Pod Save the World - The 2020 Democrats and foreign policy

Episode Date: December 5, 2018

First, Tommy and Ben talk through George H.W. Bush's foreign policy record, the good the bad and the ugly. Then they discuss the news out of the G20, the latest on Saudi Arabia, and the Democrats' foreign policy messaging. Then Tommy is joined by Kelly Magsamen to discuss Elizabeth Warren's foreign policy speech and what issues 2020 democrats should be talking about.

Welcome back to Potsave the world. This is Tommy Vitor. Great to be back here in the studio with you all. I got a two-part show coming your way. First, Ben Rhodes and I talk about what's been a pretty wild week in foreign policy news. We had the legacy on foreign policy of George H.W. Bush, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We had a G20 where you saw the Saudi leadership isolated. You saw the U.S. isolated. You saw a maybe, maybe not agreement to end the trade war with China. and then we talked about Democrats and foreign policy and what they should be talking about in 2020, which leads into my next conversation with Kelly Magsman. You guys have heard from her before. She is a brilliant foreign policy thinker and writer for the Center for American Progress. We talked about Elizabeth Warren's big foreign policy speech

last week and more broadly, what Democrats should be saying out on the trail. So it is a great show. I think you will enjoy it. And here's the conversation with Ben. Ben Rhodes is back. Back in studio. In studio, not in a hotel in Houston.

Although, you know, it must have been kind of poignant and nice seeing Jim Baker, you know, in the midst of all this emotional turmoil with George H.W. Bush passing. Jim Baker was Bush's Secretary of State, Chief of Staff, best friend, basically, from the days in Texas. So his passing was probably very tough on him. Yeah, and it's interesting. When I got there, I saw Obama, and he had just seen George H.W. Bush. Oh, really? So he was like, yeah, I got into town and went right to visit the guy. And, yeah, so he got to say basically goodbye to him.

He always liked, you know, George H. Bush was always very nice to Obama. Not many Republicans were. No, no, they weren't. And so they were, you know, he was always very gracious to him. And so it was a fortuitous opportunity for him to drop by and say goodbye, essentially. Yeah. Well, that's a perfect segue to the first thing I wanted to ask you, because I think it's fair to say that George H.W. Bush was the most experienced person,

whoever took the office of the presidency. He ran the CIA. He was ambassador to the UN. He was our envoy to China. He was the vice president. He was a member of Congress, though. That meant more back then, I guess. So, you know, he gets credit for managing the fall of the Soviet Union, the unification of Germany for driving Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.

You worked for Baker, James Baker, former Secretary of State, like we're saying. We've both heard Obama talk about how much he liked George H.W. Bush and was impressed by his leadership, specifically the way he led. the national security team and his foreign policy. What did you make of his record generally? Well, you know, if you asked Obama which recent president he admired the most in terms of their foreign policy, he would always say George H.W. Bush. You know, I think basically anybody post-John F. Kennedy, right? That's what Obama would say. You know, I think if you look at the way in which he led, number one, he always put alliances and international institutions, at the center of what he did, which is almost a stunning thing to say, given how much his son did

not do that, given how much Donald Trump, Scorn's alliances. But essentially, you know, even when he pursued the Gulf War, he made sure that that was a UN Security Council sanctioned effort. He built this coalition with dozens of countries. His approach to the end of the Cold War was one that was very much focused on how do you strengthen international institutions like the United Nations and NATO. He was pretty aggressive. in pursuing Israeli-Palestinian peace, you know, convening the Madrid conference that helped lead to the peace deal between Israel and Jordan. So multilateralism alliances were at the center of his approach to the world. He also didn't kind of beat his chest and gloat, you know,

this kind of Republican approach to foreign policy that makes it kind of this, you know, humiliate other countries. It's binary. He didn't spike the football on the Cold War. You know, he understood that it would be destabilizing, essentially, if he was trying to grind the Russian's nose into the ground. So the soft landing was not, you know, preordained. And as I've heard Obama say many times, some of the best things you do as president are the outcomes that don't happen. And so it seems inevitable, right, that the peaceful breakup of the Soviet Union happened. But it wasn't inevitable. And part of the reason why is that George Bush was had a very deaf touch in dealing with Gorbachev and

dealing with the newly independent Soviet Republic. So that's all to the good. I think, you know, as we have to acknowledge that nobody's record is perfect, despite the hagiographies we see, you know, I think the biggest stain in terms of his foreign policy legacy kind of predated his presidency was Iran-Contra and his involvement in that. And then ultimately the pardons he issued for the people involved in Iran-Contra, which, you know, contests to this day because it's a potential predicate for what Trump may do.

Yeah, I want to dig into all of that. We don't do a very good job in this country, I think, of putting ourselves back in the shoes of the leaders at the time. But, you know, a reunified Germany wasn't necessarily going to be a great thing. I think the UK, the French, they were understandably a little worried given World War I, World War II. But he managed that process pretty deftly. Yeah. And that's why you see, you know, Anglam Merkel flying all the way across the world to go to this funeral. You know, the Germans recognized that he was an advocate for the peaceful unification of Germany at a time when, yeah,

that that was not a foregone conclusion. Yeah. So you mentioned Israel. It is really interesting to look back at George H.W. Bush's policies on Israel. He used to do battle with the right-wing Israeli government on settlements in the West Bank. He even went as far as to urge Congress not to give Israel billions of dollars in loan guarantees. He fought, as you said, hard for a two-state solution. And when his administration thought the Israelis weren't being serious enough about engaging in peace talks,

