Pod Save the World - The Pope’s peace talks

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

Tommy and Ben talk about the ongoing crisis in Sudan, the Pope’s visit to Hungary, the upcoming coronation of King Charles and Prince Harry’s lawsuits against Rupert Murdoch. Then Ben and Tommy discuss the approaching elections in Turkey, the UAE’s influence in the US, the South Korean President’s karaoke moment at the White House and Ron DeSantis’s embarrassing trip abroad. Then Tommy talks to Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics Mike Pyle on securing technological advances domestically, investments in green energy and the need for a unified approach to China with US allies. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

Welcome back to Pots Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, I was in Florida over the weekend. You're in Germany now. You know, basically the same thing, right? Smaller vibes. Slightly different political vibes. Boka and Berlin. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I'm here with our old boss. We did a, we just did a two and a half hour roundtable with young leaders. It was kind of inspiring, actually. How many, how many leaders? We had 18 from like across Europe, people trying to do the right thing, trying to do the right thing, to fix things that are broken. So that made you feel a little bit better about things. That's cool. So 18 kids from across. When you say young, like what's young these days? I mean, actually, like, young is like in your 30s, right? Like, these are people, like we had like a member of the European Parliament. We've got people fighting corruption and hungry. We've got people. We've had a couple of pots of the world guests. Nice. The woman who does, Hannah, who runs a Green New Deal in

the UK. Like, we had some good mix of activists and people in politics. It was great. Excellent. That's a great group. I wish, uh, next time let's just bring the mic to the roundtable. I know. I was singing that. Like, a good number of them said that to me. We had some worldos in the in the crowd today. So like, it's not a bad idea. Next time we'll just stream the whole thing. Well, we have a great show. We're a great show for everyone today. We're going to keep talking about this ongoing crisis in Sudan, how the Pope is trying to make peace in Ukraine. Really interesting story over the weekend about his travels to Budapest. King Charles's coronation is coming. up. There's an old but new phone hacking scandal for Rupert Murdoch, a big election, set of elections in

Turkey, the latest on the Pentagon Discord leaks. A star was born, Ben, at the Korean state visit in Washington. And then Ron DeSantis's foreign trip seems to have gone a little south. That's the window from here. I think that's fair to say. I heard you guys kind of deliver a few like body blows on Potsie of America. I'm happy to try to finish off Ronda Santis. Are you saying he hasn't electrified Germany in the press over there? Not exactly. No, it's not like a lingering sense of – it's funny. Actually, I'm staying in the hotel that we stayed at during the 2008 foreign trip when Obama spoke to like 250,000 people here.

And let's just say that there's not a similar vibe that Ron DeSantis left behind here. There's more like a stench. Ron DeFandis, he could get 25 people at the Brandon Bergade, not 200,000. Well, that's the new section for us. And then you will hear my interview with President Biden. Biden's deputy national security advisor, Mike Pyle, about the Biden administration's international economic agenda. There was a very interesting speech that Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, gave.

Was that last week? It feels like a million years ago. Yeah, yeah. laid out their whole sort of international economic agenda in a smart way. So we're going to talk about that. But Ben, let's start in Sudan because the situation there seemed to be getting worse by the day. As we discussed last week, there has been this power struggle between the Sudanese military, led by General Abd al-Bahata al-Burnham

in a paramilitary force called the RSF, led by another general known as Hemeti. This has turned into an all-out civil war. Over the past several days, there have been some partial ceasefires that have helped people escape the cities and escape some of the fighting, but have not really been ceasefires.

I mean, there's been, you know, like literally airstrikes and Khartoum during the ceasefires, so it's still incredibly unsafe. The World Health Organization says that at least 500 civilians have been killed in the fighting. That is almost certainly a drastic undercount. At least 50,000 people have left Sudan since the fighting started. And the UN Assistant High Commissioner for refugees said they are planning for a scenario where up to 815,000 people flee Sudan into its

neighboring countries. So that's just a massive exodus. Millions are still trapped in Khartoum. Reuters reported that some people have even walked 250 miles to South Sudan to escape the fighting. most others are getting out by taking a very dangerous 500-mile drive. So the port of Sudan, where they then can escape via boat if they're lucky. The U.S. is organized at least three convoys to help evacuate over 1,000 U.S. citizens from Sudan. The Saudi government is also evacuating a ton of people. I think they've gotten 5,000 people out of many different nationalities. That obviously does nothing for the Sudanese people who are trapped in them nowhere to go.

And the New York Times reported that Sudan's health care system is on the brink of collapse. The World Food Program said 16% of the food it had stockpiled in the country has been stolen, and that wasn't enough to begin with to feed the population that's already struggling because of a bunch of failed rainy seasons. So, you know, the latest is Hamedi told Western media that, you know, the military is being controlled by Islamist leaders. He says that he and the RSF believe in democracy and civilian control of the government. I think we have a lot of reasons to be skeptical of those sorts of claims from a warlord.

But fingers crossed that maybe that will, you know, lead him to negotiate. and do something decent. The former Sudanese Prime Minister, Abdullah Hamdok, said that he warned that the war could turn out worse than Syria and Libya because this is not a war between an army and a small rebellion. It is almost like two armies, was his quote. And he's right. These are two, like, incredibly well-armed armies. So before we started recording, Ben, the UN top envoy in Sudan said the two sides have agreed to negotiate finally. I'm just curious if you're seeing any signs that you're reading in the press or anywhere else that those talks are real this time, have a hope of succeeding or are these going to be kind of on again, off again ceasefires?

I mean, I think it feels really bad, Tommy. I mean, you summarized it well. I mean, first of all, the only thing that, as you pointed out, the only thing that seems to kind of diminish the fighting for periods of time is like coordinated evacuations of foreigners. Yeah. Which on the one end, it's good that, you know, there is a capacity to like, you know, pull a lever and reduce levels of violence and to coordinate with both of these sides. And, you know, to get people out. The bad thing about that in a way is there's almost like a feeling that the foreigners are leaving so that the civil war can kind of go on, you know, that like they know that they're getting ready for like a really intense and protracted civil war. And so they're kind of

allowing for foreigners to get out of the way so that that's not an element that they have to worry about. So that concerns me. The other thing that concerns me is that if you listen to the rhetoric from the two sides, like it's kind of zero sum, right? So, hecometti, the kind of warlord who, you know, controls upwards 100,000 people in arms, including like remnants of the John Deweed militias that carried out the genocide in Darfur. You know, he's talking about, you know, the army being fatally compromised by this Islamist presence. It has echoes and nothing's like a direct parallel, but it's kind of like has these echoes of Libya, where you had, you have a warlord Heftar in Libya, who was also backed by the

Emirates in the same way that they've backed this guy in Sudan, taking on Islamists. And then you have a military that, you know, there's nothing that suggests that the Sudanese military wants to relinquish its control over the state. So it's kind of zero sum for both sides, because if one side concedes to the other, you have to think that's it for them in Sudanese politics. and it just feels like this is heading in a bad direction. And honestly, like those estimates, usually, you know, they can end up being on the low end. So 800,000 could be like a floor.

