Pod Save the World - Thanksgiving Mailbag!

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

Tommy and Ben answer all of your burning foreign policy questions and give recommendations for what to read and watch over the holidays. 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 of the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. This is a special Thanksgiving question-and-answer session. I don't like the word mailbags sometimes, Ben. I can't tell if people will hear it and they think, ooh, exciting, or they think, oh, the thing you do on a holiday. What's your take? I used to love the Bill Simmons mailbags. It was like my favorite thing ever.

I like the Bill Simmons mail bags. I also, it makes me think of actual mail, you know, a bag of letters, which people don't really send it anymore. No, no, we don't. Are you in New York right now? I'm in New York. I just spent two days with Barack Obama and a bunch of very inspiring young leaders around the world for a form on democracy. So it was good. Are you feeling extra democratic?

I'm feeling particularly small D-democratic today, Tommy. Although it was kind of interesting because you had Obama did this panel, for instance, yesterday with leaders from Palau, Mali, Belarus and Argentina. And, you know, if you're from Mali, democracy is, hey, I hope there's not like a coup again in this country. You know, if you're in Palau, it's, I hope, you know, American democracy doesn't go so crazy that it messes us up. So democracy means a lot of different things depending on what window you're opening, you know.

Bit of a Roersack test, huh? Yeah. And you're hanging there for two little family stuff. Hanging here. Yeah, great time of year here in New York, you know. It really is. A little fall leaves. It's nice.

Beautiful. Beautiful. I love it. Well, we'll get to your questions in one second. When this comes out, though, the World Cup, the 2022 World Cup will be starting. So check out the World Corrupt podcast that I did with Men and Blazers. Roger Bennett from Men and Blazers. You can binge the first five episodes now.

We're trying to figure out when to do the sixth. But you will enjoy it, and it will be extra relevant because the World Cup is happening. Also, Ben. You won't be able to enjoy it with the Budweiser if you're in Qatar, though. It's so funny. It's so funny to watch Qatar just piss off everybody at the very end. Like banning beer tents. Now they're banning all drinks. Treating journalists like crap. I mean, it's just awful. But Ben, if you're in Georgia, it's runoff time. You got an election on December 6th. We got to get Rafael Warnock reelected to the U.S. Senate.

We need 51 senators. It is like such a big difference to take the power out of Joe Manchin's hands. If you want to help out, go to Votevamerica.com, be a part of it. I mean, how nice would that be if we just didn't have to talk about Joe Manchin all the time? And I would add, Raphael Warnock is a tremendous senator and politician and the kind of person you want in American politics. So it's not just voting against something, which there's something to vote against, Churchill Walker is literally insane. But there's a very good person to support there. Yeah, he's like an incredible, inspiring, awesome human being. Last thing, go to crooked.com slash holiday.

Check out all our holiday merch. And if you use the code, save 25, you get 25% off site wide. So great deal. Black Friday deal. Check it out. Okay. Lots of questions came in about the Saudis and Jared Kushner. Ben, there was this weird thing that happened today that a lot of people were asking about

where the State Department has said that Muhammad bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, is immune from prosecution while in office, even though he. clearly ordered the execution of a journalist named Jamal Khashoggi back in 2018. A lot of people are wondering, why on earth would the U.S. government declare that a clear murderer is immune from prosecution? Do you have any thoughts on why this is actually a very, very complicated question? Yeah, there's a basic principle of sovereign immunity, which is that, you know, the senior members of governments are immune from, you know, prosecution and legal proceedings in the courts of other governments. That is a principle that the U.S. is upheld and defended for a long time,

sometimes uncomfortably. And even in the late Obama years, at the very end of the Obama administration, President Obama actually vetoed a bill that the 9-11 families had advocated so that they could sue the Saudis that keep coming up for damages related to 9-11, not because, you know, the position of the administration was not because we, We sided with the Saudis in that particular case, but because of this principle of sovereign immunity and also because of the argument that if we opened up this floodgate that people then would sue potentially American officials too, and we would be on less solid ground in defending this immunity principle.

I actually didn't really like that decision at the time, Tommy, to be honest. I did not like that we were using a veto in that way, so I don't necessarily stand by that position. It speaks to the complexity. What I will say is I still didn't like this decision for a number reasons. I mean, the first is that we talked, I think, a few weeks ago about this peculiar move that MBS did to install himself as the prime minister of Saudi Arabia, which is not usually something that someone in his position would do. Yeah, no one why. Exactly, right? It kind of looks like there was this pretty cynical move to install himself in this, you know, senior most government role as prime minister. that then facilitates this argument or strengthens this argument.

