Pod Save the World - New year, old problems

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Tommy and Ben recap all of the world news you missed over the holidays, including the latest on the war in Ukraine, Zelensky’s visit to DC, Bibi Netanyahu’s new government, the end of China’s zero-Covid policy, the new ban from the Taliban against Afghan women, and Bolsonaro’s hideout in Florida. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome back to Pots Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Just a couple of girl dads doing a podcast. Welcome back to Potsay of the World indeed. Thank you. And we are very excited to have another girl dad. I missed you guys very much. Luzette is a fan, but she did tell me that some of our episodes have gone on too long.

I was kind of insulted by that. Well, how long is she sleeping? Because maybe you can put her to sleep. You know, one of the nurses at Cedars was like, you know, it's good. They like music. It helps their brain development. And I did say to Hannah, I wonder, why not play a podcast for your kid? Because one of the things you want them to do is hear words, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It helps with brain development and language. Yeah. So maybe we could get some more down dots that way. And she keeps falling asleep, you know, those repeat downloads kick in, you know? It's our own little. Just tell her to smash that.

That's five-star rating. Yeah, exactly. Honey, come on, give Daddy a good review. Today, by the way, is Chloe Rhodes' sixth birthday. No way. Yes. Happy birthday. Six.

So before you know it, you too will be. celebrating sixth birthday. Man, that feels so far. It's like she's now a month old, basically. She was born on the sixth. It's the third as we record this. And it's very weird because you have a baby, they lose weight and then they gain weight.

Yes, that is a weird thing that happens. Scary. But then, you know, you do wake up, you put them to bed and you wake up the next day and you look at them. You're like, she does look different. She looks bigger. They get bigger by like the week in the first year.

It's crazy. And like one day, all of a sudden they're like, oh, she has brown eyes. Yes. There you go. Now we know that. Yeah. That's very strange.

But yeah, it's very exciting stuff. Hannah is, could not be happier. That's awesome. It's such a great New Year's present, Christmas present, all wrapped in. Truly, truly. The best possible bow. Quite a year. And you just got back from New York.

I thought you were addressing the UN. I was sort of. No, I was just nerding out and showing my daughter the UN. What did she think? What do you show Turtle Bay? What do you look at up there? Well, you know, because they've got the office building, but then underneath it, you've got the, where the security council is.

So I was trying to explain the security council. How that goes? This is what, this kind of conversations I have with my eight-year-old daughter. What does she make of the security council? She's a big supporter of the concept of the United Nations. Okay. But she's very, she knows Russia is bad.

She's pissed about the veto. Not from me, by the way. Like, they talk about this at school. So she's mad about the permanent seat for Russia. Oh, okay. She doesn't know why they're there, if they're doing bad things. I have a feeling that she's going to know an awful lot about this stuff at some point in her life's very, very smart kid. Well, we got a great show today, Ben. Lots of Ukraine news to catch up on. Yes.

We have a new Israeli government. Yes, we do. Which is cool. Terrible news about the Taliban's treatment of women. A follow-up on our many discussions last year about China Zero COVID policy. North Korea just will not stop firing various things to the air and pissing everybody off. And then some mixed, a mixed bag of news out of Brazil. Mostly good. Mostly good. Mostly good. That's so good. There is, you know, one great soccer star who's no longer with us. Yeah, we'll talk a little Pele. I got some Pele.

I imagine, did you guys watch as much World Cup as we did? Yes. We definitely got very into the World Cup this year. And, you know, as you knew, once the game started, it's hard to look away, and it's definitely delivered. But I will say that there was something so tacky about the, the, the, you know, the, the ceremony when there's the emir, like, draping, you know, that thing on Messi, and there's the FIFA guy, like, you know, not getting out of the shot. Do you see Salt Bay? Yeah.

Turkish chef trying to get messy to take a picture of them? So what was kind of nice about is, like, yeah, FIFA and Qatar got what they wanted, right? But really it was about Messi and Mbapabe. So, you know, ultimately, it was pretty clear who the fans were into, and it wasn't the head of FIFA. No, it was not Gianni Infantino. He is a tool. He's talking to Raj about this. I was impressed and kind of proud of the press corps and the discourse before the tournament

and about how much people were talking about Qatar, its human rights record, some of the challenges and corruption within FIFA. I sort of always knew that that stuff was going to fall out of the headlines once the soccer started. I did not anticipate it being like one of the best World Cups in the history of the World Cup. I'm a little bummed out at how omnipresent Muhammad bin Salman was at these games. And he's like he's hired Messi to be their tourism spokesman for Saudi Arabia. Well, and they just gave Rinaldo like $215 million for one year to play in Saudi Arabia.

I think to, you know, the real test, right, will be whether or not they award that that cup to Saudi Arabia. So they've got a bid, you know, we've got the next one in North America. But the next one after that, the Saudis have this this bid. And with Egypt. If they give it to Saudi Arabian Egypt. In Greece, kind of. At least there'll be a world corrupt sequel, but it would be a sign of, you know, that the dollars are ultimately still buying what Maham bin Salman is looking for,

which is reputational laundering. 100%. And, you know, FIFA says that, you know, human rights considerations will go into future hosting competitions. We'll see. And the very weird thing about this is, you know, Messi is a spokesman. for the Saudi Tourism Bureau. It's supposed to sort of stop at that. But also Argentina is part of the competing Latin America bid.

So he's kind of in the tough spot here. But I think he's doing okay. Messi's having a good year. Yeah. Good decade, good life. That final was the best soccer game I've ever seen my life. Absolutely incredible. Absolutely incredible.

And that was for all the people who yelled at us about talking about sports at the top. At least it's a global sport. Yeah, it wasn't the Jets and the Patriots. I didn't actually wear a Patriot switcher. Okay, Ben, Ukraine. Lots of news that I've Ukraine to discuss over really the last month. Maybe we just start with the military situation where it's still a horrible, brutal stalemate. The Russians are targeting energy in civilian water infrastructure.

