's not just, you know, you don't get the news from, you don't get the news critical of the Chinese government from school. Like, it's also in the movie, not from a theater or not from the news people. paper, not from the media. So you just grew up in this environment that you don't know the alternative

narrative beyond the Chinese government's alternative. Then somehow, you know, it's just, it's just real life. You stumble onto something that you have not, never seen it. And, you know, it's very disorienting. You know, you start to question, it become curious, then you look for more information. I think, you know, that's, this is not unique to me. It happens to a lot of young people. You know, I think what the really good thing is that after you discover the truth, you can never go back. And I think a lot of people who learned what really happened and they become like a strong advocate for freedom of speech. That's pretty incredible. So one last question for you.

The human rights situation in China is pretty grim right now. I mean, you have millions of Chinese Muslims being held in concentration camps. Xi Jinping seems to be emboldened by his power. And I imagine probably because we have a president of the United States who doesn't seem to care much about human rights anymore. Do you think that the leadership in China is emboldened or is there hope that they will consider a negotiation and maybe offer concessions in some way? You know, it's really hard to say what's in Chinese government's mind. I mean, we can clearly tell, you know, Trump has sent so many tweets that is so frustrating and, you know, not being supportive of activists in China. And just, you know, frustrating.

But it's, I mean, to what extent, you know, that have an effect on, you know, Chinese government's decisions? Because even during the Obama administration or the Bush administration, I don't think, you know, those governments have been, you know, really strong on China's human rights records. And because the economy has become bigger and bigger, it just emboldens the Chinese government. So I think my point is that it's hard to say. because there's no transparency within the, you know, within the top of the Chinese government. Yeah, that's fair.

Well, listen, thank you so much for the work you're doing on these issues. And thank you for talking with me. I really appreciate it. We will keep watching very closely. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you to Yacho Wang. Thank you to you, Ben. Thank you to blooper lovers everywhere.

It's great to be back. Yeah, it's good to have you back. Drink those cowley wines. Maybe Google Bella vineyards. They're very nice, lovely people. they have a cave you can go into and sip on some wine. And I'd say Scouts are like zombie apocalypse territory in Greenland, but now we know even Greenland may be out of reach.

You know. Trump has his way. I didn't even get to that one. Yeah. God damn it. Those poor people in Greenwood were like, hey man. We finally thought we had to, you know. Please leave us alone.

Yeah, we got calm attention to deal with this. Yeah, everyone in Denmark's like, what are you talking about? Anyway, talk to you next week. See you. See you. The show is produced by Michael Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Chris Basil. Kyle Seiglin is our sound engineer.

Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, NAR Malkonian, and Milo Kim, who film and share these interviews on video each week.