So that's one thing. There's kind of a cynical manipulation, if you will, of this principle. But also just because of the sequence of events that have taken place and this kind of ongoing feeling like MBS has methodically buried any efforts at accountability, you know. And that's obvious. And he's just putting this further and further in the past and, closing off space for any kind of ability. And the last thing I'd say is this principle of sovereign immunity, we are in a different era, right? I think we've all acknowledged in the administration itself that we're in a new era of democracy being under threat. And it might be worth at least

considering whether maybe we need some new tools here, you know, and whether some old principles are being used too prominently to shield things like murdering journalists. And the Washington Post has been pretty outspoken in this. If you want to go look at their statement and their opinion piece on this, it kind of lays it out. Again, to be fair, the administration, it sucks. It's a hard principle, yeah. It's a hard, I don't have a better idea for them. I don't have a better solution for them. But like when you see that Muhammad bin Salman got immunity for ordering the execution of a journal is something we all know happened. And when you put that together with the fact that the Davos in the desert, Saudi investment conference just happened and all the CEOs who

protested last time, went back when you see him buying English Premier League teams and putting up, the Newcastle team, they're putting together like warming huts for local residents who are struggling to pay their energy bills. Like meanwhile, the Saudi government is cutting production of oil and gas and jacking up their prices. Something really pretty sick about that. And then, you know, the Saudi Live Golf Tour. I mean, it's just a lot. It's frustrating.

And it's really just, of course, like huge amounts of money, trillions of dollars. We're going to win a lot of people back over the long run. But it just doesn't mean we have to like it. No. And look, this would look not better, but it wouldn't, I think part of what it frustrates people is, you know, you had the trip to Saudi Arabia. You've, you know, we continued arms sales. if other actions were taken to show some accountability,

this wouldn't look quite the same way, right? So there's still, and there's still time to do something. But part of what bothers me is that there was such an outpouring of outrage after Jamal Khuge's murder. And that looks like it didn't lead to anything, really, other than some discomfort. And I think that's something we should all reflect on here. Yeah, for sure. Kate Rolo on Instagram asked, What's your prognosis on COP 27 and thoughts on what's ahead for COP 28, if any.

So with the caveat that we're recording this before it's all over, Ben, I just saw that John Kerry, our envoy, tested positive for COVID at these UN climate talks, which really sucks for him on a personal level, for people who are hoping that he would spearhead some last minute diplomacy. I mean, I think that, you know, in my interview with him, on last week's show, he said, not enough's getting done. You know, he wants more emissions cuts, more funding, more everything. It is not great that COP 26 was all about trying to stop temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Now it's more about mitigation when that inevitably does happen. Obviously, Ukraine complicated everything. I guess it's good that they're talking about loss and damage

issue at this COP for the first time, meaning helping countries who are dealing with the impact of climate change right now that's irreversible, even though they didn't contribute to the emissions necessarily that have led to global climate change. It's good that John Kerry's getting creative and he's trying to pull in more private sector funding. But, you know, I think the story of almost every cop is that it's not enough. Now, the next one, I believe, is at the UAE.

Yeah. So that's not ideal either. Yeah, we, uh, I mean, yeah, these are not ideal venues. That one has the double whammy of being both an autocratic government and not exactly a, you know, a key part of the OPEC cartel. I think you hit the key points, Tommy. You know, this, the cops that are every five years are usually the higher profile ones, Paris and then Glasgow,

you know, most recently. But these annual cops are really important times to take stock and to try to see where new energies needed. And I think you hit the key points that you heard a lot at this cop about the private sector finance. that is going to be necessary to make a transition to clean energy. And Kerry's been getting more creative, and the massive amounts of clean energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act contributes to catalyzing some of that action, and he's trying to take that and amplify it globally.

But this shift towards mitigation, I think, is the headline to me, and trying to find creative funding sources, not just to do a clean energy transition, but to help mitigate the effects of climate change. you felt the increasing focus on that and increasing demand for that. And then I think also something that jumped out to me that's an interesting trend to watch is that as Europe moves away from Russian gas, there's a lot of move for them to start to get energy from Africa, including hydro and other renewables from Africa.

So there could be this kind of interesting move to not just develop clean energy sources in Africa for African countries that are developing, but also to help make, European energy needs whole without Russia. I think that's an interesting climate and kind of strategic thing to watch Europe investing more in Africa as it moves away from Russia. Yeah. And look, obviously Egypt wasn't an ideal location to hold any international summit given their human rights record. But the fact that COP 27 was in an African country meant that they could help push the loss and damage question onto the agenda. So I think that's net a good thing. Alkafin too on Instagram asked when we get more episodes of World Corrupt. We're working on it. Roger and I are trying

to find a time to record it. Although, Ben, I did the Qatari ambassador to the U.S. did attack Roger and I, or at least our op-ed that we wrote for CNN. They did a response op-ed. So now basically, I'm checking all my two-factor authentifications on my various devices. Not ideal. Well, I mean, you know, just cancel that vacation to Doha, the U.S. You're not going to Doha anymore. You probably won't get like a Brookings Fellowship there either. Inside joke there, inside joke. That's stuff. Kelsey C.B. on Instagram says, what is actually happening in Iran? Can we do anything to help or support the protesters? Now, we got a lot of Iran questions, Ben. And a lot of them focused on one thing, which turns out to be disinformation, because there was a ton of disinformation going around that suggested that 15,000 protesters were going to be executed. It got so much pickup that actually Justin Trudeau tweeted about it before deleting the tweet. I think we know that Iran has announced four. executions in connection with the protests that's as of November 18th. I'm sure the death toll based on just indiscriminate violence by security forces is way, way, way higher. What I think