Now, hopefully that's not the case. Hopefully there's a ceasefire that can hold and lead to a political process. But like right now, I think if we're looking at this candidly, it does not look good. Yeah. And it's just the suffering is just compounding because Sudan has been a place that is, I think, taken in a lot of refugees from places like Yemen. and these individuals are now being driven out sort of anywhere they can go. And, you know, a million refugees flowing into any country could be destabilizing, but, you know,

flowing into a neighbor like Libya or Chad or South Sudan, you know, countries that have been sort of struggling on their own, in part because of these five or six failed rainy seasons in the Horn of Africa. Like that seems completely unsustainable. It's also interesting that the U.S. went from a little more of a defensive position about like sort of their ability or inability or willingness to help get refugees out to leading all these convoys. I know I know what Jake Sullivan was saying when he was talking about the U.S. obligation to essentially rescue people from a civil war was that like we can't like send in the military and get them out, but that we would try to help them.

But it does seem like they've really sort of turned up the dial on getting folks out in the last week or two. No, they have. I mean, what's also clear is, I mean, I've heard from a few people that are either in Sudan or have family there and like everybody wants to leave, right? So this connects to the first question because, you know, the people who kind of have the best sense of this are the people that are like living in the middle of it. And the people that are living in the middle of this want to get the hell out of Sudan, you know, whether they're American citizens or have U.S. green card status or whether

they're just Sudanese who want to get out. And so I think the U.S. is responding to an enormous demand to get out. And so whatever structure you can put around that, this is not like military style evacuations like in Afghanistan. So the conversation we had last week holds in that the U.S. is not like they're militarily evacuating these people, but they can try to help facilitate evacuation routes, try to help with processing paperwork and vehicles and that kind of thing. And it's it's pretty clear that like, you know what, like people don't want to stick around. And that tells you what the mood must feel like in Khartoum, which is. that people are hunkering down for a long conflict.

Yeah, absolutely terrifying. Hopefully some of these peace talks work and work quickly. Speaking of peace talks, Ben, so Pope Francis on Sunday said that the Vatican is working on a secret mission to stop the war between Russian Ukraine. You revealed this to the Vatican Press Corps on a flight home from this three-day trip he took to Budapest, where Pope Francis discussed the war with Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, and a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church in Budapest. previously the Vatican has helped facilitate prisoner exchanges between the two sides so i think there is some sort of

you know like previous work to build on while in hungry pope francis gave a speech to a crowd that included orban where he called on listeners to welcome migrants here's a quote how sad and painful it is to see closed doors the closed doors of our selfishness with regard to others the closed doors of our individualism amid a society of growing isolation the closed doors of our indifference towards the underprivileged and those who suffer the doors be closed towards those who are foreign or unlike us towards migrants or the poor. Pretty direct shot at Victor Orban's immigration policies. Unfortunately, but I don't know if you saw this in New York Times was there for the speech. They interviewed a bunch of Hungarians in the audience about the speech and sort of like their

reaction to it. And a lot of them didn't really view it as a shot at Orban at all and generally seemed to support Orban's immigration policies and said, well, the fact that the Pope has been here three times now suggests that he really likes Orban. So a little dispiriting. I don't know, what did you make of this high wire diplomas here by Pope Francis? The whole thing was, this was really interesting to me, Tommy, because, like, Francis was clearly balancing the fact that he knows that going to Hungary validates Orban in a way. You know, Orban can sit there and there's the image of Francis coming to him.

As you pointed out with the people in the audience, like, the main thing that's sick with most people is just that Francis is there and he's there again. And you have a substantial Catholic population there. And Orban has cast himself as a kind of Christian nationalist, right? So Christianity is pretty central to the way in which Orban has built his political movement there, like a return to traditional Christian values, et cetera, et cetera. Now, clearly Francis thought, I balanced this out by like taking some shots. And he called out nationalism, he called out the immigration policy, like you said. And look, I think that matters to an extent.

But, you know, Orban also kind of controls the media there, right? So if you're watching, like, television in Hungary, you're probably seeing the video of Francis kind of meeting with Orban and shaking his hand or whatever. And you're not really hearing, you're not hearing the messages that he delivered. The only thing that I can think is that there's a history in Eastern Europe of the Catholic Church playing a kind of subversive role, right? Like so Pope John Paul, who was Polish famously, you know, was like critical to the anti-communism movement of the 80s. like the question is whether Francis's message reaches down through the church locally and like reaches people in that way. And so in that way, it's kind of a longer game by Francis. But I think Orban's probably pretty comfortable with the visit for now. It does seem like Francis is getting

older, right? He's had some health issues. And it seems like he's really trying to like address his legacy and trying to like, he's speaking more openly and forthrightly about these issues. Because again, he was pretty outspoken in what he said about nationalism and migration. The thing that jumps out, of course, is this kind of reference to peace talks. And I don't know, I mean, I, as someone who, like, dealt with the Vatican diplomatically, like, they were the third party and our normalization of relations with Cuba. Like, I have tremendous respect for their capacity to be kind of a neutral party mediator. And over the years, Francis has tried to build up ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, which is very close to Putin. But at the end of the day,

Putin controls the Russian Orthodox Church. They've kind of become lackeys of him. And so I think... And there are commentary about Ukraine has been pretty bloodthirsty, I think, in the past. Let's just say not exactly like the men of the cloth that you and I would have justifying like war crimes, right?

So like I think in the short term or media infirm, even like the best this could do is kind of, you know, like you said, prisoner exchanges, like facilitating kind of humanitarian type agreements between different sides. It's like the notion of the Vatican actually brokering like a peace deal like seems pretty, pretty far-fetched to me at this point. But hey, you know, like there's no reason not to try.

Yeah, I respect the hell out of Pope Francis for trying. As you said, I think he's like 86 years old. He just had some health issues. So it's like amazing that he's out there taking these visits. I also saw Ben that there was a Russian oil depot in Crimea that went boom. The Ukrainians said that they hit it with the drone, I think, in preparation for this spring counteroffensive that we've all been waiting for for a while. It seems like maybe it'll start in May. Maybe it'll be a summer offensive and it'll slip to June. I mean, I think listening to some

military experts, it seems like from a Ukrainian perspective, the longer they wait, the more time they have to get stuff like, you know, American tanks and German tanks into the country. So unfortunately for, you know, these peace talk efforts, it seems like we're about to see the war ramp up, not ramp down. Yeah, I think there's no way on earth that there's any substantive peace talks before this Ukrainian offensive. I mean, there's just so much has been building to it, so much momentum. You know, first of all, the Ukrainians are currently taking a position that they're not going to negotiate until Russia is completely out of their territory, right, including Crimea. I think at a minimum, there's no way the Ukrainians would want to enter in any negotiation without taking

back a pretty good chunk of additional territory that Russia's claimed, right? So particularly, like, breaking, you know, that land bridge between eastern Ukraine and Crimea, so southern Ukraine around like Mariupil, they're not going to want to sit down and have peace talks having lost territory since the Russian invasion. So everything is kind of waiting for this offensive. I do think like, you know, we, you and I were like going back and forth on the Atlantic piece about this where Jeffrey Goldberg and Applebaum sat with Zonski and kind of the senior Ukrainian leadership. What was interesting about that is that they, their rhetoric in that piece was, hey, we're not even going to need to take Crimea.