Jim Baker famously said the White House phone number is 202, 4, 5, 6, 6. 1414 when you're serious about this. Call us. I mean, fast forward to 2016. Support for a two-state solution was dropped from the GOP platform before Trump even was elected. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was interesting. Jim Baker, you know, became kind of this boogeyman with APEC and, you know, he's been called an anti-Semite, you know, just because he pursued, you know, I think a balanced view that there needs to be two-state solution and was willing to apply some amount of pressure on Israel, you know, mild, you know, restricting loan guarantees is not the same as kind of cutting off all assistance. But, you know, they were willing, you know, it's funny, Obama was called, you know,

anti-Israel and anti-Semite for much, much milder things than what George H.W. Bush and Jim Baker did. So it is an interesting signal as to how far politics have moved to the right on issues related to Israel in both the Republican Party and in Israel itself, right, where, you know, I think there were governments under Yitzik Rabin who were willing to work with the United States. It was focused on promoting peace. So Bush's passing highlights a lot of how things have changed in the last two decades. One of them is that an even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian issue and the Arab-Israeli conflict that seeks to promote peace used to be kind of in the mainstream of the Republican Party in what establishment figures like Bush 41 and Baker stood for.

Nobody in Congress would take that position to him as a Republican. And nobody, no Republican nominee would ever take those positions. So the party has just moved along with Nanyahu and Israel all the way to the right. And Nanyahu was one of those people that Baker clash with back in the day when he was kind of a young up-and-comer in Israeli politics. So, you know, we are truly in a different world, and that's because of the rightward drift of politics in Israel and on the politics of Israel and the United States. Yeah, with the exception of Trump, I think it's a bipartisan thing to have clashed with B.B. Yeah, probably to dislike him personally. You mentioned Iran-Contra, too.

So, yeah, the Iran-Contra affair happened when he was the vice president, but very much worth to mention. The quick and dirty version is that in 1985, Reagan's NSC approved the sale of missiles to Iran in the hopes that it would secure the release of U.S. hostages being held in Lebanon by Shiite terrorist groups. This was during a period of time when we were sending our diplomats around the globe saying don't sell arms to Iran, lecturing other countries, but we are secretly doing it. A portion of the proceeds of that arm sale was diverted by Reagan's NSC and given to the Contras.

We were an anti-communist guerrilla group fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, which was socialist, leftist. This violated explicitly the Boland Amendment, which banned director and direct U.S. military support to the Contra. So big time illegal. In 92, fast forward several years, when Bush was president on his way out the door, he pardoned several Iran-Contra defendants, including Casper Weinberger, Elid Abrams. others. And so, you know, there's a few pieces of this thing. Like, there's the pardon element, which really prevented any real accountability, including for himself. Because they were in the process of trying to get his notes to figure out what he knew and when. But bigger picture, it was part of a bunch of policies the U.S. was supporting at the time in the 80s of propping up

fascists and giving money for death squads in Central America. So, you know, we talked a little bit about this last week, but not great. Can we just Tommy do like episode 72 in the Benghazi hypocrisy. Yes, please. They fucking bought, like, sold weapons to Iran to launder money to desquads in Central America. Like, it is fucking insane that that ever happened. Like, it's one of the things, you know, Iran-Contra just sounds like something that maybe you heard about once. When you peel back the layers of what was happening, and these were like the most senior people at the NSC involved in these meetings, right? So thinking about like, well, we're going to deal with the Iranian revolutionary government, right? Like pretty soon after Khomeini over three,

the Shah. We're going to deal with these people so that we can launder money against the law, because Congress has blocked us from doing this, to some death squads in Central America. Imagine being in the meeting when that came up. Someone had that idea. I mean, okay, so just put that aside for a second. And then actually when you look at this, you know, Bush 41, you know, I think is two of the things that people have rightly criticized. You know, one is, and you guys probably dealt with this on PSA, but like the bare-knuckle politics that he would farm out, right? The Willie Horton stuff. But the other thing is like, sometimes the clubby loyalty that people admire, right?

Has a dark side. You know, when you're, you know, he was at the RNC around Watergate, you know, he was at the CIA, you know, when, you know, they're kind of coming out of the church committee years. But then on a Ron Contra, he pardons all these guys. It matters to him because if the Weinberger trial went forward, right, because they're prosecuting Weinberger, Bush's diary. He kept a diary, apparently, when he was vice president, could have been put forward his evidence. And I think the widely held belief is it would have demonstrated that Bush was in some

these meetings. And it's not uncommon, as you know, for the vice president's times to chair or participate in NSC meetings. And the trail was leading up to Bush. And so he pardons all these guys. And part of what he does is that, you know, gets the heat off of him. The prosecutors long complained that Bush essentially averted accountability for what he did. And I have to say, like, it's pretty remarkable to hear those names. I mean, Olly North is now the head of the NRA. Elliot Abrams went on to serve in a very senior, you know, deputy national security advisor role under Bush's son, you know, is kind of one of the leading Republican voices on foreign policy. So these guys really got to pass for some pretty extreme political

activity. And so again, I think the darker side of the legacy on Iran-Contra is it's the same thing that, frankly, Bush's son did not do for scrulybby, right? Did, oh, we just take care of our own, even when they do, you know, pretty illegal, terrible shit. And, and I do think that it's worth people taking another look at Iran-Contra and unpacking that, because it does speak to a view of, you know, if we're Republicans, we can do whatever the hell we want, you know. We can break the law. We can funnel arms against Congress's will to death squads. You know, we can be hypocrites and deal with the Iranians. If Democrats so much as, you know, write some talking points we don't like, we're going to investigate them for four years. I think Iran-Contra is a case study in how they