happened with that 15,000 number is that was an earlier total of the number of people arrested, the number of protesters arrested. And I think that got conflated with a call to execute protesters. So people thought, oh God, they're going to execute every protester. That is not the case so far. though, you know, there are just like stories everywhere of literally like nine-year-old, 10-year-old kids getting killed by security forces in these protests. So pretty terrible. I don't have a great answer to what people can do to help the protesters. I don't know if you've seen one out there. No, I mean, I think it's amplifying voices from inside of Iran is really important, trying to spotlight people who are taking principled stands. You mentioned

the World Cup, obviously. You know, one of the Iranian soccer. SpockerStars has announced that he's going to boycott the World Cup in solidarity. Right, right, right. Lift that up, you know, give that more oxygen. And simultaneously from a policy response, we've talked about the need to try to get internet penetration. There are things that the U.S. government can do to try to get internet access in parts of Iran where it's been cut off or even things that people can do in the private sector,

you know, get VPNs in there. But, you know, getting that communication to the rest of the world, showing the amplification of Iranians who are taking principled stands is really important. I think what we've heard consistently in Yegi Rezion said this in her great interview with you is that people do want to feel a sense of that they have a sense of solidarity from around the world that people are watching this. That does matter. And then I again, I mentioned this last week, but like, you know, as broad as possible, the world's democracies and civil society organizations speaking with a collective voice on this and keeping this issue front and center is really important because part of our

what a regime wants to do in any case, but the Iranian regime in this case is, where people down with fatigue, you know, people move on, they start thinking about other things, the world's attention drifts. No, keeping that focus is really important in keeping that amplification and not, you know, succumbing to the inevitable disinformation campaigns either. Yeah, good point. Ben, this is a good one. Kerman on Instagram says, why are conservatives so starkly pro-Israel? You want to swing at this pitch?

You want me to swing at this pitch? I'll take a swing at this because it's actually... It's a really good question. I think the really important answer here is that there's been a lot of effort in the conservative evangelical community over the last couple of decades to develop a very strong pro-Israel position. And so part of the reason you see even more fervent support from conservative evangelicals in this country for right-wing Israeli politics, than you do from, say, Jewish Democrats, you know, who've been for a long time, you know, a key part of the U.S. Israel relationship is because of that increasing connectivity politically between American evangelicals and kind of right-wing Israeli politics.

And that, to me, is what's really transformed the politics around this issue, because it's, it's kind of created incentives for Republicans to take the most hardline pro, and I don't just say pro-Israel, pro-right-wing Israel politics positions. Again, what's so strange about this is if you poke around under the hood a little bit, this has something to do with believing that the Jews have to be in Israel before the rapture comes and they're all converted to Christianity. So it's not, you know, it ends up in a strange place at the end of the story. It's a weird story. Yeah. But that to me is what's going on. And then, of course, there's just a weaponization of this issue in our politics and can you create divisions in the Democratic coalition? But I think that that's the core

answer, the evangelical piece. Yeah, it's not because necessarily of a deep love for the Jewish people, unfortunately. And even Donald Trump, don't take my word for it, Donald Trump will often say, he'll marvel at how the evangelical Christians are the ones who really appreciate what he did for Israel and vote for him accordingly. And then he'll like accuse Jewish Americans of not having, of having dual loyalty, basically. But yeah, you're right. I mean, a lot of evangelicals believe that God reserved Israel as the Jewish homeland and that the creation of Israel was God's will. And some of them, as you said, even believe that all of this is a prelude to the second coming of Jesus Christ, at which time all of us sinners, including the Jews who don't convert, will be damned to hell.

So this sort of subset of like super, super religious evangelical, they're also always on the lookout for signs of the end of days. And they think that gathering all the Jews in exile in the Holy Land is a prerequisite. for these events, and then these Christian Zionists really believe that God promise the Holy Land to the Jews, and that promise is eternal and not just something that happened in the past. So, you know, look, there's obviously a cultural affinity. I think there's probably a desire for people who are sort of short of the rapture position to always feel welcomed in the Holy Land as a Christian and feel like they can visit in certain sites, and maybe they worried that they wouldn't be able to in a Palestinian state. But you're right,

it has completely transformed the politics. And is why, you know, I don't know, we seem a lot of progressive parties on the march in Israel these days. Ben, Adria V on Instagram, asked if we can get an update on Ethiopia and Eritrea. Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, you've had some backsliding there. So for a pretty extended period of time, thanks to some, you know, in part some good diplomacy from the United States and other countries, You had a ceasefire that was holding that was allowing humanitarian assistance to get in. They weren't really negotiating the end of the war, though. They weren't really addressing the underlying problems between, you know, the Ethiopian government and the people in Tigray and Eritrea's role in this war.