They're doing so in a way that I think is accurately defined as terrorism. I mean, you don't need to launch a bunch of missiles on New Year's Eve when people are celebrating, right, unless you want to send them a message. There's no military purpose, really, other than to terrize and pulverize and make, like, miserable for the population, yeah. Yeah, and a lot of these Iranian-made drones getting involved in the bombing campaigns. Ukrainians are fighting back. There was apparently a Ukrainian Haimar strike. High-Mars are the longer-range U.S. artillery that we, the U.S., the Biden administration,

gave them after, you know, some debate. This happened on New Year's Day. It reportedly killed between 63 and 400 Russian soldiers in Denezsk. That depends on which side's casualty, submit you believe. But the Russians, I think, put out that 63 Russian soldiers died, which is remarkable. This strike was on a building housing Russian soldiers. Some pro-Russian bloggers say that the casualty count was so high because the Russian military was storing ammo at the site as well. Others say it was targeted because there's new recruits in there. They're using their

cell phones. That's led to more calls for the criminal prosecution of military leaders in charge in Russia. Interestingly, Ben, like, that's something we've seen. a lot of, which is criticism of the generals. The Russian generals are carrying out the orders. Yeah. I mean, look, if you look at Putin's comments around Christmas and New Year's, you know, which are important moments usually in the Russian political calendar, he was preparing people for a long war in a way that he didn't before.

You know, obviously he tried to do this quick called the Special Military Operation. but the combination of kind of Putin's grim, you know, long view of what this war is, and we owe this to our predecessors and our descendants, kind of putting in this huge sweep of history coupled with the real bombardment of Ukrainian civilian targets. And you just have the feeling that this is entering a pretty dark phase that's going be really hard on the Ukrainian people. Yeah. And the mobilization that Putin did while haphazard and leading to a lot of people fleeing Russia and, you know, obviously these troops are not well trained.

It does kind of replenish their lines. And so it feels like after a period of Ukrainian gains, like we're settled back into a stalemate. And then the question is, what will comes next? And this gets to the assistance question because part of what Ukraine wants, not the only thing, is a lot more of that kind of long range artillery. And we see with that strike in Dignetsk, why, they want to be able to target Russian positions as the kind of front line is settled back in, you know, their capacity to strike deep into Russian controlled territory without having to mount, you know, offenses that bring a lot of casualties is clearly what they're looking for, you know. Yeah. And like, I mean, we talked about this a lot. I mean, there's a question of whether, you know, the war would come home.

Russian people would get upset when they see the body count going. up and up. And I started to realize, like, I was just pretty naive about that because I think about wars that the United States has waged and how slowly the tide of public opinion turned and how strong the forces of nationalism can be. And I'm not trying to compare the Iraq war or compare the Vietnam War one to one with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I'm just saying, like, generally speaking, I think there is a rally around the flag effect that I think has been stronger than maybe I given, I don't know, we've seen counts of like 100,000 casualties from the Russian side. Yeah. And when you, you know, you talk to Russians anecdotally, right, and that's all we really have.

You know, there is a vein in Russian history of kind of submitting to the state, no matter how bad things are, you know. Now, that can reach a breaking point. And the war in Afghanistan, the Soviet War in Afghanistan, the Soviet War and Afghanistan did reach something of a breaking point, but only after many years. And I think, you know, at the beginning of the war, you know, you kept thinking to yourself as horrific as it looked. Think of a recent war that didn't go on for much, much longer than people expected. So, yes, you know, people I saw at years end, there are a lot of like, how could this end? And here's three ways the war could end or four ways to work could end.

We just don't know. I agree. Putin could die. Putin would be overthrown. The Ukrainians could make some gains, or the Russians could wear the Ukrainians down, or there could be kind of some version of a frozen conflict. But however is the case, it looks like we're headed for, you know, a continued long slog. And I thought Zelensky, you know, you could kind of sense in his visit to Washington, which we can talk about that he knows that. He's not really, he's trying to give people a mixture of hope and realism, which I think is right. I think you're right too. I mean, I've been thinking a lot about those conscripted Russian troops, too. I mean, you know, you throw 300,000 guys at the front that should have an impact. There's also this debate now about whether the Russians are running low on ammunition and whether they'll have to sort of rain back their offenses. I don't know. I certainly, I definitely fail to appreciate how important the Russia-Iran relationship was going to be in the impact of these Iranian drones. And I think there's also a sense that like the Iranians are basically providing ongoing guidance and best practices to the Russians about how to evade Western sanctions. And so, you know, the Dinesk fronts is pretty active right now.

Lujansk, I think it's a little more of a stalemate in part because like it's muddy and no one can move. Well, and the Iranians, you know, part of the issue and we had this, you know, great episode with with the Rezians. But like as that regime in Iran gets more and more isolated and desperate, their incentive for not just going all in with Russia goes away. Like they've, you know, Russia has very few friends. Like Iran has very few friends. They're kind of, there's this kind of commingling of their own isolation that can lead to, you know, even more Iran saying, well, this is basically one of our only patrons in the international system. like, why not just kind of pour these weapons in? So it has made a difference because what the Russians had was this kind of, clearly this

military that was corrupt and kind of big and lumbering. The Iranians have this experience of waging these kind of asymmetric conflicts, right, and using kamikaze drones and, you know, terrorist attacks. And so you see this kind of, obviously the Iranians. and Russians worked together in Syria, but you do see this kind of mixture of Iranian tactics. And the Russians wage artillery battles. The Iranians have kamikaze drones, you know. So at the same time, the other thing I looked at was this meeting between Lukashenko,

the leader of Belarus and Putin. Very worrisome. And this question of whether Belarus resumes its role as this kind of launching pad on Kiev, right? And so, you know, you're right. The Russians could suffer over time because one thing the sanctions are doing is denying them some resupply of technology and it's going to get harder for them to manufacture weapons. But, you know, the front may just shift to different places as the war drags on. Yeah. So you mentioned Zelensky's visits of Washington. Also, around that time, just for Christmas, I think, Congress approved another $45 billion in aid to Ukraine, which brings the U.S. total to nearly $100 billion. The really big ticket item that President Biden delivered to Zelensky for his visit to Washington was the Patriot missile system, which is like the top of the line missile defense system that will hopefully help defend Ukraine against these Russian missile and drone attacks. The Biden team still doesn't seem to want to provide Ukraine with longer range missiles or tanks or others or like heavier hardware.

