Pod Save the World - Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s foreign policy speech

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

First, Tommy and Ben discuss Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s foreign policy speech and Trump’s ongoing and bizarre coddling of noted relative murderer Kim Jong Un. Then they discuss the brave activists and journalists protesting in Hong Kong and Russia, the tariff fight with Mexico, Venezuela, wonder again why we do business with Saudi Arabia, LGBT pride at the State Department, how a fake Iranian author got published, and how a dead tree is a metaphor for our alliances. Then Sudanese activist Wafa May Elamin joins to discuss the crackdown on protestors in Sudan.

Welcome back to Potta of the World. This is Tommy Vitor. Ben Rhodes is in the House, as always. Today's topics are Mayor Pete's foreign policy speech, Trump's ongoing and bizarre coddling of noted relative murderer Kim Jong-un, a bunch of brave activists and journalists protesting in Hong Kong and Russia. We're going to talk tariffs, Venezuela, the Saudis, LGBT pride at the State Department, how a fake Iranian author got published in a bunch of right-wing rags, and how a dead tree is a sadly fitting metaphor for one of of our oldest alliances. Then Sudanese American activist Wafa May Alameen joins to discuss the crackdown on protesters in Sudan. But before we get to Mayor Pete's speech, just a couple quick things. One, please subscribe to this land.

I think the second episode is actually better than the first, and the first was great. So you're really going to enjoy it. Two, a new season of Pod Save the People is live, and their first guest is Trevor Noah. So that is quite a booking flex. Don't miss that. Finally, I want to make sure you guys know that our L.A. Pod Save America live show with the Greek theater on August 17th is a benefit. So the proceeds from those ticket sales are going to get donated to organizations working to protect the right to vote across the country.

Go to crooked.com slash the Greek for tickets. Emmy Award winning journalist Jamel Hill is going to join us as a co-host. It will be special performances by Amanda Seals, Best Coast, Jim James. So we're trying to make it like a nerd cella thing. Check it out. Come on. It's a benefit. Okay.

Action-packed foreign policy news day today. There we go. Buckle up. World does. Mayor Pete gave a big speech. which will lead with, why don't I just tell you some things I liked? You and I were just sort of like speed reading it before you came in here. It was a comprehensive discussion of a whole bunch of challenges.

It was really a global speech. I liked how he tried to anchor foreign policy. He's not a theoretical thing. I talked about how it's not a theoretical decision to send troops to war when you're going to funerals back in South Bend. I think that's an important point. He also wants to involve more citizens in a foreign policy discussion. He specifically said that the current situation in Venezuela in Iran does not meet the standard required to use military, forced. It was good to hear that clearly. Climate change was front and center. One of

thoughtful thing was he was honest that we will likely need to maintain the counterterrorism and intelligence presence in places like Afghanistan, but that part of the discussion about terrorism needs to be what is like a baseline acceptable amount of risk that we all know. We're just going to face day to day because it's a dangerous world. And how do we balance that with civil liberties? I think that's an important discussion that we don't have enough because when there's a terrorist attack, people tend to freak out and over. overcompensate. I talked about needing to focus on right-wing terrorism. Sounds like he wants to right-size our relationship with the Saudis. There wasn't a ton of detail there. And then I love

this line. If Prime Minister Netanyahu makes good on his promise to annexed West Bank settlements, he should know that a president, Buttigieg, would take steps to ensure that American taxpayers won't help foot the bill. So that's a pretty clear shot at BB. Yeah. Those were my big takeaway. What did you think? I, you know, I agree. First of all, and obviously we have a bias here at the world, but I think he showed, too, this is getting a fair amount of attention that these canns should talk more about foreign policy. You know, I mean, that's far we've seen, Elizabeth Warren, as with everything out in front on that. Bernie's talked about it, but you know, he got a lot of attention with this, and it's a good place to draw a contest with

Trump because Trump's foreign policy is both failing and doesn't represent our values. And Pete made both of those central to his argument that essentially, you know, not only is Trump capitulating in the face of dictators, and trading love letters with Kim and we'll get to another one of them shortly. But frankly, everywhere that he's active, whether it's China, Venezuela or Iran, he's failing and failing badly.

I also liked, to your point about terrorism, I thought it was really important that he said that we should repeal and replace the 2001 authorization for the use of military force. Because as we've talked about, this is this kind of open-ended blank check authorization from Congress that has been used for almost 20 years now to go to war just about everywhere. And if you really want to end the Forever War, you have to do it

legally and say that Congress should make clear that there's not this open-ended authorization. And frankly, we should have a much more narrowly focused effort against terrorism. If you take together what you pointed out, his comment about what's the level of risk that we can accept and this idea of repealing the AOMF, he's really positioning himself to say, here's how you can end the forever war. You know, you can end it by saying, we're not authorizing these open end of wars, we're bringing troops home, and even though we'll need some counterterrorism efforts to disrupt safe havens and plots, we have to accept that there's a level of risk that is always going to be there, and we don't need to send hundreds of thousands of troops in country after country

to try to achieve some unachievable zero-risk outcome. So, you know, I think it's interesting, if I was advising Pete, he can kind of position himself as, look, I'm in the generation that came of age during 9-11. I fought in one of these wars, and now I'm the best person to end them. And here's my plan to do so. And I thought that was smart. I think we also see an emerging consensus among the candidates that I welcome, which is that all of them are essentially for that position. And that's good. That's a Democratic Party that's unafraid to make a contrast with Trump. I'd also say he had the right priorities. Climate change as a national security issue, ending the wars, dealing with this authoritarian trend around the world that we've talked about a lot on the pod.

