Pod Save the World - Panic at the Pentagon

Episode Date: November 27, 2019

First, Tommy talks with former DOD official and national security expert Kelly Magsamen about Trump’s meddling in the military justice system and the firing of the Secretary of the Navy. They also discuss the impeachment hearings, whether former National Security Advisor John Bolton should testify, Hong Kong’s democracy-affirming elections, why Trump is extorting Japan for money and the latest on the US military mission in Syria. Then Tablet Magazine’s Yair Rosenberg joins to discuss the corruption charges against Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu and what it means for his political future.

Welcome back to POTS of the World. This is Tommy Gitor. We have a fantastic show for you guys today. We are going to talk about a wild week over at the Pentagon with the firing of the Secretary of the Navy and President Trump seemingly getting involved in the most minute details of their military justice system. We're going to talk about impeachment and whether John Bolton should be a part of this process and will be compelled to be. Talk about some really momentous elections in Hong Kong and what they mean. about the future of that protest movement and Beijing's ability to project power into the area. We're going to talk about President Trump for some reason trying to extort our allies in Japan for more money to allow us to keep 54,000 U.S. service members in Japan, a really critical piece of our Asia force structure that he's for some reason trying to unravel. And then we are going to talk about the ISIS mission in Syria. My guest today is Yair Rosenberg from Tablet Magazine. He's going to walk us through. what the hell is going on with BB Netanyahu because he was just indicted on three separate cases. Israel is in the midst of just political turmoil. There have been two elections this year.

The government formation process is not done yet. No one knows what's going to happen, but it could be a momentous change in Israel. So I'm really excited to talk with him. My guest host today is Kelly Magsman. You guys have heard her several times before. She's the vice president of national security and international policy at Center for American Progress, but she's also an incredibly accomplished foreign policy expert who's worked at the State Department, the Pentagon, and the White House with us. Ben is on his way back from Hong Kong,

so he will fill us in on all those travels next week, but until then, I'm thrilled to have Kelly. So one little personal note here, well, two, actually. One, if you don't mind, if you want to help save the Republic, if you don't want to let Stacey Abrams down, please go to Votesaveamerica.com slash fairfite. If you can chip in even five bucks to help her put election protection teams into all the key swing states, it's maybe the most important thing we could do to help us win in 2020.

The other thing is my second episode of my Iowa series is out. It's on the Potsave America feed. It dropped on Tuesday. If you want to learn about all the cool history behind why Iowa is first in the nominating process, if you want to hear the rules of the caucuses, we'll actually take you to one in Polk County. and you can hear what it's like to actually be there. This is from 2016. And then lastly, you will hear from undecided voters.

You'll meet with our field organizers again. I think it's my favorite episode we've done so far. And so I would love it if you guys would give it a shot and share it if you enjoy it. So without any further ado, let's go full world, though. And here's Kelly Magsman. Kelly, thank you again for doing the show. Good to be here. Great to have you back.

Okay, Mags, weird weekend over at the Pats. Hemagon, tumultuous few days to say the least. So on last week's episode, Ben and I talked about Trump's decision to pardon a bunch of members of the military who are convicted of or accused of committing war crimes. One of those individuals is a Navy seal named Eddie Gallagher, who was accused but acquitted of murdering a teenage ISIS fighter and convicted of posing for a photo with that ISIS fighter's corpse. We should note the guy was like 12 or 15. He's very young. After a right-wing media campaign, Trump ended up intervening and restored Gallagher's rank. But the Navy leadership purportedly wanted to review the case and take away as Trident, which is basically means kicking

him out of the Navy SEALs. So most observers have been saying that Trump interfering in the military justice system is destined to be a bad idea. And over the weekend, they were proven right when the Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, fired Richard Spencer, who's the Secretary of the Navy. Spencer released this scathing letter that talked about how good order and discipline is quite literally a life and death matter for members of the military, and I think he wrote about it very compellingly. But he concluded, and I'm going to read a long quote here. Unfortunately, it has become apparent that in this respect, I no longer shared the same understanding with the commander-in-chief who appointed me in regard to the key principle of good order and discipline. I cannot in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took in the presence of my family, my flag, and my faith to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. wow. So, Kelly, that makes it sounds like Spencer quit because Trump was inappropriately intervening in the military justice system. But the Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, said to reporters today that he fired Spencer because Spencer was maybe negotiating some deal directly with the White House about Gallagher's fate without telling him and going through the appropriate chain of the command. On Monday, Esper also told reporters that Trump had ordered him to allow Gallagher to retain his trident pin. So it sounds like Trump interviewed.

intervened again in the Navy's, you know, proceedings. Meanwhile, Eddie Gallagher has been out in the press a lot. He's been criticized his commanders. This is just a mess. So, Kelly, you know, you worked in senior roles at the Pentagon. What did you make of this extraordinary intervention by Trump? And what do you think it means for the military as an institution? Well, the whole thing is incredibly disturbing from a civil military relations standpoint. And frankly, nobody has. covered themselves in glory here, not Secretary Esper, not Secretary Spencer, and certainly not the President of the United States. But let me first start with President Trump. You know, I think bottom line is he essentially has inserted himself into the military justice process. And he's done it

in a way that I think is going to warp it forever. I think that the effects are going to go well beyond the case of Chief Petty Officer Gallagher. I think we're now going to see a number of similar cases that have been settled in the military justice system come back with people trying to advocate their case via Fox News, the president of the United States. So I actually think that this whole effort has actually unleashed entire Pandora's box on that front. Listen, the commander-in-chief is a commander-in-chief. He can make decisions and he has the ability to make these kinds of decisions. But it doesn't mean it's proper and it doesn't mean it's he should make those decisions. You know, I think Secretary Spencer did say something really important in his letter,