Like there are going to be these kind of, you know, one-off strikes and we're going to so decisively beat Russia in other places that Crimea will naturally kind of, you know, fall back into our sovereignty. You never know what's disinformation. And I don't mean this in like a negative sense. Like if I was Ukrainians, if I was Ukrainians, I would be telegraphing that the offensive's coming

in precisely the place that it's not, you know, which is what they did last time, right? they said they were going to do a major offensive in Kyrsone and then they did this lightning offensive in the north around Kharkiv. I only say that to make the point that like, we don't know whether Crimea is in their crosshairs right now or not. And they have every reason, and I support it, to kind of confuse this all about what they're going to do. That's funny. You said that. I've not read that long Atlantic piece yet because it's, it's hefty. But I had the same thought, I had the same thought when I saw them say, oh, yeah, we struck this oil depot in Crimea as part of our counteroffensive. I was

like, huh, is this a head fake? Yeah. Is this a real deal? Is this just hitting supplies? Like, I don't know. We'll all find out. We'll find out when we find out. Exactly.

Yeah, we'll find out. Speaking of big events coming up, Ben, the coronation of King Charles III will happen this Saturday, May 6th at Westminster Abbey. That is a spot where coronations have taken place since the year, 1066. I mean, it's a long time. That's long time. So I scroll through about 42 pages of the details that they released. The Archbishop of Canterbury released about the events.

event. It's going to be quite a quite an event for, you know, an audience of I think 2,000 people in the room, millions more watching on TV. The last coronation was of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, so it's been a minute. British citizens have been invited to formally participate in the service by reciting from home as they watch on television, a new homage of the people, which goes as follows, quote, I swear that I will pay true allegiance to your majesty and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God. So fun, lucky them for getting to say that out loud. For the first time, female bishops and members of other faiths will participate in the service. That's cool. The king and queen will literally travel back to Bukhian Palace from the coronation

in a 200-year-old gilded horse-drawn carriage called the Gold State Coach. One challenge for King Charles to be and the future of the monarchy is that polling suggests that most British citizens don't really care about the coronation. UGov did a poll that found 64% of British adults surveyed had little or no interest in the ceremony. Prince Harry will be attending Megan Markle will not. Ben, what's your take on this event? You're a royal correspondent here.

How important do you think this is to when it comes to maintaining support for the monarchy in the UK? And do you plan on tuning in to like, what, 3 a.m. Pacific time when it starts? So first of all, as part of my royal correspondent duty, on my way out here to Europe, I had a layer over in Newark

and I hit the United Club Lounge bar, you know? And they had a Coronation Special. Come on. No, they did. It was called like the Coronation Special and it was like a PIMS Cup, right, if you ever had those.

They'll love this. They're pretty delicious, actually. But what was funny is like the bartender, like somebody asked for a coronation special and the poor woman is a bartender, right, who doesn't even like really get tipped, right? Because she's the bartender in the club.

It's like, what the hell is that? Like, she like turned to somebody else and like, what the hell is Corna? Like, Corna? And they're like, oh, it's the king, the new king in England. And like, nobody had any idea. Like, clearly some like mastermind of like the United lounges was like, we don't have a course. Nobody knew what this thing was, you know?

Let's just say that like that would not have been the case with Charles and Dinah's wedding or with like Queen Elizabeth. but it's coronation like I just don't think people around the world are waiting with bated breath for the coronation of King Charles versus point. Especially not in Newark. Yeah, especially not Newark, right? Let's be clear. Drink a fucking beer, kid.

Yeah, they just get a beer. The second thing is there's a cost of living crisis in the UK, right? Like inflation is a pain in the ass to people like, I don't know that the 200-year-old gilded carriage is like the way to connect with the people amidst the cost of living crisis. So they're going to have to be... Do they mention that it's air conditioned? Because it is. There you go.

Like, they're going to have to be a little careful here in knowing the rules. They're probably not going to be that careful in, in like the lavish kind of opulence of their subsidized lives is going to be on display. So, like, there are risks here, too. Like, they're probably looking at the upside, right? Like, everybody feels this pride and this connection to history that goes back 1066. And a lot of Brits will feel that. Like, we saw this when Queen Elizabeth died. Like, there's a weird, like, connection.

obviously the monarchy that's hard for us to understand it's Americans. I have to think some people are going to look at this so and be like, how much does this cost? You know, like this seems like a little extravagant. Now, what's in it for them is you don't get that many moments to try to like break through and connect with the public. And so how this goes, how Charles comports himself, how, you know, Harry, whether he shows up and talks to his brother, like everybody's going to watch all this stuff very closely, let's just say that if they screw this up, like, they don't get another shot at it, you know? So I actually think there's like some stakes involved here, you know? Yeah, not until his funeral. It is, imagine just being your Australian and you're like, one day you wake up and now King Charles

is the head of state for Australia. You're like, wait, what? How are we still doing this? This guy's the head of state? I mean, look, I, and it's no disrespect to Charles. He's like, you know, has admirable qualities. But like, I keep looking at like the British pounds I have, like Queen Elizabeth all over the money. I'm like, is, is Charles going to be on all this money? Like, how are people going to feel about that? Like, yeah, how are people in Canada and Australia are going to feel about him being the head of state? I mean, I really do, and again, it's not a shot at this guy. I mean, the queen had some other stuff going for above all that she'd kind of been around forever. I do wonder whether more Commonwealth countries are going to go, you know, the way of

their own exit, not Brexit, but like a monarchy exit. I think we might see. see the next five years or so, some more countries be like, eh, you know, we might move to not have the monarch of the UK be our head of estate. Yeah. And by the way, if you want much more on probably a lot smarter commentary on things going on in the UK, politics in the UK, check out Pod Save the UK. Subscribe now. The official launch is May 4th.

But the host, Nish Kumar and Coco Khan, they recorded a special episode, Ben, with me, Fabro and Love it. I saw it. So they could just basically, they talk. us hilarious British slang like chat shit get banged did you heard that before yeah I I first of all those people are really like not only are they like smart but they they're really funny and uh so funny yeah I I love British slang but I had not heard that I mean chat shit get banged I mean I and you know where I come from that that has some other meetings that you know um but uh like yeah totally

people need to check this out because these are the right people to host this show like I'm really excited that like we have such amazing host doing that some people are calling Nish and Coco, the greatest British export since Love Island. So, you know, stay tuned for that. By some people, I mean me. Ben, so speaking of the royal family, I noticed that there was a recent court filing where Prince Harry alleged that Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper group had paid, quote, a huge sum of money to Prince William back in 2020 to settle a cell phone hacking case,

presumably of William's phone at some point along the way. Harry's bringing this case against the Sun newspaper and other tabloids for hacking into his voicemail at some point. Listeners might recall that back in the day, the son hacked and released voicemail messages between Prince Charles and his then mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles when they were having an affair. I will spare you the details of some of the most atrocious, awkward, dirty talk you've ever heard. In the history of humanity. I mean, rereading it, I was just like, Jesus Christ. I can't. I wrote it out and I deleted it.

Yeah. But it was interesting to read about that case, knowing that he's going to the coronation. And then to read a report in Semaphore that Rupert Murdoch had called Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky earlier this year. Lachlan Murdoch spoke to Zelensky too. There was some speculation about whether he discussed Tucker Carlson's views on the war. That got him fired. Semaphore said they did not. But anyway, the whole thing was just it was weird.