You know, these are the right priorities. These should be the guiding touchstones of a foreign policy after Trump. And so I think you saw in this speech, here's what a foreign policy might look like after Trump. It looks a lot like the second term Obama foreign policy when we did put climate change at the center of what we're doing around the world. than we did try to, you know, obviously avoid further wars with the Iran nuclear deal and wind down the wars we're in. But it takes it further. It takes it to the next step, which is, again, ending the authorization for the war itself. So, you know, I think together with war, and now we've got some pretty strong entries from a couple of these candidates, and I hope that we hear from more of them. Yeah. Everyone should go read it. It is long. It is comprehensive. He goes like continent. He talks about Africa.

I like that he updated some of the challenges you always hear Democrats talk about. For example, he talked about. China as like an authoritarian surveillance state and mentioned the Uyghurs, right? So he's like incorporating the last couple of years of challenges into that conversation and updating the way we need to think about these issues because they're getting more complex, the challenges we face when deal with China or Russia. He is uniquely credible, I think, having served in Afghanistan to talk about the Forever War, like you were saying there was a line in there about how we really hope, or actually he said, I think he fears that we'll soon see a casualty report about a veteran who is born

after 9-11. Yeah. And like, just stopping for a second to a pause and think about how fucked up that is. Yeah. And how likely it drives home how fucked up it is. Yeah,

definitely does. So great speech. Good for Mayor Pete for getting out there. I hope every other candidate does it because we should take this argument to Donald Trump, please. Yeah. No, you know,

brief shout out to friend of the pod, Ned Price, who's one of his advisors. I saw Ned worked at that. And he actually had your job, Tommy, after you left. And Doug Wilson,

who worked with the DOD. who worked with help repeal Donutsonel. So, no, this is a well-executed speech. And again, I think the lesson should be don't seat any ground to Trump, particularly on foreign policy. Trump is going to tout his alleged successes, and they're not. And so if you don't talk about these things, Trump will try to define a public perception that he has been a success.

You know, just like he claims success with Kim, England, he claimed success recently with Mexico, and then the Mexicans had to dispute him. He, you know, touts himself in Venezuela, even though things have only got worse there. Taking that head on is important. Yeah, agreed. Okay. Let's go to North Korea for a minute because there was some breaking news out of a press of Ale Trump just did. So there was an article in the Wall Street Journal, and I believe an article in the post that might have been derived from a new book that's coming out that said, Kim Jong-un's half-brother Kim Jong-nam was a CIA asset. This is the guy. This is the relative that Kim Jong-un had murdered in a Malaysian airport with a lethal nerve agent called VX.

It sounds like the worst way to die possible. Yeah, chemical weapon. Yeah, chemical weapon banned war crime. My reaction to this story was, I guess, good for the CIA if they were able to recruit this guy. I have no idea if it's true. The sourcing in the story is kind of weird. But it was a reminder when I read it last night that Trump's best friend, Kim Jong-un, is well known for murdering his own fucking family in this brutal way possible.

And just a quick aside here, this is a number. another dictator who murdered someone in a third country, right? So Jamal Khashoggi, murdered by MBS in Turkey. Kim Jong-un murdered his half-brother in Malaysia. Yeah. So these are two of Trump's favorite friends, besties out there, who happened to do something really extreme in the world today. You don't just murder dissidents at home. You kill people in third countries. Yeah, it's whack people all over the globe. Well, so obviously a crime this horrific must have offended Trump's sensibilities. so let's hear what he had to say about it just now on the White House lawn.

Oh, great, great. I just received a beautiful letter from Kim Jong-un, and I think the relationship is very well, but I appreciated the letter. I saw the information about the CIA with respect to his brother or half-brother, and I would tell him that would not happen under my auspices, that's for sure. I wouldn't let that happen under my auspices, but I just received a beautiful letter from Kim Jong-un. I can't show you the letter, obviously, but it was a very personal, very warm, very nice letter.

I appreciate it. And I'll say it again. I think that North Korea has tremendous potential. Tremendous. He'll be there. I think that North Korea under his leadership, but North Korea, because of what it represents, the people are great, the land is great,

the location is incredible between Russia, China, and South Korea. I think North Korea has tremendous potential. And the one that feels that more than anybody is Kim Jong-un. He gets it. Tremendous potential. Enough of that, idiot. Cut him off. Well, I don't know.

You're done. All right. Two things. One, Don Jr. would absolutely whack Eric with VX gas if he had the chance. Two, it drives me crazy that they do these press evils with Marine One running the loudest jet engine you could ever imagine just to make it annoying to listen to for us. But, I mean, it is so crazy that his takeaway from this was to criticize the CIA. and say that he wouldn't let his intelligence gathering agency talk to someone who was related to a leader that we're desperate from information on? Like, how is that possible?

First of all, too, this guy talks about Kim Young, I'm like, you know, your roommate in college who hopes that his high school girlfriend isn't cheating on him somewhere. And, you know, the high school girlfriend clearly has moved on, but occasionally sends a letter, you know, and he comes in and, oh, no, he still loves me. It's beautiful, really. Yeah, she texts me on Sundays when she's feeling a little sad. And let's not forget, like Kim Jong-un has people in concentration camps. Kim Jong-un will take this language from the U.S. President and I'm sure run it on North Korean State television to validate his own rule, his murderous rule.

This is the most murderous dictator in the world right now. On the CIA thing, first of all, it was a weird statement under his watch because, you know, this murder took place early in the Trump administration. He's clearly, I guess, referring to whether or not the CIA would have someone like this as an asset. I don't know. I want to be clear. I'm not speaking from my own knowledge of whatever the CIA's relationship was with this guy. The reality is what the CIA does is it just tries to make contact with people and gather information, right?