which is essentially this is not how the U.S. military operates. This is how our adversaries operate. And what makes us distinct from our adversaries is that we operate on an ethical code. And I think that Trump has just shown essentially that he doesn't have any fidelity to ethics, to morals, to rule of law. And you can think about this in the context of other issues on national security. But this has been like the core encapsulation of the president's basic amoral view on these matters. You know, it's interesting to me. I was, you know, I was actually in Halifax, Canada this weekend with Secretary Spencer at this international security conference. And there was lots of speculation about, you know, whether the secretary would resign, whether or not he would be fired, et cetera, et cetera. My basic view is if you're a senior civilian in the Department of Defense and you don't think that you can implement the order of the president of the United States for whatever reason, for moral use. reasons or policy disagreements, then you shouldn't be in that position. And what I would have thought would have been a better move for Spencer would have been to actually just resign, rather than,

you know, threatening to resign or playing it out in the press and just come forward and say, this is why I resigned. But he didn't choose to do that. Now, Secretary Esper doesn't come across looking too great here either. It's very clear to me that he's not going to stand in the way of the president on many questionable things. So this is just the latest incident. I mean, he's, he's, he's implemented the border wall funding transfer for the president. He's executed the Microsoft Cloud contract. You know, the president was intervening, trying to get Amazon out of the competition for that contract because he hates Jeff Bezos. Now you're seeing how Esper is essentially saying, yep, I'm just going to implement the president's order, even if I disagree

with it. So Esper is not exactly proving himself to be a hero in this scenario, the Syria either. I mean, bottom line is, this is a mess. It's going to have serious implications for civil military relations going forward. And frankly, I think if there is a new president of the United States in 2021 and he has a new secretary of defense, that person is going to spend probably the entire term trying to dig out of the mess that the president has created in terms of politicizing the military and politicizing the processes that governs civil military relations. Yeah, I mean, so at the risk of being grizzly, I just want folks to understand what some of these charges were against Gallagher. So apparently there was an ISIS fighter who had been taken captive.

They were giving a medical attention. And the allegation was that Chief Gallagher took out a knife and stabbed the captive several times in the neck and torso. Again, he was acquitted of those charges, but that was the accusation. He was also accused of firing a sniper rifle at civilians, including school-aged girls. Seals who turned him in have been threatened both with violence but also with getting in trouble in terms of, you know, within the seals. So I guess I just want people to understand that because you're seeing a lot of folks out there saying you civilians can't imagine the kind of stress and strain that someone like Eddie Gallagher is under in a war zone and maybe he should get a pass on some of this behavior. But what I want folks to understand is that it was his guys in his unit who were sounding the alarm here and asking the Pentagon leadership to do something. Yeah, that's right.

I mean, Gallagher is not a hero among the SEAL community. That's for sure. I'm actually waiting to see whether or not the SEAL commander, Rear Admiral Green, actually decides to resign. Because the president's order will essentially undermine Rear Admiral Green's authority within the SEAL community. So I'm kind of waiting to see if he comes forward with a resignation. It's also important to know that the Navy SEALs have been going through a really serious challenge around behavior. And Admiral Green has been actually trying to clean it up. You've had 150, approximately 150 SEALs, lose their trident pin since 2011 for bad behavior on a range of issues.

So there's a deeper corrosive problem within the Navy SEALs. I think where Admiral Green was actually trying to clean it up. And now the president has essentially pulled the rug out from underneath him. Yeah, I mean, look, these are men and women who are punished for, you know, not having their uniform looking right or a bed made in basic training. I mean, like, this is an organization, an institution, a group of people that revere and honor discipline. And I just, the idea that it would be, I don't know, politically beneficial to the president among the military to give someone a pass that has been accused of things this grave is, is kind of surprising to me. It feels like a bit of a misread of how a lot of folks who you and I worked with, including Navy SEALs, operate. That's right.

I've worked with a number of Navy SEALs throughout my career, and I can tell you that pretty much everybody, as far as I know, is beside themselves with respect to the president's actions here. And it's deeply corrosive to morale. It's deeply corrosive to rule of law within the military. and frankly, you know, abroad, you know, the U.S. military, again, this is this is something that I don't think the president truly understands is that there is a code that the military lives by and that we're respected for around the world. And the president clearly doesn't believe in that code. Yeah. Okay. Let's turn to the impeachment trials for a bit because that's slightly less depressing. I don't know. I have to say, Kelly, watching these hearings made me think of you. It made me think of like so many of the folks I was lucky enough to work with while at the NSC. You know, you worked at the State Department. You worked at the U.S. mission to NATO. You did Iran policy at the National Security Council during the Bush and the Obama administration. You were a deputy assistant secretary at the Pentagon. I mean, we probably spent hundreds of hours in meetings or in conversations about policy, but I don't think I ever talked to you about politics once. It would have felt weird to ask. And, you know, I'm not sure if you personally knew any of the folks who testified, but it wouldn't surprise me. I certainly, you know, they reminded me of a lot of. other people we worked with. So just curious, like, generally, what you made of the testimony you've seen so far? And what has been the reaction in the, you know, nonpartisan foreign policy community

that folks you know about how these people have been treated? Yeah, you know, the past couple of weeks have been pretty intense. You know, I worked closely with pretty much all of them that testified. I worked with Bill Taylor when I was at the NSE, working on Arab Spring issues. I I worked with George Kent back at the State Department early in my career. I actually worked very closely with Laura Cooper and was on her promotion board at the Pentagon. So, you know, a number of these folks are pretty very familiar to me. And just to sort of watch them, you know, it didn't surprise me that they performed so well in front of a lot of, you know, under a lot of political pressure, of course, and a lot of scrutiny. and the fact that they were so distinguished and how they presented their perspectives was something that didn't surprise me.