It was a throwback. What's old is new again. Murdox's in the news. is just odd. First of all, the whole concept that they, like, basically is a business model, like, hacking in people's voicemails is insane. Like, that's just something like, you know, like a lot of the ugliness in British media, thanks to Rupert Murdoch has, like, crossed the pond over here to the U.S., but, like,

like, that, not that I'm aware of in the hacking voicemails thing, but, like, the Zelensky thing did jump out to me. And it's the kind of thing that, like, drives me fucking crazy about Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch as the kind of, you know, Kendall Roy CEO bros in charge now because every now and then you'll see these stories like, oh, Rupert of Murdoch didn't like, you know, Trump's election denials and Rupert of Murdoch is uncomfortable with like, you know, the stance that people on Foxchigan and Ukraine. Well, like, you fucking own Fox News, bro.

So like if you really wanted to change this, like you could do something other than calling Zelensky and telling him like you're with him, right? Like, what would be more important to Zelensky in the Ukrainians is to not let a bunch of like America first like nativist xenophobic isolationist garbage be on your airways all day. And like, sure, firing Tucker Carlson's like a first step, but we all know that's like a drop in the bucket of what needs to happen at Fox. So like the fact that, I don't know, the fact that Murdoch felt compelled enough to like join the kind of cavalcade of celebrities and CEOs who like go kiss to Zelensky.

Rewing tells you that he felt kind of pure pressure in his own circles to like do this outreach. But I don't for a minute think that it means that Rupert Murdoch would ever put Ukrainian sovereignty and lives over his bottom line, you know? Yeah, no, I totally get to. It was just a very strange conflict events. I wonder what more we're going to learn if Prince Harry goes through with this case because it seems like Harry's in a place where he's not looking for a big settlement. He's looking to punish these papers.

I have to say, like if there's something, you have to say for Harry, like, he's just willing to burn it all down, you know? And I do think his rage is, like, well targeted at the uglier aspects of tabloid media, you know, like, yeah, for sure. And if I were advising him, what I'd say, too, is like, don't, like, focus, don't attack the entire media, you know, like, because sometimes he slips into this, like, everybody who's in the, in the media, everybody who's a journalist, like he is, like in his crosshairs. Like, no, pick the egregious examples of tabloid filth, like voicemail hackers and just go all in against those guys, you know, because he'll get the attention if he does it and hopefully it can curb the excesses in like

what is legitimately a gross tabloid culture in the UK. With Trex, you get the most of everything, the most wood inspired, the most eco-friendly, the most decking and railing designs, the most trusted. Trex, performance engineered for your life outdoors. Visit Trex.com today. So, Ben, Turkey has a presidential and parliamentary elections coming up on May 14th. President Taiyip Erdogan is hoping for a coronation like his buddy King Charles, but he's facing a tough challenge from this kind of low-key opposition candidate named Kamal Kiliqshhtarulu. Erdogan is facing general political headwinds that are pretty serious.

Turkey was hit with this catastrophic earthquake in February. The government response was abysmal. that came on top of runaway inflation that reached as high as 85% in Turkey. Erdogan has been around, he's been president since 2014. He was prime minister from 2003 to 2014. He was the mayor of Istanbul in the late 90s. So he's been the face of Turkish politics for a very long time. He owns these political problems in a big way.

And the coalition of opposition parties that oppose him argue that he has harmed Turkey's democracy and the economy by basically being authoritarian. and they want to, they have promised to return Turkey to a parliamentary system and undo this power grab Erdogan executed in 2018 to give himself more control. So, you know, these two candidates are very different. Erdogan, he's like, you know, been this on the scene for decades in power. He's seen as authoritarian. He's pissed off a bunch of other countries in the region by supporting Islamist parties. Kiliš de Rulu is this former economist kind of low-key guy with a record of as a corruption fighter who's trying to hold together a weird, motley, diverse coalition of these six opposition parties.

If elected, he's promised only to serve one term. So obviously, this election is important for Turkey's future. It's important for NATO. It's potentially important for the European Union. On Sunday, Erdogan announced that Turkey's intelligence forces had killed the leader of ISIS in Syria. This was very random and weird. He made this announcement after being off the campaign trail for a few days with some illness. He described his stomach flu.

But Ben, you know, this opposition coalition reminds me a little bit of the unsuccessful effort to defeat Victor Orban and Hungary. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. How are you feeling about the odds of this, of this Erdogan losing here? No, that's so interesting you said that because there are a lot of commonalities, right? So the Hungarian opposition decided to pool all the parties behind one person. And the person they chose was kind of, yeah, low-key, like not a hugely charismatic figure. It was more like, let's return to democracy. that's returned to normalcy. Right. And that seemed like an interesting idea, and it totally didn't work. And so here, I guess the bet is like Erdogan's been around for even longer than Victor Orban, right?

So the bet may be like there's just more fatigue with Erdogan. Keep in mind that like the structural challenges to the system that this guy is talking about, like the return to democracy, Erdogan came up as prime minister, back when being prime minister used to be the most powerful role in the Turkish government. He then changed the constitution essentially to make the presidency the most powerful office when he became president. And so he's completely rigged this system to suit himself. And he's like caused like there's a little bit more negative impact on ordinary Turks and even Hungarians have experienced in the sense that like there's just been this insane runaway inflation largely because of mismanagement.

This isn't like the normal European cost of living crisis. This is like Erdogan. doing crazy shit with the economy. So I guess the bet is Erdogan is more autocratic. He's been around for longer. People are more tired of him. The economy's really in the shitter. And if we just had this kind of guy that can unite these different factions, present himself as like basically the opposite of Erdogan.

He's not a cult of personality. He's like a more reserved personality who will return things to democracy. That that might pull things together. And like this, keep in mind, like this is a coalition that's going to include everybody. from kind of like the Istanbul, cosmopolitan types to like Kurdish voters who are like obviously turned off by Erdogan's approach in those areas. You know, it's worth a shot. I do, I kind of just feel like the hungry example, which kind of sits in my mind just because we followed that election closely, is like you might want a little more kind of charisma and

energy from the opposition, like, you know, a little more vision articulated for the future. but it's going to be a real choice for Turks. I mean, they can see where Erdogan's leading them. It's not great. There's this person basically pledging to, like, unite the rest of the country who are not Erdogan deadenders and a return to democracy. And, you know, it'll be a real test.

I mean, the test one is, does Erdogan allow for a free election or do we see kind of incidents of fraud or intimidation or efforts to control the outcome? Then the second thing is just like whether this kind of, of message can work, you know, because it didn't work in Hungary, but obviously Turkey's quite different country than Hungary. Yeah, fingers crossed, and we'll be watching this one in our next couple of weeks. A few more updates, Ben, on the hundreds of documents leaked onto the social media site, Discord by an Air National Guardsman named Jack Tashara. So we now have learned that Tashara's job and that the job of about 1,200 people on his base in Massachusetts

was to support the Pentagon's drone programs around the world, a bunch of outlaw. A bunch of outlets did deep dives into Tashara's job and how the military drone program has expanded since 9-11, where there were about, I think, 200 drones in service in 2001 to 11,000 in the U.S. military in 2019 when Tashire joined, and how the Air National Guard units like the 102nd Second Fighter Wing in Massachusetts now are more actively in support of that drone program. So in short, 9-11 and the global war on terror is why Tashira had access to the materials that he, leaked. We know that for sure. In terms of the reporting on the leaked documents themselves, the Washington Post ran a piece about how the U.S. found evidence that the Chinese government

was continuing construction on a military facility in the United Arab Emirates, despite the UAE claiming to have halted it because of U.S. concerns. This information was part of this, like, I think, a broader intel report on China's efforts to build military bases overseas. The concern is that, you know, China could use these installations to monitor or interfere with U.S. naval movements or whatever. I think the Chinese respond, like, hey, you guys have hundreds of bases abroad. We're trying to have like five. Can everyone chill out, please?