So this could have just been somebody who talked to this half-brother, you know, and then gathered some information. It doesn't necessarily mean this guy was, like, being run by the CIA. Right. Yeah, the article said it was a Korean-American guy who lived in Malaysia, so it could be a carve-out. Yeah. Yeah. But again, like, let's not, you know, with Trump, you have to step back and consider what he's really saying. He has nothing negative to say about the fact that this person was murdered in Malaysia by people with a chemical weapon.

In an airport. Yeah. Instead, his impulse is to assure Kim Jong-un that he won't. So we won't gather intelligence on Kim Jong-un either. I mean, is he saying like, oh, no, we don't blank check. You can do whatever you want. We don't care if you murder people. and by the way, we're not even going to try to understand what's happening in your hermetically sealed country either. This is someone who is actively sacrificing American national interest on behalf of this weird personal relationship that he has with Kim Jong-un that has not only failed to results in any rollback of their nuclear program,

but you have Kim Jong-un firing off missiles now in violation of U.S. Security Council resolutions as well. And apparently making a nuke a month, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency. So that's great. Okay, let's turn to some badass activists around the world. So hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in Hong Kong this week to protest a government plan that would allow extradition in mainland China. Ben, can you explain why Hong Kong is usually described as semi-autonomous, a semi-autonomous city, and why are activists so worried about this extradition proposal? Yeah, no. So it's fascinating. So Hong Kong was under the control of the British for a very long time, at 100 years.

To like 97 or something. Yeah, and was given back to the Chinese. But when that happened, obviously the people in Hong Kong were quite worried because they lived in what was basically a democracy. And they did not want to be governed by Beijing. So under the deal in which Hong Kong went back to being part of China, there was an agreement that this would be essentially one country, two systems. That was the phrase. So that the Hong Kong people could have their own government separate from the Beijing government, continue to enjoy their civil liberty. continued to have a democratically elected assembly, even as, you know, they were blended into

China. Over the years, what's happened is the Chinese have steadily chipped away the kind of quasi-de facto independence of Hong Kong, and you've seen these growing protests. And in 2014, for instance, the Chinese essentially kind of changed some of the ways in which the elections were held in Hong Kong, wherein the Chinese essentially got to veto any candidates they didn't like. So the people in Hong Kong got to vote for their leaders, but the only people that they could really vote for were people that were vetted and cleared by Beijing. And there were these huge protests. It was called the umbrella movement, because that was the symbol of people use umbrellas. And, you know, hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. And the Chinese just kind of

weighted them out, you know, and then kind of cracked down on them. Then they're all. also been some pretty concerning tactics used by the Chinese. For instance, in Hong Kong, you often had bookstores that sold books that weren't censored by the Chinese. So it was one of the only places where you could get books, and some of the books came from mainland China were kind of smuggled out. You know, we talked about Tiananmen Square. You could actually learn about Tiananmen Square in Hong Kong. The Chinese literally rendered some of these people. So several bookshop owners disappeared and turned up in Chinese prisons where they had to make kind of forced confessions.

And it started to send a message that you weren't safe in Hong Kong from the Beijing authorities. What triggered these latest protests is an effort by China to say that if you commit a crime in Hong Kong, you could be tried in mainland China. And that would do away with kind of the last vestige of any independence of the rule of law in Hong Kong.

So if you're sitting in Hong Kong, you're suddenly thinking, I thought I could speak freely, I could speak my mind. But if now the Beijing government says, you can't do that. And by the way, not only are we going to detain you, but we're going to bring you to some Chinese prison, really any de facto autonomy for Hong Kong goes at the window. And so that's what brought a million people in the streets. Interestingly, around the Tiananmen Square anniversary that we talked about last week. So first, there was a vigil to commemorate the memory of those killed in Tiananmen Square. And then there was a protest about. this potential change to the law to allow people to be extradited to mainland China. It's very

worrying that the Chinese are seeking to kind of do away with the last vestiges of civil liberties in Hong Kong. I think it's a sign of, again, the health of the civil society there that people are standing up for this at probably great risk to themselves. Yeah, you'd imagine, I mean, so-called political crimes are supposed to be exempted from this extradition process, but you've got to figure for an activist, all of some nebulous drug or corruption charges comes your way. We should note that there's another round of protests scheduled for Wednesday, and when this is released, the legislature will resume work on this bill, and the vote is scheduled for June 27th. It's expected to pass because most of the Hong Kong legislature is seen as pro-China. I imagine the Chinese muck around in their elections all the time.

But, I mean, I can't stop thinking about a point Danny made to us last week about the way new technology and surveillance equipment and big data is going to give government just unprecedented control over their populations. I mean, you and I, you know, we're in a million meetings of President Obama during the Arab Spring. You know, we all wanted to believe that universal rights and desires for freedom and values would win out over authoritarianism. But we are going to see it, bump up against, you know, the big data surveillance state. And that's why, you know, this is why I mentioned the bookshop owners, because they didn't commit crimes under kind of Hong Kong's laws. You know, just selling books that are banned in mainland China should not be caused for you to be detained. rendered into mainland China and kind of forced to make confessions, and those bookshops are shut down. So if you're in Hong Kong, if you're world though out there, or you're like a 25-year-old in Hong Kong,

you have to be thinking, this is where surveillance enters into it. Well, mainland China's government could be monitoring my social media. And if they suddenly are going to treat people in Hong Kong like they treat people in mainland China, suddenly I might get arrested for something that I post on social media or even maybe some emails I have with my friends. And not only could I be arrested, I could be taken to China. So this mix of surveillance, technologies, and capabilities coupled with this doing a way of the de facto autonomy of Hong Kong really does change life for the millions of people who live there and kind of does away with one of the last vestiges of freedom and civil liberties in Hong Kong. Interestingly, if I'm sitting in top,