And, you know, it's such a serious contrast, frankly, to, you know, what you saw with Rudy Giuliani and, you know, Ambassador Sondland and sort of what I like to say is the goon squad of President Trump and how they were trying to, you know, implement this whatever domestic political error in that Fiona Hill referred to it as. you know, it was pretty interesting contrast to me. The other piece of it is, I've, you know, I've worked for Republicans. I've been in the NSC in the Bush administration. I've been in the Obama NSC, as you know, and if I had been sitting on that phone call with Zelensky and President Trump, I would have immediately been, this is not okay, you know, and I think most national security officials know that what the president did on that call was not okay. And it doesn't really, it's kind of a no-brainer. It doesn't actually take a lot to understand that. And frankly, I I think the American people also kind of get it. They also think, well, you know what, this is not, this isn't smell right. Now, whether that translates into, you know, the Republicans actually casting votes in favor of impeachment, I don't know. But I will say that from a national security perspective, it was very obvious to me just from that call. And including everything we've learned since that call, transcript was released and the whistleblower report came out has essentially, you know, undergirded that. Yeah. It was also very notable and clear the degree to which the people testifying had expertise in understanding of the issues as compared to some of the people seeking to undercut their credibility. Yeah. I mean, and I think, again, there's a reason why you saw, you know, the national security new Democrats come out with that letter that really tipped the scales to getting into an impeachment proceeding because it's the facts are pretty obvious. at the stage. And it doesn't take a lot of specifics to really understand what went down here. The president of the United States essentially is advancing a foreign policy purely for his political interests. And that is that is not okay. In fact, that's sort of the core of of what impeachment is

about. Yeah. One person, Kelly, who has not seemed to take any responsibility for this mess is Trump's former national security advisor, John Bolton. So far, he seems to be busy getting a book deal, giving corporate speeches, and allegedly liberating his Twitter feed from the White House. Let's hope that that liberation campaign results in fewer casualties than the one he pushed for in Iraq. Morbid joke. What information do you think Bolton could offer if he wanted to testify? And do you think that Congress should be going to the mattresses to compel his testimony? Yeah, I think John Bolton's testimony is going to be key. I think Mick Mulvaney too. You know, listen, it's kind of a classic question of what did he know and when did he know it. Right. Right. And the National Security Advisor in a normal circumstance would be at the center of all these decisions, right? So the center around whether or not to withhold the aid to Ukraine. He would have been on all the calls. He would have been in all the meetings. He would have an understanding of the president's actual policy intent around these matters, right?

which I think is a key question for Bolton. So, you know, did the president talk or did the president instruct Bolton on withholding aid? Does Bolton understand what the president's instructions were around that, whether he was directly involved or not? I mean, I think he does have a position that would give him purview to understand some of the, to answer some of these questions. So I think Bolton is pretty key. I think Mick Mulvaney is equally key, if not more. You know, as you know, OMB doesn't do anything without.

a paper trail and guidance. Right. So I suspect there's lots of, you know, guidance members around the assistance and the cutoff. I'd like to know what Mulvaney communicated to both Bolton and to Pompeo because I assume the three of them would have had to have had a conversation around it. And, you know, all three of them knew what the president intended to do. It's not as if Mick Mulvaney, you know, suddenly cared about corruption in Ukraine. No, you know.

Not at all. You know. Not for a second. And, you know, and Bolton, again, going back to the call record itself, like Bolton would have had to had played a role in the decision to put that call record on that super secret squirrel server that we've been discussing. So I think he's pretty key now whether or not he'll be compelled to testify maybe in a Senate trial. I don't know. But he certainly should. He's, you know, his subordinates are out there. Fiona Hill has testified lieutenant colonel Vindman. So it's pretty cowardly that he's sitting back and holding back at this point. So some good news. There were some pretty amazing local elections on Sunday in Hong Kong. The turnout was

massive. I saw that 71% of eligible voters voted and these were for like city council elections. It's not like the presidential race. So pro-democracy candidates won 389 of 452 elected seats. That's up from 124. Again, these are, you know, council seats that do with local issues. But the results were seen as a referendum on the protest. movement generally and really a shot across the bow at the Chinese. Now, we should note that the Hong Kong government is structured in a way that elections like these can only get used so far. For example, the chief executive of Hong Kong is chosen by a committee that is just completely stacked in favor of the Chinese government. But clearly this is a sign that popular opinion is with these

protesters. And, you know, Kelly, I imagine you've been watching these protests with, you know, like a dash of hope, but, you know, probably as much anxiety as I have felt. I'm curious what you made of the results generally. Yeah, I think it was a fascinating result. Not only did the pro-democracy folks win that many seats, but the pro-Beijing folks were down over 300, which is a pretty significant drop. Listen, I think Xi Jinping had a bad week. I think between the results of these elections in Hong Kong. We have in Taiwan, of course, elections coming up in January, and Sae-Ewen is pulling pretty high at the moment. You had the leaks around Xinjiang of the Chinese Communist Party documents that essentially show how Xinjiang is a prison camp, a concentration camp.

You had the discovery in Australia that the Chinese, you know, try to essentially plant a Manchurian candidate in parliamentary elections there. I mean, Xi Jinping, I think, is suffering a series of setbacks on the foreign policy side. And what's interesting to me is to see whether or not the result in Hong Kong either induces Beijing to take a more reasonable approach or actually potentially we see an even further crackdown from Beijing. Yeah, that worries me too. quickly domestically on this issue. So last week, Congress nearly unanimously passed a bill called the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. The thing passed by unanimous consent, I believe in the Senate, and then in the House, the only lawmaker period to oppose it was Congressman Thomas Massey of

Kentucky. So whatever, that's his problem. But the bill authorizes sanctions on Chinese or Hong Kong officials involved in human rights abuses. It also requires the state. Department to basically conduct an annual review of Hong Kong's political situation to see if they're under the thumb of Beijing or not in order to keep a favorable trade agreement with the U.S. So seems like, you know, I can't remember the last time we talked about something with that much bipartisan support. But on Friday, Trump threatened to veto the bill. He told Fox and Friends, where you go for all your foreign policy news these days,

that, quote, we have to stand with Hong Kong, but I'm also standing with Xi Jinping. that's very decisive leadership right there. He also said, if it weren't for me, Hong Kong would have been obliterated in 14 minutes. So great. You know, all observers think that he just cares about trying to get a trade agreement done with the Chinese. But Kelly, I mean, one, this bill passed with a veto-proof majority, so I'm not sure what he thinks he can do about it. And two, China experts from both parties seem to think that you should be able to negotiate this trade deal on one track while dealing with Hong Kong on another. Do you think this legislation is a good step forward?