And so what happened was you saw the fighting flare up again in recent weeks. And that once again put some people at the risk of displaced. placement, famine, difficulty in getting humanitarian aid in. Samantha Power has been talking and tweeting about this a lot, so you guys can check out Samantha's feeds on this. And there has been some progress in getting shipments of humanitarian assistance back into some places. But I think the short version is after really brutal and horrific fighting and then a kind

of stalemate, there was a ceasefire. and now what we've seen is the return of kind of sporadic fighting that is, you know, risks dragging the country back in a worse direction. Yeah, I mean, just a little back story. I mean, you know, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed started the war in November of 2020 right around the election, so people like barely noticed it. And it was launched against the former heads of the Ethiopian government, the TPLF, who live in this part of Ethiopia called Tigray.

Fast forward two years, thousand people are dead, millions people are displaced. There's horrific reports of atrocities. As you noted, there have been these peace talks. There were some in South Africa recently. They were mediated by the African Union. Both sides seemed to agree to some permanent secession of hostilities. It really seemed like a de facto TPLF surrender because Ethiopian security forces were really making a lot of progress. I think the question becomes, what does the Eritrean government want out of this?

Because they might have their own agenda. If you recall Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a brutal war for many years, Prime Minister Abbey actually got the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering peace. And was that 2019? But then he aligned with Eritrea to fight the TPLF in the Tigray province. And the Eritreans, I think, had the finger pointed at them for some of the most horrible atrocities. So that's, I think, I think people really are going to have to watch. One thing on that that's kind of interesting, Tommy, is that one of the ways in which they did turn the tide militarily, the Ethiopian government,

and is that they were getting increasing military supplies from the UAE, including like drones, and they got a kind of technological advantage that allowed them to make progress. But their capacity still to kind of go into Tigray and to assert their will reach the limit. And the Eritreans are trying to settle these scores, as you say. So there's a lot of different parties at play. There's ethnic divisions that have long similar underneath the surface of Ethiopian politics. So it's still something to watch as a powder kick. Yeah.

And per usual, innocent people are suffering horribly and there's famine. Nicholas on Instagram asked, after North Korea's recent provocations, any path towards a JCPOA-like deal. I'll be honest, Ben, I don't think so. I mean, I think you're kind of in a place where either we need Kim Jong-un to have a drastic change of heart or a heart attack. You might, or a massive leadership change in North Korea where you bring in some, you know, someone who views the world differently. or I think the world ultimately figures out a way to accept that North Korea is a nuclear state and they like they cut a deal. You know, I just have seen no sign that the North Koreans have anything but accelerated the nuclear program. According to South Korean and Japanese estimates, one of the missiles the North Koreans just tested flew between, you know, just shy of 4,000 miles, which is something that could hit the

continental U.S. So the problem is getting worse. It's getting more acute for the United States. It's always been acute for Japan, South Korea, everyone in the region. And like, I don't know, I just feel like we are stuck in the same exact place since, what, the 90s? Nothing good has happening here. Yeah. And to the JCPOA analogy, one of the reasons that I'll add for pessimism here, unfortunately, is North Korea was already a problem without a solution. But to drive you, draw the JCPOA analogy, the reason the Iran deal could get done in a way is because all of the world powers, in that case, the United States, Russia, China, as well as our European allies, were kind of in common agreement about the need to reach some agreement that prevented

Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Today, if you're looking at a Kim Jong-un who's completely committed to this nuclear missile program, and there's, I think, a lot of suspicion that there may be on the verge of another nuclear test for him to demonstrate. how committed he is to holding this capability. The only way people have ever seen like the possibility to bring enough kind of pressure and diplomatic incentive to bear on Kim Jong-un to reach a deal would be if the U.S. and China were kind of in lockstep about this. But given the tensions between the U.S. and China, given how far apart the U.S. and China are on everything, given tensions over Taiwan, the likelihood of China trying to play some constructive role here in reaching a positive

outcome that at least reduces the progress of North Korea's nuclear program, that feels nonexistent to me. So if anything, I see this as something to watch as a situation that could get worse. It could escalate. They could see more demonstrations of progress in North Korea's nuclear missile programs, including the capacity to have an ICBM and a nuclear war that can go on that ICBM, which obviously threatens the U.S. So that's not unfortunately a happy answer, but I think it is what it is. It is what it is. Again, I cannot recommend highly enough Anna Fyfield's book, The Great Successor,

All About Kim Jong-un. And one of the little details I loved in the book, Ben, was they were talking about all the ways the CIA was trying to, like, get to know Kim Jong-un, figure out his deal, right? There was the Dennis Rodman going over there piece of it. But also, apparently the CIA approached Eric Clapton about playing. a concert in North Korea because Kim Jong-un and his brother, who he whacked, by the way. They're huge Eric Clapton fans. I think they both play the guitar. So it was very Patrick Grad and Keith, Wind of Change, adjacent. Yeah. A little tidbit. It's a little boon for Clapton. You know, he's had a rough couple years here. Yeah, it turns out he's a real awesome.