Taiwan, which is another territory that obviously China claims, we recognize one China policy. We don't see Taiwan as an independent country. But the de facto arrangement, essentially, is they have their own government. If the Chinese were to offer the same deal to Taiwan that they did to Hong Kong, one country, two systems, if you're sitting in Taiwan, you have to be thinking, like, can we really trust that deal, too? So it'll be interesting to see how this Hong Kong series of protests and actions by China kind of plays out in the, Taiwan context. This is a flashpoint that people should watch because to the Chinese, this is beyond a red line. This is part of their territory. And if you're looking at places where

things could escalate quickly, if the Taiwanese make any move towards independence and the Chinese try to push back on that, this could potentially escalate into a military company. Yeah, agreed. It's a flashpoint. Okay, let's turn to a different set of brave protesters over in Russia. So there was a very well-respected investigative journalist named Yvonan He was arrested on what seems like pretty ham-handedly trumped up drug charges. I mean, Russian authorities released a bunch of pictures that they said were from the crime scene. One of them made his apartment look like the set of Breaking Bad. The rest turned out to be just like random other locations.

And the cops had to admit like, oh, yeah, those are unrelated drug incidents, but he's connected to those somehow. So, like, clearly this is bullshit. They also beat the shit out of him and broke a bunch of ribs. So in protest, three Russian newspapers printed the same front page headline, which as I slash we are Yvon Gulenov. These projects have been hitting the streets despite the fact that it's illegal to do so in Russia. He's a highly respected journalist. He's been exposing corruption. So I don't know. I just want to stipulate how brave everyone involved in is here because this is another ruthless, powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing surveillance. Yeah. And, you know, Yvon Goulinov

should have our endless admiration. I mean, you know, we find it oppressive to have to watch Trump on the news. We do have some creeping authoritarian in this country, which is real. I mean, you know, efforts to kind of do away at the independent judiciary. But here's a guy who at risk to life and limb has been publishing these corruption stories. And then when he is detained, what a powerful signal of dissent that you had all these artists and writers and other journals stand up and say, we are Yvonne Guilenev. That takes some serious balls. You know, when you You know Vladimir Putin is running the country, you know that essentially nobody is safe from the security services. I take it weirdly as an optimistic sign that, you know, yes, there's this creeping authoritarian trend, but we see everywhere that that's not what people want.

Nobody wants to live with a boot on their throat, whether it's the people in Sudan who protested and ousted Bashir, whether it's the people in Nigeria protested to oust Budaflika, whether it's these people in Hong Kong or Russia. people out there, if you ask a human being, do you want to live under a repressive surveillance state or do you want to live free, people want to live free? And the United States should be on the side of those people. And part of what is so disturbing about Trump is for the first time we're not. You know, we're on the side of the authoritarian's. At the same time that these people are protesting in Hong Kong and Russia, Trump is talking about his beautiful letter from Kim Jong-un, and he lavishes praise on President Putin. He hasn't said word one about the Uyghurs in these camps in China.

Begging Xi Jinping for a meeting of the G20. He looks pretty pathetic. And so, you know, and this is actually, this goes back to Pete's speech. He said something really smart, which is something Obama used to say too, which is that democracy promotion, the idea that we stand up for democracy and human rights kind of got a bad name because of the Iraq war. Understandably, rightly. Yes. It was wrong to say that we were going to promote democracy.

by invading a country under false pretenses, occupying that country, and, you know, telling the people there that we were bringing them democracy. That doesn't mean that we should shy away from standing up for these values. I don't think we impose them, certainly not militarily, but the moral leadership and the democratic example that the United States can set and the way in which we can try to engage with activists around the world if they want to engage with us, you know, that should be a part of our foreign policy. Real time breaking news here at POTS of the World. police said Tuesday they would drop drug charges against Yvonnev, a rare climb down by law enforcement following a big public outcry. So that's pretty astounding, if accurate, if these protests worked in Russia because normally Putin doesn't give a shit. No, and what you saw was

a really clever campaign because you had these very prominent essentially celebrities in Russia, you know, artists, actresses, writers all do this together. So there wasn't like one person hanging on their own. And some of these people were even people who had supported Putin in the past and were kind of drawing a line here. Again, it shows like people, if people break out of the sense of paralyzing fear that their authoritarian leaders want them to live under, you know, you can make incremental progress and then hopefully in the long run, you can shift the direction. Yeah, agreed. Okay, let's talk terrorists for a minute. So the New York Times did an interesting piece recently about how Trump has been using basically Cold War era authorities,

only reserve for national security purpose as leverage in these trade disputes. So specifically, he declared European cars, immigrants coming from Mexico as threats to national security, where normally, like, those are emergency authorities that you use for counterterrorism or nonproliferation. Besides the fact that it's just absurd on its face, do you think allies and even adversaries will respond to these end runs around normal trade rules in kind? I mean, should we be worried? I guess I've been waiting for some leader to get elected on a, go fuck yourself Trump platform, but we haven't seen it yet. Well, first of all, I just think it's bad practice to say we're going to link trade with

a whole bunch of other things. You know, it's kind of this old school. I mean, the United States built a way in which the world would operate after World War II in which there were rules to deal with trade and there were rules to deal with territorial conflicts and there were rules to deal with how we solve problems in the world. And Trump is kind of wiping that blackboard clean. He's pulling out of all those arrangements, pulling out of all those agreements. And he's going back in time to this period when strong, big, rich countries just went around the world and said,

if you don't do what we want you to do, then we're going to punish you in this way. Right. Just pet issues. And there's a couple big problems with that. One, it's going to lead these other countries to work around us. You know, people aren't going to want to trade with us. they're going to want to trade with each other to avoid having to deal with the potential of the United States holding them hostage in this fashion. They're going to be competing trade.