Ben, I caught Zelensky's speech to Congress in between like bottle feedings and whatnot. Like, I'm curious what you made. I didn't think it was his most powerful speech just rhetorically, but the Ukrainians understand the kind of like theatrics of these events better than anybody and like bringing the flag and having, you know, Pelosi and vice president hold it up, I think was a powerful image. Zelensky certainly like looked the part of the wartime president. I think it was smart to really firmly link Russia and Iran together in that speech, which is both true, but, you know, savvy politics, knowing like the makeup of the U.S. Congress. What would you make of the speech, though? So first of all, the timing said everything, which is I think the Ukrainians really are worried about the Republican take over the House, you know, because, you know, he very deliberately came while Nancy Pelosi was still speaker. Right. So that, one, they could get that $45 billion out the door while the Democrats are still in charge to make sure that that gets through with no hiccups and that worked.

But also because he probably wanted to get in front of the Republicans, knowing that there are a bunch of hawkishers. knowing that there are a bunch of hawkish Republicans who are kind of on the Ukrainian side to kind of fortify their Republican allies against the Republicans who may want to, you know, start blocking funding. And you could tell that there was, he was kind of speaking to Republicans a lot. And that's, you know, the Iranian linkage. And you could sense that he was, he knew that I need to, this 45 billion is going to run out fast than people think. because at the rate that they're using these weapons, they need to replenish. And at the rate that their government needs money and needs financing. And look, he's going to have to be back in a year, you know.

But so the first thing was the timing. The second thing is, you're right. It wasn't his best speech by any measure. But part of the reason why I think is he delivered in English, which he's not, he's not like super fluent in English. Right. And so it really hit the basics, you know. But the basics were trying to hit all those American touchstones and comparing their war to Saratoga, the battle in our Revolutionary War and FDR and World War II. You know, I think you just want to kind of check in and, hey, you American people may not have been paying attention in Ukraine for a few months here.

Here we are. And we're, you know, we're of a peace with you. And we want to remind you that you're the leader of the world and you should feel good about supporting us. So it was really just kind of hitting the wave tops. He didn't go into a lot of detail. But then the last thing I'd say is that you could sense the gap between the enormous amount that the Biden administration is doing, which Zelensky clearly understands. He said thank you a lot of times.

Yeah. Like I noticed a lot of- He seemed grateful. A lot of gratitude. Sometimes Zelensky turns the dial into like shame. This was more gratitude. And I bet you that that's a message that he worked out with the Biden team. But he worked in these little, there was a line where he said, tanks and planes, you know, and he almost kind of smiled when he said it because he knows he's not

getting it. But I do think, you know, they got this Patriot battery, but not a lot of Patriots. It's just one battery, right? So this is not like it's going to eliminate the Russian air threat. And he wants tanks. He wants planes. He wants more long-range artillery systems that he's not getting. And that's not to say that, you know, the Biden team is not doing a lot.

It just means that, you know, there is this existing device. which is kind of irreconcilable in some ways because the Biden team, it wants to manage the escalation risk. And so I think there's there could be sources of tension as we get further into the year. If the Ukrainians want more of these weapons, they're going to need more money. And frankly, it's going to be harder to get those things. Yeah. And as the war seems like it's going to go longer and longer some of these questions about, well, can we train them in time? Will it really be useful? I think they sort of fall away. I'm wondering what your view on this sort of question around guardrails when it comes to arming the Ukrainians or what is escalatory, whether they've changed.

I mean, I've been thinking about this. Like, there is a very, I think, legitimate concern about escalation or the Russians responding with some sort of nuclear use, right? It does seem like the most likely scenario where that happens is when Putin feels like he's losing. So then does that argue for, like, pumping 100 billion worth of U.S. assistance? into Ukraine to get to this current stalemate for an unlimited amount of time? Or does it make more sense to say, okay, let's give them more advanced weapons earlier, let's end the war faster. There's always going to be this risk of nuclear chemical weapons usage.

But, you know, as long as there's some guardrails that are like, don't attack Moscow, don't hit civilian targets. Maybe it's a better strategy than this like very bloody, expensive, kind of risky current stalemate strategy? I think that that's going to be the key policy question in the next few months because first of all, there's also the difficulty for the U.S. I heard this when I was working on that Taiwan piece. Our own stocks of certain ammunition and systems are so depleted that our capacity to

deliver arms sales to Taiwan is going down, right? Really good point. And also, by the way, when you give a howitzer to the Ukrainians, That's not the end of it. It's going to break. Yeah. It's going to have to be refurb. It's got to come back out, go back in.

It's right. It's like way more complicated than it sounds at first blush. That's right. So if we're pouring small arms and ammunition and howitzer's in that need to be replenished, that then aren't being delivered to other, you know, partners like Taiwan. Like, interestingly, the absence of a war like Iraq and Afghanistan is the only thing that's making this possible. And by the way, it's probably boondoggle for some arms manufacturers in the U.S.

So the question becomes like, are we kind of fueling a stalemate, right, by providing all of these smaller arms and this ammunition and these systems that are kind of for this artillery battle in the east, you know, do we go to more advanced weaponry to try to break that stalemate and increase the risk of escalation? I think that that means, like, there's some systems that clearly the Biden administration is going to be uncomfortable, like planes, really long-range missiles, right? The kinds of things that you just use to go into Russia. But like super advanced drones, they seem to be worried about too because they're worried about the capturing them and the technology transfer.

Reverse engineering. No, those, I do think some of these long-range artillery systems and tanks, for instance, there's going to be more pressure on, well, why not just, you know, like we saw how the U.S. infusion of those helped with these offensives that we saw in Kharkiv and Keroson. And I think the pressure and maybe the argument on behalf of just saying, well, why not just more advanced long-range systems to try to break some of the stalemate along that front line to try to get Ukraine some more territory so that the stalemate that emerges is at least a little bit more advantageous to Ukraine? I think the scales might tip a bit in that direction. And then the rationale for air defense systems continues to go up.

Now, Patriot batteries are harder to replace or expensive, you know. Now, I will point this out. We have a bunch of patriots in like Saudi Arabia. You know, so once again, like if we can, you know, pour these into the Gulf, like, well, I think that the Ukraine has a much better claim on those, right? So I do think there's room to do more while managing the escalation risk and trying to affect the stalemate. Because at some point, are we just kind of prolonging a conflict that is costing a lot of human life and not, you know, and not trying to decisively affect where that front line is.