And what did you make of this negotiating technique from our president? So I do think it's strong legislation. I think it's important legislation. It's an important signal that the United States at a bipartisan level still cares about democracy and democratic values and the universal rights of people around the world. I'm also not surprised that Donald Trump is threatening to veto it and sees it as some sort of chit in the negotiations with Beijing, which should also actually

give us pause on a number of matters, including Taiwan, North Korea and other issues, that he is intently focused on getting this trade deal so that he can have a personal victory ahead of the elections. You know, I was also, so a national security advisor, Brian was up in Halifax as well, and he made some comments as well on it in support of the bill. But he also sort of indicated the president, you know, may or may not sign it. This is like a no-brainer. I mean, there's no reason why Trump should not sign this bill. It's going to get past either way. I'm certain that the Congress will override any veto. So it's really kind of a no-brainer. So the fact that he chooses to not sign it or to veto it, I think it sends a strong signal about where the president's

head lies with respect to, you know, core democratic values, which I guess shouldn't surprise us at this point. But it's also, you know, if the president does it. does veto the bill or not sign it, that's a sign of weakness to Beijing. That shows Beijing that they can manipulate the president on the, on the issues that they care about. And he's going to think it's a, you know, oh, I'm just cutting a business deal or a real estate deal and to give and take. But there's actually profound implications coming from that decision. Yeah, agreed. You know, it's interesting we talk about how that the president of the United States no longer has any interest in human rights or democracy. And this is happening at a time when you're seeing

protest movements all over the place. That's right. All of a sudden. I mean, you were the senior advisor for Middle East reform during the height of the Arab Spring. We're now seeing protest movements in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon. I mean, I could go on and on. What do you make of this sort of act two of the Arab Spring that seems to be happening across the region? I have a couple of thoughts. You know, first I think it's, it tells me that there is something generational going on here. Because if you look at the leadership of these movements. It's largely youth driven. And I think it sends a signal to all of the world's leaders that young people want to have a say in their life. They want to have accountability for their leadership. And it's going to be something that is not going to be able

to be controlled. So, you know, Xi Jinping's worst nightmare, of course, is that Hong Kong spreads to Taiwan. And suddenly you have Taiwanese youth in the streets demanding democratic freedoms. So there's something going on here that I don't think we can quite fully understand. And it's cutting across different countries and different issue sets. But I do think it's going to be the wave of the future. I think this is going to be a constant churn of young people out there trying to make a difference, whether it's on climate change or anti-corruption or, you know, rights in Hong Kong. I think this is going to be a trend we see going forward.

So you talked about Xi Jinping's rough week. Let me offer him some consolation here. So last week, Ben and I talked about how the North Korea talks are, you know, collapsing, if not collapsed. And then on top of that, you had Trump's demand that South Korea pay 400% more to keep U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula. I just want to also note for listeners that Trump is simultaneously demanding that Japan pay five times more than they currently pay to keep U.S. forces stationed in Japan. The Japan Times reported that this message had been delivered by John Bolton back in July, and that his Japanese counterparts pointed out that Japan already pays way more of these expenses than other allies like South Korea and Germany. So the U.S. Forces Japan consists of approximately 54,000 military personnel.

They're stationed there pursuant to a treaty dating back to 1960, signed by Douglas MacArthur, I believe. So two-part question for you. I mean, we've talked in the past about how Trump was. demanding that NATO allies invest more in their militaries. And while if you really unpack what he said, it's clear that he doesn't understand how NATO works, there is some merit to his general argument that the U.S. has been shouldering a lot of that burden and that others need to invest more, right? Is there any merit to the claim that Japan should pay more for our basing there? And then bigger picture, I mean, can you talk about what these forces do and how important U.S. forces

Japan are to our national security generally? Sure. I mean, of course, you've already mentioned Japan as a treaty ally of the United States. We have defense obligations to Japan. But they're also really critical players with respect to both China and North Korea. So when I think about what the president's doing, at least he's consistent in the theme of extorting foreign governments. But this is a perfect win for China. It's a win for North Korea to have the president of the United States essentially doing their dirty work vis-a-vis our Democratic. allies, which they would love to undermine the relationship between the United States and Japan and the United States and South Korea. That's like a, that's a number one strategic objective for both China and North Korea. So it's very weird for me to see the president going to essentially play into that. Keep in mind, Japan pays about $2 billion a year for, you know, shares the cost of our stationing of our forces there. They also pay for military construction at Guam. They've done a number of contributions to the counter ISIS campaign to Afghanistan. They are a pretty good ally, especially in terms of

burden sharing. So for the president of the United States essentially say to Japan, you know what, not only do you have to pay $2 billion, you have to pay $8 billion. That's an insane. Yeah. Yeah. That is an insane bargaining position. And it undermines Japan politically at a time when, you know, we really need them on everything from, you know, the relationship with China and on North Korea issues. So it's completely counterproductive to me. I don't truly understand it. You know, if the president talks about competition with China as is like number one national security strategy priority, this is a complete own goal with respect to that. It's just baffling.

I don't get it. I can't understand it. It's an extortion theme. And keep in mind, listen, like a lot of Americans question about how much military basing overseas costs. I will tell you that if those forces weren't based in Japan, they would be based back in the United States. And let me tell you how expensive that would be. Yeah, good point. So it's not as if it's like a, you know, if we bring them home, there's no cost to that.