think the rules don't apply to them. And that's a thread that you can draw through the Iraq war intelligence, you know, all the way to today. Yeah, I mean, in our day, the NSC gone wild was when people are being micromanaging. I can't imagine like selling arms to another country and funneling them to a terrorist group. By the way, if you're listening and you are like, what the hell is Iran Contra? There is an incredible book called The Nightingale Song, which is by a journalist named Robert Timberg, which tracks this Naval Academy graduating class of like 1968, which is a lot of people you mentioned who are involved in Iran Contra, Bud McFarlane, Jim Webb, who became a Democratic senator from Virginia in their time in Vietnam and how it later informed some of the things they

did in Iran Contra. It's one of the best books I've ever read. And, you know, just one more thing on this is, like, it wasn't like some fringe set of characters and issues, right? These were like the inside players. And these were the preeminent foreign policy issues at the time. You know, the fight against communism, Central America, Iran, getting the hostages released. So this is like, I think it's hard for us to get our minds around how much this was at the center of the Reagan White House, the Reagan NSC, and how, you know, the Democrats were pretty judicious in how they went about investigating. it they didn't wasn't a gotcha thing it was like let's pull the thread on get these facts and Bush did kind of take an eraser and wipe the chalkboard clean here at the end of his presidency

there was some breaking news today which was after the trump white house initially refused to allow its CI director gina haswell finally gave a classified briefing to some select members of the senate about the murder of saudi journalist jama koshoggi uh senators emerged from that meeting totally convinced that the Crown Prince, Muhammad bin Salman, or MBS, ordered Khashoggi's execution. Senator Lindsey Graham said that while there was no smoking gun, there was, quote, a smoking saw.

Cool soundbite referring to how he was dismembered. Bob Corker said, quote, if the Crown Prince went in front of a jury, he would be convicted in 30 minutes. That stands in a pretty stark contrast to Trump, who still claims the CIA didn't conclusively show that MBS was involved, and it seems to go further than whatever spin

Secretary Mattis and Secretary Pompeo offer to the full Senate last week when they briefed. So what the hell happens next? I mean, this seems like an enormous deal. It's an enormous scandal. I mean, you know, basically what we now know is that MBS orders the brutal murder of this journalist in a third country. And we knew about it. You know, the CIA clearly had information. If you read the reports, right, no surprise to anyone. One of the reasons Tommy, some of us were so confident and asserting that, like, we must have known this is because anybody, you know, I don't think it reveals anything to say that anybody knows, works in the U.S. government knows that, like, the Saudis are a country where

we might have a pretty good idea what's going on based on our intelligence collection, right? So that whole time, the reason, this matters for number, number one, that whole time Trump was saying, well, we don't know what happened. This could have been rogue killers. Trump was probably sitting on information that said MBS did this. So again, I know we get used to the lies from him on everything, but for him to be sitting on information from the CIA that says the Saudis brutally murdered this guy and MBS directed it, and he's out there lying and inventing cover stories and saying him might as road killers,

that is astonishing to begin with, right? Then second, he basically puts out that whack-a-doodle statement saying, you know, America first and I don't really care whether he did it or not, we're going to be all in on Saudi Arabia. You know, at the same time, he sends up Jim Mattis, who, you know, we used to always hear these hagiographies about Jim Mattis being the grown up in the room and Mike Pompeo, who was supposed to kind of restore the State Department's position, to basically lie to Congress. I mean, if you look, Pompeo's up

there's up there saying, well, you know, there's no direct reporting of MBS being responsible, and Jim Mattis saying there's no smoking gun for MBS being responsible. They said that to Congress, and they said that publicly. And now we hear from actually Gina Haspel, via these senators, that that's totally a lie, that the CIA actually does have indications that MBS was responsible. To be even more specific, I mean, the Wall Street Journal reported that the CIA intercepted 11 messages that Mohamed bin Salman sent to an advisor who we know oversaw the hit squad at the time that they were murdering.

Yeah. That seems like as smoking a gun as you'll ever find. Yeah, the CIA is not Sherlock Holmes. Like they don't necessarily like, you know, dust fingerprints at the same. side of the scene. They collect intelligence. And if they have intercepts that show he's literally talking to the guy who's carrying out the operation, that's as ironclad as the CI can get in saying this guy did it. So let's be very clear about what happened. Mike Pompeo lied to Congress. And this isn't a man who spent four years investigating Benghazi who thought the Tray Gowdy's

Benghese report wasn't partisan enough. So he wrote a minority report to register some additional attacks on Hillary Clinton. A lot of that had to do with whether we misled people. He literally stands up on the most prominent issue in the world today and lies to Congress's face about it, right? There need to be consequences. Like, we can't just accept this as normal. The President of United States can lie about this. Then he can send the Secretary's State and Secretary of Defense up there to lie about it. Meanwhile, he's coddling MBS. He's acting essentially as his defense attorney to try to cover this murder up that's bad for every interest the United States has, whether we care about freedom of the press, whether we care about Saudi Arabia's out of control foreign

policy in Yemen, are standing in the world. All this is suffering because of this. You know, there are questions about whether Trump has been bought and paid for by the Saudis. So I think the Democratic House needs to get this information out in front of Congress and out to the public. If the CIA has this assessment, I don't know why it has to be classified. They don't have to put out intercepts as a journal reports. They can put out that they think the NBS is responsible. We put out public assessments all the time. And I think the Democrats should insist on erring this facts and should insist on some accountability for these. Trump officials who've been lying about this.