Right. And, you know, the one thing that sort of the one lucky break to extent that anyone's lucky here is that it's been unseasonably warm in Europe. So the Putin plan to basically freeze all of Europe by denying them natural gas has not worked yet. Now, obviously, like the weather can change. But also, I think, has made muddy ground, which makes it hard to move these heavy weapons around so the Russians can't, you know, launch a defensive necessarily. Yeah.

And what we'll have to look at, too, is what is the effect on European politics, right? We've talked a lot about the concern that let's watch how the next several European elections go to see if the Putin plan is working where higher prices are upsetting people. Or does the European public just kind of adjust to the new reality? And I saw the German Chancellor Schultz, like in his year-end speech was basically like, hey, we're adjusting. We have to, you know, he's trying to create some resilience in that society. that will be an interesting test, too, of what works. Does Europe adjust to this new reality? Or does Putin start to see some more Putin-friendly leaders get in there? Yeah. And do they really, the European capitals really start adjusting their defense spending and get it up to that 2% of GDP level that America has always pushed them for? Yeah, because they'll have to replenish their own weapons, too, right? They're not accustomed to shipping this much stuff out the door.

No, not at all. Anything else on Ukraine? No, I mean, you know, it's hard to overstate like, I can't imagine it's living in darkness. I mean, you know, it's, we can forget how, how difficult this is in the kind of triumphalism around the conversation about Ukraine sometimes is not an easy time to be in Ukraine. My power went out for two hours in Los Angeles and him and I were panicking. I can't imagine like having a kid. Having a baby, yeah. It's just, it's a nightmare. It's an absolute nightmare.

With Trex, you get the most of everything, the most wood inspired, the most eco-friendly, the most decking and railing designs, the most trusted. Trex, performance engineered for your life outdoors. Visit Trex.com today. Speaking of a nightmare, Ben, our old friend, BB Netanyahu is officially back. He is once again the Prime Minister of Israel for a record sixth term. Couldn't find anyone better for one of those terms. He is now leading an ultra-right wing, ultra-religious. religiously conservative government.

A reminder, by the way, that Bibi is still dealing with multiple criminal trials for bribery, fraud, and breach of public trust. But apparently, that did not matter. This new government is comprised of members of Netanyahu's conservative-like-Hood party and then members of other ultra-nationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties. They released a document outlining the new government's priorities, which include legalizing existing settlements. And it says, quote, the government will advance and develop. settlements in all parts of Israel in the Galilee, the Nijiv, Negev, I don't know to say it, the desert, the Golan Heights, and in the West Bank. There was also language that seemed to allow for discrimination against LGBT people on religious grounds, special treatment for ultra-Orthodox men

who don't want to work or serve in the military, and they will try to push through changes that will allow the Israeli parliament to overturn Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority vote. Two of BB's incoming ministers have criminal records, one did time for bribery. the other for supporting a terrorist organization. It is also worth noting that the new Israeli foreign minister esteemed to suggest that the new government will further reduce its already pretty tepid support for Ukraine. And right-wing coalition members have called for new rules governing holy sites,

which King Abdullah of Jordan reacted to like he was about to go to war. He basically was like, you know, we're ready to battle you over this one. So thoughts on this new government, Ben, And do you see any signs or hope or indications that the U.S. approach towards the Netanyahu's government will change from what it's always been? I mean, first of all, I just have to say, not to have ranted in a while, try to curb it a little bit. Please, no. But, I mean, you know, if a decade ago, you said that Bibi Netanyahu had absolutely no interest in peace was racist or at least racist adjacent, his basic political project was to try to claim all of greater. Israel, you know, you were seen as, how can you say that? You know, he said, he said in a speech

once that he supports the Palestinian state. They call for talks at the Palestinians. That was all bullshit. And it was so obviously bullshit at the time. But people wanted to hide behind this convenient talking point that no, Bibi Nanyahu's committed to two states. There's a peace process. It's the Palestinians fault. The Palestinians never miss an opportunity, miss an opportunity. But you're forgetting warriors are the ones who can sue for peace. Yeah. Oh yeah. B.B. is going to be Nixon going to China. Like, this is who he always was. This is who he was 15 years ago, 10 years ago, five years ago. Now he has the government he wants, which is a bunch of lunatics. Like, this is as if Donald Trump got reelected. Paul Gosar was in charge of like the United States military. Marjorie Taylor Green was in charge of the Department of Homeland Security. And Lauren Bobert was the fucking attorney general. That's who's the government. And the Supreme Court no longer has jurisdiction maybe in the future. And this is what they've, what they, what they, I can't even begin to describe what they've already done.

I mean, they basically announced like on Twitter that their policy is annexation of the West Bank. Like there's BB like, oh yeah, overtly. Where are all the people that defended BB as a man of peace? What do they have to say about that? Where are you right now, right? You've got Ben Gavir, the supremacist, you know, first act going to the temple mount. to try to stir the most, you know, delicate pot in the world, right? I mean, so that's the first point.

The extremism is such a rebuke to the apologist for BB Nanyahu of last decade. Got that out of my system. I liked it. Now, then this is a huge, like, test of the, the quote-unquote piece that was brought by the Abraham Accords, which was made between governments that were not at war. But the Emirati said that the whole purpose of the Abraham Accords is it would give them more leverage to help the Palestinians. And now look what you have in there, right?

And so what do you say to the Palestinian people? Like what are they supposed to think is the horizon for them, right? I mean, I think the reality is they are just a complete afterthought. And that perceived progress towards more Abraham Accords-like agreements with countries like Saudi Arabia will always be this little carrot that BB holds up while he slowly ad-X is or maybe very quickly annexes all of the West Bank and tries to silence everybody by doing this delicate dance. And the thing is it, it's probably going to work, right? I mean, that's the, has worked in the past.

Yeah. And that's, like, so that's only good if you don't think that the Palestinians should have any self-determination and you don't care what happens to them. But now there's also concern, this is the last point I make about what does this mean for Israelis who are uncomfortable with this? Right. I mean, no surprise. My Israeli friends are not comfortable with this.