But anyway, no surprise there. But Ben, stepping back, like, it is fascinating to me how often the UAE is popping up in these leaks so far. The reputation that the UAE has bought in Washington with investments by buying lots of arms, by having kind of a glitzy ambassador who knows everyone in Morning Joe and throws parties. It's very different than the reality that's being laid out in these documents. It's notable. Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, first of all, the drone thing is interesting because to me, like, it explains a lot,

and you're right, like, there's a war on terror origin story here. And just to be clear, like, not all these drones are like the drones that people have in their minds that take out terrorists. I mean, we do a ton of, you know, surveillance, reconnaissance in the air with drones. Right. Yeah, most are unarmed. But I still like don't understand why that would require this guy to be like reading essentially General Millie's briefing book. So it's still like an unanswered question to me.

Like there's just got to be a way to compartmentalize these systems. But the UA thing is like super noteworthy to me because part of what, again, we are learning from these leaked documents is what are the priorities of the U.S. Intelligence community. And those priorities reflect things that they're seeing that like worry them. You know, like, so back when I was an intelligent consumer, you were an intelligence consumer. Like, if something, you could kind of tell something was wrong somewhere if you started to get like a lot of intelligence reports about it. It's like, this is their way of warning you. Like, hey, this is not going in the right direction.

And everything we're seeing from this UAE stuff is suggesting that they're just not on the level, you know, that because it's a Chinese building, it's a Chinese building a military installation. It's the Russians thinking they can literally enlist the Emirates to their side. and spying on the United States. These are not like small deviations from Washington Farm Policy. And we pointed this out before, but like the point is there's a massive influence operation from the Emirates on the American establishment and the American elite. And it's every faction of that elite, right? So it's American businesses that like investments from the Emirati sovereign wealth fund

and the fact that the Emirates are liquid. They can put a lot of money in all kinds of things. It's the American national security establishment that when people are out of government, they do lucrative consulting gigs for the Emirates or they do lucrative speaking gigs in the Emirates. And it's, as you point out, like, go look at like the history of, you know, who is spotted in political playbook. You will find the Emirati ambassador in Washington frequently in, you know, Cafe Milano, you know, like the kind of gross Georgetown hangout of the Washington elite. or like throwing birthday parties for like American media personalities, or I'm sure he was all over the Washington Correspondent Center. And like there's just such a coziness and chumminess between the American establishment and the Emirates.

And meanwhile, underneath the hood, while that's happening, the Chinese are building like military bases, or at least what could become military bases. And the Russians feel like they have a potential partner in the Emirates. Like something is happening here. The intelligence community seem to be trying to war. warn policymakers of this and it will be interesting to see like what becomes of this information being public or whether it just kind of conveniently gets kind of, you know, cast aside by people in Washington who don't want to believe that the Emirates are anything other than, you know,

the people that throw nice parties and say the right things and, you know, like we build up into these close partners and allies. It reminded me of a funny story. I was so bad at interacting with that kind of like cool, more adult class of people that I actually got seated. One of the years I went to the White House Correspondence Center was like 2010. I think me and Favro went with like Politico. We happened to be at the same table.

And I think we were supposed to be seated around Yusuf Ali Taiba, the ambassador of the UAE. And we switched the place cards so that we could like sit on our own in the corner and just like slam drinks instead of talking to this guy. which is a very childish thing to do, but I don't regret it at all. Especially because he was hugely, like, I mean, I said to Yusuf Tai by who I got to know. He did not like about, but I remember saying them at one point because I think this is an important point. Like, I kind of don't blame him, right? Like, that's his job, right? He's very good at his job.

Yeah, I said to him once, because I used to get these arguments in them, but I'm like, you're doing your job and you're doing it really well. Like, it's on us. It's on Americans. Like, of course foreign ambassadors want to come here and, like, get build influence, right? So this is like, ultimately this comes back to whether like people in Washington care more about, like, you know, preserving a certain social scene than they care about national interest. You know, let's go. And we also, the press square obviously kind of takes debate on blaming the U.S. for like other countries' foreign policy decisions.

So like this Washington Post story included this graph. An Amirati political analyst said the UAE began exploring other security partners after what the nation saw as America's slow response to missile attacks against Abu Dhabi by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. And it's like, guys, by all means, head your bets, you know, like you're going with the Chinese, going with the Russians if you want, UAE. But China's not going to fight your fucking war in Yemen for you. So I don't know what you think this quote does to advance the story. Well, and before that, it was the Iran deal. And before that I was like Mubarak and Egypt.

Like, there's always something that it's the U.S.'s fault that, like, are we, we're forcing the royal family of the Emirates to become autocratic. You know, like they always have been. Like, they just, so, yeah, like the blame America for what other countries choose to do thing, you know, always greats and even more so in this case. It's a little much. Let's just allow every country some agency. Yeah. One alliance, it seems pretty solid at the moment then, is the U.S. and South Korea. So President Biden welcomed President Yun of South Korea to the White House last week for a state visit. The key deliverable from their meeting was basically to reaffirm the U.S. security guarantee for South Korea in the face of.

continued North Korean aggression than their nuclear program and their missile program, et cetera. And there was a specific promise for more consultation with South Korea about strategy on nuclear weapons use, which was billed as this big deliverable. And I'm like, yeah, I guess, but like I would hope we wouldn't nuke the shared peninsula they live on without talking to the rocks first. But anyway, it's hell of a lot better than them developing nukes on their own, I guess. Yes. So this seemed like a bit of a repackaging of current policy. But, what stole the show in Washington was when President Yun took the mic at the state dinner and decided to sing. Here's a clip.

February made me shiver with the paper I deliver bad news on the door step. I couldn't talk one more step. I can't remember if I tried when I read the boundaries with all bright. Something touched me deep. inside the day the music die. I can't imagine having the guts to grab the mic in front of the President of the United States, a bunch of fucking fancy people at a state dinner, essentially go a cappella, until the Marine band kind of comes in with a little bit of keys to help them out,

singing American Pie there. But apparently it's his favorite song. Biden gave him a signed guitar. I don't know. Gutsy move. I mean, there's a great karaoke culture in South Korea. Let's be clear. Like, I myself have participated.

Yeah, you and I have participated in it. Yeah, like you and I have Yokohama, a certain night in Yokohama comes to mind. And where was it, 2010? And I just want to say, though, that like, look, I like American Pie as much as the next guy. I'm not sure that that's not my karaoke go-to. You know, like, it's a little bit more energy there. You know, like, it's not like, it's not energy and there's not like irony, right? Because when I go slow, karaoke, I go like,

Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston or like patience by guns and roses. Okay, yeah. I mean, the guy has some game. I mean, what do you think? He's got pipes. Yeah. Listen, Don McLean is, you know, singular person in terms of songwriting, but that was a pretty good rendition, I thought.