Yeah, Chris Murphy, I saw tweeted today that we overclassify everything and that we should put out as much as we can about what we know when we knew it. I, you know, I would love to see Adam Schiff hold hearings and maybe they're classified hearings at first, but they could figure out what was in the PDB, the president's daily briefing, the most highly classified intelligence product in the world and went. And lay that down on a calendar against his public statements. We can figure out if he was lying or not. And they hopefully can figure out what, if any investments he or Jared Kushner have in Saudi Arabia because that definitely seems relevant. There's no other explanation here. I mean, Trump's numbers of armed sales that he keeps

putting out, we know our lives. They've been debunked over and over again. So it's got to be something else. Yeah. And you know how this is like that kind of assessment was probably pretty widely circulated. Oh, yeah. You probably would have gotten that as an SEC spokesperson in one of those like cool. Yeah, yeah. I love. I love. I miss those things. Was it what I love the did? The defense intelligence digest The coolest pictures of missiles and shit You know after you left

I think there was a budget cut Because it went from being on that glossy paper To being kind of stapled It was kind of a sad America and decline moment The defense intelligence digest RIP RISI.P. Sorry. Intelligence products were so fun to read

Anyway But anyway back to this I mean I think that there's got to be some sunlight on this thing and again It has huge ramifications for our farm policy because he, you know, MBS could have been on the ropes, the Saudis might have decided to make a change and not have this kind of murderous dictator in charge.

Yeah. But Trump basically gave him a lifeline, and we need to know why. We need to know why Trump was lying to us about it. We need to know why people like Mike Pompeo think that they go up in line front of Congress. Yeah. So one good piece of news.

The G20 just happened. A few major things out of that. First is that Mohammed bin Salman, MBS, was treated like a pariah. Yeah. Some of the videos are kind of awesome. Yeah, oh, right, no one would talk to him. He's like this nerd standing, like, waiting for everyone to be his friend. It's like the guy waiting at the lunch table at school.

Exactly. Macron wouldn't, was like yelling at him. McCrone wouldn't sit down on them with his mother. That was good. I found it disconcerting and odd that the Russians had just attacked a couple of Ukrainian vessels and was like still holding their sailors hostage. And yet that was not at all the focus of the G20. That's the kind of international forum where you should pressure them on this stuff.

Lastly, the White House came out of the meeting claiming that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had essentially hit pause on. the trade war that the U.S. would suspend adding tariffs on Chinese goods for 90 days, you know, fast forward two days. It's not at all clear what was actually agreed to. Larry Kudlow said that China would buy more U.S. agricultural products and autos and couldn't explain how or why or, you know, how that would work with the WTA rule. So the stock market jumps 400 points when they first announced this today, Tuesday. It's down 750 points, the Dow. So this is like roiling market Things are a mess this trade war is ongoing.

So, you know, not great. Yeah, tariff man. Here's what I think is happening. You know, I actually think I know what is happening here, which is I always feel somewhat nervous and suggesting I haven't understanding what Trump is thinking and what's going on the White House. So this trade war that he started with China

without thinking it through, you know, he's been ratching it up. And it's begun to put some real strains on the global economy, right? The Chinese economy might be slowing down inflation could go up here, right? Because part of what happens when you put tariffs on things is prices go up and that can drive up inflation and that can help lead to an economic slowdown, right? So there are a number of different factors where Trump's trade war with China could be accelerating the potential for a recession here. And he was scheduled to put in place a pretty

dramatic and draconian additional round of tariffs on January 1st. 25% or 25%. The Chinese would surely feel that they needed to respond. And so this risk of there being a recession would go up with each escalation of the trade war. So the people around Trump are probably saying him, hey, look, the one thing that will guarantee that you are not reelected is a recession, right? Like those 35% of the people that we always talk about, they always vote for Trump no matter what. No, they always vote for him so long as like they can just vote on their racism because they're not worried about the economy going off the cliff. Like if we really start seeing an economic downturn here, I think he's toast. So on the one hand, he's got some advisors saying you've got to figure out a way to just do what you did on NAFTA, like declare victory.

Say the crisis is over and I won and get an off ramp. And then he's got some hardliners who actually want the trade war with China. And they deeply believe in taking this all the way and trying to break the Chinese essentially. And Trump actually is one of those people. Like he's one of the only things that he's been consistent on his whole life is these protections, trade attitudes. And I think we are seeing the schizophrenia play out. You know, I think Trump understood that he had to say, for the sake of markets and for sake of the economy, yeah, we got some deal. And he was doing the play of, oh, I won, you know, and I got these concessions.

But there was nothing there underneath it because they didn't really make a deal. They made a deal to not escalate and to talk about it. And that's set to Chinese thing. The Chinese love to set up a process. set up like 20 bureaucrats come talk to 20 of our bureaucrats and you just kind of stringing along. And so that's clearly what the Chinese want to do. And the Trump people don't seem to know what the deal is that they're trying to sell here.

Yeah. And so that's why we're caught in this ambiguous place where there wasn't really any deal. The deal was to not escalate further and to talk about it. The Trump people need to sell something, though, so they're trying to sell different pieces of what they want. Nobody can understand what's going on here. And again, at a certain point, the Trump people are having to choose? are we going to risk sending the economy over a cliff because we're so invested in this tradeboard

China or are we going to put some lipstick on a pig and say, well, because the Chinese agreed to buy a few more products in these sectors, even though they didn't really address our concerns, like we won this big victory like he did on NAFTA. And I think, I think it'll probably be the latter, but who knows? Yeah, there's just massive, massive political risk to our economy in a way that I don't think that people have priced into the markets or really fully understand. Because people didn't think that the United States would kind of shoot itself in the face. Like our economy is going well, like, you know, getting tough with China makes sense,

but these kind of across the board things that have already hurt, you know, billions of dollars out of American industries, like jobs lost, like potentially responsibility for those GM plan closings, right? This is a ramification. And I think a lot of the stuff that Trump does, what it's so difficult about dealing with Trump, is the consequences, particularly in foreign policy, they don't become apparent right away, but they're going to become apparent. Like all these chickens are going to come home to roost for what he's doing. And we're starting to see them that happen on trade.