You worry for them about the nature of the government they have. And also you see these increasing tensions, I think, with the American Jewish community because you have some pretty extremist voices wanting to redefine what it means to be Jewish, for instance. Even reform, forget secular Jews, like even reform Jews in the diaspora are no longer really. Jewish to some of these voices in the government. So I do think that there are just going to be a lot of uncomfortable situations that unfold. The question is, is Bibi able to manage them in a way? I'm sure this is what he wants, where each one of them goes right up to a line, but it never creates like a rupture. And he's just, you know, swallowing up more territory, expending more settlements,

picking more fights, and, you know, knowing that he can stay in the good graces of Maham bin Salman and Mohammed Zaid, because really all they care about is entrenching their own autocracy. They don't care about the Palestinians. Or does something, does some flashpoint really flare up and cause a real crisis in the West Bank or in Jerusalem that is harder to manage? I think thus far, like the Biden administration has kind of been condemning this in kind of statements that are well below the level of Joe Biden, which suggests that they're not looking to have this fight and want to avoid it. I just think it's going to be hard to avoid for the next two years. And look, and then their argument might be picking a big public fight with BB Net Yahoo will benefit BBN Yahoo because it will stir up all the forces of nationalism.

That might be true. But at some point, like, there's got to be a more considered effort to push back on this guy and his policies and the people he's gotten in bed with because you know who's not doing it. The United States media. The U.S. media is addicted to giving BBNNN Yahoo softball interviews. It doesn't matter what he's been up to lately. It doesn't matter how many corruption charges. It's like NPR, one of the Sunday shows.

It's just like softball after softball. No, he's like the Lindsay Graham of foreign leaders. He's like their chummy buddy. Exactly. They're their chummy buddy who just like comes on the show and it like feels important because he's a head of state. Because he knows how to do it. He speaks really good English and he knows American politics, you know. Right.

He knows the players. He knows the game. I mean, it's just it, but it's a really dark status quo and trajectory. I would be also just trying to. engage Palestinians, including, by the way, not Mahmoud Abbas, who, you know, that guy's out to lunch, right? Like, is our next generation Palestinian civil society, but also other Israeli voices. It's really important, I think, that American politicians are engaging not just this kind of, you know, this extremist government, but engaging other Israeli political figures, other Israeli civil society, instead of channeling everything through BB, which is exactly what he wants. So, yes, you're not going to fix it by picking a fight, but you're also not going to fix it by avoiding a fight.

You have to find other entry points to try to keep some semblance of hope alive for reconciliation and for different alternatives emerging from within Israeli and Palestinian society. Otherwise, we are just kind of normalizing this drift towards like an autocratic block in the Middle East, whereas as long as you don't like the Iranian government, like you can do whatever you want. Exactly. And like there was also a concerted effort, I think, to crack down on NGOs within Israel. Yeah. That's exactly. Did you see the video of there was a, you know, sort of a progressive Jewish activist, got the shit kicked out of them by a member of the IDF or a member of the police who basically was like, you know, Ben-Gavir is here now. You're all fucked. That's right. And so if I'm the one thing that I'd be doing if I was the U.S. European governments is, okay, yeah, you're not going to broker peace right now. But I would prioritize the defense of civil society in Israel, right? I'd prioritize. the defense of civil society in Palestine, right? Like you just, because, you know, they're going to want to be choking off any space for any

opposition, right? And that's what you have to try to prevent in the hope that at some point the pendulum can swing back in a different direction here. Yeah. A lot of dark news today, Ben, because the next topic here is Afghanistan, where the news keeps getting worse, especially for Afghan women. Late last year in 2022, the Taliban's economic minister announced a series of measures rolling back women's rights, including barring women from working at non-governmental organizations.

This led many of the biggest international aid organizations in the world to suspend their operations. And that comes on top of Afghanistan's economy being in freefall since the U.S. withdrawal. And because of sanctions, the freezing of Afghanistan's assets abroad, the reduction in international aid, I'm sure COVID, broader economic slowdowns impacting everything. They really couldn't be worse. So you have millions of people at risk of starvation. On Sunday, the deputy head of the UN mission in Afghanistan met with the deputy prime minister of the Taliban to discuss the situation. All of this also comes a few months after the Taliban banned girls from attending school after sixth grade.

The UN women's department surveyed 151-8 organizations. And 86% said they have stopped working or are now only partially functioning. So that is just completely crippling their effort to help these people. I guess I wonder how much of that, you know, slow down is because these organizations are like, hey, banning women from working is immoral or it's like practical, like, hey, we need these women to function as an organization because they're the ones doing the work. Yeah. I don't know. But it's really spiraling. I mean, I think, I guess the question is, is this negotiation effort by the UN the best option here?

I've sort of like no longer know where any leverage could come from. Again, I really think that the only way. way you can try to set a bottom underneath this kind of spiral is to negotiate. I continue to think that if the tactic is just sanctions and isolation, like you're just playing into a situation where Afghanistan is going to just disappear off the map of the international community and become more and more of this kind of dystopia. I think we're dealing with a reality where it is what it is, and the sanctions are not in any way affecting the Taliban's behavior. If anything, it's just driving them into the comfort of isolation.

So I would be trying to get together the broadest set of countries to support some process to at least identify how can we make life better for the Afghan people, and avert things like famine and malnutrition, and try to get just some entry points for international organizations to function. And therefore prioritize things like, yeah, the capacity. for women to work on the ground for aid organizations because a lot of, as you pointed out, a lot of this is like, if you can't have your local workers, you can't function. And this is this capricious decision. It was like, oh, the women are wearing their headscarves

so they can no longer work. Yeah. What are you talking about? Yeah. It's insane. If you can find some trade space for around assistance to insist that at least there are certain carve-outs, it's not going to solve the problem, but it's going to make life better for some people. And that's all we're going to be able to do in the near term.

Yeah. What you're saying is, I think, totally right. But there is, there's like the U.S. government approach and policy part of this. And then there are these eight organizations that are like, we can't even, we can't function and we want to function. Well, and to come back to a point we've made on this podcast a bunch, but like we should be guided by those eight organizations. Unfortunately, we're guided by our politics, which are like, we're done with Afghanistan. And, you know, every time the Taliban does something, we announce like eight designations. I mean, What is that doing? What can be done practically to improve things?