He turns out he's a dick. You know, another great book is, it's a few years old, is nothing left to envy by Barbara Denwick, which is a book just about ordinary North Koreans who we never hear about. She kind of went deep with some North Korean defectors about what their lives were like in North Korea. And it's a crazy read because their lives don't sound at all familiar to anything else, anywhere else in the world. You know, these are people growing up and not even knowing.

If I remember a really powerful example, the teenagers who didn't even really know what, you you know, what it meant to fall in love? Like, do you kiss? They've never seen, you know, popular culture and, you know, it's so cut off and this book offers a window into it. Yeah, I mean, basically, you're either, you know, watching some South Korean soap opera smuggled it on a thumb drive or you have no access to anything but state-run media. Well, that's an interesting thing, is that, you're right, like the only information that sometimes gets in or the South Korean soap opera, which are illegal, they're not supposed to be there. And a lot of time people see this, and it blows their minds in North Korea because

they see all this plenty. They see all this opulence. And they've been taught and told that capitalism is this kind of dystopian, horrible reality and that they have it better in North Korea. And so some of these defectors who risk their lives to cross the border into China are just people who are like, wait a second, like that looks pretty good over there. You know, but they're just watching soap operas. Don't sure that thing.

T. Dorms on Instagram says, how will the House leadership affect China-U.S. climate talk progress from this summit? I don't think it's going to do anything for this cop. It certainly means that Joe Biden will not be able to pass any more climate legislation in the next two years. And that we will likely, once again, be in the humiliating position of having a Speaker of the House, number three, in line for the presidency, as a climate denier. So that's not great, Ben. But luckily, that's why passing the Inflation Reduction Act was so critical when it happened. Yeah, that's why it had happened.

I mean, the two quick things that add to this are you probably also see the Republicans trying to push all kinds of proposals for drilling and coal and other things. Gutting EPA. Because, yeah, they see it as somehow politically advantageous to destroy the earth. The other thing is that I picked this up in D.C. I was earlier this week. the Republicans have been making noises about establishing a kind of a select committee on China. And so you may remember that actually Nancy Pelosi set up a select committee on climate change

that was, again, not one of the normal committees, but like a standalone committee that could just focus on this challenge. I imagine that the Republican interest in a select committee on China is not informed by a desire to have judicious thought out policy in the superpower competition between our two countries. It's rather likely to be a forum to demagogue China and push all kinds of hawkish positions on Taiwan, maybe push all kinds of conspiracy theories about the origins of COVID or what have you. So this could be, you know, how Democrats choose to engage if they do that will be interesting. I imagine this will just further toxify the politics of China and the U.S., which stand for some detoxification, actually.

Yeah, no, that's really interesting. It'll be interesting to see if Democrats engage. It'll be interesting to see if the Chinese government is smart enough to act like grown adults and just ignore these idiots or wildly overreact like they did with Nancy Pelosi's visit, hopefully the former. Tricia Armenta on Instagram asks, what is happening in Myanmar has been a while since I've heard. So, Ben, I did see there's a little bit of good news. I don't know if this happened for ASEAN.

Which is I read that the Burmese military released about 6,000 political prisoners this week, including a U.S. citizen, I think a British citizen as well. I saw human rights groups think that over 16,000 people have been detained since the coup happened. And around 2,500 have been killed. There was also a report this week, I think, about the military's airstrikes getting more indiscriminate and really just decimating civilians. But it is good news. I guess that, I mean, it's clearly good news that a bunch of political prisoners got out.

Hopefully they stay out. Yeah, the stay out is important. I mean, in terms of what's happening, there continues to be armed resistance in parts of Myanmar, particularly along the periphery and some of the ethnic areas. There continues to be, you know, a government in exile, you know, that says with good reason that it actually represents the will of the people there. Aung San Suu Kyi has, as we've talked about, you know, been handed sentence after sentence to her prison term. But ASEAN is the key here because this is the collection of 10 Southeast Asian

countries and it's the one kind of club that the Myanmar military has to care about and focus on given their interconnectivity with those countries. And the ASEAN summit just took place in Cambodia. and so clearly this was some kind of gesture to smooth things make it a little easier to deal with that summit. What I saw from a lot of the opposition was more pressure on ASEAN, that ASEAN needs to be doing more, that ASEAN needs to kind of pick a side here and side with the opposition and not, you know, they've tried to play a mediating role. They've tried to moderate the behavior of the TATMEDA. But a lot of pressure, I think, rightly and should continue from the opposition for ASEAN to more forcefully denounce and cut ties with.

the Burmese military. Another dark thing that's happened is the Russians have gotten closer to the Burmese military. You know, the Russians have been kind of shopping around for friends. And Minang Long, the really creepy awful leader of the coup, someone who I met once in a very creepy meeting. He recently met with Putin. So I'm not sure how much support Russia has to offer, given the state of its own military, but that's another, you know, sobering development. Wonderful. Marian M-L-L-L on Instagram asks, what is going on with Omlo and Mexico's Electoral Institute? Amlo being the president of Mexico.