Absolutely not the case. We'd actually have to build more basing, more housing, et cetera. And that would be extremely expensive here in the United States where no one would be doing the burden sharing. At least the Japanese are ponying up a significant amount. So they also play a role in, of course, missile defense and a number of our contingency plans around war in the region. Yeah, it's just, ugh. But he's consistent, man. And extortion is the name of his game.

Yeah, extortion is the name of the game. And seemingly charging the most you possibly can for services is like kind of the only concept he understands. It's just like it would take, it wouldn't take a four-hour seminar from General Mattis over in the tank at the Pentagon to explain that our alliances in Asia are one of the most important tools we have to, I don't know, push back on China or project power into the region. and yet he's just hell-bent on driving them away from us. Well, I mean, look at NATO. I mean, NATO and Ukraine. I mean, he's essentially gifting Russia on those two issues. He's gifting China on the pressure on Japan and South Korea.

I mean, it's insane to me to see the president of the United States essentially playing into the hands of our adversaries. Yeah, agreed. Okay. Last question for you. So, Kelly, I woke up this morning. I read the paper and it said that U.S. troops have resumed counterterrorism missions against ISIS. in northern Syria with the Kurds. And I just felt like my brain went into a time warp because a couple months ago,

Trump announced we were pulling all U.S. troops out of northeastern Syria. And now I'm confused as to what the policy is. So the Times suggested that we maybe have half as many U.S. troops patrolling, essentially the same area. I also saw some pretty disconcerting reports that Turkish-backed militias had attacked a Syrian refugee camp over the weekend. so it was awful and it also apparently happened the same day Mike Pence visited Urbeel, which is the capital of Iraq's Kurdish region.

And it comes not long after President Erdogan was in the Oval Office with Trump and was apparently read the riot act by a bunch of senators who were pushing him on this military operation in northeastern Syria. So I guess my question to you is like, what is your sense of what our policy is at the moment, our forced posture? Have things gone back to where they were? I'm confused. You're not the only one.

I'm confused. Yeah. And I'm certain that our troops on the ground are also confused. Listen, I don't know. I mean, the president obsessively talks about protecting the oil and that being the core mission. Then you have the SENTCOM Commander General McKenzie out there saying that, you know, this is for counter ISIS. But then we're told that ISIS has been decimated. So there's lots of confusing messaging about what the specific mission of these forces will be.

And even if, you know, the military is able to finagle some sort of below the radar, small presence, the fact that there's not a strategic presidential level understanding of what they are supposed to be doing in support of a broader strategic objective is really bad, in my view. Deploying forces is the most sacred thing that the president of the United States can do. He owes them the clarity around their mission. And so that really just bothers me fundamentally. But the other piece of this is like taking Syria aside for a second. The fact that we've seen this much erraticism in the president's decision making on this issue alone, just think about if we were in the middle of an additional new war. Say, you know, for example, something happened vis-à-vis Iran and we were in hostilities.

The fact that there's no clarity and no consistency and the president's all over the map announcing things by a tweet that has military. has not agreed to, that there's no process around what the president's trying to do. That should really give Americans pause that the commander-in-chief is so incoherent and that the people around him are also unable to drive coherence. And that there's a disconnect clearly between some of the national security folks around him and the president himself. In a war circumstance where the fog of war is very hard to deal with, that would be potentially fatal. for a lot of men and women in the uniform. Yeah, ugh, not good.

Kelly Mags, thank you so much for coming on the show. Happy Thanksgiving week. Thanks for all the great work you're doing, and I hope to see you soon. Hopefully nothing happens over Thanksgiving, but I know that that's not going to the case. Yeah, let's hope it's very quiet, and he does no tweeting.

All right, Kelly, thanks again. Thank you. After the break, we'll have my conversation with Yaira Rosenberg about Bibi Netanyahu's political future. Joining me now is Yaiyir Rosenberg. a senior writer at Tablet Magazine. Yeah, you're, thank you so much for doing the show. It's great to be here.

I'm a long time reader and liker of your tweets, so it's fun to actually talk in person. So big news here. Last week, the Israeli Prime Minister, BB Netanyahu, was indicted on charges of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust. These cases have been lingering in the background for a long time, but they were finally announced at this particularly perilous moment for BB's political future. My understanding is there's three different cases. he was accused of trading regulatory relief for positive media coverage or negative media coverage of his opponents.

So that's one. There's another case that's very similar, but with a different news outlet. He was also accused of doing favors for a rich guy in Hollywood in exchange for like hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cigars and champagne. My understanding is BB tried to pass a law through the Knesset that would have given all members of parliament immunity from prosecution. But that did not fly. So instead he has gone full Donald Trump messaging strategy. He's calling it a witch hunt. he's attacking the prosecutor, the media, basically everybody. Netanyahu's the longest

serving prime minister in Israel's history and has often seemed to be, you know, all but invincible. But it does seem like he's starting to face some criticism from within the like coup party, his party. So yeah, I'm so grateful that you're on because you are an expert in all these things. And I have many questions for you. The first is, you know, can you just kind of walk us through some of the details of these cases? I mean, I think there are so many of them that they've been numbered 1,000, 2,000 and so on and so forth. But like, like, What's our buddy Beebe accused of? Yeah.

So these cases have been going on for quite some time. It's been a very long, deliberate and investigative process. And it gets a little bit abstract. And you talk about bribery, fraud, breach of trust. What does that actually mean? So concretely, there are three cases that Netanyahu was indicted on. One had to do with the publisher of Israel's largest paper, Idiot Akronaut, which has been critical of Netanyahu for some time.

And he was competing with it through a rival free paper called Yisrael Hayom, which is funded by someone your readers know and love. Yes, my friend. Sheldon Adelson. So Adelson's paper was free and very right wing and obviously seen as a mouthpiece for Netanyahu. And it was muscling Udiot Akronut out of the marketplace. And so Netanyahu initiated or was involved in a dialogue with the publisher of Yidiot Ahronut and said, I can, you know, talk to Sheldon Adelson and get him to limit the circulation of his publication if you guys will ease up on me.