What can we hear from the people who are on the ground about what those things are? Put the UN, I think, in the lead is right, and just try to make life, create lifelines for as many people as you can there. And do a lot more and a lot better in terms of helping Afghan refugees get into the U.S. or the people who supported the United States or the international coalition, NATO throughout the war, Yeah. Help them get resettled to keep those promises. That's been a pretty big failure. Before I went on paternity leave, we were talking a lot about China's zero COVID policy

and the protests in response to their draconian lockdowns. Man, what a difference a month makes. Yeah. So China is relaxing their restrictions left and right on COVID. It's reopening its border to allow Chinese citizens to travel abroad. A bunch of countries, including the U.S. are moving to restrict their travel or require a test or something. China has dropped quarantine requirements for incoming visitors. That is pretty remarkable when you consider that there was like basically a two-year period where the country was completely locked down and isolated.

I think our ambassador was the only senior U.S. government official taking meetings in person with Chinese officials. We don't really know the full impact of the policy change. Anecdotally, it seems like the virus is spiraling out of control across China. They had very little natural immunity. their vaccines are not good. There's a lot to unpack here that we should get into all of it. But I do think it's worth just like stepping back and thinking that when people are talking about China's zero COVID policy and comparing its efficacy to the U.S. or Europe or other places,

you should question whether zero COVID in China was really about the virus for Xi Jinping or something else. Like I'm not saying he wanted people to get sick. I'm not saying he wants his economy to not function anymore like it's currently doing. But I do think people discounted how convenient of a pretext zero COVID was for him and the Chinese Communist Party to just assert even more control over people, like completely iron grip, lock them in their homes, surveil them even more. But Ben, what did you make of the 180 by Xi Jinping on zero COVID and like what it might tell us about Chinese decision making? I think it's a huge story because. remember the party conference that gave she this like unprecedented additional term, there was no

mention of lifting zero COVID. Like that would have been the pivot point, right? And then you had these protests and then you have this total 180s, you say. And now, you know, you have like millions and millions of millions, if not tens of millions of COVID cases. We don't know because we don't trust the data. Get to that in a second. But what it tells me is that like we just witnessed public opinion completely changed the policy of the Chinese government. And They can pretend like that's not what happened. We all saw it. That's what happened.

It's remarkable. So it does show you that even in this totalitarian system, she felt he had to respond. And I think it also suggests that the protests were much more widespread than we even saw. Because we saw like Beijing, you know, there's some really great dramatic reporting out of places like Beijing and Shanghai. We have no idea what was going on in villages and kind of industrial cities where there's no Western media presence whatsoever. And so the Chinese government must have been seeing something very worrisome for them to be this big of a 180. I think they've lost a lot of face because everybody knows that happened. And so everybody knows Xi Jinping is not as all powerful as his cultural personality suggests because his own people forced him to change a signature policy.

Right. And the things to watch going forward, I think he was beginning to lose the confidence also of the international business community because businesses are like, we can't, you know, we have to move our supply chain. Locked down factories. Yeah, we got to move down to Vietnam or we're going to move operations to Mexico companies we're looking at. And I don't know if this is going to be enough to win back the confidence. I think as businesses look out medium and long term, they might be thinking, well, this is too unpredictable. This is too weird. She's going to bet that their market is big enough to mitigate that.

That's something to watch. I also think, you know, the impact on the global economy will be interesting because Chinese growth could restart over the course of the year. Interesting, that could end up helping with growth, but it could hurt the inflation. If suddenly there's a bunch of Chinese demand introduced in the next few months as they open up. So that's something to watch going forward is how like the resumption essentially the Chinese economy affects our economy in this window where there's going to be a massive, and there already is COVID outbreak, part of what's so eerie, Tommy is like we have no idea how many people are dying. None. We've no, and this was going to happen at some point, right, unless COVID disappeared from the face of the earth.

There's something kind of eerie. Do you still look at the New York Times map of the world with like the color? Like, we just don't know the data. And nobody, so the capacity of international organizations to trust anything out of China has also been like really compromised. I mean, can we trust Chinese numbers on COVID? Absolutely not. No, it's really a pretty awful story. I mean, and they had, look, you know, COVID is overwhelmed.

every single country's healthcare system, basically. Yeah. But they have this two-year window to improve their hospital capacity or to get elderly, fully vaccinated and boosted with a really working vaccine, basically. And they just kind of failed to do it. They just locked them in their houses. Yeah, it's exactly the right point, which shows you how much they care about them.

Yeah, people. In nearby North Korea, there has been also a ton of churn. So last year, Ben, I did not realize that there was a record. record 70 missile tests last year by North Koreans. And then at the end of the year, at a ruling party meeting, Kim Jong-un says that he has ordered an exponential expansion in North Korea's nuclear arsenal, the development of more intercontinental ballistic missiles. And I think I heard or read somewhere that Kim wants to develop smaller tactical nukes for potential use in the battlefield. They also last year, I think, I don't remember if we talked about this, but they changed their

nuclear policy to include preemptive use or, you know, to end a conventional war. So there are like lots of like escalatory signals. North Korea in late December also launched drones across the border into South Korea. One made it basically to the excerpts of Seoul. And the response from South Korea's military was kind of embarrassing. Like they tried to scramble a bunch of jets. One of them crashed during takeoff. One of the North Korean drones just kind of like, I think, loitered for three hours in South Korean airspace and got back. So, you know, you're starting to see even more hawkish soundings out of the administration there. The South Korean president said that joint South Korea U.S. military exercises could include nuclear assets in the future.

That seemed to catch the Biden administration off guard. I think Joe Biden was asked about it. He was like, no. Yeah, yeah. So, again, like, this is one of those problems where we bring it up because it's a huge deal if something happens. It's like this growing threat. The problem itself always sort of feels the same. It doesn't feel like there's great solutions.

But, you know, there's this like critical mask of escalation that does seem worth at least pointing out. No, I'm glad you are pointing it out. I also saw, did you see that Kim Jong-un fired the head of the military? Yeah, it's number two guy. And he was like in a pick. It was a classic like North Korean in Kremlinology too because like he was in a photo like with Kim Jong-un. And then a few days later, like the chair was empty or something. And then it was announced he had departed his position.