For head of state? He hung in there for a head of state. I certainly never saw anything quite like that. the only time I saw something kind of that crazy was at the ASEAN dinner in Indonesia in 2011 when Quincy Jones got up and saying, we are the world and invited Obama and the Chinese premiere to join him on stage and singing that. I remember that. And let's just say they didn't get on stage.

But look, I mean, to be serious for a moment, like this stuff matters, the symbolism of seven years of the South Green Alliance. There's always political division in South Korea about the alliance. There are people there that kind of don't like the heavy, you know, the heavy footprint of the U.S. military, people there that obviously feel like China is right next door and maybe we should be drawing closer to them. And so, like, you constantly have to tend to this alliance and it was important to have that kind of state visit.

I do agree with you. Like the nuclear thing felt. kind of like, you know, we kind of put a label on something that we already do, right, which is consult with them about nuclear use in the Korean Peninsula. What I take away from that is two things. One, as you reference, like a slight concern that if the South Koreans feel like they can't really count on us and they don't know where this is going and people like Trump are crazy and that maybe they could get their own nuclear weapons, which technologically they could

probably figure out how to do pretty fast. And so I think this was an effort to try to like mitigate those impulses in South Korea. And also just like a sense that like, you know, there's an understanding that in South Korea, people are looking at this and thinking, you know, is this the best long term bet for us or should we make our own kind of deals with China? You know? And right now you have a conservative president in South Korea, although an unpopular one. But I think it's smart to try to like hug them as tight as we can. And I think we should substantively consult more with them on all this stuff.

So there's a feeling of equal partnership in the relationship. Yeah. I mean, look, it's a pretty good, a little life hack there from President Eun. If you're going to Washington and you're deliverable is some scary nuke thing. Yeah. And all the questions coming in are about why the Americans spied on you so much, you just start singing. And that's all that anyone's going to focus on. That'll be the story.

Yeah, that's exactly right. The person who could have taken this advice, Ben, is Ron DeSantis, who has been, traveling abroad, it was not gone great. So Politico interviewed some business leaders who went to a dinner. He attended with him in London. Here's some of the quotes. He definitely looked spent, but his message wasn't presidential. He was horrendous. One said it was low wattage, and then nobody in the room was left thinking this man is going places. It felt a bit like we were watching a state-level politician. I wouldn't be surprised if people came out thinking, that's not the guy. There wasn't any stardust. it felt like the end of an overseas trip, which it was.

So you and I talked last week about Ron's specific itinerary, like why do you go to Japan, South Korea, the UK and Israel. Technically it was called a trade mission, but everyone knows he was campaigning. My question today is, after watching this thing, is the juice worth the squeeze on these trips? I mean, to the extent anyone is talking about this trip, it was the weird reaction he had in Japan, it was how bad this meeting was,

the UK. It was how pissy he seemed at the press conference in Israel. There's now a big controversy in Florida about who the hell paid for his flights because he won't release the donors who paid for this private charter flight he took, which must have cost like half a million to a million dollars. So I like I obviously care a lot about foreign policy. Like I think when you're running for president, it's actually unquestionably the place where you have the most freedom to act. So we should really vet these things. But if I was advising a candidate, I don't think I would advise. them to go overseas. I'm just like not sure it's worth it. Where do you, where do you land? Definitely not. I mean, first of all, like for him to like whiff in the UK like that, I mean,

he was meeting with like business leaders. Like these people want Ron DeSantis to be good, right? Like the reason those quotes matters, like these people are basically Republicans. Like they're Tories. It's your base. Yeah. Yeah, they're base. There's like rich British banker type guys, right? They don't like Trump. They think Trump is weird and a little crazy and like what they feel uncomfortable about America about. But Ronda Santis, these guys desperately wanted him to be good. They want like a, you know, more country club kind of Republican that they recognize show up and tell them it's all going to be okay and we'll just cut taxes and regulations like we used to. And the fact that he fucking whiffed this hard with like what should be his like base.

Like in the entire world, Ronda Santis's base should be a bunch of like Eden educated, Oxbridge educated, rich white guys in London, you know? And like the fact that these guys are like just like throwing a haymakers at him after he was there. Like, he must have just totally fucked it up. And you're right about these trips. I mean, again, like, this is a bit of an Obama derangement syndrome because there wasn't really a tradition of, like, candidates going on foreign trips like this high profile. And then Obama kind of crushed it in 2008. I mean, I'm here, Tommy, like I said, like, I can throw a rock and hit the place where like 250,000 Germans were in the streets and he was meeting with foreign leaders, and that was, like, undeniably, like a boost to him. And you've seen these

Republicans try to replicate this. Mitt Romney disastrously, like, flubbing his way through the UK and Israel and Poland, like, up to DeSantis. Like, I don't get what these people think they're achieving. They're, like, playing at being president. They're like, you know, maybe they want to go see Beebe in Israel, but you could just meet Beebe when he comes to the U.S. Like, I don't, I have no idea what the hell around DeSantis is thinking. Like, other than the fact that Ronne DeSantis seems to look in the mirror and see president DeSantis and apparently nobody else really does. And like DeSantis, even in Israel, kind of rolled into a giant constitutional crisis. I think Kevin McCarthy is there now undercutting Joe Biden saying it's disgusting that he hasn't invited BB Netanyahu to Washington yet, which is absurd given what they're going through.

But even that Obama trip, which I think unquestionably went well, the minute we got back, the McCain campaign, greeted us with this big ad campaign comparing Barack Obama to Paris Hilton. Yeah, yeah. And just calling him a celebrity who, like, you know, needs big crowds. And like, I don't think it was a good attack, but it reframed the debate. It got in our heads, you know. No, that's right. It kind of worked, like, for them.

It kind of blunted the momentum. And just even that goes straight. Like, Obama X's through that trip, like, and I wouldn't say this about everything we did, but, like, he didn't make any mistakes. And he basically got endorsed by multiple world leaders. And he gave his speech to turn 50,000 people. And even that, like McCain campaign, you're right. Like, he's the world's biggest celebrity, but is he ready to lead?

I remember that was the ad. And it kind of like, the press was ready for that narrative. They're like, oh, yeah, why was he out of the country? Like, I don't get these trips. Other than placating the size of these guys' egos, like, I don't really know what they're accomplishing. I don't either. I don't either. You're right, though.

I do think it sort of boils down to, like, looking in the mirror and seeing a president and deciding that the way to do that is to be on the world stage. Yeah. On a Florida trade mission. Did you notice, like, Trump years, like, the Trump family seemed to kind of, like, their favorite part of being president was, like, just, like, knowing these world leaders, you know, like Jared Nabanka would show up at all these summits. And Trump loves, to this day, Trump is still talking about how top of the line, all these autocratic buddies of his were, like, there's something like, for all the Republican xenophobia, there's some weird, you know, complex about foreign leaders and stuff that, like, get, like, more than Democrats. They, they get, like, they get, like, a little too excited about, you know, about, you know, about, stuff, you know. Yeah, a little too excited. Okay, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, you will hear my interview with Deputy National Security Advisor, Mike Pyle. Stick around for that. I am excited to welcome to the show today, President Biden's Deputy National Security Advisor,

Mike Pyle. Mike, welcome to the show. Thanks, Tommy. It's great to be here. It is great to see you again. So I am very excited to talk to you today about this major economic speech that Jake Sullivan, President Biden's National Security Advisor, delivered last week about the administration international economic agenda. But I did want to start with a quick but very important message to sort of set the tone for the rest of our conversation today. So here we go. Hey, Mike, it's Joe Biden.