And the Chinese are already building essentially a competing trade block of their own, the Belt Road initiative, which frankly they use some similar tactics. But they're trying to capitalize on this kind of uncertainty and unpredictability of Trump. And so, yes, I think there's a problem that the countries are just going to start to say, fuck you. and we're just going to stop dealing with you. We're going to start working around you on different issues. And the U.S. is going to be isolated. America first is going to be essentially America cut off and alone. At the same time, too, Trump just keeps lying about what the fuck a tariff is.

And he keeps talking about how people are paying us and all this stuff. And China's like, you know, giving us all this money. No, like we can't repeat enough. You, Americans who are listening to this, are paying for the tariffs. Yeah. It comes in the cost of higher prices for the goods that you are paying for. And it ultimately can accelerate the economic downturn that feels like it's on the horizon. So I'm worried that this could bring about an economic downturn.

I'm worried it sets back America's position in the world and, frankly, just incentivizes countries to stop dealing with them. Yeah. Trump has declared victory on this negotiation with Mexico. We'll see if there's any there there. I mean, the Mexicans said they're going to deploy the National Guard at the Guatemalan border. It's not clear to me that they have a National Guard force to deploy. It will take months and months and months until we see whether or not this actually impacted the immigration influx into the United States or not. So frustrating because he's smart enough to know that he can declare victory and the press will move on because they don't really have another choice.

This was an insane thing, though, because he declared victory and he got these headlines. And then the Mexicans were like, we never made this fucking deal with you, right? And so the Mexicans disputed it. You can't stop immigration that way. The Mexicans can't build a wall on their southern border. Deploying even some National Guard people down there to one part of the border means that people will just cross a different part of the border. The only way you're going to solve this problem is by addressing the root causes in Central America

that are propelling people to come to our border. Here's time to credit another Democrat. Beto's immigration plan included a very significant assistance package for Central America, which, again, is a lot less than the cost of building a fucking wall on the southern border. order, but would do a lot more to stop the flow of these people north because they're not leaving just because they want to come to the United States. They're leaving because their lives are literally threatened at home because of the collapse of the security situation in these countries. And like it's likely to get worse. I mean, let's go to Venezuela for a minute because we've

talked about it a lot on the show. Mostly the administration's really sloppy efforts at regime change. But, you know, I want to update folks on the toll it's taking on the Venezuelan people. So the UN refugee agency and the international organization for migration announced last week, that the number of Venezuelans leaving the country has reached 4 million. Like on a human level. Syria level. That is Syria level. It is staggering.

I mean, I cannot begin to imagine how much suffering there is in that country. But also from a regional perspective, I mean, this is so destabilizing for Colombia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador. The list goes on. And I just think it bears repeating that if this White House gave a shit about the Venezuelan people or regional stability, they would be focused on helping these refugees. But they don't, which is why you hear them chest.

thumping about Russian or Cuban influence or punishing the Mexican government for something that's happening in El Salvador. The solutions make no sense. Yeah, and it's not working, right? I mean, you know, Trump has turned this into this test of wills between him and Maduro and with the Russians and the Cubans and Maduro's still there and everything we're doing is making the situation worse. Our policy should be to help the Venezuelan people. That should be the core of our policy. Everything that we do should be about how do we help deal with this humanitarian crisis? That means giving people temporary protected status here. That means assistance to the countries that are helping to essentially house these Venezuelan refugees. And it means an approach to trying to get foreign

assistance into the country that is not about a regime change. We're going to force Aiden as a part of a strategy to dislodge Maduro, but it's about helping people. And then at the same time, working with all the countries in the region, including, by the way, Cuba, to, yes, try to get a transition, to try to get Maduro out of there, to try to do it peacefully, so that there's some orderly transition to a different government, a unity government that can accept the foreign assistance and move forward. Instead, we're stuck in this kind of John Bolton, L.A.A. Abrams, Donald Trump, kind of dystopian effort to completely collapse to Venezuelaan economy, and that's what our broad-based sanctions are only accelerating, at the same time that you're failing to

dislodge Maduro or address the humanitarian issue. Yeah. Okay, let's go to a break real quick and talk about how much we love Saudi Arabia, why the U.S. ambassador to Israel seems to have attempted to blow up the negotiations that are ongoing through an interview and how a fake Iranian persona got published in a whole bunch of news outlets. Okay, Ben, let's start with Saudi Arabia. I want to read you three headlines because I know you love Muhammad bin Salman. First headline, CNN, U.S. Intel shows Saudi Arabia escalated its missile program with help from China. Second headline, Trump allows high-tech U.S. bomb parts to be built in Saudi Arabia. Third headline, Saudi teenager faces death sentence for acts when he was 10, 10 years old.

So there are a little more detail here. The intel on the ballistic missile work was actually hidden from members of Congress, so that seems illegal. The high-tech bomb technology would allow the Saudis to build precision-guided bombs, which normally used to avoid civilian casualties, but they've been using two more precisely target civilians. Yes. And the teenager in question was arrested at age 13 for charges related to anti-government protests. So killing a kid for protesting. Ben, I'm glad Mayor Pete talked about this, but like, I wonder if anyone has laid out a definitive enough break from these monsters. I don't think Pete went far enough on this. Why can't we just say we will not provide military assistance to Saudi Arabia anymore? Full stop.

And Chris Murphy, Senator from Connecticut and Todd Young, a Republican from Indiana, actually have a bill that would force a vote on that arms package that we talked about last week. And it shouldn't just be a single arms package. We should just, we should not be giving military assistance to a country that wants to use that assistance to kill civilians in Yemen and puts to death kids, you know, among many other people. I mean, I think there are a few pieces here that you really have to digest. The Trump administration knows what's happening in Yemen. It's not like they don't know. They are aware that there's masses of civilians being killed by indiscriminate bombardment. They know that there's a risk of famine that could kill millions of people and frankly already is killing people.