Anyway, we don't know what that means because we never know what things like that mean. But I think Kim Jong-un's determination to fortify his nuclear and missile deterrent, to draw attention, whatever his mix of motivations is, like it's kicking an overdrive. And we're likely to have a year where a North Korean nuclear test is back on the table. The risk of some provocation with South Korea goes up. where I take this conversation is this whole region could become a little bit more combustible. Part of the way in which the North Greens have justified or explained this escalation is Japan is ramping up its own defense. Now, part of the reason Japan is doing that is because of Taiwan concerns and Taiwan contingencies

and just the sense that they need to be doing more. But as Japan spends more in defense, then maybe the North Koreans feel like they need to do more. and Taiwan, as we've talked about, is upping its own defense spending. We're upping the amount of arms we're providing to Taiwan. This is all worth watching because, you know, the arrow is pointing up on escalation all around northeast Asia, you know. And you saw the South Korean president in that kind of ham-handed way, this reference of joint nuclear exercises. I don't know if he misspoke or what he was trying to accomplish there. But it shows you that, you know, the temperature is rising in a very dangerous.

part of the world to pull back from, again, all these stories like, you know, there are a lot of pots and they're starting to boil higher, you know, in Ukraine, in Northeast Asia, obviously in Iran, which we've just talked about with Beebe there. The next year or two could really be a challenging one to navigate for the Biden administration and navigating it in the context of what American politics does to, because normally what you do is what can we dial back here? You know, is there some interim deal we can make with the North Koreans or the Iranians or the Russians to just kind of lower the temperature somewhere? You'd normally be looking how do you get one of these things in a calmer situation so we can at least focus over here on Ukraine? But American politics is going to make that harder in an election cycle that kicks in with the Republican House.

And so navigating through these two years, I think is going to be harder than people, I think, have. yet to absorb. Yeah, I mean, look, in the context of Bibi, we didn't even talk about the fact that the Iranian nuclear agreement seems to be just completely dead. Yes. I mean, part of that is understandable in the midst of these protests you didn't want to. I don't know. Look, I wish they were still negotiated thing. I wish we were in the Iranian deal. The best would have been we're in it during the, you know, the protests. But like Netanyahu, look, the first like six months into the Obama administration in 2009, a bunch of Israeli officials, I probably Netanyahu himself on background told Jeffrey Goldberg would be a way of it, that they were like six months away from bombing,

right? And we had to like manage that. So that's that play is coming again. I mean, you're going to see then Yahoo and his security cabinet talking in very hawkish ways about military strikes on Iran and probably asking the U.S. to do it. In terms of the U.S. and China and the sort of the Asia-Pacific region you were just talking about, I mean, we're kind of decoupling our economies. We're increasing defense spending. Yeah. Joe Biden's put all these like export control. and in place to punish China. We put this huge bill forward to create our own semiconductor industry to kind of like pull back from any dependence on Taiwan or the Chinese government. So yeah, there's a lot of like unnerving kind of background music.

I guess that the point, because on it, every one of those things makes sense on their own, right? The concern is where does the logic of all those things together lead? And again, I actually don't, I'm not putting this. on the Biden administration because some of these they inherited things who were in stride. She and Putin and the Iranian regime are obviously, have escalated things on their own. But the logic of all of these developments is leading towards more confrontation. And at some point, that becomes an actual confrontation or becomes, it lands in some kind of de-escalation. And I don't see where the de-escalation is coming.

of these three areas, Northeast Asia, the Middle East, and Ukraine. Yeah, and we've kind of exhausted the conversation about whether or not there should be peace talks in Ukraine. I mean, obviously, everyone wants that to happen. It's not happening. It's not happening. It's just not happening. It's just not happening.

It's just, in Ukraine, it's just does the conflict somehow freeze at some point? Yeah, yeah. Last thing, Ben. So, lots of news out of Brazil. The sad news for Brazil is that soccer legend, Pelle died at 82. 82 is a hell of a run. Yeah. The good news is that Lula de Silva is now president.

Jari Bolsonaro is not. There was no violence. There was no refusal to transfer power. All the things people were really concerned about did not happen. There are rumors that Bolsonaro was moving to Florida. You might be my source on this. I think I was spreading those rumors. Now, is that just because Bolsonaro skipped Lula's inauguration to go to Mar-a-Lago

and I think was eating KFC in Orlando? Why was he in Orlando? The Disney World? Oh, did you go to Disney? No, I don't know. I'm just guessing. That's like why you go to Orlando, right? The Mar-a-Lago thing, the reason, you know, there's this kind of weird, like, right-wing,

Latin-American, like, base in Florida, you know? Yeah, there is. Like, that's where, like, the, you know, well, a varying, you know, some of these people are better than others, right? But obviously, like, you've got long-standing right-wing Cuban exile community, Venezuela in exile community now. And so who knows, maybe Bolsonaro set up shop on the right-wing Brazilian opposition in Florida. And it's, you know, Ron DeSantis has declared it's where woke goes to die, right?

We know how Bolsonaro feels about woke culture. I will say it was very satisfying to watch Bolsonaro that, like, humbled. But I, you know, I expect that we haven't heard the loss from him. Yeah, he's a survivor. He's a survivor. But look, we should say, like, this was really good news. And actually, like, we should also say, like, Brazil managed this transition, like, cleaner than the United States did. Sure did.

You know, in the sense that, like, we at January 6th, like, I'm not crediting Bolsonaro here, but something in the Brazilian political culture looked at that abyss. Even though Bolsonaro was saying that the election was stolen, even though his supporters were in the streets, it did not disrupt the transition of power as much as our own transition. position power was pretty disrupted. And it was looked very hopeful to see Lula take office. Lula alone is not the solution to that problem. We had Tabata Amaral on a Brazilian legislature who spoke very eloquently about the need for some generational change in Brazil over time, the need to figure out a way to have dialogue with some of Bolsonaro supporters in the evangelical community in Brazil. But, you know, autocracy lost in Brazil and Lula is in there. And there's an opportunity there. And it was good to see people like, you know, Gabriel Borich of Chile, you know,

there. But hopefully he can seize this opportunity to not only put in place policies that help Brazilians on things like narrowing inequality, but also trying to find a like a broader base than he won with and a way to pass the baton to the next generation while fending off Bolsonaro, whether he's back in Brazil or hanging out at Mar-a-Lago doing Ghanas, whatever people are doing. Slinking out of it as well. The other thing I should have mentioned, is, you see that the opposition legislature in Venezuela, they voted to, like, dissolve the interim government, which means that Juan Guaido is no longer the sort of like opposition president, which, like, I mean, not trying to like knock the guy in any way, but it does seem to

Well, let's knock Trump and Bolton and Marco Rubio on this because sort of ends that play. And by the way, let's knock the U.S. media. Because when Juan Guido was recognized as the president of Venezuela by Donald Trump and John Bolton was taping, like, you know, TikToks in the Roosevelt room declaring the coup. And General Rubio was live tweeting from the Venezuelan border. It got front page coverage. And it was just put in the hawk dove time. You know, like everybody got kind of pushed into being.