It's going to happen on more and more things, right? And the kind of real world consequences of this reality show presidency are just beginning to come on board. And you see that in Mahan bin Salman's killing of Khashoggi. You see that in, you know, GM plan closures. You know, you see that in the fraying essentially of U.S. alliances. And it's just going to get worse. And this is all because he's got a trade advisor named Peter Navarro that Jared Kushner found

because he Googled like book on China and bought it on Amazon. And that's how they hire the guy. Literally true. The other striking thing out of the G20 was that the 19 of the 20 leaders put out a joint statement renewing their commitment to the Paris Climate Accords. And we were the only nation that didn't sign it. Now, obviously no surprise. Trump pulled out of it.

As of last week said he doesn't think climate change is real. But it is maybe as global. an example of our isolation on the world's stages you could think of. Yeah, and like how are we going to explain this? And like, I mean, how are we explain it now? I don't know, but 10 or 20 years from now when like this shit has really hit the fan. And like we're in California, like these with fires getting worse every year. Like we've talked about the consequences of climate change.

To be able to have someone come back in time from 20 years from now and look at the fact that the United States of America literally had a president who denied the climate. change existed, the only country in the world, I mean, there's 19, the 20 and G20, we're the only country in the world that's on the Paris Agreement, you know, despite all the evidence that is hitting us in the face about this. I mean, this is the most morally catastrophic thing that we're confronted with today. And I do think if Democrats running for president in 2020, just because we're on POTS of the World here, climate change is the leading national security issue facing our country. It will be for the next 50 years. It's time to start framing climate change

as the national security issue for a lot of reasons, including the fact that we're spending almost a trillion dollars in our defense budget. If you actually allocated money based on what actual threats are, we should be spending a chunk of that on climate mitigation and clean energy. Yeah, just to button up something from last week. I mean, we briefly talked about the yellow vest protests in France over the gas tax. And I guess today, this morning, President Macron blinked and walked back and said he's going to suspend the tax that increase that was slated for January for at least six months. So, you know, I'm not saying these things are related, but tough politics on these decisions. And we're not giving him any cover

when we're denying the existence of climate change over here. Well, and that's one of the things that Trump did that piss me off. You know, is after denying climate change, he said, well, the Chinese pollute their environment and it's drifting over here or something. But again, he's giving a pass to the Chinese, the Indians, all these other countries who we need to do more because they're just pointing at us and say, well, the Americans are falling behind on their targets. So at a time when we need everybody to be doing more on climate, he's giving people on excuse to do less. You were totally right that this protest got worse from Macron, worse than I thought. But again, it's because, you know, if he's the only one doing some of these steps, it seems like climate

change is this kind of elitist concern and not a concern that is going to affect everyday people. it gets harder for political leaders to take hard decisions. And, you know, a guy like Macron, he's not going to be able to do that alone. No, he sure not. So later in the show, Kelly Magsman and I are going to talk about Elizabeth Warren's foreign policy speech. But more broadly, I mean, tis the season for everyone to go out and give their big framing speech because some advisor said you need to look like a commander in chief, if you were advising Kamala Harris or Beto, Rourke, or, you know, any of the many people who might run for president, like, what would you want to hear?

from them on the trailer. What's new and different, and how would you frame it? I think what will be interesting is who can come up with a message that doesn't just sound like I'm giving my commander-in-chief speech so I can clear some DC blob threshold, right? And so that four people from the counts on farm relations can put out statements saying that they welcome my reaffirmation of the U.S.-S.-Saudi strategic partnership. Morning Joe today endorsed the speech I gave.

I mean, I think what would be very interesting is who can find the way to connect the energy of the activist who won the Congress for us in 2018 and translate that into foreign policy positions. In other words, like, what is a way to make people feel like they're excited about a foreign policy platform? I think who can be bold and saying and laying out how they're going to end these wars, right? We're going to get out of Afghanistan. And no, we're not going to half get out. we're going to get out of Afghanistan. It's, you know, people are fighting there who were born after the war started. Like, it's time to bring that war to an end.

It's time to terminate our support for the Saudi War in Yemen. It's time to end our arms cells to Saudi Arabia. It's time to rethink our entire approach to the militarization of our foreign policy across the Middle East. It's time for a new authorization for the use of military force so that we're not in this endless war rooted in a law that was passed in 2002, right? So I think one piece of this is being unapologetic and having a vision for how we're going to wind down the wars. I think a second thing is is looking at the defense budget, right? Which, by the way, Democrats have been terrified to talk about every election cycle, right? Trump attacked his own budget on Twitter like two days ago, too.

Well, he's figured out that it's too high, but it's, I mean, I'll just give you one statistic. We're going to spend up to a trillion dollars modernizing our nuclear weapons infrastructure over the next decade. That's insane. We shouldn't be spending anywhere near that. And again, what if you took that money and spent on climate change? And you know what? Make the argument. Just make the argument.