They know that Congress has passed a bill out of the House and the Senate trying to terminate U.S. support for the war in Yemen. And they just don't give a shit. And they just find these workarounds. And they just find ways to shovel more and more billions of dollars worth of weapons that are being used to murder innocent civilians and perpetuate a famine. This is really like next level chilling shit. And I think, you know, activists need to be thinking at a certain point, too, like, let's look at the companies that are manufacturing these weapons and selling them to the Saudis. Let's fucking divest from these companies. Or like, there's, you know, I'm now making new enemies. I'm at it. But like, seriously, like, let's put the scrutiny on the people who think it's cool

to have customers for their goods who are using their goods to murder civilians like this, right? Right. Because this is out of control, and it's completely a material of our values. On the death sentence of this kid, as a pattern of what we've seen in the repression in Saudi Arabia getting worse under MBS, we don't even hear any more about what a reformer he is. They put that language away. You know what? It just makes all their talk about Iran so hollow. Right. If Iran did any of the things I read, it would be the heart of a Mike Pompeo speech about how we had to crack down on Iran. All the things that they say about Iran are true of Saudi Arabia, that they violate human rights, that they put people to death, that they meddle in the affairs of countries across the region, that they act indiscriminately in ways to kill civilians.

It doesn't justify Iran doing it. It just means that we should apply that standard to Saudi Arabia as well, and we shouldn't be selling them weapons, period. I think the next Democratic president is going to have to do more, and more frankly than Obama did. And I've said it was a mistake that we didn't do more at the end of our administration to cut this off ourselves. But particularly in a world in which you have this contest between authoritarianism and democracy, we are going to have to start to be more consistent in the application of our values and say, you know what, we're going to stop making the same levels of tradeoffs that we've made. It doesn't mean we can end all of our relationships with every country that's authoritarian.

We have to deal with China. They have a billion plus people. They're in a big, important country. But we don't have to sell weapons to a country like Saudi Arabia that's using them in this way. No, we do not. Okay, I want to move through a couple more things that are a little lighter. We'll do a little more foreign policy speed dating here. So I referenced this earlier.

The New York Times published an interview with U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, where he said, quote, under certain circumstances, I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all of the West Bank. That quote seems perfectly tailored to me to piss off everyone involved, right? Like the hard right in Israel won't think it's enough. All the Palestinians will understandably think that they're just handing the West Bank over to the Israelis. I don't know why you would give this interview given that Jared hasn't even introduced his Middle East peace plane yet. I mean, the obvious explanation for why he would do this interview, the ambassador, is that he's a moron.

But is there a more devious reason that I might be missing? No, I mean, I think, I mean, this guy called, I think J Street, you know, the pro-peace organization that we like very much, you know, Capos before he was appointed ambassador, Capos were the Jews who worked in concentration camps. This is not like a particularly pleasant guy, right? But I mean, you know, I think they're just like plowing the ground to essentially have this quote-unquote peace plan be the terms of Palestinian submission to whatever the Israelis choose to do. They don't go all the way in coming out and just saying that they're for the annexation of the West Bank,

but everything that they're doing is plowing the ground for the annexation of the West Bank and saying, okay, we're gonna basically give the Israelis carte blanche to do whatever they want and annexing this land. And we're gonna try to pay off some people with a few billion dollars that we raise in the Gulf to make them okay with it.

And they're not gonna be okay with it. And at a certain point, this guys and Jared's, you know, ambitions are gonna run up against the reality, that there's no, who would accept those kinds of terms if you're Palestinian. The worst deal imaginable. Okay. This is a wild story.

So according to the report in The Intercept, a bunch of news outlets including Forbes, the Hill, the Daily Collar, the Federalist in Al Arabia English. It's a pretty great list. It's a great list, yeah. Have published articles by an author who doesn't actually exist, but is in fact a persona run by an organization called the M.E.K. The White House has pointed to some of these fake articles as evidence in one of their many specious arguments against the Iran deal, which is chef's kiss, perfect. Give us like the quick

and dirty about the M.E.K. And why are they are a less than reliable source? Yeah, they're basically this kind of weird, cultish organization that seeks the overthrow of the Iranian regime that has like a spiritual leader who lives in Europe and has a lot of money. And they're very small. They don't have a lot of support inside of Iran. But they're oddly very well funded. They've had a lot of money. What they do with that money is they find grifting U.S. politicians who they pay huge sums of money to give paid speeches. Like John Bolton. And Rudy Giuliani. John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani high up on that list. And by the way, just to be fair, like there have been some people, Jim Jones who worked in our administration. We have to apply the standard to everybody. So essentially, they're buying off

these people. And they also, what they do is they constantly say that they have information that always validate some right-wing theory about Iran. So they have information that there's all these secret nuclear facilities or that, you know, and it's, it's always bogus. It's just invented shit. And here what we see is they're willing to take like not only fake information, but like someone who's not even a fucking human being, right? And as long as it conforms with their, you know, propaganda campaign against Iranians, like they'll slap it into the fucking, you know, daily caller or whatever. You know, again, the hypocrisy. of these people who, you know, would always take issue with everything we said about the Iran deal,

all of which ended up being verifiably true, right? Meanwhile, they're just inventing shit throwing against a wall or taking information that's coming to them from totally discredited and not even human sources. Non-existent humans. Yeah, just to, and, you know, it goes along with, again, this crazy story where the State Department had essentially a Twitter account. Right. That they didn't declare as a state department.