That was, that policy was an unmitigated catastrophic failure. Above all for Juan Guaido, who's now no longer. Yeah. Maybe Donald Trump still sees him as president of Venezuela like nobody else does. And so back to the drawing board. And I'd like, as we talked about, to see some diplomatic settlement there. Yeah, maybe that does open some space for Joe Biden to, you know, keep hitting the gas on talks with Maduro's government, maybe some sanctions relief in terms of for political prisoner releases. Just to break the political impasse and get to an election and something that can improve the circumstances of Venezuelaans.

Because the other thing that, you know, we've talked about is that the flow of Venezuelans and Cubans to the southern border is a part of why the border, crisis is so acute, right? Yeah. And one, if I'm Joe Biden, I'm looking at a way to reduce the crisis at the border. And look, you know, we haven't talked a lot about it. We should probably come back to the border at some point later. We should. Title 42, a lot of stuff there. One way you can do that is to improve the humanitarian circumstances in Venezuela and Cuba. And you can do that without suggesting that you support those governments. Yeah. Kevin McCarthy he humiliated himself in his efforts to become Speaker of the House today. So I think they adjourned the session without naming a new speaker. We still don't have one. We don't know who's going to be in

charge. But we do know that focus on all things border, all things immigration all the time, is going to be. I think probably, I mean, after like Hunter Biden's laptop or whatever like sort of anti-Biden oversight they do, that will probably be the number one policy issue, which is immigration. and I think they're going to try to impeach the head of DHS. So, yes, anything that Biden can do to try to improve the situation would probably help him in the long run. Yeah. No, the Republicans may be too big of a mess internally to actually focus on it. But, I mean, it's a real issue.

The numbers are really high and there's no prospect of immigration reform. It is something worth coming back to. Yeah, this is one of those things where it's like, oh, this is manufacturers. You know, it's a real issue. People are on the border. They're suffering. they're waiting six months and squalid champs. And the numbers still keep coming up

of people coming to the board. Yeah, it's really bad. Well, that's it for us this week. We didn't have a guest because it's our first day back. And we're just excited to see you. Yeah, I'm just excited to just yap with my buddy. I will say, do you remember Pele?

Like... As a player? I mean, this is my slight age. Sure, sure. Slightly higher than you. And being in New York, I remember when he came to play for the cosmos in the 80s.

There's like that famous bicycle kick he had right in some game. Like, I don't remember the Cosmos at all. So as a New Yorker, I remember the Cosmos, and they were just kind of this small-fri team that played on a place called Randall's Island in New York, which was just kind of small. Actually, the stadium where the Cosmos used to play, I ran like track meets in when I was in high school.

That's how small it was. No way. But when Pele came, they moved to Giant Stadium. That's cool. And suddenly this went from being like, you know, a few thousand people going to soccer games to like sold out. or 60,000 people at a giant stadium and glamorous and there's Pele. And so he's my first memory of a soccer player, you know.

That's cool. I mean, it is really interesting when, like, the greatest players in the world decide to leave, you know, the Premier League or whatever. Well, see, Messi joins Bolsonaro in Florida, you know. Yeah, that's right. Well, there's talk about him joining the Miami team. The Miami team in MLS. Yeah, I think I read that he might have bought a house or rented a house.

He's got a house there. He's not going to do it any, like, this year or next year. But there's, I think people are believing that he will, he's last stop before he retire, so he'll be MLS team in Miami. Yeah, David Beckham, I think, did that. Beckham owns that team. Oh, okay. So Beckham played for the galaxy out here in LA.

Yeah, I mean, like the L.A.FC, the other L.A. base soccer club that just won the whole thing this year and is really good. I think they won a part because they brought over that badass Welsh player, bail. So it was interesting to see some of these, like, great players to camp to the U.S. Yeah. Good for them. That would be great. Yeah. I mean, we're hosting the World Cup, so if ever, you know, there's time to really put the pedal of metal on U.S. soccer.

It's the next four years. Yeah. SoFi Stadium. See you in 2026. All right. That's all I got. You got back to, do you do like, I mean, are you doing like morning feedings? And remember, that's what I was done.

Hanna and I are like swapping out. I do a lot of diapers. The thing about diapers is they're not hard. They're just endless. You know, it's like Sisyphus. Yeah. Yeah, what's kind of... Boulder full of shit.

You have one of those diaper genies? No, what's that? Oh. Where do you... There are these like contraptions. They're like garbage cans, but they have this like seal. And you open up and just drop the diaper in. Oh, maybe we do have that.

Yeah, there's definitely some scent control. I mean, she's so little that it's not an issue yet, but I think that changes over time. Yeah. I do. Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. I do a lot of diapers. We swap out feedings.

Hannah's parents were here for a while, which is incredibly helpful. But yeah, I mean, look, she is so little that she just sleeps a ton. Yeah. I think she'll wake up more and more and more and the obligations will increase, but they're all fun. They're all good. Yeah. Well, enjoy the piece of your child sleeping on you because now, you know, like I could injure myself. I know.

Hannah's mom was saying that. She's like, I got to get in like all the cuddles I can with a one month old before I go see her. her other grandkids, like a two-year-old, who will just sort of like not going to chill out and spend time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Something kind of chill about like an infant sleeping on you. Yeah, they're super cool. Yeah, it's something not chill about changing a million diapers. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, more to come. Yes. Yeah. All right, well, that's it. Great to be back and talk to you guys and see you soon. Pots Save the World is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.

Our producer is Haley Muse. Saul Rubin is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andy. Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Segglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth to upload our episodes and videos at YouTube.com slash crooked media.