This has been going on for well over a year, I believe. I mean, Amlo's beef with the electoral process in institutions that run elections in Mexico So dates back to 2012 and to 2006 where he blames it for losses. But I think last spring, he's basically proposed overhauling the electoral system. He says the current system, the I&E is too partisan. He thinks that elections are too expensive. And he wants electoral regulators to be chosen by direct votes and not have sort of a state-level system of choosing these electors. He wants to have a federal process.

A lot of his opponents viewed as a power grab. They protested. They say it will threaten the independence of elections. But, you know, there have been a huge protests in opposition to this for a very long time. I mean, it's a huge deal. Yeah. And I think it is something of a, you know, power grab. Almost one of these people who rose making accurate criticisms of some of the corruption,

entrenched corruption in the Mexican political system, the pre, which is kind of the institutional party there that is governed for most of the last several decades since the Mexican Revolution. You know, Amo was the populist outsider leveling accurate criticisms in some cases, but this does feel like an effort to prioritize his own political interest in those of his political party. So I think it's healthy that you see some pushback to this from the Mexican society. You know, reforms should not be done under the guise of simply trying to, advantage yourself either. So it's something that bears watching. Ben Morley 1810 on Instagram says, what can European left-wing parties like labor learn from the Democrats' recent relative success?

Great question. Great question. Listen, I'm not recommending that they do this, but it's helpful when you run against a bunch of right-wing cooks. That really helps you win. I think we'd be in a very different place politically if you were running against a whole bunch of Brian Kemp's and you know not as many General Baldock whatever his first name is up in New Hampshire. I think, you know, the Democratic Party, one of the things people I hope take away from our success is that we need to have a big tent, you know, we need to be welcoming from DSA to never Trumpers. And so, you know, I don't know that I

would describe labor as a left-wing party per se. I think it's pretty broad. But, you know, I think what you saw in Israel was progressive parties were incapable of coming together and putting aside past differences and cutting deals and working together and they got wiped out. And that cannot be our fate. That would be bad. Yeah, I guess the couple things I'd add to this too are that you've seen in, because first of all, the Labor Party has the benefit of there are crazy people and they've already been prime minister for the Tories. So Liz Trost and Boris Johnson that kind of makes the case for them in the same way that some of our crazy candidates did for the Democrats, but also the culture war issues. You've seen a really concerted effort in British politics by the Tory party to kind

of replicate what they saw as the success of the Republican Party on running on a bunch of garbage culture war issues, a bunch of crime, kind of fear mongering. And I think there are less- immigration, too. And immigration, of course, right? And there are lessons. Yeah, and just demagoguing. I think there are lessons to be taken about, number one, not chasing every culture war rabbit hole issue. You know, like having your stance, your beliefs, your values that you articulate positively, and not getting dragged down into some endless debate about issues that are not what people really want to vote on and what people care about. And Democrats focusing on an economic message and a message around democracy. And yes, when the attacks on crime came rebutting them and saying, here's what we're for.

You know, we're for public safety, and this is how we're going to do that. I think there is something for the Labor Party look at in terms of how the culture war issues did not end up helping Republicans. Now, the abortion issue obviously made a big difference here, and it's not present in British politics in quite the same way. But I do think that they're parallels there. And look, man, candidate quality mattered, you know, like run some good people, you know, in these constituencies, you know, showing that you have serious people that are committed,

getting things done, having some younger people. a lot of women candidates in the U.S. once again did well in House races. You know this better than me, Tommy. But I think it is worth labor taking a look here because there's some things that can translate across the ocean. For sure. Tricia Armenta on Instagram asks, how do you rate Joe Biden in foreign policy in relations versus his campaign message? I feel like he's delivered on his promises when it comes to foreign policy. I mean, well, the one major failure is they have not treated Saudi Arabia like a pariah. That is, a glaring, glaring failure to live up to the campaign message. He promised to get out of Afghanistan. The process of doing it, I think, was more challenging, messier, more upsetting, more scarring for the Afghan people, for people in the U.S. who served in the U.S. military in particular. But he lived up to the promise. He's focusing on climate change. I'm trying to think what other major foreign policy promises he made. Well, I think there are some really big things that he has delivered on. You mentioned climate. That's huge. Both in terms of how the domestic agenda connects to climate and as well as

getting back in the game internationally on climate. Obviously, there's been an emphasis on democracy and standing up to autocracy manifest most clearly in their support for Ukraine. There are a set of issues that I think progressives cared about were the promises have not been fulfilled or have only been partially fulfilled. You mentioned the kind of overall Saudi relationship. On the war in Yemen, you know, there was a promise to kind of stop support for that war. They kind of went halfway there. They stopped support for kind of offensive weapons and focused on diplomacy, but that's kind of a halfway there. On the refugee issue, they went back to a high cap for the number of refugees. I think 125,000 they went to. But they, as we've talked about on