So that's basically the case. And I think, you know, people don't realize because overseas, of course, Netanyahu got indicted. But these indictments also involve giant moguls in Israel. So the owner of Yidiyodakhan of this massive newspaper, the most read Israeli Hebrew news website, was indicted along with Netanyahu. And this engagement in this claim that this is bribery. So that's one case. A second case, as you said, similar, but not the same, involves a man named Shaul Alevich,

who is the controlling shareholder in Bezek. Think of it as maybe like a Verizon-type company in Israel. If you get internet or cell service, you're going to often deal with them. He also owned a news outlet called Walla. And in exchange for more favorable coverage of Netanyahu, which was very much detailed, There's details in the indictment about communications between the two and Netanyahu and others close to him directing coverage. In Walla, Netanyahu did regulatory favors, or so is alleged, for Elevich and Bezek, this communications company. And then three is the more traditional case of sort of quid pro quo type bribery type stuff,

where you have this Hollywood producer and this Australian multimillionaire who were friends of Netanyahu and his family, and they would give all sorts of favors to the Netanyahu family. One of them is alleged to have given cigars and champagne and other stuff in numbering in like vast amounts to Netanyahu as gifts of friendship, but of course, which came with Netanyahu intervening on these people's behalf in various matters that save them money on taxes, help them get visas, all sorts of things that we don't want necessarily our government officials to do. For readers who are, you know, for listeners who are interested in this,

the Times of Israel actually did a great service, and they translated the entire indictment and criminal charges several months ago when they first came out into English. Oh, wow. And you can find that online and Google it. And those who are a nerd out on it, they can read all of it. And there's a more succinct summary that came out just a few days ago that the Attorney General and Israel put out.

And that, too, the Times of Israel translated. So if you search for Netanyahu indictment English, you can actually read this stuff for yourself. So, I mean, this seems like blockbuster stuff. Like you said, I mean, it's a prime minister. it's these huge moguls. I mean, imagine like the Murdox are suddenly indicted. But, you know, so I think any reasonable person would be forgiven for thinking, oh, man, big trouble for BB Den Yahoo. But, you know, historically, you're not getting rich betting against Netanyahu. I mean,

he's always found ways to get out of controversy. He's won tight elections. He's a survivor. So this time, I'm curious what you think. I mean, it does seem like this could be different. There are opinion polls that suggest that even right-wing voters don't want their prime minister to be battling back a court case. You're starting to see members of the Likud Party step up and maybe challenge Netanyahu. I mean, I don't want to ask you to make predictions, but what's your sense of the political lay of the land for BB right now? Yeah, Netanyahu is seen as the consummate political survivor. He's the sort of person who it feels like all of this stuff just bounces off of him. His line on these investigations for years was there is nothing, there will be nothing.

There's no smoke, there's no fire. That being said, and I think in an American context, we're familiar with this sort of politician where it seems like the big bombshell lands and then everyone makes a big deal out of it in the news outlets and then everything continues as it was before. And you wonder, does any of it actually matter? The thing about this indictment is that it does seem to have mattered in all sorts of ways. And we're seeing that within Netanyahu's party. We're also seeing it in the opinion polls in Israel.

And I think part of it has to do with the fact that the man who indicted Netanyahu, Abiyah Mandevlid, Israel's Attorney General, was Netanyahu's own cabinet secretary, and he was appointed by Netanyahu to this position. So he has a certain credibility that is hard, despite Netanyahu's campaign to discredit, because people do not see this person as someone in the tank for the political opposition. They see it as somebody who went through a very careful deliberative process and ended up at this conclusion almost reluctantly. So what you see in terms of, say, the public opinion polls, is that Lykud and Netanyahu, one of the reasons why say in the American context, Trump can get away with the things he does, is that his party members don't think it's in their interest to challenge him. They worry for their own electoral future. They don't think Trump is necessarily dragging them down. In fact, they're worried about challenging him. When it comes to Netanyahu, it appears to be the opposite at this point in time, because as you know, Israel's just gone through several elections, and they have not been able to form a government. And a lot of the jockeying for position now, possibly in advance of a third election, or in this a 21-day period where a government could still be formed, is who gets the blame for why we don't have a government?

And whoever gets the blame, obviously, goes into the next election with a big handicap or in any negotiations for government now with a handicap. And polls show that 50% of Israelis blame Netanyahu for them not having a government. And 25% blame Gans, his chief challenger. That's exactly where Gans and the blue and white party want to be, whether going into an election or in some sort of negotiation at the last minute. Because that says to Lee Kud party members and people who want to get in Knesset that we're going to get blamed if we go to our third election and millions of shekels get spent on this. All of Israeli public life is disrupted for a third unprecedented time. Well, it's very clear who's going to get blamed. And it's specifically Netanyahu because it's viewed as the reason we don't have a government is not that there isn't a consensus among the politicians about how to form one.

but the Netanyahu wants a very specific government with a bunch of his allies who will give him immunity, as you discussed. And the challenging opposition party, Blue and White, refuses to countenance that. And Israelis understand that. And they say, well, this is Netanyahu's fault. It's a personal thing that he is putting over, you know, the national interest. And that is getting through. So now you're seeing in Likud itself cracks starting to appear. And you're seeing different approaches.

Obviously, you have a small but serious element of support. If people have come out and said, we still support Netanyahu. it's all a witch hunt, or as Netanyahu called it, a coup. But you have much more notably many of his previous loyalists who have said nothing to the press. There was a lovely little meme that was done on Twitter where Israeli reporters basically staked out liquid meeting with all the leaders walking by and asked them for their opinion. And they all just say, hello, great day, good day. It's nice to see you.