We don't need all these Cold War era bombers that we're still building. We don't need to develop a new ICBM, right? We need to be preparing for the threat of climate change catastrophe, right? And so somebody's speaking to reallocating our priorities in comes to the defense budget and focusing on national security, but let's focus on our national security threats. And that's got to deal with a serious challenge from climate change. I'm not a big management consultant guy. But if you were to come down from outer space and look at what are the threats facing the United States and what do you spend money on,

we spend money to fight and we're not going to fight, and we don't spend money to prepare for the thing that is going to cause conflict and mass migration and huge national security challenges. So that's a second piece of this, is our budget, our priorities, how do we deal with climate? I think someone who can articulate what it means for America to promote democracy again and connect the fact that we have to get our democracy in our home, right? So getting rid of voter suppression, like assuring the right to vote in this country, is connected to preventing Russian interference in our election and having better cybersecurity around our elections and combating disinformation in our societies and dealing with the tech companies because it's a national security risk that you have foreign powers undermining our democracy. So someone who can tell a story about strengthening our democracy at home and then promoting democratic values abroad and standing up to the Saudi Arabia's of the world and standing up to Putin again. and once again trying to rally other countries for the things that we care about, right? So we could go down a whole list of other issues, but I think somebody who can find that,

that energy that people feel about, you know, we want to focus on the right priorities, the things that we actually care about. We want to restore our democracy. We want to have America stand for something again in the world. Someone who can touch that cord and not just check the boxes, I think will be someone who can make their farm policy message resonate. And, you know, we did that in 2008, but a lot of the United. but a lot of it was around the Iraq war

but it was also around diplomacy of the Rand. Remember, like you and Iowa, remember at first people thought that was a mistake and then being a winner because it was authentic. That's what I've been thinking about too. So there was a debate where Obama said that he would talk without preconditions to all kinds of bad people and bad places,

North Korea, Iran, Cuba, and that was treated not just by the Republican Party but by Washington, D.C. is the craziest thing ever spoken. And by the way, it worked out fine for Obama. Hillary Clinton implemented those policies and Donald Trump has continued them. So here we are. I'm wondering, like, what is that moment going to be?

What is that issue? Maybe it's unknowable, but I certainly, I would want to be doing exactly what you're talking about, which is how do we get people to give a shit about foreign policy? Because most of the time they don't. Iraq made it easy for us. But, you know, you need to organize around an issue and get people inspired by something. Yeah. And I don't, you know, it'll be interesting.

You know, people care about the wars. They care about sacrificing our moral authority. They care about our democracy. They care about climate change. I think the budget, the defense budget, is like this kind of thing that somebody could have a moment on, right? Because, you know, half the candidates would want to sound like, well, I think we should spend even more, you know, give the generals everything they need, you know. And somebody standing up and calling bullshit on that. Because that's what Obama did on the diplomacy with Iran is he's called bullshit.

It's like guys who tried not talking to them and they keep advancing their nuclear program. And people in Iowa appreciated that he was telling the truth, right? So I think whoever can find a moment where they call bullshit on some of these, you know, prescribed foreign policy positions, I think that would be a good moment for some. Yeah, me too. Well, I think we're about out of time, but in a minute we'll go to the interview with Kelly. And I'm very excited to preview the next week, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro. Oh, man.

A longtime friend of ours worked in the NSC. is going to be here in Los Angeles in studio with us. So we get to ask him all about BB getting indicted. His experience when he left the cocoon of the NSC to go spread his wings abroad and all kinds of other shit. Yeah, Dan, like every time for like four years was the man that BB would call him to chew out when Obama did something. Yeah, he's got to lit up. Bebe didn't have the guts off and, you know, would always call Obama, right? So he just kind of, I think, poor Dan had to take a lot of hits. But, you know, Dan spoke, we can talk to him the next time, but he became this kind of mini-celebrity.

He's beloved. Israel because he spoke perfect Hebrew. And even though he, you know, was controversial issues on Iran and stuff, he would always talk to Israeli people directly in the language they understood. So that would be fun. He's also just an impossibly nice guy. Yeah, the nicest guy. Ben, this has been fun.

Yeah. You talk next week? Yeah. And here's the conversation with Kelly Maxman. On the line from Washington, D.C. is Kelly Magsman, my friend and the vice president for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress. Kelly has worked at the NSC. She's worked at the Pentagon.

She's a friend of the pod. She's wicked smart, as we say, in Boston, Kelly. Great to talk to you again. Good to be back. So last week, Elizabeth Warren, Senator from Massachusetts, as long as we're doing accents here, gave what her team billed as a major foreign policy speech. I think we'll probably see some version of this

from every potential 2020 candidate going forward. So I reached out to you to ask the question, what do you want to hear from these folks? What do we want to hear in these speeches? What policy is what kind of language? What should Democrats be talking about? But before we get to that, I wanted to start a little more generically because every presidential candidate is told by some consultant along the way that they have to pass this, you know, ephemeral commander-in-chief test where some voter looks at you and decides, yes, I trust that person with the nuclear codes. I would argue that it's sort of an inherently sexist test because you're asking someone if this person looks like a president that came before. him or her and maybe that the election of a buffoon like Donald Trump over an obviously qualified person like Hillary Clinton kind of explodes that, you know, old argument. But do you think that there is some threshold that these candidates need to meet? Is there some speech you need to deliver before you're viewed as prepared to be president by the electorate? Yeah, I mean,

I think every candidate's going to have to come out with some sort of narrative for how they view the world and America's role in it over the next year. And I think, you know, the most compelling candidates are going to be the ones who can articulate a story about America and the world that connects, you know, foreign policy to the American people. I think the biggest, the biggest thing that we've seen with Donald Trump, and I think he tapped into something was he struck a nerve about how foreign policy wasn't working for, for Americans anymore. And I think that resonated. And so it'll be interesting to see how progressive candidates, especially Democrats, like Elizabeth Warren, position themselves on those issues, but also advance

a more mature foreign policy approach than we're seeing with the current administration. So it's going to be a balancing act between, you know, appealing to this sort of sense of America adrift, but also presenting a more positive and affirmative vision for fixing that going forward, more positive than Donald Trump. And I think, you know, frankly, I think they can do both. I think you can have an affirmative vision and still present a stark contrast to the Trump administration. Yeah, I mean, his foreign policy was kind of like the Middle East's disaster. Iraq was a disaster. This country's run by idiots.