Look, I know that Jake told you to stick to the talking points, but here's the deal. I'm your boss's boss and I'm overruling him. If we want to build a relationship with this podcast from the bottom up and the middle out, you have to leak all the good shit to Tommy, the Discord documents, the folder in my desk about aliens. Bill Burns' email password, and even the spare Chinese spy balloon we keep in the EEOB.

If you refuse, I will send you to the Commerce Department, and I mean that literally. See you in the sit room, kid. Does that work for you? Are we clear? I'm in. I'm in. I take instruction well. As a national security guide, does it concern you that I can pay $5 a month to clone the president of the United States' voice in a way that sounds pretty convincing? Yeah, that's, you know, technology. is going to all sorts of interesting places, which of course does actually speak to, you know, some of our approach to China and some of the worries that we have. So we can we can get to that

a little bit into the conversation as well. Excellent pivot. Okay, let's talk about Jake's speech. So he said a bunch of interesting things that were, I think, designed to kind of break with what was the old Washington consensus about international economics and trade. For example, you know, the idea that that free trade is just inherently good or that, economic integration necessarily leads to better behavior among partners. He also argued that we need to take the threat from climate change and economic inequality seriously enough to really fundamentally change our strategies to focus on those issues, focus on domestic supply chains. What was the message you guys wanted listeners to take away from this speech? And why have the National Security

Advisor deliver it versus, I don't know, the Treasury Department? Sure. So, you know, first of all, I think if you should see Jake's speech as really part of an arc in some sense, you know, Brian Deese, my former colleague and friend, gave a series of speeches last year really describing our approach on domestic economic policy around a modern American industrial strategy. And there's also always been an international component to what it meant to execute on. exactly that strategy. And so Jake's speech was really, you know, an effort to complete that cycle, complete that thought, describe the ways in which investing here at home also has a really important international component and how our strength domestically can work alongside the strength of our allies and partners to lead to a more prosperous, more stable world. So the elephant in the room, I think in a lot of these discussions and Jake's remarks was China.

In this speech, Jake said, quote, we are competing with China in multiple dimensions, but we are not looking for confrontation or conflict. We're looking to manage competition responsibly and seeking to work together with a China where we can. President Biden has made it clear that the U.S. and China can and should work together on global challenges like climate, macroeconomic stability, health security, and food security. So, you know, I'm outside of government. I'm just like an observer of these debates now from afar. I can imagine, though, how, you know, Jake's very kind of nuanced pitch there might not sound as nuanced to a Chinese audience, not because of anything Jake said, but because most of the things you hear from Washington are about, you know, kind of containment, fighting for influence

with China in places like Africa. You've got Republican members of Congress, like raging that we didn't blow up the spy balloon fast enough. How do you guys make sure that the cooperation, people? piece of the relationship with China, that message gets through to them and that those talks actually happen. Well, I'd say first, something you heard from Jake last week, but something you also heard from Secretary Yellen the week before when she gave a very significant speech about

her economic relationship with China, which is just a very clear statement that, you know, we're not looking to decouple from China. That is neither the intent nor the effect. effect of our economic approach to the People's Republic of China. For example, if you look at the 2022 trade data, you would see that 2022 was a record year for trade between the United States and China. Again, you know, that continues to be a very strong, a very substantial trade relationship and reflective of an approach that isn't at all about, that isn't about, you know, decoupling the two economies in a broad sense. Now, what is our policy to China about? And I think Jake said it well, too. It's about de-risking. It's about being sure that, you know, in places like

our clean energy future, in places like semiconductors and spaces like battery technology, that we're not reliant, nor our allies and partners are reliant on China for those inputs, for those industries of the future. That is a vital interest of ours, and that's why, whether it's the Inflation Reduction Act or chips or the infrastructure law, we're making major investments in ourselves and asking our allies and partners to do the same to make sure that we're not reliant that we are de-risk vis-a-vis the Chinese economy. Last point, you know, While we're not for broad-based decoupling, while there continues to be a substantial trade relationship

between the two economies, and we expect to see that going forward, when it comes to a targeted set of the most critical technologies that feed directly into military and surveillance modernization that go to our core national security interests, those are places where we're going to build, you know, a tall fence around a small yard to protect those technological advantages, both for ourselves and our allies and partners, so we don't compromise our national security interests.

So bottom line, there continues to be a substantial economic relationship between the two countries, which we expect to continue, but we do think we need to de-risk, and we do think that with respect to those most sensitive technologies, you know, we need to be using our toolkit to prevent those from leaking overseas. So I totally hear you from the administration's perspective, the goal is not decoupling. I do wonder, though, sort of like about the Chinese audience or the Chinese Communist Party, how they might hear it and when they, you know, they see the tariffs or they see the U.S. banning the export of certain advanced technologies or the treatment of a big state-connected

telecom company like Huawei and trying to keep them. of certain markets. And I just wonder if you guys ever worry that one day the Chinese might wake up and say, okay, well, you're doing this to us. We're going to retaliate and sort of kick the crown jewel of your economy, Apple, for example, out of Foxcon and no longer allow you to manufacture phones there. Is there any concern about like economic retaliation of that sort? What I would say is, you know, I think we have very substantial concern with respect to,

you know, the set of policies. that China's been undertaking for, you know, a number of decades now that disadvantage American industry and more to the point, American workers. There has been a very concerted effort to subsidize, to distort global markets, you know, like for steel, like for aluminum, like for basic manufactured goods that have, you know, meant that, you know, American workers have been left behind by virtue of China's efforts to tilt the playing field in the direction. Moreover, if you look at some of the steps that we've seen just recently, you know, I think a very concerning set of announcements with respect to Micron, a very important American technology firm.

There too, we're just seeing evidence that China's willingness to throw its weight around to try to coerce companies and countries, you know, that's very concerning and something that, you know, we're working very closely with our allies and partners to take steps against. I noticed, you know, you guys are sort of laying out this multiple pillars of the sort of effort to compete with China. President Macron of France went to China recently, had meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, got kind of the like red carpet treatment, you know, lots of photo opes, et cetera. A lot of people in Washington seemed pretty pissed off about Macron's trip to China in that diplomacy. Did that bug you guys? Did you see it as undercutting these efforts that Jake laid

out in this speech? We have had a very constructive relationship across the G7. I think this is a moment of really historic unity across the G7 economies and the G7 leaders. Obviously, risen to the moment to align around an approach on Russia's brutal evasion. But I think beyond that, you really see a historic unity of purpose around a range of other issues to like the clean energy transition like energy. But I think importantly, and I think you'll see this coming out of the meeting of the G7 leaders later this month in Hiroshima, Japan, I think also. also importantly, unity in alignment when it comes to an approach on China.

Again, I think, you know, when Jake, when Secretary Yellen speaks about an approach that isn't about decoupling, but rather is about derisking, well, that's, you know, language that was first used by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen really echoes what we've heard across Europe from a range of the major member states there. Similarly, we think that when it comes to protecting the most sensitive technologies that have national security import, when it comes to investing in ourselves and our supply chains to make sure that we maintain resilience, that we maintain a strong industrial capacity on both sides of the Atlantic across the Pacific and Japan, these are things that really align our approaches that really define our collective approach on China.