And they all refuse to answer the most obvious question that everyone in the country wants to ask. They add some curb your enthusiasm, music, instant virality. That actually happened. So that's one, but then even more significant, you have two different paths that have already been proposed by people who are jockeying to succeed Netanyahu and are basically now trying to push him out in more and less polite ways. So you have one of the most popular former ministers in Le Kud, a guy named Gidon Tsar, Ali Kuhnick through and through, who responded to Netanyahu's speech claiming that this is a coup against him saying you can't just attack all the institutions in our country and claim that everyone's out to get you. That's not how you run things. And moreover, we would have a government right now that would have liquid in it, if not for you and your insistence on things like immunity. And so he says, we need to hold party primaries right now.

We can vote for a new leader. And then I can take us into the next election or into the next government. And it's going to be totally fine for us, but we need to get rid of this albatross that is Netanyahu. Then you had the more polite approach, which was near Barkat, who is this sort of technocratic multimillionaire, who was the mayor of Jerusalem for quite some time, and then joined the liquid party with higher office. aspirations. And he said, well, Netanyahu, we've done great work for the country. Why don't you appoint a deputy prime minister who, if in the eventuality that you aren't able to do your duties, well, then that person will take over. And I just happen to be volunteering for the physician.

So the very fact that people are actually saying this out loud, and then Netanyahu has to, you know, basically he made a concession. He said he will hold party leadership primaries, but he said within six weeks, which is actually code for by the time there's already another third election happening. He doesn't want them to replace him now because Israel is currently, this is worth explaining, Israel is currently in a 21-day period of sort of a Knesset free-for-all, where if any member of the Knesset can get 61, the majority of Knesset members, to recommend them as the next prime minister, that person gets a chance to form another coalition government.

So they're not going to a third election just yet. Right. And if Netanyahu is replaced that Patapoli could party with another right-wing minister without his baggage, there's a chance that guy could form a government or that guy would just join a unity government with the chief opposition blue and white, and they'd work out some sort of rotation deal between the tops. And all these things that Netanyahu has been refusing to do

because he wants to stay prime minister, he wants to get immunity, and also by being prime minister, he gets certain privileges in the legal process that he wouldn't get if he wasn't prime minister. So all of this is very important to him, but not very important for the prospects of the liquid party. So that's sort of where things stand.

And you see these different approach is silence, you know, some support, and then you have the more and less polite approaches trying to push BB out in time to either, really ideally could want us to form a new government now before they go to a third election because they're worried they're going to get blamed for it. Right. I mean, so that's a great laydown.

I mean, just so listeners of the show probably already know this because we've been covering these elections for months now. But there were two national elections in Israel this year, both basically ended with Prime Minister Netanyahu tying his chief rival, Benny Gantz from the blue and white party. But the Israeli elections are different than American ones. It's not Republicans versus Democrats. head-to-head and the winners in charge. You have to form a coalition that includes 61 of the Kinnets that's 120 seats. So neither Gonson or Netanyahu's been able to do that. So as you noted,

we're in this free-for-all period where anyone in Parliament could do so. I mean, do you think there's any chance of a government getting formed in that free-for-all period? Or do you think that we're likely to see a third election? You know, if you ask most prognosticators in Israel, they'll say third election. I have no idea because absolutely nobody predicted that we'd go to a second election, let alone a third election. So the idea that this period that's never been activated in Israeli political history, there's never been this, it's in the laws. It's there on the books that you can have this free-for-all period, but they've never done it. So no one really knows how it's going to shake out. And it's very clear, and it comes down to whether or not

there's enough power and muscle to push Nizraultzegnau out before they get to the next election. Right. Because if not, Netanyahu will hold a primary, but then his people will leak polling that shows that Netanyahu, with his name recognition and his base, polls better than all his his Lee-Koot challengers, and then he'll use that to win the leadership primary, and he'll force them to go to a third election with him. The time that Nizuud wants to get rid of him is in this 21-day period, and the question is, can they do it? And nobody really knows. Wow. So a couple of months ago, we were having a conversation about these Israeli elections, and, you know, Ben and I had a conversation where we said, basically, listeners shouldn't get too

excited about Benny Gantz, who's Netanyahu's chief rival, because on some key issues like Palestinian rights or a two-state solution, he's not much better than Netanyahu. And, you know, some people might argue he's worse in some instances based on, you know, comments he's made about bombing Palestinians or Gaza, et cetera. So, you know, that, you and I ended up having a really interesting exchange about all the reasons you thought that take was wrong. And I was really hoping you could just set me straight here for the listeners about, you know, why Gantz might be different in all the ways you think that Netanyahu has damaged Israeli institutions and the government. Yeah. So, I mean, to put it in an American context, you might be, you know, an American progressive

rooting for, say, Elizabeth Warren to win the presidency, but you recognize that if you replaced Donald Trump with John Delaney, it'd still be this massive sea change in America and for American democracy. And think of it in terms of, now imagine someone like, this, you know, someone who has been putting stress on democratic institutions in Israel, someone who has been appointing all his political cronies to positions throughout Israel, you know, whether to run like, you know, the Israel Prize, all sorts of like cultural institutions, affecting educational curricula, all sorts of different things like that, and then challenging and attacking the courts and the police. Somebody like that has been in power for 10 years. And then

you replace them with somebody else who ran explicitly against all of those things and said repeatedly over and over again, we need to preserve our democratic institutions, the Supreme Court, the police, and we need to recognize that that is what makes our society strong. So that is an incredible, incredible change. And I don't think people really, if you haven't lived it, you can't really quite perceive it. I think you can in sort of an American context in a sort of analogous way. But when you talk to like Israeli leftists now, it's like light coming through the window for the first time in so long, because now Israelis are able to imagine themselves in a country where Netanyahu is not running the show where his rhetoric doesn't

define what the public conversation is about because he has lost control of the public conversation for the very first time in a very long time. Think about it in terms of, you know, an Israeli opposition leader, a former Israeli opposition leader once said to me that Netanyahu's prime ministership is basically the cumulative effect of tendrils of fear seeping down into Israeli society. You have this person who's going on TV who's an incredibly eloquent and effective communicator, constantly communicating what you should be afraid of, right? And I am the only person who can protect you. And telling you, you should be, for example, afraid of Arab voters, and all of them are out to get you, and all their parties are out to get you, and they are not your friends. And you

should be basically treating them like a fifth column. And he's been saying this, whether subliminally or in more recent elections, much more openly. And then, you know, Nuthaniao basically comes to a stalemate, loses for the first time an actual election. And he's not able to form a government. And And then his opposition, the blue and white party, starts openly coordinating a bit with the Israeli Arab parties. And the sky doesn't fall. They have conversations. They do negotiations. The Israeli Arab parties recommend Netanyahu's challenger to form the next government.