The Iran deal was terrible. It was definitely more of a sort of tearing down of the establishment, which, you know, I get the appeal of that kind of message. But you're right. I mean, there has to be something proactive behind that as well. Yeah. And I think, you know, we've got a big opportunity coming up with the new Congress. I think House Democrats are going to have a chance to really potentially build the building blocks of that narrative.

in addition to doing all the national security oversight work that they're going to have to do on the wars, in addition to taking on the Trump administration's corruption both at home and abroad. But again, I think House Democrats have an opportunity, as well as Democratic presidential candidates, for building that narrative over the next year. And I think, you know, Elizabeth Warren was one of the first shots fired. And I think, you know, I think she, I think gave a decent outline of her worldview. I think she's going to have to get a lot more specific over the next year in terms of presenting some solutions. But she played to her brand, which is focusing on economic corruption and sort of corporate greed and how that transcends into the international space.

Yeah. So let's dig into Warren's speech for a little bit. And credit to her for sort of going first in this crop of maybe 2020 hopefuls. She delivered the speech in American University on November 29th. It was long. It was substantive. It seemed like an attempt to frame her foreign policy argument and worldview in a way that stresses her expertise, which is economic policy. And to make an argument that trade and economic inequality are key drivers of a lot of the challenges we face, both at home and abroad. And I think there is a lot of merit to that argument. The interesting thing to me was that sandwiched in the middle was language about bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan, some language

about cutting the Pentagon budget, some nuclear weapons policy. And so, you know, I get that you can't put everything into these speeches and those choices are sort of the hardest part sometimes. But it times seemed like a bit of a hodgepodge to me because there was this thoughtful, big economic argument, but there also wasn't like an ISIS plan. I don't think North Korea, Iran or Israel were mentioned. So she obviously has time to flesh that out. But, you know, the choices sort of surprised me, I guess. Yeah, I mean, I think it was definitely multiple speeches sort of arguing with each other into one. And, you know, I think, again, it's kind of our first shot out of the bag. I think, you know, the areas where I thought it was strong was, you know, some key themes. One is the importance of democratic values and defending our allies and our democracy at home and abroad. I think that's incredibly important. I think that's going to be a huge progressive theme in the national security space going forward. So I think she did do well there. I think, again, the economic piece I thought was good, although it needs to be fleshed out, where I think she, you know, missed an opportunity, and I think it's relevant to the wars piece, which is so important to progressives, as she didn't really articulate, A, how she would think about getting us out of the wars. But also, she didn't really talk about how she as commander in chief would use force or what her, you know, sort of thinking is and principles around use of force would be.

I think that's going to be a huge point of discussion over the next two years, and it could potentially present some contrasts. So I think there were some missed opportunities, but again, I think, like you said, she gets credit for coming out early. You know, she's the one, first one out of the gate, really, with Senator Sanders as well. And you always get sort of, you know, people take a lot of shots at you. So I think there's a lot more space for her to build on going forward. Yeah, you do get nitpick to death when you're early. So, I mean, if you were advising a candidate this cycle, what would you want him or her to talk about in their big foreign policy address and on the trail this year? Well, I'm really interested to hear candidates talk about how we're going to deal with the challenge of China.

You know, we really, as a nation, and this is frankly not even a superpartisan issue. I think, you know, as a nation, we need to get our act together. And I think the comparative advantage for Democrats is that, you know, we can leverage our, sort of domestic policy expertise to to address this challenge. Because I think, you know, most of it's going to be, most of competition with China is going to be about us and not them. It's going to be about how we make our economic model and our political model competitive with theirs over the next century. And that's going to require, you know, not just investments in high tech defense, but actually investments in our people. Our most, you know, competitive advantages actually

are the American people. And so it's going to be things like, you know, investments in college education, STEM education, you know, research and development, innovation. And I think that's where Democrats could really articulate a vision that connects what we need to do at home with what we need to do in foreign policy to compete with with China over the next century. So that's one big piece that I think has been missing so far in some of these discussions. That's interesting. And then I've also seen you write about and talk about rebalancing diplomacy and defense. How would you flesh out that, the need to right size those investments? Well, I think, you know, we've been making tremendous investments in defense over the last 17 years. And I think so much so that

President Trump is now attacking his own defense budget via tweet, which was a thing that was surprising this week. Exactly. I'll take it. So, you know, I think he's sort of making the case for us. I mean, you know, what we need to do is be thinking about what are the threats that we're facing for the next, you know, several decades. And are we spending the right amount of money? And also, are we spending it on the right things, which I think is actually far more important than the overall size of the budget? And I would argue that we've been spending a lot of money on defense in areas that are, frankly, you know, out of date and relatively irrelevant to, you know, the challenges of like a China or Russia. And so we've been spending a lot of money on a focused counterterrorism war, which I think

it's time for a big rethink on that. So, you know, that's where, you know, progresses and Democrats have a chance to really articulate a vision for a more sustainable defense strategy and budget that's actually going to, you know, a, deliver for the American security for the American people, but also be, like, you know, rational. So, and then, you know, what are the tools to keep us out of wars? And that's where I think Democrats can talk about the importance of diplomacy, investments in, you know, diplomatic resources, you know, foreign insecurity assistance, that's going to be, I think, a place where we should be focusing a lot of efforts as Democrats. And frankly, you know, President Trump has, you know, degraded the State Department significantly. Diplomacy is definitely undervalued in the

context of his foreign policy. So again, that presents a stark contrast. Yeah. And then I've also, you know, you've written about both for CAP and then for an op-ed you wrote with us on Crooked.com. You've talked about defending democracy at home and abroad. You want to elaborate on that at all? Yeah, I mean, listen, I think we are at the crux of a pretty significant challenge globally with the rise of authoritarianism. And I think how the choices we make today about how we position ourselves as the United States, but also working with our allies, is going to determine the shape of the global order for the next century. And it is about competing with China and Russia. And I think we need to get serious about strengthening our own democracy, but also strengthening the democracies of our own democracies of our.