And I think you'll hear that unity later this month at the G7 summit. You guys, you've mentioned in this conversation and Jake talked a lot in the speech about climate change and the need to shift to green technologies and green tech supply chains. That shift will create a huge need for a bunch of rare earth minerals that go in electric vehicle batteries. One of those minerals is cobalt. 70% of the world's cobalt is produced or mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. there are really well documented and horrible human rights problems around that mining. There's child labor. There's dangerous working conditions.

How do you think the U.S. or how can the administration compete for these materials and complete the green transition that we need to complete without contributing to the exploitation and suffering of workers who are extracting those minerals for the world? Sure. I'd make, you know, a couple of points. One, you know, partly we're going to invest in our own capacity here at home. You know, if you look at the Inflation Reduction Act, you look at the infrastructure law, you know, those include significant steps to invest in our own capacities here at home around critical minerals, around the inputs and the materials that will be required to power the clean energy economy. So it begins here at home.

But I think it's also correct that to meet the scale of the challenge that the clean energy transition asks of us, it's going to require sources of those inputs that come from beyond our borders. It's going to require inputs that feed American industry and put American workers to work from beyond our shores. And so, you know, what has our approach been there? Well, it starts with working alongside like-minded allies and partners to be sure that we have an collective approach on what it means to have really high standards, whether it be really high labor standards, whether it be really high environmental standards, whether it be standards, you know, to put a fine point on it, things like forced labor in China. when it comes to, when it comes to our approach, it begins with, you know, working with Japan, working with the EU, working with other like-minded allies, to be sure that we approach this question with the highest of standards in mind.

That's why, you know, we closed a critical minerals agreement between the Biden administration and the Kashita government in Japan last month, why presidents Biden and von der Leyen announced the initiation of a, of a critical minerals negotiation in March. It really is to define this process right out of the gate by saying, together, we're going to have incredibly high standards when it comes to labor, environment, much else besides. You've mentioned the Inflation Reduction Act a couple of times. I mean, that's obviously the cornerstone of the Biden administration's efforts to combat climate change and get the investments needed to make that transition to clean energy. It did seem to upset a lot of our European allies and partners, at least initially, who felt like, you know, this was sort of modern mercantilism and that they were going to get cut out of tax credits

and, you know, essentially the U.S. market for, you know, EVs and other things. Do you guys feel like you've been able to smooth over some of those differences? Are they lingering? Like, what's the status there. Yeah. So I think that our message to allies, since we passed the inflation reduction act, has been pretty consistent. And that is, you know, we're not backing down. These are investments that we need to make in ourselves in our domestic capacity, resilience, inclusivity in our workers. But we are also not leaving you behind. We want you to join us. More to the point, we need you to join us that needs globally around clean energy technology, around renewables, EVs, batteries, much else besides, are basically limitless.

And the approach we've taken here at home is to try to meet those needs for ourselves, for the world, by investing. And we've asked the rest of the world to invest alongside us. And I think encouragingly, that's what we're really starting to see. You know, the EU put forward the Green Deal Industrial Plan a couple of months ago. That's advancing towards the finish line in Europe reflects a similar public investment-led effort to invest in their own clean energy transition. If you look north of the border to Canada, their most recent budget also included a range of incentives and subsidies modeled on the Inflation Reduction Act. So the president really has been leading the world towards a model of what it means to manage the clean energy transition.

Last thing I'll say is, you know, this really was the heart of what President Biden and President von der Leyen of the European Commission agreed to at the start of March, basically to say, we've got a set of shared goals. We're going to meet the moment on climate. We're going to invest in strong independent industrial basis on both sides of the Atlantic. We're going to invest together in resilient supply chains, and we're going to do those things through a program of public investment. So I think, you know, I definitely was on the receiving end of a good deal of concern and criticism from our European friends across the course of the fall.

But I think we've worked really hard to say, no, this is an affirmative source of strength, not just for the United States, but for allies and partners writ large and together, we're going to have an affirmative approach that invests and builds and manages this transition together for all of our benefit. Last question for you, and sort of speaking of being on the receiving end of some angry calls, Secretary Yellen is warning that Congress might have only until June 1st to raise the debt ceiling and avert default. Are you guys getting calls from, you know, ambassadors and foreign heads of state being like, is this thing going to work this thing out?

Because if we default on our debt, it will have global ramifications. Well, I would just say we absolutely agree that this is a moment of heightened geopolitical competition. Obviously, the war that Russia has waged against Ukraine, obviously the heightened competition across the Pacific between us and the people's Republic of China. It would be doing our global leadership, our position in the world, a tremendous harm to play brinkmanship over the debt ceiling. You know, if you think about, for example, you know, the potency of our economic sanctions against Russia, well, that's predicated on the centrality of the U.S. financial system in the global financial system, which is itself predicated on the fourth of a faith and credit of the United States Treasury. And by questioning that, as Republicans would do, if they want to play games with the debt ceiling, that's putting our, you know, the security at risk, that's putting our ability to deliver economic sanctions at risk, that's putting into question whether the United States can be a reliable, trustworthy partner

on the global stage, which is playing into the hands of the she's and Putin's of the world. It is absolutely vital that we get this basic piece of business done, particularly at this moments of tremendous sensitivity on the global stage. Agreed. It is truly unfortunate that Kevin McCarthy is messing around with this thing. Mike Pyle, thank you so much for doing the show. Really appreciate it. And if folks want to learn more, they should go read Jake Sullivan's speech at Brookings last week. It's on the website. It's on the website. Whitehouse.com. Check it out. Whitehouse.com. Check it out. Mike, thanks again for doing the show. Thanks, Tommy. Be well.

Thanks again. Mike for joining the show. Ben, thanks again. What time is it in German? right now, like 10.30 p.m.? It's 10.30, and I, like, I try to bring my highest energy, but, like, it's 1030, and I don't even know, like, what time I technically woke up this morning, but, like, it's nicer. I like it. You seem shockingly awake to me, if we're being honest, and if I were you, I would go get another pint.

I'm going to get a pint, and, you know, like, I'm, like, riding the high of, like, seeing young. I mean, I'd like to be serious for a moment, like, it's pretty cool to meet, like, activists and people running for office and people fighting the same shit we're fighting, right, like disinformation and far-right nationalism here in Europe. But, you know, the challenges are also remarkably similar. That's like the depressing element. It's like hearing like how common like all the crap is conspiracy theory. Like some guy was telling me tonight, did you hear this? There was like a big conspiracy theory getting traction on the far right here about how the

EU was kind of make people eat crickets instead of meat. Did you hear this? I've gotten flavors of this. There's a, yeah, like it's sort of the AOC Green New Deal cow farts banning me. Yeah. Just a collection of nonsense about climate change. It's like the globalization of stupid, you know. So that's like the depressing part. But it's like good, good to see these people. But yeah, no, like I'm, I am looking forward to like another pint and like see if I can make it through the night, sleep-wise. Yeah, a couple hours of sleep. All right, man, we'll save travels and talk to you guys next week.

POTSave the World is a Cricket Media production. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor, Ben Rhodes, and Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Muse. Our associate producer is Ashley Mizzou. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick, Kyle Seaglin, Charlotte Landis, and DeSilius are our sound engineers. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, B.B. Bradford and Milo Kim, who upload our episodes and videos to YouTube every week.

and check out the Potsave the World YouTube account. Thanks to Saul Rubin for production support.