And it turns out the polls show that, you know, a lot of Israeli voters like this. The Arab politicians saw that, you know, so like the joint list party, which is predominantly Arab, is like a combination of several different parties with very different politics. But polls of Israeli-Ira voters show that the majority of Israeli-Ira voters want their politicians to be in the next Israeli government, not just to support it from the outside, which is actually what's been discussed. They want to be integrated and they want to have an effect on the Israeli political scene. And the sky hasn't fallen. People are talking about that as that's a realistic possibility.

Netanyahu's fear-mongering campaign in the last election didn't work. It seems to have backfired. More Arab voters came out and voted. And not only that, but the campaign. that ran not on that platform did better. So that's like one very key reason. That's reason one why I think if you change out Donald Trump, who's appointing the judges, who's filling the civil service positions, who's running our foreign policy? These are massive, massive changes for any democracy. That's one. Number two, though, is I think that sometimes McGahn gets miscast and then

he gets criticized based on being miscast. Ben against a centrist campaign with right-wing overtones. He did not run a left-wing campaign. If you're a leftist on Israeli issues or other issues, you probably are not going to like the exact campaign he run or all of his positions. But what he did run was in complete opposition to sort of the entire ethos of Netanyahu. And he ran with the notion that there is a different way forward for Israel. And he talked about, he didn't talk about a two-state solution, but he talked repeatedly about peace. And he like in one of his first campaign ads, he said, as someone who's fought for Israel for years, he held the top military position in Israel, I don't want to turn to our children down the line and say we didn't do everything we could to stop the fighting because I don't want one more person to come home in a bag.

And that sort of language, right, which is a security-centric way of arguing for some sort of peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is the sort of language that can win over a much broader swath of Israelis than, you know, if he went up there and gave a nice ode to Palestinian human rights, which you or I might give, but he has to win. a broad mandate in the country. And so he's not the left-wing Messiah, and he never was, it isn't going to be there. People say he grew up on a left-wing kibbutz, right? He comes out of the Israeli security establishment, which tends to be more doveish after they leave office.

Oh, that's true, but you have to look at the campaign he ran. But that's not why he's significant. Why he's significant is the same reason, say, Bill Clinton was significant after two terms of Reagan and one term of George H.W. Bush, which is that you had this entire suffocating all-encompassing way of running the country. And then suddenly someone comes in and they pivot the country.

And they say, we're going to do it a different way. And by the time that their presidency is up, you have George W. Bush running. And he's running as a compassionate conservative who will sometimes use government for good things, which is a totally different way of talking about the government than what was going on during the Reagan era. When you have someone like, say, Yitzhak Rabin in the Israeli context, who we see now as a martyr for peace, he was murdered for supporting peace talks between the Israelis. and the Palestinians. But if you look at his last speech that he gave to the Israeli parliament, he didn't support dividing Jerusalem. He didn't really support a Palestinian state. He supported

some form of political autonomy for the Palestinians. But what he did do is he got up there as somebody with tremendous security credentials, not unlike Gans, and said, there is a different way we can go. Right. And he pushed open the door and said, we need to go in this direction instead of that direction. And he changed the Israeli domestic conversation about the Palestinian issue, and he changed the international conversation about it ever since. And it's a time. Netanyahu's premiership is basically the long history, 10 plus years of Netanyahu trying to close the door that Rabin opened. Right. Right.

And that's not because Robin was a flaming leftist. He's not. And I don't think historically that would stand up. Right. It's because he was a hinge and he pivoted the country's politics. And that's much more common in democracies. You don't usually have massive revolutionary swings. You have evolutionary swings.

And to this is what Gans represents for a tremendous number of Israelis who want a different approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, whether they're leftists or more to the center. And I think that we shouldn't understate that. And I also think politicians should recognize who he is and his limitations, right, but also recognize that that's the potential of this sort of premiership if he were to get it. Yeah. Hey, I like that. That's a lot more hopeful than the other alternatives. I mean, I just would love to CBB get the hell out of there. And I'm, I'm not going to predict because, God, we've tried so many times. But there's just so many cases are they to number of them. Yeah, you know what the great mystery is. So one of them is case

1,000, one is 2,000 and one is 4,000. The great mystery is what is case 3,000. I know. Even I can't tell you. No, it's a big secret. Well, listen, man, thank you so much for helping us understand what is going on with Nityniao's future, the political lay of the land, and what Benigantz would be. We will obviously keep watching this process, but also everyone should follow you on Twitter if they can because you're updating us in real time. You want to give your handle? Y-A-I-R-R-U-R-R-R-R-R-Rosenberg. And I'd love to talk with all of you.

I love answering people's questions about this stuff. And thanks, you know, thanks, Tommy, for having me on. Oh, it was my pleasure, man. Thanks again. And happy almost Thanksgiving. You too. Thanks again to Kelly Magsaman and Yayae-Rosenberg for joining the show.

Two of my favorite people to talk with, whether it's on this episode or on DMs or text, because they always make me smarter. And happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Ben and I will be back in the saddle next week and talk to you soon. Potsy of the World is a product of crooked media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez.

Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Chris Basil. Kyle Seiglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Malconian, and Milo Kim, who film and share these interviews on video each week.