friends and allies to basically push back on this authoritarian tide. And that's going to require us to do a lot of work. It's going to require us to build new networks and new coalitions globally. And I think, again, democratic values are something that, you know, should be an American value, but lately with the Republican Party has not been much of a value. And I think that's another space where we can fill going forward as Democrats. So, you know, I look back to to FDR gave a speech, a pretty famous one called the Four Freedom Speech. And, you know, that's the arsenal of democracy speech that everyone's familiar with. And it's really about connecting the strength of our own democracy and the strength of the democracies in the around the world together.

And I think that's essentially where we may be again, but that's going to require some pretty significant choices, both on the foreign policy side and on the domestic policy side, to ensure that we are able to continue to retain primacy. in the next century. Yeah. I mean, back to Warren's speech for a minute. I mean, I think, again, to compliment it, it was crystal clear on trade policy. She opposes Trump's NAFTA 2.0. She was very clear on what used to be a big debate back in 2009 in the beginning of the financial crisis, whether there should be austerity, you know, major budget cuts

and deregulation or, you know, stimulus and investment in economies that are struggling. I think she's very clear on nuclear policy. She was crystal clear on. Afghanistan. But ever since I read it, I've been trying to think about, you know, the same question I asked you what I'd want to see in one of these speeches. And you're right. I mean, there isn't like a big sense of big picture how I would use force when and where, if when you would use drones, for example. But I was also thinking about the broader problem every candidate has when they run in terms of talking about foreign policy, which is that 90% of the elector doesn't really

care as much as you want them to. And people don't pay attention. I'm like wondering about how to focus people in on Baitzai's discrete things and build a movement around it. So, for example, I've been so, so impressed with Chris Murphy and a bunch of senators who have built this coalition and movement behind cutting off U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition and war in Yemen. And I was wondering if there's a way you could call for like a diplomatic surge on human rights where you start talking about the State Department saying that there's 800,000 to couple of million Chinese Uyghurs being held in Chinese internment camps.

And in Burma, 700,000 Rohingya were pushed across the border into Bangladesh in what has been called a genocide. And like, I'd love to see a candidate go to a dozen college campuses and start encouraging kids to lobby the way they did for, you know, the saved R4 movement or, or other examples of like, you know, youth-based grassroots movements that really shows that, you know, you care about certain issues, you're focusing on specific discrete things, and then trying to like build a coalition around it. I mean, I do think there's, I mean, you've already seen a lot of foreign policy activism, just like you said. I mean, there's a lot of energy behind

ending the war in Yemen. I think the challenge will be that, you know, ending the war in Yemen is going to require a lot more than cutting off American assistance to Saudi Arabia. It's going to require a level of diplomatic strategy that, frankly, the current administration isn't executing. And And so you're right. I mean, I think if you look around the world at all those sort of intractable problems, whether it's Yemen, whether it's Syria, whether it's Burma and the Rohingya, or whether it's China and the Uighurs, you know, leading with our values and leading with diplomacy is going to be essential for actually solving these issues. And it's not, you know, security and military force is not the answer to these problems, you know. And I think the American people get that. I mean, one thing you can definitely sense is this. fatigue for American engagement. I think that's primarily around the Middle East, but I think it bleeds into a broader fatigue about the world. And so I think it's going to be really important for any candidate to be able to articulate, like, why does foreign policy matter? Like, what are we trying to do with it? Right. Like, what is the world that we're trying to build and live in? And

how do we do that in a way that actually advances our interests and our values? Yeah. And the values pieces is what's currently missing. And I think that's a place that we need to do more work on. Yeah, I agree. Because when I think back to 2007, 2008, it was easy to draw a distinction in the Democratic primary on who was for or against the Iraq war. And that certainly helped foreign policy rise to the forefront in a lot of voters' minds. But I don't know what the equivalent issue is today. I don't know if there is one. Well, it's interesting. I mean, I was in Texas, actually, over the weekend at a conference University of Texas, and Senator Sass actually gave a speech on foreign policy. And I don't necessarily agree with everything Senator Sass says as a Democrat. But he did make one really important point, which was that we don't have a story for the American people on national security that's compelling and that the nation can rally up behind. And I think that that is.

any candidate can tell a story and present a vision for taking America forward that's positive and affirmative and compelling and genuine is going to be the one that prevails. Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, Senator Sass, Republican from Nebraska, not someone I agree with much either. But he's right. And I also think, like, if you look at polling, I do think people want to feel like America is respected and valued and appreciated around the world and telling that story is a key piece of that. Yeah.

I mean, right now I feel like Donald Trump's foreign policy is just about tearing up deals, taking our toys and going home, closing our borders, saying everyone is out to get us, that there is no common good, that there is no common purpose for, you know, democracy in America and the world. And I think that that's wrong. And I think most Americans, if you talk to them, would think that that's wrong if you had a real conversation with them about it. So I think a positive, you know, less, you know, scary vision of the world and our role in it is going to be what compels people. I agree with you. Kelly, thank you so much for talking to me about this. I think one of these many candidates out there working on a speech would be smart to give you a ring. You know, I don't mean to create more work for you.

All 35 of them. Yeah, right. All 200 people running for president on the Democratic side. Might get a little busy. They need your help. Kelly, thank you again. Keep up the great work at Cap and talk to you soon. All right. See you, buddy. Bye.