Department account that was trolling like friend of the pod Jason Rezion and anybody who was a writer who didn't fully subscribe to the Trump administration's belligerent policy towards Iran. These people can't win on the facts so they just invent their own reality that they choose to live in. I mean, it's beyond, you know, their big thing against me for years is that I, you know, shared information, fact sheets, talking points with people who agreed with us and created an echo chamber. These people like are living in a completely invented echo chamber where none of the information is true, where some of the people aren't even real, where you have the State Department paying for fake Twitter accounts to troll people. I mean, it's just kind of a window into kind of

the dark, corrupt heart of their Iran obsession. Yeah, it is desperate and pathetic. I mean, come on, guys, do some vetting here. Okay, this section is called Foreign Service Officers are still badasses. So a bunch of diplomatic posts are giving the finger to a State Department directive not to fly rainbow flags during Pride Month. The Post, Washington Post noted that you're seeing various LGBTQ Pride Month displays at Post in India, Korea, Chile, Austria, Israel, and name a few. NBC News had first reported that requests to fly the Pride flag were being denied. And that's actually, it's a relatively new thing. In 2011, President Obama was the first president to direct agencies to celebrate LGBT rights abroad.

I'm keeping with the fact that he is terrible. Mike Pompeo has not attended a state Pride Day event or issued a statement. So I don't know. I just love this story because it's good to see a little civil disobedience within the State Department. It's just a we should not go back to a bigoted policy for gays and lesbians. And these people care about it. And look, you know, when the Trump administration rolled out like a few months ago,

this notion that they were going to try to promote LGBT rights around the world, right? welcome that. That's good. We want that to happen. But this just shows like they're saying one thing and doing another, right? And first of all, to do that, you have to have actually policies to back it up. But then if you can't even do this, what's the message you're sending in all these countries? And the other thing is there are a lot of LGBT people who work in the State Department. Tons. And pride matters to them. Every one of these embassies probably has an LGBT person working in it. I know some people working in those embassies who are gays or lesbians. And so to get their back, love that these ambassadors are like, you know what, fuck you, we're going to fly the pride flag.

Yeah, yeah, we're going to project some rainbow colors on the wall of the embassy. Oh, that didn't meet the specs for your director. Oh, sorry, I didn't realize. Okay, last one, metaphor alert. The tree that President Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron planted at the White House last year has died, according to French media reports, there was a small oak tree that came from the woods east of Paris where American forces helped halt the Germans during World War I. I guess the thing had to be quarantined or something, and they just let it wither and die. I mean, you know, sometimes metaphors can be too on the nose.

Yeah, unless this was like some secret French operation, you know, like a sabotaged tree. They're squirting roundup on the tree. Yeah, I mean, let's just say that if Kim Jong-un had a tree, they was planted in the white house grounds, Trump would be out there every day, you know, snipping the grass, nursing it, stroking the bark, you know, like a bonsai.

Hugging it, speaking to it, you know. But, you know, if it's Emmanuel Macron, you know, we'll just kind of let the thing die. It's just too perfect. Okay, that's it for us. But stick around for the interview. We've talked to you in the past about how Sudan's president Omar Lashir was ousted after nearly 30 years in a military coup. Things have gotten really ugly.

Reportedly up to 100 protesters were murdered by security forces. Hundreds more were wounded. So after the break, I'm going to check in with returning Ponce of the world guest, Wafa May Alameen. Welcome back to the show. My guest is Wafa May Elamine. She's a repeat guest, friend of the pod, Sudanese American activist based in Richmond, Virginia. Wafa, it's great to talk to you again. Oh, it's so great to talk to you. Thanks for having me on again. So I wish we were talking under better circumstances. We talked a while back when, you know, this protest movement first started in Sudan. There was some good news for a while. Omar Bashir was pushed out of the scene. But

there was been a crackdown, I believe, by Sudanese security services that has turned really violent and awful. Can you talk about what's happening to protesters in Sudan right now? Yeah, so they have been peacefully protesting since we last spoke. They started in December of 2018. Then on May 28th, the protesters held like a nationwide strike, which was just pretty much to reiterate, you know, we want a civilian-led government. We really want the option. for Sudan to be democratic and peaceful and pretty much what they've been fighting for for the last six months. And on June 3rd, the morning of June 3rd, which also happened to be the last day of Ramadan during our holy month, at 5.30 in the morning, they were met with violence, live ammunition. It was pretty much a massacre.

And, you know, we got reports of in that first 24 hours alone, at least 40. people had been killed and the numbers were climbing. And that happened on June 3rd, the day before Eid, which for us is like a very celebratory moment. And it was just really hard to get into any kind of spirit knowing that, you know, our people are being massacred at large numbers. And we don't really know what's happening. It's a huge radio silence. Yeah, it's terrifying. So from what I've read, it sounds like it's not just the Sudanese military and security forces, but we're seeing a re-emergence of a militia force called the Janjaweed, which is really frightening. Can you explain who the Janjaweed are and what their role is in this crackdown? Yeah, so the Janja

weed has been around wreaking havoc in the whole entire country of Sudan for years. You know, they're responsible for the Darfur genocides and the genocides and mass killings in all corners of Sudan, the Nuba Mountains everywhere. That is the force who is at that. ahead of the mass killings in our country. And they've kind of reemerged now, and the rebranded version of them is the rapid support forces, which are also playing a part in the war in Yemen. They're being provided child soldiers to help support that war as well. So they're kind of just this really strong, ruthless force that, you know, sees no age,

no gender, and it's just on a killing spree. and they're the ones right now currently who were actually led by Himmati, who his real name is Muhammad Hamdan de Gallo. It's been rebranded to Himeti, but that's who the leader of the Janjaweed and the rapid support forces is, who happens to be the second in command, the deputy head for the transitional military council right now. So I'd seen some reports that there are these rolling media and communications blackouts across Sudan.

that are created by the government to try to stop the spread of the news. Is that accurate? And if so, how are you able to get information out of Sudan? Yeah, so this is actually a repeat tactic that the security forces in Sudan use is they do complete electric blackouts. So they cut off all the electricity. And on top of that, they cut off all the internet knowing single-handedly 100% that Internet is the way that people communicate to each other. That's the real-time news. the WhatsApp channels, the social media platforms.