past shows, they have not come anywhere near toward resettling that number of people. So that's another kind of partial fulfilled one. The Iran nuclear agreement, which is not entirely in their control, of course. They were kind of slow to try to get back into it. And by the time they got serious by getting back into it, you had a more conservative Iranian government. Now, of course, you have these protests. So I think in their overall orientation and vision, they've done a lot of what they've said. I think on some of these progressive issues, you know, there's been a caution that has led to, in the Saudi case, just not fulfilling your promise. And in some of these issues like Yemen or refugees, not making as much progress as people would want. And then there are issues that are a little bit

beyond their control, like an AUMF, a new authorization for the use of military force to govern kind of the forever war. Well, you know, if Congress doesn't want to take that up, you know, they might be interested in doing that, but have a hard time fulfilling it. Look, it's overall, it's a huge improvement on the Trump administration. It's been a competent and usually values-based foreign policy, but it's been less bold and progressive than certainly some of the rhetoric and the primary that you heard from Biden, which is not hugely unusual, but I think it speaks to the need to continue to press on some of these issues for more boldness and assertiveness. And one thing that's challenging foreign policy is like a lot of times the successes are like

dogs that aren't barking, you know, and I do think like competence, good management have, you know, prevented crises from erupting where an errant Trump tweet would have made things a lot worse. I shudder to think what Trump's management of support for Ukraine would look like. I'm sure it wouldn't be much support for Ukraine. I do think also, you know, it doesn't get a lot of focus. But I do think it does seem like Joe Biden's put into place a lot of the restrictions on counterterrorism activities, in particular drone strikes in an effort to protect civilians or prevent civilian casualties that Trump had gotten rid of or walked back from the Obama era. You just don't hear about that as much anymore. Maybe it's because the threats of

metastasized and changed and moved to different places. But I don't know. That is a sense I get. Yeah, I think on the competence issue, for instance, too, we mentioned Tigray. That's another good example of an issue that, look, they haven't solved that there's not peace in Ethiopia, but, a big butt. I think having a competent and engaged U.S. government is probably mitigated some of the civilian harm there. It's probably added momentum to efforts to get to ceasefires, you know, dogged work by people like Samantha trying to get humanitarian assistance people. Probably wouldn't see that level energy from a Trump administration. Then there's some issues where we've been critical, but to be fair to Joe Biden, like he didn't, you know, like Cuba,

where people have heard me complain. You know, Joe Biden didn't, you know, he promised, there too, they took them a while to get back to the things he did promise on allowing greater travel and reminces. But, you know, he didn't promise to go all the way back to say where someone like I would want him to go. And on Israel, for instance, where we'd like, we tried so many times to get them to say they would condition assistance if annexation happened. And they said, no.

Yeah. They were pretty clear and, you know, foreshadowed. that they weren't going to make much of a push on behalf of Palestinian rights. And so we've been critical of that. But to the question, there wasn't really a campaign promise to make a two-state solution a focus. No. Miss Beck 788 on Instagram asks, what are you watching?

You got any good shows? We're doing a lot of White Lotus in my house right now. Yeah. So we are living Sunday to Sunday on White Lotus in my house. So that's certainly the main energy on Prestige TV right now. We did a lot of House of Dragons, did it all. You did all of House of Dragons? We did it all.

I mean, they're all, this season is out. Yeah. The Crown, of course, of course I'm watching The Crown, you know. So I haven't watched any of that. Don't need to go back? It's good. It's good. I mean, I don't think it has, like,

each season the Crown loses a little luster because at the beginning, it's like, first of all, it was just a novelty to watch these people in their lives. but also like the closer it gets to events that like you kind of remember and you know we may be a little in some of the audience but they're into like you know they're deep into the Charles and Diane of yours like it's a little less surprising like I learned things from the older episodes of the crown that I didn't I just didn't know about like I I know all about Diane and Charles's relationship so it's not it doesn't have that novelty factor in the same way yeah well I regret to inform you that the queen is still dead She's going to buy it in the show, yeah. Yeah, stuff. What book you read? I'm reading Empire of Pain, which is Patrick Radden-Keefe's deep, deep dive into the Sackler family in the opioid crisis.

And you know what, man, that fucking guy is so good. I put off that book because I was like, I don't want to read this. It's going to make me sad. I hate these people. I kind of know the story. No, I had no idea the depths of depravity that they went to to market that drug to get hundreds of thousands. if not millions of people, hooked on opioids, and then, you know,

pushed them onto heroin because of a confluence of factors. Like, it's just an incredible book. And he, like, goes back generations. And you meet the original Sacklers and, like, hear about them trying to get into, you know, medical schools and they're discriminated against because they're Jewish. You have some empathy for them. And you sort of, like, understand the roots or where they come from. It's just, like, it's a masterful book.