That's how I personally get in contact with all of my family is by using the Internet. So cutting off the Internet pretty much cuts off all communication to the outside world, which means the reports we're getting about what's actually occurring on the ground. It's into then. I think it's a lot worse. I actually feel very confidently that it's a lot worse just because that's the main way to get the information out to the rest of the world that we can act. And for us, members of the Sudanese diaspora, our whole entire family is in Sudan. So not having Internet really is a matter of life and death because we just don't know

what's going on. Yeah. I've seen some reports as well that other countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, they're trying to influence the outcome. Reuters reported that they pledged $3 billion to Sudan after the coup. And I saw a report that also indicated that some of those popular slogans at a sit-in in Khartoum was United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia don't interfere or either victory or Egypt. I mean, how do you see those countries trying to influence events on the ground? Well, I think that everyone knows about the geographic location of Sudan is very opportune for a lot of these countries who are directly involved, who are funneling money into the military and the forces who are responsible for the killings.

You know, that's such a pivotal point that connects the Horn of Africa to the Middle East to the rest of the world. So I see where they're coming from in the perspective of they want to have some sort of authority in that space. But, you know, the Sudanese people are calling for Sudamia, which means peaceful

and Medania, which means civilian-led. So very adamant about keeping it that way, keeping it internal, letting the transitional government, the democratic government, be the constitute of civilians and people who are from Sudan. So I think we see a lot of similarities in the Arab Spring of these

revolutions that are coming about. And I think the differentiation of what's happening in Sudan, it's very specific. It's maintaining peaceful protests, keeping the kind of the spirit alive. I think just kind of set the new standard of what revolutions can look like in that region.

So is the international community responding at all? I mean, is the UN said or done anything or the United States? You know, the U.S., there have been some representatives who have shown their support, and I think that's a direct result of the heavy lobbying from the Sudanese-American community, as well as the community in the U.K., they've also been heavily lobbying. So we're seeing some response from them. You know, one thing of concern is the fact that the U.N. is considered, dismantling the UNAM ID where, and if that happens, you know, the rapid support forces

gain control of that region in Darfur again. And that's scary because, you know, in Khartoum, there's a lot more visibility of what's happening, but it's the outskirts, the surrounding areas that have been ongoing, that I've been experiencing with ongoing horror from the Janja weed and the rapid support forces and the NIS for years are just continuing to feel that consequence. Yeah. So, I mean, we're hoping that the response can be, you know, a lot larger because it's kind of crossed over into humanitarian and human rights issues.

You know, we're seeing genocide. People are being thrown into the Nile River dead or alive, you know, with rocks tied to the bottom of their feet. So it's just a lot of really, really intensely inhumane things happening. It is a group of people in leadership in Sudan who are known for some of the most heinous atrocities in crimes against humanity in recent history. And you mentioned UN AMID. It's the UN-African Union sort of combined operation in Darfur. They've had to do a lot of heavy lifting over the years.

And I would be deeply worried about the vacuum if they left. Yeah. Is there anything you wish people were better informed about or more aware of that maybe hasn't been. getting enough attention in the coverage of the protests? Yeah, I think people just don't really know the severity of what's happening and how long it's been happening for. You know, we're just seeing the massacre from June 3rd that happened just a few days ago, but it has actually been the reality of Sudan as a whole for a really, really long time.

And this whole entire revolution, though under really grave circumstances, has brought the whole entire country together, even those of us who are part of the diaspora, we've all kind of found the sense of unification of, you know, there's a bigger cause at hand that we kind of have to fight for. And I just really like to urge people to, you know, raise awareness about the fact that, you know, men, women, children are getting kidnapped, beaten, tortured, raped. You know, one thing that the genderweed and the rapid support forces do is they hold the underwear of women who they have raped as a trophy. And they kind of flauntled. that around. So that's just something that's really disheartening to think that it's 2019 and

there's all of this happening. But, you know, there's efforts all around the world to kind of, there's protests being held by the Sudanese communities through all pockets of the world. And there's also fundraisers for medical supplies. So if you just see those floating around on Facebook and there's hashtags you can follow, the Sudan Uprising is one of the hashtags. Another one is hashtag, I am the Sudan Revolution, just to show your solid. and just to stay in the loop and apply the pressures to your representatives that you know about to, you know, we all have a voice and we just have to contribute to it directly. Agreed. So, yeah, I mean, you might have preempted my final question, but just, you know, you've been doing this great work organizing the diaspora community in Washington and cities all across the country. You know, if someone's listening right now and they think they want to help you and show their support and solidarity, is there anything you would direct them to do?

Yeah, I would just direct them to those hashtags. You know, there's a lot of key information on there about the history of what's going on and just identifying a few donations. There's some GoFundMe's for medical supplies and just keep continuing to apply pressure because, you know, we at the City News Diaspora have raised so many funds and collected so many supplies for the medical supplies that our worry is, how can we ensure that it will get to the people it gets to? And the only way that can happen is through the support of everyone in the international community, just continue making noise and talking about the injustices.

Well, Wafah, thank you for helping us better understand what's happening. Thanks for all the activism and the work you're doing. I will tweet out some of the links you referenced from my feed. And, you know, I just really appreciate you doing this work. And we're all hoping that this resolves in a better place than it is right now because it's frightening and the international community needs to focus and pay attention. Yeah. Thank you so much.

You know, it's always a pleasure to talk to you and get the chance to spread more awareness. Yeah, I really appreciate the time. Thanks again and have a great day. You do the same. Bye-bye.