Patrick is one of the best writers out there, Empire of Pain. Check it out. Yeah. I mean, huge, like, towering achievement. Right. So I have a book review that is coming out at some point in the Atlantic, but it's tied to Anthony Bourdain. You know, I'm like a Bordane guy. So I actually read like all the Bordain books. So to the world those who are like Bordain stands, there's several books. There's a new one called Down and Out in Paradise. That's kind of the unauthorized biography. So the one that got attacked by his friends? Yeah, it ends with like literally the text between him and Asi Argento, his Italian girlfriend, the day before he died, you know, that it's meant to kind of show his heart was broken.

He was trying to reach out to her. She was not very nice in return. But there's that book. Then there's a book that's an oral history, essentially, an oral biography of Bourdain from all the people who knew him. And then there's a book called In the Weeds by Tom Vitale. who was Bordane's, like, producer and director on a lot of his shows. If you're going to read one of these books, I recommend that you read Tom Battali's book

in the weeds. It's a super interesting book, Tommy, because, like, he takes you behind the scenes as how he made these shows. He also, though, does something that you and I would appreciate. He's a staffer. Like, I was reading this book, and it looked very familiar to me because it's like, sometimes Bordane's a dick. Sometimes he's a really nice guy.

You've got to solve all these problems that you don't see on the camera. What's it like to make a television show in Congo? You know, what's it like? Yeah. Or on a moving boat. Yeah, yeah. No, he describes all this crazy shit that happened. You know, what was it like when Andy Bourdain was demanding that he cut the head off a chicken on a river boat in the Congo?

Like, there's great stories. And it's kind of unvarnished, but it's also like kind of a coming of age story. This guy, Tom Vitale, anyway. The last book, you know, the new one, Down in Paradise, eh, I don't. If you were deeply obsessed and want to know extra deep. details of Andy Bordane's life. You can read it, but you might as well go back and read Kitchen Confidential because most of that stuff was in the memoir. Did you read, did you watch Roadrunner, the documentary?

I watched Roadrunner. This is my thing, like my comfort fruit is watching old, no reservations and parts unknown. So I watched Roadrunner. So I've been on this kind of weird reading kick and audiobook kick of going through this Bordain canon part because I have something coming out in the Atlantic that's kind of about Bordane as much as it is these book reviews. Cool. Yeah, I pick a lot of long books, but I'm really highly recommend. The entire Patrick Radn-Keef catalog is always worth reading. Okay, Raccoon Jane. Oh, can I, can I throw one other out there? What do you got? The dawn of everything. You mentioned a long book. The long book I'm reading, I mean, it's long. It's called The Dawn of Everything. And it's one of these books that is like a new theory of everything about like human history. I'll spare you the theory. But let's say it questions the assumption that, you know, man was born this primitive state of nature and evolved into these higher beings largely through the kind of course of Western civilization. It makes the case that actually

indigenous societies were quite advanced in their political structures and social systems and religious beliefs and that basically, you know, for lack of a better word, like white people have created a lot of mythology about like savages that are not true. But it does like the, you know, if you want an alternative history of the world, it's a pretty cool and research book, yeah. I'm into that. Oh man, I just saw AP Bulletin. Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos fame, sentenced to 135 months in prison for fraud.

Yeah, I hate to see it. You hate to see it. Such a nice person, too. Yeah, Sam Bankman-Fried. You're up, buddy. Yeah. Okay, Raccoon Jane on Instagram says, when will you stop talking about sports?

I'm taking this, this feels like some high heat. Rackoon Jane? That's a baseball. It's a baseball metaphor. Raccoon Jane on Instagram. I'll never stop talking about sports. I do respect them. I respect the handle, though.

Raccoon Jane is a pretty cool. That's cool. That works. You know, listen, we're not trying to bum anybody out, but like I like the Patriots. I'm excited to watch this weekend. I mean I we could do it this way like how would you rank your hierarchy of sports because for me it was always baseball but like basketball's creeping up there now so I think I go I think I go

NBA major league baseball and then football see for me when I was little when I was little I played hockey and I thought the Bruins were the best and then they were like my only sport I really cared about and then as I got older the Red Sox became number one because it was such a fun story like lovable loser 2004. By the way, we're making Raccoon Jane's life hell by doing the things she asked us not to do. And then now it's just the Patriots. Patriots Red Sox really is it for me.

Yeah. NFL. Point taking, Raccoon Jane. We hear you. We see, I did it. We did it at the end. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Ben, I think that's all we got for this turkey day mailbag. I should have asked you some stupid shit like, you know, stuffing, gravy. I don't know. No one actually cares about this stuff.

This is all with every kind of like turkey Thanksgiving time podcast they get into ranking sides at Thanksgiving and I don't know there's no original ideas left. Yeah, I mean there's ways you can dress up

the usual sides I don't know, I guess I'm I'm a sweet potato guy you know I'm just going to have 11 bottles of wine that's the plan. Okay, well everybody have a great Thanksgiving. We will be back

on the 30th. So until then, I don't know, read the paper. I can't help you. I'm just kidding. Well, Twitter, we don't know if Twitter will be around. Yeah, Twitter exists. Probably on there.

Putting out some fire takes. Yeah. See it. Pots of 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 Andrew Chadwick.

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